41 And burnt thy houses with fire, And done in thee judgments before the eyes of many women, And I have caused thee to cease from going a-whoring, And also a gift thou givest no more.
And I have caused wickedness to cease from the land, And instructed have been all the women, And they do not according to your wickedness.
And I have caused thy wickedness to cease from thee, And thy whoredoms out of the land of Egypt, And thou liftest not up thine eyes unto them, And Egypt thou dost not remember again.
And the house of the king, and the house of the people, have the Chaldeans burnt with fire, and the walls of Jerusalem they have broken down.
and he burneth the house of Jehovah, and the house of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem, yea, every great house he hath burned with fire;
Therefore, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Lo, I `am' against thee, even I, And I have done in thy midst judgments, Before the eyes of the nations.
and all its spoil thou dost gather unto the midst of its broad place, and hast burned with fire the city and all its spoil completely, before Jehovah thy God, and it hath been a heap age-during, it is not built any more;
And it hath come to pass in that day, An affirmation of Jehovah, I have cut off thy horses from thy midst, And I have destroyed thy chariots, And I have cut off the cities of thy land, And I have thrown down all thy fortresses, And have cut off sorcerers out of thy hand, And observers of clouds thou hast none. And I have cut off thy graven images, And thy standing-pillars out of thy midst, And thou dost not bow thyself any more To the work of thy hands. And I have plucked up thy shrines out of thy midst, And I have destroyed thine enemies.
Those sinning, reprove before all, that the others also may have fear;
And it hath come to pass, in that day, An affirmation of Jehovah of Hosts, I cut off the names of the idols from the land, And they are not remembered any more, And also the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness I cause to pass away from the land.
Therefore, for your sake, Zion is ploughed a field, and Jerusalem is heaps, And the mount of the house `is' for high places of a forest!
Therefore, lo, I am hedging up thy way with thorns, And I have made for her a wall, And her paths she doth not find. And she hath pursued her lovers, And she doth not overtake them, And hath sought them, and doth not find, And she hath said: I go, and I turn back unto My first husband, For -- better to me then than now. And she knew not that I had given to her, The corn, and the new wine, and the oil. Yea, silver I did multiply to her, And the gold they prepared for Baal. Therefore do I turn back, And I have taken My corn in its season, And My new wine in its appointed time, And I have taken away My wool and My flax, covering her nakedness. And now do I reveal her dishonour before the eyes of her lovers, And none doth deliver her out of My hand. And I have caused to cease all her joy, Her festival, her new moon, and her sabbath, Even all her appointed times, And made desolate her vine and her fig-tree, Of which she said, A gift they `are' to me, That my lovers have given to me, And I have made them for a forest, And consumed them hath a beast of the field. And I have charged on her the days of the Baalim, To whom she maketh perfume, And putteth on her ring and her ornament, And goeth after her lovers, And Me forgat -- an affirmation of Jehovah. Therefore, lo, I am enticing her, And have caused her to go to the wilderness, And I have spoken unto her heart, And given to her her vineyards from thence, And the valley of Achor for an opening of hope, And she hath responded there as in the days of her youth, And as in the day of her coming up out of the land of Egypt. And it hath come to pass, in that day, An affirmation of Jehovah, Thou dost call Me -- My husband, And dost not call Me any more -- My lord. And I have turned aside the names of the lords from her mouth, And they are not remembered any more by their name.
Nor are they defiled any more with their idols, And with their abominations, And with any of their transgressions, And I have saved them out of all their dwellings, In which they have sinned, And I have cleansed them, And they have been to Me for a people, And I -- I am to them for God.
Therefore by this is the iniquity of Jacob covered, And this `is' all the fruit -- To take away his sin, in His setting all the stones of an altar, As chalkstones beaten in pieces, They rise not -- shrines and images.
And I turn back My hand upon thee, And I refine as purity thy dross, And I turn aside all thy tin, And I give back thy judges as at the first, And thy counsellors as in the beginning, After this thou art called, `A city of righteousness -- a faithful city.'
