Chapter 16
Per MSB, this is the longest chapter in Ezekiel and it indicts Israel for her immoral behavior and rebellion against God with no punches pulled. As seems to be typical for Ezekiel. MSB says some ancient rabbis wouldn't allow it to be read in public because it is such a sad story. Verse 1 introduces this as a new message from God to Ezekiel for the people of Jerusalem. As it continues, God reminds Jerusalem of her origins. Son of an Amorite father and a Hittite mother. (2022 - So Abram was an Amorite, Sarai a Hittite? Is this the only place we have that information? I thought Abram was from Ur of the Chaldees, and I guess in my reading, it seemed that Sarai came with him from there. These could both be true, and what Ezekiel says be true, but does it indicate some history of which we have no other information?
2025 - No! See below. Canaan was inhabited by Amorites and Hittites. The "mother and father" of Israel.)
That is, a people from a land not theirs. Says when born, the cord wasn't cut, no salt, no swaddling. They were thrown into the field to die. Israel, before God's blessing, was just an abandoned child, not considered useful enough to survive. They would not have survived, they would have perished from the earth. But God found them like this, and said "Live!", and they grew up...but were still "naked and bare". It is important to note here that Israel is portrayed as female. Vs 7 says this:
7 I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. [Eze 16:7 ESV]
2022 - I think the naked and bare in this case speaks to the nomadic life of Abram and Sarai...and Isaac, and Jacob too, and then the long captivity. They were a people with no homeland for how long?
2024 -
By Attar-Aram Syria - File:Near_East_topographic_map-blank.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37505948
So this map shows that Ur of the Chaldees was in the Amorite state of Babylonia. You can also see the Hittite Empire on this map. Elam shows up a lot too. I have no clue how a Hittite woman and a man from Ur would have gotten together. Could have been after the first move, from Ur to Haran. I note from Genesis 11:31 that Sarai and Abraham were already married in Ur. Harran is also on this map...but is spelled with two r's, so might not be the same place. This information also puts a pretty big dent in my hypothesis for why Terah left Ur. I thought it was because all his daughters had trouble getting pregnant....well...that may still be correct. We know that Abram and Sarai were related...even though she was a Hittite. Checked MSB since this just confuses things...MSB implies that the land of Canaan, which later becomes Israel, was inhabited by Hittites and Amorites when Abram migrated in there. As in, this is about the people groups out of which Israel the nation arose, not about the lineages of Abram and Sarai. So...not sure what it means, but looking at this map, it seems very extremely unlikely that Sarai was a Hittite girl who married a guy from Ur.
2024 - And of course, if you read just a little further about the cord not being cut and so on, it gets pretty obvious that we are talking about a nation, not about two people! Duh.
As the nation matured, God covered their nakedness. These verses:
8 "When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine. 9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. 10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. [Eze 16:8-10 ESV]
This speaks first of God's continued care and preservation of this nation, of giving it "clothes" that might appear in public sort of.
(2022 - the corner of his garment only, so maybe this speaks to God protecting them, and making special provision for them, and enriching them in the land where they sojourned...though it was still not their land.)
God decides, first, to keep them, THEN He makes a covenant with them.
(2022 - The covenant with Abram. A very picturesque and memorable picture is being painted here.)
They did nothing to deserve it. They didn't earn it. He just chose them, because it is what He wanted to do. The section on washing goes on to talk about clothing them. I do not think then, in context, that this is an OT picture of baptism. That's just not what is in view here. This is about God's covenant with a nation, not with the individuals. In my opinion. Then this verse, a picture of a mature, God-blessed nation:
14 And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD. [Eze 16:14 ESV]
2020-I suspect that much of this is analogous to betrothal, courtship, and early marriage customs of the time. First a young virgin chosen and made presentable. Then a betrothal - a contract between the parties. Gifts, adornments, special treatment lavished on the betrothed young woman. And then perhaps we see marriage when the crown is placed on her head in vs. 12. From here, in the care of, and the receiving the blessings of such a "husband", she flourishes, her beauty is enhanced, even magnified, so that all can see that she is loved, adored, and cared for by her husband. This is a rags to riches story of an abandoned girl child in a day when unwanted girls were likely just thrown out into a field and left to die - as in the first verses of this chapter. That is what this is about.
2022 - Well...maybe it is more about the advancement of God's chosen - after the covenant was put into place - from tent-dwelling nomads to the nation of Israel under Solomon - renowned worldwide for the riches of the nation and the wisdom of its King.
