Ezekiel 16 Study Notes

16:1-63 This chapter is similar in purpose to 20:3-31, where a review of Israel’s history set the context for its coming judgment.

16:1-3 Jerusalem had a centuries-old, pre-Israelite history (Gn 14:18), and the city resisted Israelite conquest in the days of Joshua (Jos 15:63). It became an Israelite city only after David’s conquest (2Sm 5:6-9). In biblical ethnography Canaanites, Amorites, and Hethites were closely related. Moreover, these three were related to the Jebusites, the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Jerusalem (Gn 10:15-18; Jdg 19:11; 2Sm 5:6). The Amorites were pre-Israelite, Semitic inhabitants of Palestine (Gn 48:22; Jos 5:1; 10:5; Jdg 1:34-36). The Hethites were descendants of Heth, son of Canaan, who had flourished in the land of Canaan during the second millennium BC (Gn 10:15; 23:10-20; 26:34; Dt 7:1). By going back to the people’s origin, Ezekiel emphasized that the people had always been characterized by rebellion. They were sinners like all peoples of the earth, and they often allowed themselves to be led astray into idol worship.

16:4 Exposure of unwanted babies, especially girls, was common in the ancient world. In this description the infant was abandoned, apparently still attached to the placenta, and left to die (you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths). Contemporary Arab midwives in Palestine commonly coat a baby’s body with a mixture of salt and oil after cutting the umbilical cord.

16:5 God finding his people in the open field resembles the description in Dt 32:10 where God found Israel “in a desolate land, in a barren, howling wilderness.”

16:6 The phrase saw you thrashing around in your blood emphasizes that Israel was abandoned by her mother. The expression I said to you as you lay in your blood, “Live!” may refer to God’s basic desire for all people to live, summed up by this one word (18:23,32; 1Tm 2:4). The command is reminiscent of the mandate to be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:22,28), which was repeated to Jacob (Gn 28:3; 35:11; cp. Gn 17:2,6).

16:7-8 The special word for love (Hb dodim) in v. 8 refers to the love that leads to sexual relations (23:17; Sg 1:2,4; 4:10; 5:1; 7:13). Spreading a garment over a person was a proposal of marriage (Ru 3:9). The portrayal of Israel as the Lord’s wife (you became mine) derives from the first of the Ten Commandments, which says we must worship God alone. A wife’s obligation to remain true to her husband offered a fitting parallel to Israel’s obligations to God. In the Hebrew Torah, the Lord is called qanna’ (“passionate, jealous”) toward those who broke faith with him (Ex 20:5; 34:14). Ezekiel inherited a prophetic tradition in which sexual infidelity was used as a metaphor for Israel’s adoption of Canaanite religion (Jr 2:20; Hs 1:2; 2:5-13; 3:1) and for its political alliances with foreign powers (Jr 2:33,36; Hs 8:9).

16:9 The expression rinsed off your blood may be associated with bleeding that occurs with the first experience of sexual intercourse (Dt 22:13-21). Or it may refer to menstrual blood, indicating sexual maturity.

16:10 Jerusalem is clothed in materials that are elsewhere used in decorating the tabernacle (embroidered cloth). This is a subtle suggestion that Jerusalem was the home of the temple (Ps 48:2; 50:2; Lm 2:15).

16:11-14 Jerusalem became beautiful because God’s splendor resided there.

16:15-16 The accusation (acted like a prostitute) referred both to a spiritual turning away from the Lord and to physical involvement with the fertility rites of Canaanite paganism (Jr 3:1-5; Hs 4:13-14; 9:1; cp. Gn 38:14-16). The infidelity of the city began with Solomon’s introduction of idolatry and his creation of multiple shrine sites for idol worship (1Kg 11:1-10). Jerusalem played the harlot; she committed the sin of idolatry (Jms 4:4). Her pride led her astray (Dt 32:15; Jr 7:4; Mc 3:11).

16:17 The fabrication of objects of false worship from jewelry recalls the episode of the golden calf on Mount Sinai (Ex 32:2-4,24).

16:18-19 Putting clothing on idols is also mentioned in Jr 10:9.

