John Calvin Commentary Ezekiel 16:47

"Yet hast thou not walked in their ways, nor done after their abominations; but, as [if that were] a very little [thing], thou wast more corrupt than they in all thy ways." — Ezekiel 16:47 (ASV)

Now the Prophet, not content with the simile he had used, says that the Jews were far worse than either their mothers or sisters. Yet he is not inconsistent, for God wished, by degrees, to drag the wicked to trial. If at the very first word he had said that they were worse than the Sodomites, they would have been less attentive to this accusation.

But when he proposed something incredible—namely, that they were the daughters of the nations of Canaan, and the sisters of Samaria and Sodom—and afterwards proceeded further, and pronounced that they surpassed both their mother and sisters, this, as I have said, would stir up their minds more vehemently.

This difference, then, contains no inconsistency but rather tends to magnify their crimes. "You," he says, "have not walked according to their ways." He does not here exempt the Jews from participating in sins as if they were faultless by not imitating the Hittites, Sodomites, or Israelites; but the word walking should be restricted to the sense of equality, as if he said, "You are not equal."

But it is a kind of correction when God says that the Jews were not equal to the Hittites or Sodomites, meaning that their impiety was more detestable, since they rushed forward to all kinds of wickedness with greater license. We now understand the Prophet’s meaning when he says that the Jews had not walked in the ways of either Sodom or Samaria or the nations of Canaan, since they had gone before them, and even with greater ardor of pursuit; for if they had simply imitated the three peoples who have been mentioned, they had walked in their ways.

But when they were so carried away by their intemperance as to run before them, they did not walk in their ways, precisely because they left them behind. This comparison will sufficiently explain the Prophet’s meaning: that the Jews did not follow the Sodomites, Israelites, or Canaanites, but through their base and headlong violence left them far behind. And he says, as if it were only a small matter—that is, as if it were of little importance to you to be like your mother and sisters. "But you have been corrupt," he says, "before them." He now explains the matter more clearly: they had not walked in their ways because they cast themselves into wickedness with greater license, as we have already said.