And in the next verse...they begin to fail:
15 "But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. [Eze 16:15 ESV]
2022 - Idol worship, in rejection of the one that brung them.
Israel is here painted as an unfaithful woman (2020-not woman, wife), too easy with her virtue. It is as though she behaves like the unwanted girl-child, as the cast off and worthless thing she was. She behaves with no self-esteem, she "sells herself" for any morsel, any favor, or even for nothing, because she was "abhorred on the day that you were born" (vs. 5).
2025 - Wow. This hits me again this year. The idea that one is worthless turning into very self-destructive behavior. If your parents tell you repeatedly that you are a disappointment, then an immature child would behave in a disappointing way, amplifying bad behavior, doing things even they themselves do not really want to do but acting in rebellion to that label. You think I'm a disappointment? Let me show you what a truly disappointing child would look like. I could be so much worse. God asked Israel to follow him, to do as he said. They couldn't. God pointed out their failures. Israel said "You think that was bad? Watch this!". Like an immature child. We all have a bit of this attitude in us - I certainly did as a preachers kid, with high expectations that I was not keen to meet much less exceed. I consciously decided to go the other way. This was wrong. This is always wrong. While God disciplined correctly, parents are not correct, and may drive us even further away.
I am not liking the way this little paragraph is coming out. It makes it sound like God was too harsh a master - too harsh an adopting Father - expecting too much of a mongrel girl child who had no roots in good or bad behavior, no homeland, no heritage - to behave like the favorite child of the God of the universe. That is indeed a high bar for a child. Undeserving children who receive abundant care and success that they did nothing to earn can certainly end up in rebellion - not against what is right, but against the seemingly unreasonable expectations heaped on them. They just want to be left alone, and if they rebel enough, if they do things that are bad enough, the expectations will go away. I know what that is like.
This is as close to understanding why Israel as a nation constantly rebelled as I have ever come. This explains them quite well.
2025 - And yet, there is this verse: 15 "But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. [Eze 16:15 ESV]. Does this tie with the previous 2025 note? Is this "I'll show you what rebellion can look like" or is this something else. Massive independence. I don't need you because I can do it all myself. I'm smarter than most, I'm willing to work harder, and I can be successful without "owing" anyone or anything a thank you for what I have. And then the bad behavior is to make the loving parent look away in disappointment, make them ashamed of us, so that they will remove that standard that we know deep down is right. We don't want to live in the shadow of someone who's standard we can never really attain. Yeah...It's the same, just a little different way to look at it.
vs 16 says Israel began to use it's own finery as an object of worship. To devote the things God had blessed her with to the worship of other Gods. This verse:
16 You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. [Eze 16:16 ESV] Israel is the only country God will ever bless as he blessed Israel. No country has ever rejected God in the way that Israel rejected Him. And neither of these things will ever happen again.
Then note the progression of the unfaithfulness. First, in vs. 16, colorful shrines. This could be about the high places that were built, the groves, the Asherim maybe. Then in 17, they made idols for themselves of gold and silver. She was unfaithful in nature, then went beyond that to "creating" her own "lovers" with whom she was unfaithful. Once she's made these, she takes to blessings of God - abundant food and such - and offers these things as sacrifice to other gods. She is frittering away the wealth and health lavished upon her by her Husband, and offering it to fakes, liars, charlatans, and to all things inanimate. She returns the lavishness of her Husband with unfaithfulness of the basest sort. The progression continues with this horror:
20 And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter 21 that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? [Eze 16:20-21 ESV]
The children were God's, the blessing of marriage is the children, the continuing generation, the passing on of wealth, knowledge, learning, growing is in the children blessed to the marriage. And Israel took those children - that link to the future - and she sacrificed it to false gods. What a travesty this is. Truly the like has never been, nor ever shall be.
2025 - This one, sort of a summation: 22 And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood. [Eze 16:22 ESV]. We refuse to remember how much we owe. We don't want to be grateful, we want to "pull OURSELVES up". We purposely deny the truth that God gives us all we have, no matter how successful we are, it came from Him, NOT from our own efforts. We all start as nothing.
This verse:
27 Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. [Eze 16:27 ESV]
Even the Philistines were ashamed of how far Israel went? What in indictment! Note also that when God began to steer them back to Him, He did not go immediately to the nuclear option. He diminished them. He began to withdraw their blessings slowly, giving them a chance to recognize and correct their error. Then this one more accusation. A whore, but not for money:
31 ...Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. 32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! [Eze 16:31b, 32 ESV]
This perspective as to why Israel was different - worse! - than other nations. She scorned payment in that these false gods could do nothing, did nothing, were no help to her at all, there was no payback no blessing for worshiping such things. Israel knew this. And yet she continued to worship them - to be unfaithful to God though there was no "payment" for spurning her Husband. 2020 - So God divorced Israel, and the church became His bride instead of Israel.
