Ezekiel 16:45

Thou art thy mother's daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite. THOU ART THY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER, THAT LOATHE HER HUSBAND - i:e., as thy mother loathed her spiritual husband, God ("haters of God," ), so dost thou loathe Him; therefore the knowledge of the true God had originally been in Canaan, handed down from Noah (hence, we find Melchizedek, king of Salem, in Canaan, "priest of the most high God." ), but Canaan apostatized from it: this was what constituted the blackness of the Canaanites' guilt. LOATHETH ... AND HER CHILDREN - whom she put to death in honour of Saturn; a practice common among the Phoenic...

1-58 In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose....

EXPOSITION The section on which we now enter, with its companion picture in Ezekiel 23:1; forms the most terrible, one might almost say the most repellent, part of Ezekiel's prophetic utterances. We have, as it were, his story of the harlot's progress, his biography of the Messalina of the nations. We shudder as we read it, just as we shudder in reading the sixth satire of Juvenal. The prophet speaks, like the satirist, of things which we have learnt, mainly under the teaching of Christian purity, to veil in a reticent reserve, with a Lucretian and Dante-like vividness. The nearest parallel, indeed, which literature presents to it is found in the 'Epistola ad Florentinos' of the latter poet. We need to remember, as we read it, that his standard was not ours, that those for whom he wrote had done or witnessed the things which he describes, that there was in them no nerve of

THOU [ART] THY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER,.... Exactly like her; they that have known the one must know the other. The Targum is, "wherefore art thou become the daughter of the land of Canaan, to do according to the works of the people?'' THAT LOATHETH HER HUSBAND AND HER CHILDREN; a true character of an adulteress; and which agrees both with the mother the Canaanites, and with the daughter the Jews; who both despised, rejected, and forsook God their husband, Creator, and lawgiver, and sacrificed their children to idols; see Ezekiel 16:20; AND THOU [ART] THE SISTER OF THY SISTERS; the true genuine sister of them, Samaria and Sodom after mentioned; being not only allied to them in blood, more nearly to the one more remotely to the other, but exceedingly alike in manners, religion, and worship: which loatheth their husbands and thei

In this very remarkable chapter, God describes his ancient people Israel under the figure of an infant which had been cast away, but which he had cared for and tended, and upon which he had lavished much love, making it the object of his choice, on which his very heart was set. Yet this specially-favored one had gone astray, and committed all manner of wickedness; but for all that, the love of God had not been withdrawn. The whole chapter is a graphic picture of the way in which Israel and Judah went after false gods, and forsook the only living and true God. Ezekiel 16:1. _Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,_ This is a very necessary command, for unless men know their disease they will not apply to the great Physician. Only he who knows that he is poor will be willing to accept of alms. It is, there

Ezekiel 16:1. This chapter consists of four sections: 1. The parable of the abandoned child. 2. Jerusalem's idolatries and moral degradation (Ezekiel 16:15). 3. The doom of Jerusalem and the promise of restoration (Ezekiel 16:35). 4. The covenant remembered (Ezekiel 16:60). The parable of the abandoned child, and what the gracious Lord did for the little one is a most beautiful demonstration of what He had done in His sovereign love and grace for Jerusalem. It must be read first with this in mind. But this sweet parable illustrates also, as few other portions in the Old Testament do, the grace which the Lord bestows upon t

_that lotheth her husband_ In the sense of the allegory "lothing her husband" should mean changing her god for another; and in the case of Jerusalem and Samaria the charge is intelligible, Jehovah being the husband (ch. 23). But such a charge could hardly be made against the Canaanites, the Hittite mother and Sodom (Jeremiah 2:11). The prophet appears to desert the allegory, introducing real features into his description, and referring to actual adultery and unfaithfulness, which were characteristic of the Canaanite nations. Another interpretation, as old as Theodoret, considers Jehovah to be the "husband" even of the Hittite mother, heathen idolatries being infidelity to the true God. Such a reflexion is not natural to a prophet of this age, though a similar idea occurred to St Paul (Romans 1). At the same time this pr

III. JUDAH: THE FALLEN SISTER 16:44-63 TRANSLATION (44) Behold every one who employs proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, As the mother, so the daughter. (45) You are the daughter of your mother who loathes her husband and her sons; and you are the sister of your sisters who loathe their husbands and their children; your mother was a Hittite, and your father was an Amorite. (46) And your older sister is Samaria she and her daughters who dwell on your left hand; and your younger sister on your right side is Sodom and her daughters. (47) Yet you have not walked in their ways, and you have not done after their abominations, but in a very little while you acted more corruptly than they in all your ways. (48) As I live (oracle of the Lord GOD) Sodom your sister she and her daughters has not done as You have done, You and your daughters. (49) Behold this was the iniquity of So...

THE FOUNDLING CHILD WHO BECAME AN UNFAITHFUL WIFE From Hosea onwards the prophets spoke of idolatry under the figure of unchastity. God was the husband of Israel, but she proved unfaithful to Him. This thought has already been expressed by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 6:9, and it is now expanded into an elaborate historical allegory. The subject is nominally the city of Jerusalem, but really the whole nation of Israel. Jerusalem was a girl-child of heathen extraction, who was exposed in infancy to die (Ezekiel 16:1). God saw her and saved her life, and she grew to maturity, though still in a poor and mean condition (Ezekiel 16:6). Then He took her to be His wife, loading her with every honour ...

EZEKIEL: ‘THEY SHALL KNOW THAT I AM GOD’ THE *SIN OF JUDAH AND THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD EZEKIEL CHAPTER S 1 TO 24 _IAN MACKERVOY_ CHAPTER 16 JERUSALEM IS LIKE A *PROSTITUTE – EZEKIEL 16:1-63 * Through this whole chapter, the *Lord speaks to Jerusalem as if the city were a woman. So, in this chapter, the word ‘you’ means the city and its inhabitants. The *Lord uses this description to emphasise how much the inhabitants of Jerusalem had disappointed him. He looked after them since the origin of their nation. He loved them and he made special promises to them. But they were not loyal to him. They preferred false gods. And they did so many things that upset him greatly. (1) The birth of Jerusalem –...