Ezekiel 16:59

For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant. I WILL EVEN DEAL WITH THEE AS THOU HAST DONE, WHICH HAST DESPISED THE OATH - the "covenant" between God and Israel (; ). As thou hast despised it, so will I despise thee. No covenant is wholly one-sided; where Israel broke faith, God's promise of favour ceased....

Here, also, God meets the false objection by which the Jews might strive with him; for whatever they were, yet God had entered into covenant with them. They might, therefore, fly to this refuge, that God had bound himself in covenant with them, since he had adopted Abraham with his seed. Although they had provoked God’s anger a thousand times, yet this exception remained, that God ought to stand to his agreement, and not to look at what they had deserved by their ingratitude, but rather to be consistent with his promises. Now, therefore, he returns to this cavil, and says that he is free to break the covenant since they have done so first._I will do_, says he,_to thee as thou has done_. We see, therefore, that the calumny is here repelled by which the Jews could obliquely defame God, as they were accustomed to do, as if he had rendered his covenant void. He says, then, that in agreement...

59-63 After a full warning of judgments, mercy is remembered, mercy is reserved. These closing verses are a precious promise, in part fulfilled at the return of the penitent and reformed Jews out of Babylon, but to have fuller accomplishment in gospel times. The Divine mercy should be powerful to melt our hearts into godly sorrow for sin. Nor will God ever leave the sinner to perish, who is humbled for his sins, and comes to trust in His mercy and grace through Jesus Christ; but will keep him by his power, through faith unto salvation....

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

FOR THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD,.... And what he says may be depended upon as truth, and what will certainly come to pass: I WILL EVEN DEAL WITH THEE AS THOU HAST DONE; reward them according to their works; or execute the law of retaliation upon them; and reject them, as they had rejected him; and cast them off from being his people, since they had forsook him as their God; they being the aggressors and transgressors of the covenant, he was under no obligation by virtue of that to bless and protect them: WHICH HATH DESPISED THE OATH BY BREAKING THE COVENANT; the covenant at Mount Sinai; or which was made in the plains of Moab, which had an oath annexed to it, Deuteronomy 29:12; but by breaking the covenant, which they did by their many abominations, they despised the oath by which they were sworn to keep it; and therefore it was but just with God

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

OATH... COVENANT. Reference to Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 29:12; Deuteronomy 29:14). These words are thus found together here, and in Ezekiel 17:13; Ezekiel 17:16; Ezekiel 17:18; Ezekiel 17:19. but nowhere else in Scripture....

The fall of Jerusalem, prophetically assumed in Ezekiel 16:58, is now directly threatened. On the "oath" cf. Deuteronomy 29:12; Deuteronomy 29:14....

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...