Ezekiel 16:3

And say, thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem,.... To the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as the Targum: thy birth and thy nativity [is] of the land of Canaan; here the Jewish ancestors for a time dwelt

And say, Thus saith 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.

The proud and blinded Jews thought their original more pure than that of the heathen; this was an old tradition among them, now that the prophet is to acquaint them with the truth of their polluted original, which they will storm and fret at, he comes thus prefacing his discourse with a Divine commission. The Lord God; who is omniscient, knows all we are and do, who is so just and true, speaks not any thing but the very truth, who is supreme Judge and determiner of controversies. He tells the prophet what they were, and commands him to tell them. Unto Jerusalem, i.e. the whole race of the Jews, as . Or, perhaps, in more special manner the inhabitants and natives of that proud city, who thought it a singular privilege to be born there, which the Jews counted more holy than the rest of the land of Canaan. Thy birth; thine habitation and thy kindred, so our English of the time of 2 Elizabeth. Thy root whence thou didst spring, the rock whence thou wast cut, the place where thou grewest up, the company and commerce thou didst use, all were of the land of Canaan, and thou hast a fulness of their vicious nature, manners, and practices, both in civil and religious things, as vile and obnoxious to my curse as Canaan itself. Thy father: if the prophet refer to Abraham, it must be understood of his state and religion before God called him, when he, as his father and kindred, worshipped strange gods beyond the river, , with . If the prophet refer to those that were in Egypt, the Jews’ ancestors that dwelt there, it is certain that many of them forgot Abraham’ s God, closed with the Egyptian idolatry, and were polluted with idols, . If you refer it as a figurative speech, and call them fathers whom we reverence, consult, obey, and imitate, as well we may call such fathers, these were not the best and holiest of men, 12:34 23:33. O ye Jews, be it known to you, whatever you think, you have no cause to boast of your nobler or purer descent, your fountain was corrupt and poisonous. Was; might have been, for likeness of manners. An Amorite; either because this comprehended all the rest of the cursed nations; or because the Amorites, as the most powerful and mighty, so were the most wicked among them; it was the Amorites which were filling up their sins, . Thy mother: sometimes the ill nature of a father is corrected in the child by the sweetness of the mother, but you Jews were not so happy, your mother was as bad every whit as your father; both prodigiously vile in their inclination, civil converse, and choice of their religion, and in the practice of it. The daughters of Heth were women of ill fame and worse manners, , enough to make a good soul weary of life. Such is your race, O ye Jews.

Ezekiel 16:3 And say, Thus saith 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.Ver. 3. Thy birth.] Heb., Thy cutting out. Compare Isaiah 51:1. And thy nativity.] Vide insignem genealogiam, vide γενεθλοιν pudendum. Mutato heroine de te fabula narratur. Cicero saith the old Britons were as barbarous as the Scythians. Thy father was an Amorite.] An Amorite thou mayest seem to be rather than an Abramite; for thou hast filled the land, as they did, from end to end with thine uncleanness. And thy mother an Hittite.] Those worst of women. De Nat. Deor. Duris genuit te cautibus horrens Caucasus. - Virg.

(3) Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan.—In the original the words “births” and “nativities” are in the plural, already indicating what the whole context makes plain, that the reference is not to the natural, but to the spiritual origin of Israel. So our Lord says to the Jews of His time, “Ye are of your father, the devil” (John 8:44; comp. Matthew 3:9); and Isaiah addresses his contemporaries as “rulers of Sodom” and “people of Gomorrha” (Isaiah 1:10). The word births, as indicated by the margin, comes from a verb meaning to cut or dig out, as stone from the quarry; and there is a play upon this sense in Isaiah 51:1. Israel’s character, her spiritual nativity, was thoroughly Canaanitish. An Amorite . . . an Hittite.—These two tribes, especially the former, as the most prominent in Canaan, are frequently put for the whole (Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 1:44, with Numbers 14:45; Joshua 10:5; 2 Kings 21:11, &c). The dealings of the patriarchs in Canaan were particularly with the Hittites (Genesis 23; Genesis 26:34-35; Genesis 27:46; Genesis 28:1; Genesis 28:6-8). This once great and powerful nation had almost faded from history; but their monuments and inscriptions are just now beginning to be discovered and deciphered.

Verse 3. Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan] It would dishonour Abraham to say that you sprung from him: ye are rather Canaanites than Israelites. The Canaanites were accursed; so are ye. Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.] These tribes were the most famous, and probably the most corrupt, of all the Canaanites. So Isaiah calls the princes of Judah rulers of Sodom, Isaiah 1:10; and John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a generation or brood of vipers, Matthew 3:7. There is a fine specimen of this kind of catachresis in Dido's invective against AEneas: - Nec tibi Diva parens, generis nec Dardanus auctor, Perflde; sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens Caucasus, Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres. AEn. lib. iv. 365. "False as thou art, and more than false, forsworn; Not sprung from noble blood, nor goddess born: But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock,-- And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck." DRYDEN. This is strong: but the invective of the prophet exceeds it far. It is the essence of degradation to its subject; and shows the Jews to be as base and contemptible as they were abominable and disgusting.

3. Thy birth … land of Canaan] of the Canaanite. “Birth” is origin (ch. Ezekiel 21:30, Ezekiel 29:14), the figure being taken from a mine or a quarry, cf. Isaiah 51:1, “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” When Jerusalem’s origin is said to be from the land of the Canaanite several references seem combined, e.g. the fact that Jerusalem was a Canaanite city; that Israel first became a family in Canaan (Ezekiel 16:4); and that having originated there its moral character corresponded to its Canaanite origin and had cleaved to it all through its history. an Amorite] the Amorite. The Amorites and Hittites are named as the two chief Canaanitish peoples, the whole population being sometimes called the Amorites (Genesis 15:16; Amos 2:9), and at other times the Hittites (Joshua 1:4). Jerusalem has the one for father, and the other for mother (Ezekiel 16:45).

Birth - See the margin; the word represents “origin” under the figure of “cutting out stone from a quarry” (compare Isaiah 51:1). An Amorite - the Amorite, a term denoting the whole people.

3. Land of Canaan — Though Abraham came from Babylonia his religious training was in Palestine, as also the religious origin of the nation.