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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Ezekiel 16:35 - 16:52
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The Punishment of the Lord Announced
v. 35. Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord:
v. 36. Thus saith the Lord God, the sovereign Ruler of the universe, Because thy filthiness was poured out, literally, "thy brass was emptied out," figurative of a free abandonment to filthy lewdness in spiritual adultery, and thy nakedness discovered, that is, uncovered, made known, through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, the various heathen nations with which she had allied herself, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of the children which thou didst give unto them, v. 20:
v. 37. behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure, the very ones whom she had sought with shameless overtures, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated, who would, of course, also gloat over her downfall; I will even gather them round about against thee, as witnesses, and will discover thy nakedness unto them that they may see all thy nakedness. By the punishment of God, Israel became an object of loathing to its former allies and an object of mockery to its enemies.
v. 38. And I will judge thee as women that break wedlock, the sentence pronounced upon adulteresses being carried out in her case, Lev_20:10; Deu_22:22 and [as those who] shed blood are judged, the latter sin being charged against Israel on account of the sacrifices to Moloch; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy, to be dissolved into blood as a consequence of such fury and jealousy.
v. 39. And I will also give thee into their hand, so that the former witnesses would be executors of the Lord's sentence, and they shall throw down thine eminent place and shall break down thy high places, the temples and tire objects of idolatry; they shall strip thee also of thy clothes and shall take thy fair jewels, the articles of splendor with which she bedecked herself, and leave thee naked and bare, deprived of the honor and dignity which belonged to the people of God by virtue of their election to this position.
v. 40. They shall also bring up a company against thee, both witnesses and executioners, and they shall stone thee with stones, in keeping with the picture of the execution of an adulteress, and thrust thee through with their swords.
v. 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 harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.
v. 42. So will I make My fury toward thee to rest, being satisfied with the punishment meted out, and My jealousy, the jealous rage of a wronged husband, shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet and will be no more angry. Since His justice had exacted the full penalty in keeping with the measure of her guilt, He would rest in anticipation of its beneficial effects.
v. 43. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, with the blessings which the Lord poured out upon her at that time, but hast fretted Me in all these things, raging against Jehovah with her idolatrous behavior, behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, so that His punishment would bear down upon her like a heavy load, saith the Lord God; and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations, literally, "lest I commit the misdeed above all thy abominations," that is, if the Lord should permit the wickedness of Israel to continue unpunished, He Himself would add an abominable deed, since, by a false leniency, He would become guilty of the same wickedness, become a partaker in the idolatry of Israel.
v. 44. Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, rightly applying it to the children of Israel, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter, Jerusalem being considered here as the daughter of ancient heathenish Canaan.
v. 45. Thou art the mother's daughter, that loatheth her husband and her children, rejecting the knowledge of the true God, just as the nations of Canaan had done, although He had still been known in their midst, as the example of Melchizedek shows; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, akin in guilt to Samaria and Sodom, which loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was an Hittite and your father an Amorite, and they had all inherited the spiritual make-up of these heathen nations, partly due to the fact that they did not exterminate the heathen as the Lord had bidden them do.
v. 46. And thine elder sister is Samaria, so called because she was in a moral respect more nearly related to Judah, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand, to the north; and thy younger sister, the smaller and in many respects not so nearly related to Judah, that dwelleth at thy right hand, toward the south, is Sodom and her daughters, that is, Ammon and Moab with their towns.
v. 47. Yet hast thou not walked after their ways nor done after their abominations, not even being satisfied with the deeds of wickedness for which these cities were known; but, as if that were a very little thing, as if their idolatrous conduct were not sufficiently wicked, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways, exceeding even the heathen in the measure of idolatry and the evils connected with idolatrous worship.
v. 48. As I live, saith the Lord God, in the most solemn oath which He could swear, Sodom, thy sister, hath not done, she nor her daughters, any of the smaller cities belonging to her city-state, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters, the guilt of the heathen cities being less great than that of Jerusalem.
v. 49. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, in these forms of transgression she excelled: pride, Cf Gen_18:21, fullness of bread, that is, more than an abundance of material wealth, and abundance of idleness, a security far removed from all anxiety, was in her and in her daughters, the result being a haughty arrogance; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, for that is the way of such as are puffed up with their prosperity.
v. 50. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me, their transgression being so heinous as to call out to the Lord for punishment; therefore I took them away as I saw good, by the terrible catastrophe of the overthrow of their city. Yet Sodom was not as Wicked as Jerusalem had now become.
v. 51. Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins, it was, in fact, not particularly conspicuous in its heathenism after the time of Ahab; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done, making them actually appear righteous by comparison with her own wickedness.
v. 52. Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, condemning them for their transgressions and, with hypocritical demeanor, considering herself better than they, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they, being committed in spite of Jerusalem's possession of the Law of God; they are more righteous than thou, namely, by way of comparison; yea, be thou confounded also and bear thy shame in that thou hast justified thy sisters, making them appear almost innocent in comparison with her own guilt. It is always a greater and deeper fall if people who have been in possession of the truth, who have enjoyed unusual advantages in the matter of God's mercy, fall away from the path of righteousness than if those unacquainted with God's holy will live in the sins which they have always followed, with little or no idea of the better way.