As wicked He hath stricken them, In the place of beholders.
then ye have brought them both out unto the gate of that city, and stoned them with stones, and they have died: -- the damsel, because that she hath not cried, `being' in a city; and the man, because that he hath humbled his neighbour's wife; and thou hast put away the evil thing out of thy midst.
then they have brought out the damsel unto the opening of her father's house, and stoned her have the men of her city with stones, and she hath died, for she hath done folly in Israel, to go a-whoring `in' her father's house; and thou hast put away the evil thing out of thy midst.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ezekiel 16
Commentary on Ezekiel 16 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 16
Still God is justifying himself in the desolations he is about to bring upon Jerusalem; and very largely, in this chapter, he shows the prophet, and orders him to show the people, that he did but punish them as their sins deserved. In the foregoing chapter he had compared Jerusalem to an unfruitful vine, that was fit for nothing but the fire; in this chapter he compares it to an adulteress, that, in justice, ought to be abandoned and exposed, and he must therefore show the people their abominations, that they might see how little reason they had to complain of the judgments they were under. In this long discourse are set forth,
Eze 16:1-5
Ezekiel is now among the captives in Babylon; but, as Jeremiah at Jerusalem wrote for the use of the captives though they had Ezekiel upon the spot with them (ch. 29), so Ezekiel wrote for the use of Jerusalem, though Jeremiah himself was resident there; and yet they were far from looking upon it as an affront to one another's help both by preaching and writing. Jeremiah wrote to the captives for their consolation, which was the thing they needed; Ezekiel here is directed to write to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for their conviction and humiliation, which was the thing they needed.
Eze 16:6-14
In there verses we have an account of the great things which God did for the Jewish nation in raising them up by degrees to be very considerable.
Eze 16:15-34
In these verses we have an account of the great wickedness of the people of Israel, especially in worshipping idols, notwithstanding the great favours that God had conferred upon them, by which, one would think, they should have been for ever engaged to him. This wickedness of theirs is here represented by the lewd and scandalous conversation of that beautiful maid which was rescued from ruin, brought up and well provided for by a kind friend and benefactor, that had been in all respects as a father and a husband to her. Their idolatry was the great provoking sin that they were guilty of; it began in the latter end of Solomon's time (for from Samuel's till then I do not remember that we read any thing of it), and thenceforward continued more or less the crying sin of that nation till the captivity; and, though it now and then met with some check from the reforming kings, yet it was never totally suppressed, and for the most part appeared to a high degree impudent and barefaced. They not only worshipped the true God by images, as the ten tribes by the calves at Dan and Bethel, but they worshipped false gods, Baal and Moloch, and all the senseless rabble of the pagan deities.
This is that which is here all along represented (as often elsewhere) under the similitude of whoredom and adultery,
And now is not Jerusalem in all this made to know her abominations? For what greater abominations could she be guilty of than these? Here we may see with wonder and horror what the corrupt nature of men is when God leaves them to themselves, yea, though they have the greatest advantages to be better and do better. And the way of sin is down-hill. Nitimur in vetitum-We incline to what is forbidden.
Eze 16:35-43
Adultery was by the law of Moses made a capital crime. This notorious adulteress, the criminal at the bar, being in the foregoing verses found guilty, here has sentence passed upon her. It is ushered in with solemnity, v. 35. The prophet, as the judge, in God's name calls to her, O harlot! hear the word of the Lord. Our Saviour preached to harlots, for their conversion, to bring them into the kingdom of God, not as the prophet here, to expel them out of it. Note, An apostate church is a harlot. Jerusalem is so if she become idolatrous. How has the faithful city become a harlot! Rome is so represented in the Revelation, when it is marked for ruin, as Jerusalem here. Rev. 17:1, Come, and I will show thee the judgments of the great whore. Those who will not hear the commanding word of the Lord and obey it shall be made to hear the condemning word of the Lord and shall tremble at it. Let us attend while judgment is given.
Eze 16:44-59
The prophet here further shows Jerusalem her abominations, by comparing her with those places that had gone before her, and showing that she was worse than any of them, and therefore should, like them, be utterly and irreparably ruined. We are all apt to judge of ourselves by comparison, and to imagine that we are sufficiently good if we are but as good as such and such, who are thought passable; or that we are not dangerously bad if we are no worse than such and such, who, though bad, are not of the worst. Now God by the prophet shows Jerusalem,
Eze 16:60-63
Here, in the close of the chapter, after a most shameful conviction of sin and a most dreadful denunciation of judgments, mercy is remembered, mercy is reserved, for those who shall come after. As was when God swore in his wrath concerning those who came out of Egypt that they should not enter Canaan, "Yet' (says God) "your little ones shall;' so here. And some think that what is said of the return of Sodom and Samaria (v. 53, 55), and of Jerusalem with them, is a promise; it may be understood so, if by Sodom we understand (as Grotius and some of the Jewish writers do) the Moabites and Ammonites, the posterity of Lot, who once dwelt in Sodom; their captivity was returned (Jer. 48:47; 49:6), as was that of many of the ten tribes, and Judah's with them. But these closing verses are, without doubt, a previous promise, which was in part fulfilled at the return of the penitent and reformed Jews out of Babylon, but was to have its full accomplishment in gospel-times, and in that repentance and that remission of sins which should then be preached with success to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Now observe here,