Ezekiel Series: Chapter 16 (Written Version)

 

Jerusalem, The Adulterous Wife

Ezekiel 16

“The word of the Lord came to me: ^‘Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised” (Ezekiel 16:1-5).

            Repetition, repetition, repetition! Yes, the Lord wanted to ensure through constant repetition of Judah’s sins that His people could not say they were not warned regarding the judgments against them and why. Therefore, this is the longest chapter in Ezekiel that carries an extensive indictment of Judah’s adulterous ways as deemed by the Lord her Creator. The Lord served as the judge and jury, while Ezekiel was the prosecuting attorney who laid out the charges against them. Therefore, the Lord gave Ezekiel another Word regarding Jerusalem’s future.

            Jerusalem, also known as the city of David, was not originally in the hands of Israel. It had initially been Canaanite territory where the Jebusites lived. However, the Lord gave David victory when he besieged the city and took it for himself after he had become king over Israel (2 Samuel 5:6-10). The Jebusites, a part of the Amorite tribes, were descendants of Jebus, a descendant of Ham, and the son of Noah. The Jebusites were pagan worshipers and participated in abominable practices that angered the Lord. Therefore, He forbade the Israelites to intermarry with them, which they later defied, and ordered for them to be completely destroyed. (Deuteronomy 20:16-17). Similarly, Israel defied the Lord and continued in the practices of the heathen nations, thus bringing about judgment upon themselves.

            To help Israel understand their prior and present state, the Lord used the metaphor of a baby with an uncut biblical cord still covered in afterbirth. This description is indeed very graphic, but the Lord needed Judah to see the serious nature of their condition before He made them His own. Israel had been living as slaves in the land of Egypt, where no one cared whether she lived or died. Yet, the Lord took pity on her and brought her out of a place full of pagan worship to make them His. They were not faithful to the Lord and had taken on the Egyptian ways of worship, which is why they requested that Aaron make a golden calf in the wilderness.

To Be Continued in Print...TBA