16:20-21 The practice of child sacrifice (your sons and daughters you . . . sacrificed) occurred during the reigns of Ahaz (2Kg 16:3) and Manasseh (2Kg 21:6), and it was even more widely practiced during the time of Jeremiah (Jr 7:31; 19:5; 32:35). Child sacrifice is also further mentioned in Ezekiel (Ezk 20:26; 23:37). By sacrificing her offspring Jerusalem proved that she was a moral descendant of Canaanite ancestry. The Mosaic law prohibited this practice (Lv 18:21; 20:2; Dt 12:31; 18:10).

16:22 The same concept and image (you did not remember the days of your youth) is conveyed in Hs 2:4-14.

16:23-25 Many high places were built where ritual prostitution was practiced.

16:26 Spiritual prostitution involved illicit worship of idols. It also included choosing and developing political and military alliances for security (promiscuous acts with Egyptian men; see Is 23:17-18). To reflect God’s revulsion over these alliances, Ezekiel described these illicit lovers as “having oversized organs.” He referred to them as your well-endowed neighbors.

16:30-34 Prostitutes normally engaged in illicit sexual relations as a means of earning income, but Jerusalem had descended so far into sin that she scorned the payment a prostitute normally received (1Co 7:22-23).

16:35-38 The public humiliation of a prostitute by exposing her nakedness is mentioned in Jr 13:22,26; Hs 2:10; and Nah 3:5. According to the law, this degradation was to be followed by stoning and sometimes by burning (Dt 22:22; Ezk 16:40).

16:39-40 Contracts discovered from Nuzi (fifteenth century BC, northern Iraq) specified that if a wife divorced her husband, she would “go out naked.”

16:41-43 This form of punishment (they will burn your houses) was not uncommon in the OT (Jdg 12:1; 15:6). The expression bring their conduct on their own head is also used in 11:21; 17:19; 22:31.

16:44-45 Jerusalem was like her mother, a Hethite, who was married to an Amorite, the people who were removed from Canaan by the Israelites because their sins had reached an intolerable level (Gn 15:16). God’s justice now seemed to require that any Israelites left in their land should also be removed.

16:46-47 The Israelites had become worse than Sodom, the city infamous for its corruption (Dt 32:32; Is 1:10; Jr 23:14). Sodomy is a sexual act named after the homosexual perversions at Sodom (Gn 19:5-29). Sodomy is “detestable” according to Lv 18:22; 20:13. The Bible frequently compares cities or peoples to Sodom, which was taken to be the epitome of evil and degradation (Dt 29:23; 32:32; Is 1:9-10; 3:9; Lm 4:6; Mt 10:15; 11:23-24; Jd 7).

16:48-52 Samaria and Sodom were Judah’s sisters in sin. If God had not punished Judah, whose sins were so much worse than Samaria’s and Sodom’s, he would have been unjust.

16:53-58 God is not predicting a literal rebuilding and return for Sodom and Samaria. But “God will one day bless other cities as well, forgiving many people their sins . . . He will eventually establish an existence where righteousness prevails and rebellion against him is no more” (Douglas Stuart).

16:56 The phrase when you were proud refers to the golden days of Jerusalem during the reign of David and the beginning of Solomon’s reign.

16:59 Jerusalem’s contempt toward the oath and the breaking of the covenant would be answered by the suspension of God’s own covenant obligations. Judah’s sin was especially grievous because she had despised the oath of obedience she made to the Lord at Sinai (Ex 19:6). The current generation had reached the limit of God’s forbearance. In some sense God severed his relationship with that generation, though without breaking his covenant promises.

16:60-61 References to the Lord remembering his covenant occur only in relationship to the patriarchal covenants (Gn 9:15-16; Ex 2:24; 6:5; Lv 26:42,45; Ps 105:8). The mention of God remembering his covenant is contrasted with Jerusalem’s forgetting the terms of her relationship with God (Ezk 16:22,43). When this new relationship is established, the people will remember their ways and be ashamed. The permanent covenant is the new covenant spoken of in Is 59:21; 61:8; and Jr 31:31-34, but it should be viewed as closely related to the Abrahamic covenant. The features of the new covenant were actually the outworking of the basic elements of God’s promises to Abraham (Is 55:3; Jr 32:40).

16:62 Prophetic passages that announce the restoration of Israel (I will establish my covenant with you) reflect the teaching of Dt 30:3. The letters to the churches in the book of Revelation illustrate how God acts in a similar way by disciplining his church (Rv 2:14,20).