Commentary on Ezekiel Chapters 1-20 John Calvin
Ezekiel 16
CHAPTER 16
Ezekiel 16:
1. Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
1. Et fuit sermo Iehovae ad me, dicendo,
2. Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
2. Fili hominis, indica 335 Hierosolymae suas abominationes,
3. And say, Thus says the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
3. Sic dices, Sic dicit Dominator Iehovah Hierosolymae, habitationes tuae, et natales tui e terra Chanaan: pater tuus Amorrhaeus, mater tua Hithaea, et quae sequuntur.
This chapter contains very severe reproaches against the people of Judea who were left at Jerusalem. For although Ezekiel had been a leader to the Israelites and the Jewish exiles, yet God wished his assistance in profiting others. Hence the office which God had imposed upon his Prophet is now extended to the citizens of Jerusalem, whose abominations he is ordered to make manifest. The manner is afterwards expressed, when God shows the condition of that nation before he embraced it with his favor. But after recounting the benefits by which he had adorned the people, he reproves their ingratitude, and shows in many words, and by different figures, how detestable was their perfidy in revolting: so far from God after he had treated them so liberally. These things will now be treated in their own order.
As to Ezekiel's being ordered to lay bare to the Jews their abominations, we gather from this that men are often so blinded by their vices that they do not perceive what is sufficiently evident to every one else. And we know that the people was quite drunk with pride, for they voluntarily blinded themselves by their own flatteries. It
335Or, "make evident." — Calvin.