Ezekiel 16:55

When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. WHEN THY SISTERS ... SHALL RETURN TO THEIR FORMER ESTATE, THEN THOU AND THY DAUGHTERS SHALL RETURN - then, and not until then (note, )....

A clearer explanation of the former doctrine now follows, that the Jews, should thus feel God merciful when his mercy reached Samaria and Sodom; but that never could be done, and hence the Jews were reduced to despair; for, as I have said, the Prophet argues from what is impossible and almost absurd. Just as Virgil writes — __ inhabitants of seas and skies shall change, And fish on shore, and stags in air shall range:” Virgil, Dryden’s, Eclogue 1. V. 60 — which can never take place: so that it implies the complete denial of what might seem doubtful. This way of speaking is proverbial, when Ezekiel says that _the Sodomites and Israelites should return to their ancient state _or their former dignity; and that could never be hoped for, as I have said: hence it follows, that the Jews could not be safe when God draws them into the same punishment. Besides, the Prophet speaks as if the city...

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

WHEN THY SISTERS, SODOM, AND HER DAUGHTERS, SHALL RETURN TO THEIR FORMER ESTATE,.... The Jews, as Jerom says, are of opinion, that in the days of their vainly expected Messiah Sodom will be restored to its ancient state, and be as the garden of God, and as the land of Egypt; and Jarchi interprets the bringing again the captivity of Sodom, in Ezekiel 16:53; by the Lord's healing the land of brimstone and salt, and placing inhabitants in it; and it is asserted by the Jews f that Sodom and Gomorrah shall be rebuilt in future times, in the times of the Messiah, according to the sense of this passage: but this is not to be understood in a literal sense, of the rebuilding of Sodom and cities adjacent, and of restoring them to their former fruitfulness and fertility, and of the inhabitants to their former prosperity, and much less to their former state of wickedness; but spiritually, of the con...

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

_When thy sisters_ Better: AND thy sisters … AND THOU and thy daughters. In this idea of the restoration of Israel's heathen neighbours to their own land after being plucked up out of it Ezekiel as usual follows Jeremiah; cf. in general, Jeremiah 12:14-17; Moab, ch. Jeremiah 48:47, Ammon, Jeremiah 49:6, and Elam, Jeremiah 49:39....

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 ...