This is what brought down full blown wrath upon them:
34 So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different. [Eze 16:34 ESV]
These preceding verses are the charges and the verdict. Verse 35, beginning with"Therefore..." begins the sentence for the crime. This verse gets specific:
37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. 38 And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. [Eze 16:37-38 ESV] And it goes on from there....
2022 - This is a bit of a summary verse of the horror that has gone on to this point, and of the justice - horrible justice - that is about to come down from God. The justice still has a point, an objective, an end:
41 ...I will make you stop playing the whore, and you shall also give payment no more. [Eze 16:41b ESV]
Once all of the sentence has been carried out, there is this verse that I find absolutely amazing:
42 So will I satisfy my wrath on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you. I will be calm and will no more be angry. [Eze 16:42 ESV]
Once the price is paid, once the sentence that the ultimate judge pronounces is carried out, then the debt - even this debt unlike that of any other nation on the planet ever - is paid, then God's anger will be spent, and He will no longer punish. And debt can be paid. It would also seem that there is a price for any debt that will be equivalent to the crime. All debts can be paid, and there is One who decides that payment. In the NT, we will see that the price - the ultimate price, still higher than this price Israel paid, was the death of God's own Son. That's all that would do it. But that paid for all the debts, ever, throughout human history.
In the next verses, God says the proverb "Like mother, like daughter" will be said of Israel. Her mother and her sisters are the nations around Israel, that God saved Israel out of, and set Israel apart from, to worship only Him as the One God. The Lord our God, the Lord is One!!! But she became like those nations around her, heathen idol worshipers, and in fact became worse than they are.
I have never seen this verse before - noticed it much before. This is why judgement rained down on Sodom:
49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. [Eze 16:49-50 ESV]
God goes on to say Israel made Sodom appear righteous by comparison. 2020-It is interesting that their neglect of the poor, their gluttony, and their "ease" are mentioned first. Only then, in their worry free arrogance and selfishness, did abomination develop.
But once God's judgement has been poured out - once justice for the crimes have been done, you get this from God:
55 As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former state, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. [Eze 16:55 ESV]
When God deals with nations, crimes committed are paid for or repented of, and once sentence is served, those nations are restored. Here is the biggest difference between God's dealing with nations and His dealing with men. The sentence for man is eternal. It is eternal death, or eternal life. There is no purgatory. There is no "working off" your sentence after you are dead. For the ultimate sin - for rejecting Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us on that cross, eternal death, no pardon, no parole, no end is the sentence. For accepting Christ, eternal life, perfection, and paradise without end. THAT is the difference!!! As God judges nations in history, so he restores them in history. With man, judgment is in eternity, and the sentence - or the reward - is likewise.
After ultimate justice, God remembers - and ALWAYS KEEPS - the covenant that HE decided to make with Israel. Make no mistake. The covenant will be kept, but you cannot play the whore on your side of the bargain and expect to be treated as a covenant keeper! God made the covenant, but eventually, ultimately, the nation will KEEP that covenant! They - WE - will hold up our end. So says this verse:
59 "For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. [Eze 16:59-60 ESV]
This is a change of focus. We are no longer talking about the original covenant God made being renewed, but about a new one - an everlasting one. This is the NT covenant, made through Jesus death - payment in advance for sins to be committed - with each individual. 2020-No, probably this is talking about the Millennial. The true, final, ultimate return of God's people to their God.
2026 - What a diatribe! This is God's wrath unmitigated. What a picture of disloyalty, arrogance, and criminal independence. God pulled them up from nothing, from a multi-generational slave nation to the top of the national hierarchy under Solomon. Clearly supernatural. Clearly because God was looking after them. And then they turned to every false god and idol they could find. But even after all that, there's vs 60:
60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. [Eze 16:60 ESV].
I think this is Millennial. I don't think any other interpretation is possible. Ezekiel is about national, covenant Israel.
62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD." [Eze 16:62-63 ESV]
Only in the consummation of the New Covenant of eternal life in heaven to those who believe will this be true. We will never open our mouths again- no more sin, at all, ever, in that covenant.
2022 - The restorations of Sodom, Samaria and Israel are, I believe, Millennial references.