Commentary on Ezekiel Chapters 1-20 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
tude to pride. You have not remembered, says he, the days of thy youth, when you was naked, and bare, and defiled in thy blood. It follows ---
Ezekiel 16:23-25
23. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the
Lord GOD;)
23. Et fuit post omnem malitiam tuam, Vae vae tibi, dicit Dominator Iehovah.
24. That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.
24. Et aedificasti tibi excelsum, et fecisti tibi excelsum in omni platea. 372
25. Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
25. Ad omne caput 373 viae aedificasti excelsum tuum: et abominabilem fecisti tuam pulchritudinem: et divaricasti 374 pedes tuos omni transeunti, et multiplicasti tuas scortationes.
The first verse is variously explained. Some read the clause separately, {}ויהי,}אחרי{ }כל{ }רעתך{vihi achri kel regnethek --- it was after all thy wickedness: and they think that God threatens the Jews here as he did in Hosea, (Hosea 2:9,10.) For after God had there complained that his wool and his flax had been taken away, and offered as gifts to idols, he afterwards adds, I will demand all things back again, and then all thy beauty shall be taken from thee, and thy nakedness shall be laid bare, so that you shall be deservedly ashamed. Thus then they explain these words, that the condition of the Jews should be as it formerly was; as if he had said in one word, I will so avenge myself, that whether you will or not, you shall be compelled to feel the disgrace of your nakedness, since I will manifest it again. But this sense seems forced; therefore I unite it with the remainder of the verse which follows it. Thus then the language of the Prophet flows on: and it was after all thy wickedness that you built a high place for thyself --- you made for thyself a lofty place in every street: there are two different words, but the sense is the same: you did set up thy high places in all the principal ways, and so, says he, thy beauty became abominable.
But this is inserted by way of parenthesis, Alas! alas for thee! This exclamation is abruptly interposed. But, at the same time, I have no doubt that these things all adhere together, since the Jews added sin to sin, and never made an end of sinning.
He says, therefore, after they had been perfidious and ungrateful to God, after they had basely devoted all they had to perverse worship, then this new crime was added, that they had erected high places in every street and in every path.
If any one objects that this was not a greater crime than others, the answer is easy, that God does not speak of one high place only, or of one altar, but he comprehends all the signs of idolatry by which they had infected the land; for it was the height of impudence to erect everywhere the standard of their superstitions. For every high place and every altar was a testimony of their backsliding; just as if they had openly
372In every street." — Calvin. 373Or, "beginning." — Calvin. 374"Thou have poured forth, or opened; but we may use the proper word, you has spread." — Calvin.