Ezekiel 16:60 - Meaning and Application

At the close of this chapter, after a shameful exposure of sin and a terrible warning of judgment, mercy is still remembered for those who come after. This is like the promise God made after his anger against the people who left Egypt, when he said that their children would still enter the land. Some think the words about Sodom and Samaria, and Jerusalem with them, should also be taken as a promise. If Sodom is understood, as Grotius and some Jewish writers do, as the Moabites and Ammonites, Lot’s descendants who once lived in Sodom, then their captivity was later restored, as was that of many in the ten tribes and Judah with them (Jeremiah 48:47; Jeremiah 49:6).

These closing verses are, without doubt, an earlier promise. It was partly fulfilled when the penitent and changed Jews returned from Babylon. But its full meaning would come in gospel times, when repentance and forgiveness of sins were preached with success to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. The first thing to notice is where this mercy begins, from God himself, who remembers his covenant with them (Ezekiel 16:60). Though they had provoked him deeply, and in a way that seemed to rule out reconciliation, God says, “I will remember my covenant with you, the covenant I made with you when you were young, and I will renew it.” Though they had broken the covenant (Ezekiel 16:59), he would still remember it, and it would flourish again.

This is a great comfort to us. God is pleased to deal with us by covenant, a binding promise of grace, so its mercies are sure mercies and lasting mercies (Isaiah 55:3). As long as that root remains in the ground, there is hope for the tree, even if it has been cut down. If it gets the scent of water, it can sprout again. We do not read that they reminded God of the covenant. Rather, from his own free favor, he remembers it, just as he promised. “Then I will remember my covenant” (Leviticus 26:42). He who tells us to keep the covenant always in mind will surely remember it himself, and his word stands forever for a thousand generations.

The next thing to notice is how they would be prepared for this mercy (Ezekiel 16:61). “You will remember your ways, your evil ways.” God himself will bring them to mind, and he will arrange them before them so that they are ashamed. God’s gracious work in us begins with his goodwill toward us and keeps pace with it. When he remembers his covenant and does not remember our sins against us, he leads us to remember our sins against ourselves. If we are made to remember how crooked and stubborn our ways have been, and how we walked against God, we cannot help but be ashamed. And when we are brought that low, we are best prepared for the comfort of a clear pardon and settled peace.

The mercy God has stored up for them is this. First, he will take them into covenant with himself again. “I will establish an everlasting covenant with you” (Ezekiel 16:60). And again, “I will establish my covenant with you” (Ezekiel 16:62). He will reestablish it, and make it stronger than ever. It is a great comfort to every true penitent that the covenant of grace is so well ordered that every sin in the covenant does not cast us out of the covenant. That covenant cannot be broken in the way human agreements can.

Second, he will bring the Gentiles into fellowship with them in the church (Ezekiel 16:61). “You will receive your sisters,” the Gentile nations around you, older and younger, greater and smaller. “I will give them to you as daughters.” They will be founded, nurtured, taught, and shaped by the gospel, the word of the Lord that goes out from Zion and Jerusalem. In that way, the nations around would call Jerusalem mother, while the church remained there, and would confess the Jerusalem above, which is free, as the mother of us all (Galatians 4:26). They would be daughters, but not by Israel’s old covenant, not by the covenant that set Israel apart as a nation, and not as proselytes under the ceremonial law. They would be daughters as converts to the Christian faith.

Or the words “not by your covenant” may mean that they would not come on terms Israel chose for them, as if Israel were a conqueror laying down the law for captives and subjects. Some carnal-minded Jews expected that kind of rule over the nations. No, they would be Israel’s daughters by God’s covenant, the covenant of grace made with both Jews and Gentiles together, as if by a three-party agreement. God would be a common Father to both, and so they would become sisters to one another. And when Israel received them, Israel would be ashamed of her own evil ways, because she had once copied the Gentiles. She would blush to face a Gentile, remembering how much worse than the Gentiles she had been in the day of her turning away from God.

The fruit of all this will be this. First, God will be glorified (Ezekiel 16:62). “Then you will know that I am the Lord.” It will be seen that the God of Israel is the Lord, a God of power and faithful to his covenant. And you, who had lived as if you did not know or believe it, will know it. In earlier warnings, “You will know that I am the Lord” meant you would know it to your pain. Here it means you will know it to your comfort. This is one of the precious promises of the new covenant, that all shall know him, from the least to the greatest.

Second, they will be brought lower in shame for sin (Ezekiel 16:63). They will remember all they have done wrong and be more deeply ashamed. They will blame themselves, calling themselves foolish, disobedient, ungrateful, and unlike what they should have been. They will no longer open their mouths in protest against God, or in complaint about him, but will stay quiet and submissive because of their shame. Those who truly remember their sins will truly be ashamed of them, and those who are truly ashamed will find strong reason to be patient under their troubles and not speak against what God does.

What stands out most is that all this happens when God says, “when I am pacified toward you” (Ezekiel 16:63). True penitents are made all the more grieved and ashamed when they see clearer signs that God has been reconciled to them. God is pacified toward us in Jesus Christ. He is our peace, and by his cross we are reconciled. In the gospel, God is bringing the world back to himself. That truth should deeply soften our hearts into godly sorrow for sin.

This is repentance because the kingdom of heaven is near. The prodigal son, after receiving the kiss that assured him his father was at peace with him, felt ashamed and humbled. He said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” The more our shame for sin grows through a sense of God’s forgiving mercy, the more our comfort in God will grow too.