Ezekiel 16

Ezekiel 16:1-10

8. xv. 6. Kings xx. 10. Hol xx. 9. Heb. The choice of the children of Athar. c. Kings xxv. 3. & 5. 8. 8. Chap. xvi. 37. Heb. A bates.

9. THE word of the LORD came again unto me, laying, 2. Son of man, there were two women the daughters of one mother. 3. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt, they committed whoredoms in their youth; there were their breaths perched, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. 4. And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and § Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters: thus were their names, Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah. 5. And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine, and she doted on her lovers, on the Affyrians her neighbours. 6. Which were cloathed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. 7. Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were || the chosen men of Affyria, and with all on whom she doted, with all their idols the defiled herself. 8. Neither left the her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breaths of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her. 9. Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Affyrians, upon whom she doted. 10. These discovered her nakedness, they took her sons and her daughters, and shew her with the sword: and she became famous among women, for they had executed judgment upon her.

Israel and Judah, sister kingdoms, the daughters of one mother, sprung from the same original flock, are here considered under the character of two infamous women, Aholah, and Aholibah.

1. They were early debauched by idolatry; even in Egypt they began to transgress, and lost their virgin honour, v. 3.

2. Though they were God’s espoused ones, and he was pleased to take them for his own, and to raise them up a numerous offspring; yet they treacherously departed from him, and played the harlot. Aholah, which is Samaria, signifies her tabernacle, she having first forsook God’s tabernacle, and set up her own worship at Dan and Bethel. She is called the elder, or greater, the kingdom of Israel consisting of ten tribes. Though she had received from the royal house of David, God still owned her for his; but her abominable idolatries soon made a fatal separation. She doomed as her lovers, particularly on her Affyrian neighbours; contracted alliances with them: admired their idols, their worship, and military forces, which were so richly drafted, and placed on them the dependence she withdrew from God, v. 7. Yet she perished also in the worship of the gods of Egypt, the beginning of her apollacy, and served the calves in Bethel and Dan, as well as the newly-introduced deities of the Affyrians. Note, (1.) They who have been a profetious people, when they profetize, sink under the most aggravated guilt. (2.) Whatever we doat upon, becomes our idol; and God will not with impunity suffer us to give the honour, love, and homage due to him, unto another.

3. For their apollacy Samaria and Israel were destroyed. God made those on whom they had doomed, and whose idols they served, the instruments of his vengeance, v. 9. They discovered her wickedness, stripped her of all her treasures, led her children captives, and utterly ruined the kingdom; executing God’s judgments upon her; so that she became famous among women. Her crimes and her dreadful end were the general subject of conversation in the neighbouring lands, and assented an awful warning not to imitate her first, left the same plague should follow. Note, (1.) Those whom we have made our tempters, God in righteous judgment often makes our tomorrists. (2.) They who render themselves famous by wickedness, will by God’s vengeance be made monuments of wretchedness.

Ezekiel 16:35-43

blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them: 37. Behold therefore, I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated: I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 38. And I will judge thee, see a woman that break wedlock, and shed blood, are judged, and I will give thee blood in fury and jealously. 39. And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thine naked and bare. 40. They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stow thee with stones, and throft thee through with their swords. 41. And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harbor, and thou also shall give no hire any more. 42. So will I make my fury towards thee to rest, and my jealously shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. 43. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast rested me in all these things; behold therefore, I also will recompense thy way upon these head, saith the LORD God, and thou shalt not commit this lewdness, above all thine abominations.

It cannot be thought possible such a guilty land should long be spared: God’s justice requires vengeance to be executed on such a nation as this.

1. Her crimes are recited, that God may appear righteous in his judgments. Her filthy idolatrics; the blood of murdered infants; her shameless lewdness; her false ingratitude; her long repeated provocations, which God speaks of as having grieved and fretted him to behold, v. 43. these were her sins, too flagrant to be denied, and too hainous to admit of excuse.

2. Sentence is pronounced upon her. Murder and adultery were capital crimes, and therefore her judgment is an ignominious death. Both those who loved and they who heard her will be spectators of her fall; yea, they shall be made the executioners of vengeance upon her, shall strip her of all her wealth and tenements, and leave her naked to her shame, v. 37. As a jealous husband, and as the avenger of blood, God will punish her, v. 38. She shall be famed, and throft through with fussed, when the Children army battered down the walls of Jerusalem, massacred the inhabitants, destroyed the high places, and burnt the clay with fire. Thus God will recompense her according to her defects, v. 43. and make her a public example to alter names, to the nations around, who, seeing her plagues, might be deterred from her sins, v. 41. Note, (1.) God justly makes these our tormentors to whom we have been importers. (2.) We cannot foresee suffer, it is no more than their just defect. (3.) The judgments inflicted on others should warn us against their wicked ways.

3. When God hath destroyed their idolatry, then he will rest from his fury; his jealously shall depart, and the effects of his anger be removed. The captivity cured the Jews specifically of all inclination to idolatry, and then the controversy ceased, and God restored them again to their own land. Though some understand this of their utter ruin and destruction, when they should no more be able to play the harbor, and when God, having executed his wrath upon them, he would rest satisfied in the righteous doom under which they perished, v. 42. Note, Sin is at the root of all God’s controversies with us: when the cause is removed the effect will cease.

4. Behold, every one that useth proverbs, shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. 45. Thou art thy mother’s daughters, that lotheth her husband and her children, and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothest their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite. 46. And thine elder sister in Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters. 47. Yet hath thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways. 48. As I live, saith the LORD God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. 49. Behold, this was the ini-

VOL. II.

quiry of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. 51. Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hath justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done. 52. Thou also which hast judged thy sisters, hear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters. 53. When I shall bring again thy captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them: 54. That thou mayst bear thine own shame, and mayst be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them. 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. 56. For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride: 57. Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, daughters of the Philanthers, which I dequite thee round about. 58. Thou hast born thy lewdness, and thine abominations, saith the LORD. 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.

