Ezekiel 16:23

16:1-58 In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose.

And it came to pass after all thy wickedness,.... This refers either to what goes before, so Kimchi; and the sense is, it shall be again as it was at first, after and because of all the above wickedness committed, thou shalt be left naked and bare, and destitute of all that is good: or rather to what follows in the next clause; and the meaning is, to all this wickedness before mentioned, which was so great that it might be thought nothing more could be added to it; and yet the following things were, as building an eminent place, and high places, in all streets and heads of ways: woe, woe unto thee, saith the Lord of hosts; which is repeated, to show the indignation of the Lord against all this wickedness; to arouse their attention to their sin and punishment, and to show the certainty of it; and it may be it denotes both their misery in this world, and in that to come. The Targum of the whole is, "what shall be in thine end for all thy wickedness? the prophet said unto her, woe unto thee, because thou hast sinned; woe unto thee, because thou art not converted, saith the Lord God.''

(23) After all thy wickedness. —The sin and idolatry hitherto described had been derived by Israel chiefly from the Canaanites, the old inhabitants of the land; but now. in accordance with what was said in Ezekiel 16:15 , the prophet goes on to speak of the other abundant idolatries adopted eagerly by the Israelites from foreign nations.

Verse 23. - Woe unto thee, etc.! The interjectional parenthesis, half anathema and half lamentation, looks forward rather than backward. Up to this point Ezekiel had dwelt on the forms of idolatry which were indigenous to Canaan and the nations in immediate contact with it. Now he enters on the later forms of evil which had been adopted from more distant nations. We pass from the time of Solomon to that of Ahaz and Manasseh. Ezekiel 16:23

23 . after all thy wickedness ] The wickedness described in preceding verses as idolatries of Canaan; after this followed foreign idolatry. LXX. omits the words “woe, woe unto thee.” 23–34 . Her infidelities with strangers from abroad, i.e. her alliances with idolatrous nations and adoption of their religious rites: Egypt ( Ezekiel 16:23-27 ), Assyria ( Ezekiel 16:28 ), and Chaldea ( Ezekiel 16:29 seq .). Hosea already stigmatized foreign alliances as whoredoms; it is not, however, so much the political aspect of these alliances as their religious consequences that Ezekiel reprobates. Such alliances were followed by the fashions and worship of the nations with which they were formed ( Isaiah 2:5 seq .). Naturally also when Israel became subject to the great eastern empires, the overwhelming influence of these states, with their customs and religions, was widely felt. The gods which had given them universal empire were introduced and worshipped. There appears to have been a great invasion of foreign idolatry in Judah in the declining years of the state, and the kingdom sank to a level in this respect to which the North had never fallen.

It came to pass; it shall come to pass; so the Hebrew may be read, and then this verse will be a dreadful threat of misery to come upon the Jews for all their wickednesses; when they have filled up the measure of their sins, God will fill them with his judgments, and bring one woe after another upon them, as they proceeded from one wickedness to another. But as we read the words, they are an introduction to a further declaring of this people’s multiplied wickedness, with a dreadful menace introduced somewhat abruptly to express God’s great displeasure against them: the threat is doubled, because it is certainly coming, and will be great when come.

Extent and Magnitude of the Idolatry Ezekiel 16:23. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness - Woe, woe to thee! is the saying of the Lord Jehovah - Ezekiel 16:24. Thou didst build thyself arches, and didst make thyself high places in all the streets. Ezekiel 16:25. Thou didst build thy high places at every cross road, and didst disgrace thy beauty, and stretch open thy feet for every one that passed by, and didst increase thy whoredom. Ezekiel 16:26. Thou didst commit fornication with the sons of Egypt thy neighbours, great in flesh, and didst increase thy whoredom to provoke me. Ezekiel 16:27. And, behold, I stretched out my hand against thee, and diminished thine allowance, and gave thee up to the desire of those who hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of thy lewd way. Ezekiel 16:28. And thou didst commit fornication with the sons of Asshur, because thou art never satisfied; and didst commit fornication with them, and wast also not satisfied. Ezekiel 16:29. And thou didst increase thy whoredom to Canaan's land, Chaldaea, and even thereby wast not satisfied. Ezekiel 16:30. How languishing is thy heart! is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, that thou doest all this, the doings of a dissolute prostitute. Ezekiel 16:31. When thou buildest thy arches at every cross road, and madest thy high places in every road, thou wast not like the harlot, since thou despisedst payment. Ezekiel 16:32. The adulterous wife taketh strangers instead of her husband.

Ezekiel 16:33. Men give presents to all prostitutes; but thou gavest thy presents to all thy suitors, and didst reward them for coming to thee from all sides, for fornication with thee. Ezekiel 16:34. And there was in thee the very opposite of the women in thy whoredom, that men did not go whoring after thee. In that thou givest payment, and payment was not given to thee, thou wast the very opposite. - By אחרי כל־רעתך, the picture of the wide spread of idolatry, commenced in Ezekiel 16:22, is placed in the relation of chronological sequence to the description already given of the idolatry itself. For all sin, all evil, must first exist before it can spread. The spreading of idolatry was at the same time an increase of apostasy from God. This is not to be sought, however, in the face that Israel forsook the sanctuary, which God had appointed for it as the scene of His gracious presence, and built itself idol-temples (Kliefoth). It consisted rather in this, that it erected idolatrous altars and little temples at all street-corners and cross-roads (Ezekiel 16:24, Ezekiel 16:25), and committed adultery with all heathen nations (Ezekiel 16:26, Ezekiel 16:28, Ezekiel 16:29), and could not be induced to relinquish idolatry either by the chastisements of God (Ezekiel 16:27), or by the uselessness of such conduct (Ezekiel 16:32-34). כל־רעתך is the whole of the apostasy from the Lord depicted in Ezekiel 16:15-22, which prevailed more and more as idolatry spread.