John Gill Commentary Ezekiel 16

Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying .
] The word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum; the following representation was made to him under a spirit of prophecy.

Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations .
] That is, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as the Targum; these are mentioned instead of the whole body of the people, because that Jerusalem was the metropolis of the nation, whose sins were very many and heinous: called "abominations", because abominable to God, and rendered them so to him; particularly their idolatries are meant; which, though committed by them, and so must be known to them, yet were not owned, confessed, and repented of by them, they not being convinced of the evil of them; in order to which the prophet is bid to set them before them, and show them the evil nature of them; and which he might do by writing to them, for he himself was now in Chaldea with the captives there.

The Targum is, "son of man, reprove the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and show them their abominations."

And say, thus says the Lord God unto Jerusalem
To the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as the Targum: your birth and your nativity is of the land ofCanaan;

here the Jewish ancestors for a time dwelt and sojourned, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and so the Targum,Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret the first word, "your habitation" or "sojourning" ^F6. But whereas it follows, "and your nativity", this does not solve the difficulty; which may be said to be of the land of Canaan, because their ancestors were born here.

For though Abraham was a Chaldean, he was called out of Chaldea into the land of Canaan, where Isaac was born, and so was Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes. Besides, the Israelites were the successors of the Canaanites in their land, and so seemed to descend from them; and it is not unusual for such to be reckoned the children of those whom they succeed. To which may be added, that they were like to the Canaanites in their manners, particularly in their idolatries; and so their children, as such, are said to be the offspring and descendants of those whose examples they follow, or whom they imitate; see the history of Susannah in the Apocrypha:

``So he put him aside, and commandedto bring the other, and said unto him, O you seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty has deceived you,and lust has perverted your heart.''

your father was an Amorite, and yourmother a Hittite; Abraham and Sarah, who were, properly speaking, the one the father, the other the mother, of the Jewish nation, were Chaldeans, and neither Amorites nor Hittites. Yet, because they dwelt among them, they are so called, and especially since before their conversion they were idolaters, as those were.

Besides, the Jews who descended from Judah, and from whom they have their name, very probably sprung from ancestors who might be Amorites and Hittites, since Judah married the daughter of a Canaanite, and such an one seems to be Tamar, he took for his son Er, and by whom he himself had two sons, Pharez and Zarah, from the former of which the kings of Judah lineally descended (Genesis 37:2, 6, 29, 30; Matthew 1:3). Besides, the Jews were the successors of these people, and possessed their land, and imitated them in their wicked practices (Amos 2:10; Amos 9:7).

And these two, the Amorite and Hittite, of all the seven nations, are mentioned because they were the worst and the most wicked (Genesis 15:16; Genesis 27:46). The Jews ^F7 say Terah the father of Abraham, and his ancestors, came from Canaan.

FOOTNOTES:

• F6: (Kytyrkm) "habitationes tuae", Pagninus, Calvin; "mansiones tuae", Montanus; "habitatio tua", Vatablus, Grotius; so R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 30. 1.
• F7: T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 44. 2. & Gloss. in ib.

And [as for] your nativity, in the day you were born
Which refers either to the time when Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans, who has before been an idolater; or rather to the time when the children of Israel were in Egypt, and there grew and multiplied, and became a numerous body of people; who, upon their coming out of it, were brought into some form, and became a nation or body politic, which may be called the day of their birth as a people; see (Hosea 2:3).

your navel was not cut ;
alluding to what is done to a newborn infant, when the midwife immediately takes care to cut the navel string, by which the child adheres to its mother, and takes in its breath and nourishment in the womb; but now, being of no longer use that way, it is cut and tied up, for the safety both of mother and child, who otherwise would be in great danger; and this denotes the desperate condition the Israelites were in when in Egypt, where they were greatly oppressed and afflicted, and in very imminent danger of being destroyed; to which the Targum refers it.

neither were you washed in water to supple [you] :
which also is done, to an infant as soon as born, to cleanse it from the menstruous blood, to make the flesh sleek, and smooth, and amiable; which, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, is done in hot water.

you were not salted at all ;
which was done, either by sprinkling salt upon it, or using salt and water ^F8 , as a detersive of uncleanness, to prevent putrefaction, to dry up the humours, and harden the flesh, and consolidate the parts.

nor swaddled at all ;
to bring the several members of the body into form and shape; see (Luke 2:7).

and these things being of necessity to be done immediately, were, as Kimchi observes, lawful to be done even on a sabbath day, according to the traditions of the elders ^F9 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: Vid. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 2. c. 25.
• F9: Vid. T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 129. 2.

None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have
compassion upon thee
Or, "one of these" ^F11 ; not so much as one of them: sad must be the case of an infant, when it meets with no tender heart or kind hand from midwife, nurse, or mother, to do these things for it: this is expressive of the helpless, forlorn, and unpitied state of the Israelites in Egypt; who, when their lives were made bitter with hard bondage, had no mercy shown them by Pharaoh and his taskmasters, (Exodus 1:14) (Exodus 5:9Exodus 5:14Exodus 5:17) . So the Targum, ``the eye of Pharaoh did not spare you to do one good thing for you, to give you rest from your bondage, to have mercy on you:'' but you were cast out in the open field ;
alluding to infants exposed by their unnatural parents, or unkind nurses, and left in an open field, or any desert place, to perish for want, unless some kind providence appears for them: this open field may design the land of Egypt, to which Jacob and his posterity were, being driven out of Canaan by a famine; and where, after the death of Joseph, they were exposed to the hardships and cruelties of the Egyptians; and who, commanding their male children to be slain, doubtless occasioned the exposing of many of them, as well as Moses, to which some reference may be had; and so the Targum paraphrases it, ``and he (Pharaoh) decreed a full decree to cast your male children into the river, to destroy you when you were in Egypt:''

to the loathing of your person, in the day that you were born ;
the Israelites were loathsome to the Egyptians, as every shepherd was an abomination to them, and such were they, (Genesis 46:34) ; and all this may be applied to the state and condition of men by nature, even of God's elect, whose extraction is from fallen man; descend immediately from unclean parents; are conceived in sin, and shaped in iniquity; can have no communication of grace from their parents, or others; by whom they cannot be washed from their sins, or sanctified, or clothed, or made righteous; but are in a hopeless and helpless condition; and are loathsome and abominable to God, and to themselves too, when they come to see the state they are in.

FOOTNOTES:

• F11: (hlam txa) "unum ex istis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus; "unum ex his", Pagninus, Montanus, Starckius.