John Calvin Commentary Ezekiel 16:1-3

"Again the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah unto Jerusalem: Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father, and thy mother was a Hittite." — Ezekiel 16:1-3 (ASV)

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, God still wished for his assistance to benefit others. Therefore, 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 expressed later, 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. He shows in many words, and by different figures, how detestable was their treachery in turning away, so far from God, after He had treated them so generously.

These things will now be treated in their own order. Regarding Ezekiel’s being ordered to lay bare to the Jews their abominations, we gather from this that people are often so blinded by their vices that they do not perceive what is sufficiently evident to everyone else. And we know that the people were quite drunk with pride, for they voluntarily blinded themselves by their own flatteries.

It is not surprising, then, that God orders them to bring their abominations into the open, so that they may at last realize they are sinners. And this passage is worthy of notice, since we often think such admonitions are superfluous until God drags us into the light and places our sins before our eyes.

Indeed, there is no one whose conscience does not reprove them, since God’s law is written on the hearts of all, and so we naturally distinguish between good and evil. But if we consider our great stupidity in concealing our faults, we will not wonder that the prophets uttered this command: to lay open our abominations to ourselves.

For not only is that self-knowledge of which I have spoken cold, but it is also shrouded in much darkness, so that one who is only partially conscious willingly grows hardened while indulging themselves. Again, we must remember that the Jews had to be confronted in this way, because they delighted in their own superstitions.

For the Prophet shows that their chief wickedness consisted in deserting God’s law, in prostituting themselves to idols, and in setting up adulterous worship like brothels. But in this they delighted, as we daily see in the papacy, where under this pretext the foulest idolatries are disguised, since they think themselves to be worshipping God by these means.

It is not surprising, then, if God here indirectly blames the stupidity and laziness of the Jews when He commands their abominations to be laid open, which are already sufficiently known to all. Afterwards, so that God may begin to show how improperly the people were behaving, He recalls them to the very origin or source of their race.

But we must notice that God speaks differently of the origin of the people. For sometimes He reminds them of Abraham’s condition before He had stretched forth His hand and dragged them, as it were, from the lowest regions into life, as it is said in the last chapter of Joshua: Your father Abraham was worshipping idols when God adopted him (Joshua 24:2–3).

But sometimes the beginning is reckoned from God’s covenant, when He chose Abraham and his descendants for Himself. In this passage, however, God marks the time from the period when the small group, by a wonderful increase, emerged as a nation, although they had been so wretchedly oppressed in Egypt. For the redemption of the people, which immediately followed, is sometimes called their birth.

So here God says that the Jews were born there when they increased so incredibly, though when oppressed by the Egyptian tyranny they had scarcely any place among the living. And what He says of the Jews applies equally to all the descendants of Abraham, for the condition of the ten tribes was the same as that of Judea.

But since the Prophet speaks to a people still surviving, he is silent about what he would have said if he had been commanded to deliver this mandate to the exiles and captives, as well as to the citizens of Jerusalem. Whatever its meaning, God here pronounces that the Jews sprang from the land of Canaan, from an Amorite father, and from a Hittite mother.

A question arises here: When God had adopted Abraham two hundred years previously, why was that covenant not taken into account? For God here seems not to magnify His own faithfulness and the constancy of His promise when He rejects the Jews as sprung from the Canaanites or Amorites. But this only shows what they were in themselves. For although He never departed from His purpose, and His election was never in vain, yet we must hold that, as far as the people were concerned, they are looked upon as profane Gentiles.

For we know how they corrupted themselves in Egypt. Since, then, they were so degenerate and so utterly unlike their fathers, it is not surprising if God says that they were sprung from Canaanites and Amorites. For by Hosea He says that they were all born of a harlot, and that the place of their birth was a brothel (Hosea 2:4).

This must be understood metaphorically, since here God does not chide the women who had been false to their husbands and had borne an adulterous offspring. Rather, He simply means that the Jews were unworthy of being called or considered Abraham’s seed.

Why so? For although God remained firm in His covenant, yet if we consider the character of the Jews, they had entirely cut themselves off by their faithlessness.

Since, then, they did not differ from the profane Gentiles, they are deservedly rejected with reproach and are called an offspring of Canaan, as in other places.

Therefore, we now understand the intention of the Prophet, or rather, of the Holy Spirit. For if God had only said that He would pity that race when reduced to extreme misery, it would not have been subjected to such severe and heavy reproof, as we shall see.

Thus, God not only relates His kindness towards them, but at the same time shows from what state He had taken the Jews when He first aided them, and what their condition was when He deigned to draw them out of such great misery.

Moreover, since He was at hand to take them up, their redemption was founded on covenant. So they were led forth because God had promised Abraham four centuries before that He would be the liberator of the people.

So that they would not be ignorant of the favor by which God had bound Himself to Abraham, the Prophet confronts them. He pronounces them a seed of Canaan, having nothing in common with Abraham because, as far as they were concerned and according to common understanding, God’s promise was extinct and their adoption dead and buried.

Since they had acted so treacherously, they could no longer boast of being Abraham’s children. Therefore, He says, your habitations, that is, the place of their origin.

Jerome translates it “root,” but the word “birth” suits better, or native soil, or condition of birth: in the land of Canaan; and your father an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

There were other tribes of Canaan, but two or three kinds are mentioned here to represent the whole.