Ezekiel 16:1 - Meaning and Application

Ezekiel was now among the captives in Babylon. Jeremiah was still in Jerusalem, but he wrote for the captives there, and Ezekiel wrote for the people of Jerusalem. Neither man treated the other’s help as a slight. In fact, both preaching and writing were used for the good of God’s people. Jeremiah wrote to comfort the exiles, which was what they needed. Ezekiel was told to speak to Jerusalem to convict and humble her, which was what she needed.

His commission is clear in Ezekiel 16:2: “Make Jerusalem know her abominations,” that is, her sins. He was to set them plainly before her. Sin is not only something that angers God, it is something he hates because it is against his holy nature. It is also especially ugly in a city like Jerusalem, where people had a profession of religion. People in a place of great light still often do not want to know their own sins. We are naturally partial to ourselves, so we excuse, soften, or deny our faults. Yet we need to know our sins so we can confess them and agree that God is right in judging us for them. This is part of a minister’s work, to make sinners face their abominations, hold up the law like a mirror, and tell them plainly of their faults: “You are the man.”

To make Jerusalem see her abominable ingratitude, God first has her remember the great things he had done for her. He does this by showing how lowly and helpless her beginnings were, and how unworthy she was of his favor and honor. Jerusalem stands for the Jewish church and nation, pictured here as an abandoned child, base-born and unwanted, with no real affection from its mother.

The Jewish nation had a humble origin. God says, “Your birth is from the land of Canaan” (Ezekiel 16:3), meaning that from the beginning they had the spirit and ways of the Canaanites. The patriarchs lived in Canaan, but only as strangers and travelers. They owned no land there, only a burial place. Abraham and Sarah were truly the parents of the nation, yet they lived among the Amorites and Hittites as outsiders. They depended on their neighbors and feared them. If the patriarchs had conquered the land at first and made it their own, that would have brought honor to the family. Instead, they moved from nation to nation, like tenants changing farms, almost like beggars going from door to door, though they were very few in number. Even worse, their fathers had served other gods in Ur of the Chaldees (Joshua 24:2), and strange gods were still found in Jacob’s household (Genesis 35:2). So from early on, they had a bent toward idolatry, and in that sense their ancestors were like the Amorites and Hittites.

Their early growth was also pitiful. They were like a newborn child that would die unless someone cared for it. When Israel began to multiply and become a people, they were driven out of the land meant for them by famine. Egypt became the open field into which they were cast. There they had no protection from the government; instead, they were treated harshly and their lives were made bitter. They had no encouragement to build families, no help to build wealth, and no friends or allies to strengthen them. Joseph, who had once been Israel’s shepherd and support, was dead. The king of Egypt, instead of showing kindness because of Joseph, tried to destroy this male child as soon as it was born (Revelation 12:4). He ordered all the male children to be killed, which likely led to many babies being exposed to die, as perhaps the picture here suggests.

The founders of other nations had to use every skill and plan they had to keep their young states alive. The greatness of Rome, for example, took enormous effort to build. But Israel had no such care at the beginning. It was left exposed like a newborn baby in the open, with the navel cord uncut, not washed, not clothed, and not wrapped, because no one pitied it (Ezekiel 16:4-5). We owe the saving of infant life to the natural pity God has placed in parents and nurses toward helpless babies.

This child is said to have been cast out, loathed in her very person. That shows how hateful she was to those who bore her, and how ugly she seemed to others. The Egyptians saw the Israelites as disgusting, as we read in Genesis 43:32 and Genesis 46:34. Some think this also points to the corrupt and stubborn character of the people from the beginning. They were not only the weakest and fewest of all peoples (Deuteronomy 7:7), but also one of the most stubborn and unruly. God gave them the good land, not because they were righteous, but because they were stiff-necked people (Deuteronomy 9:6). Moses later told them, “You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you” (Deuteronomy 9:24).

They were not washed, rubbed, or wrapped. They were not easy to guide or shape into something good. God took them as his people, not because he saw anything attractive or promising in them, but because it pleased him to do so. This is also a fitting picture of all people by nature. By birth we are shaped by sin, conceived in sin, with darkened minds and hearts turned away from God. Sin makes us loathsome in God’s eyes. So it should not surprise us when we are told, “You must be born again.”