Ezekiel 16:44-50

The wickedness of the Jewish people is here farther described by comparison with other nations.

1. They were as bad as the Canaanites, whom the Lord had cast out before them. They who use proverbs, shall say, do is the mother, so is the daughter; they exactly copied the manners of these nations, and formed rather sprung from an Hittite and Amorite, than from Abraham and Sarah. They bore the true character of an adulteress, lathing her husband and children, so did they forsake God their husband for idols, and sacrifice their children to them, as the Canaanites had done before them, though so awfully warned against their wicked ways, Lev. xviii. 27, 28.

2. They not only resembled, but exceeded the wickedness of Sodom and Samaria. Thus art the fifer of thy sisters, like them in all their abominations, apoclast from God, and devoted to the most shocking idolatry. Samaria, at the left hand, towards the north, is called the elder, or greater fifer, because the metropolis of the ten tribes, whilst Jerusalem was only at the head of two: and Sodom, her younger sister, because a smaller city, and lay at her right hand towards the south, with her daughter villages. The Son of Sodom are particularly marked, v. 49. Pride, gluttony, idleness, uncharitableness, oppression; and Jerusalem had equalled, yea, exceeded them in all; nor contrast to walk in their ways, the great more corrupt and abominable in her doings; nor had her sister Samaria half her guilt, v. 51. Her idols were more numerous, and her sins more aggravated by the means and mercies she had enjoyed. She had judged them formerly, and severely censured and condemned them as to their wickedness, 2 Chron. xiii. 8—10. but now her conduct justified and patronized all their iniquities, v. 57. and comforted them with the plea, that the men of Judah were as bad, or worse than they, v. 54. with shame and confusion therefore ought she to be covered, for her more grievous transgressions; either in repentance for them, or suffering the punishment due to them. And another cause also for shame is fuggished, v. 56. For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride; in their prosperity they disdained the mention of the name of Sodom; or, they took no warning by her doom, to tremble for their own. Note, (1.) Pride is at the root of all sin. (2.) Excels and idleness are the lust to vile affections. (3.) Let these who read Sodom’s Son, tremble for themselves, lasst the abode of their blessings should lead them into the same guilt and ruin. (4.) The advantages we enjoy are a great aggravation of our sins: the same action is doubly guilty in those who sin against light and love. (5.) Sinners must be confounded, either with the shame of penitentiary here, or with the everlasting shame of reprobates in the day of visitation. (6.) Pride goods before destruction; they who will not be warned must be ruined.

3. Their judgments would be heavy, as those which fell on the devoted cities of Sodom and Samaria. God had already in a measure humbled their pride, in the discovery of their wicked-

ness, evident in the reproach and insults they suffered from the Phillisms and Syrians, a Christ. xviii. 5. Thus they had begun to bear the punishment of their lawdness and abominations, v. 50. and God will deal with them further, as they had done, rejecting them for his people as they had rejected him for their God; defusing the oath, and breaking the covenant they had made at home. They are doomed to a miserable captivity, and Sodom and Samaria shall sooner be restored than they: for however the penitent remnant should be recovered, the wicked would be utterly abandoned to ruin, Jnr. xxiv. 9, 10. Though some understand this of the conversion of the Jews, when the Islands of the Gentiles is come in. Note, (1.) Sin and the curth are inseparable. (2.) They who make themselves vile by their wickedness, God will make them vile: still by their sufferings. (3.) Companions in sin will share the same fate, and perish together. (4.) They who reject God, are justly rejected by him.

60. ¶ Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. 61. Then I thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for “daughters,” but not by thy covenant. 62. And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: 63. That thou mayst remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 16:60-63

The chapter closes with a gleam of hope, and mercy yet triumphs over judgment. Though they were false and faithful, God is true, and his covenant of grace shall yet have its accomplishment in the remnant referred by him in the days of the Messiah, to which the promise here hath an evident regard. God will remember his covenant in rich mercy, and establish it with them for ever in Christ Jesus, the effects of which should be,

1. Their deep and unfeigned humiliation. Overcome with the sense of his pardoning grace and love, they shall remember their ways, and be confounded for all their abominations, silenced, not daring to complain of God’s judgments, but acknowledging their desires; and the more firmly they are assured of his being pacified towards them, the more deeply shall they upbraid their own ingratitude against a God so gracious. Note, (1.) The great argument to engage us to evangelical repentance, is a sense of God’s reconciliation in Christ Jesus. None abhor themselves to thoroughly, as those who believe his love most assuredly. (2.) We are called upon ever to remember our ways, and be confounded; though God hath forgiven us, we should never forgive ourselves.

2. He promises to bring the Gentiles into the communion of his church. The heathen lands, once their sisters in iniquity, shall now be admitted with the Jews into the fellowship of the gospel, to share all the blessings and privileges thereof, and shall be reserved by them with warm attention; but not by any covenant; not by the Sinai covenant; not on condition of observing the ceremonial rites and institutions; or not in virtue of their clamoring to the terms which the Jews, as conspirators, should impose on them, who, under their carnal Messiah, fastened themselves with extensive empire: for, but by the covenant of grace, in which there is no distinction between Jews or Gentiles, both alike being called freely, and entitled to all the promised mercies through faith in the Reference.

3. God will herein make his glory eminently to appear. Thus, God brings that I am the Lord: he had often before threatened them to make himself known in judgment; now he will be known in mercy. His faithfulness to his promises, and his rich grace, shall be manifested to them; and to these everlasting comfort, in an everlasting covenant established in Christ Jesus, they shall experience his everlasting love.