Ezekiel 16:50

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 they were haughty,.... Sodom and her daughters, the inhabitants of that place, and the cities adjacent; they lifted up themselves above God and man; they were above regarding the poor and needy; and were elated and swelled with their plenty and prosperity, and behaved very insolently, both to fellow citizens and strangers; see Genesis 19:4 ; and committed abomination before me; perhaps referring to that sin, which has its name from them; a sin abominable to God, and scandalous to human nature; and which they committed openly and publicly, neither fearing God, nor regarding men; and are said to be sinners before the Lord, Genesis 13:13; therefore I took them away as I saw good; both as to time and manner, as he in his sovereignty thought most fit and proper, by raining fire and brimstone on them, and setting them forth as an example of the vengeance of eternal fire: or, "when I saw" (c); their sin and wickedness, as soon as he saw it; see Genesis 18:20. The Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions render it, "as thou sawest", or "hast seen"; appealing to the Jews themselves, who were very well acquainted with the fact; for the destruction of Sodom was notorious and flagrant. (c) "cum vidi", Cocceius; so some in Vatablus; "postea quam", Tigurine version, Piscator, Starckius.

Haughty; insufferably arrogant in their deportment towards good men, they vexed the soul of righteous Lot; and towards the angels, whom they assaulted in Lot’s house; and towards God himself, as both in this verse, and in Genesis 13:13 . Committed; worked, as if it were their trade. Abomination; the whole of these men’s life was as one continued act of the highest wickedness. Before me; either against God, or openly and publicly, as Isaiah 3:9 . I took them away; destroyed their state, cities, people, and country, turned them into a lake of dead and deadly water, or rather bitumen and sulphur. As I saw good; in a way none could have suspected, and, for aught I know, none ever saw before or since. If you inquire how Jerusalem’s sins were greater than Sodom’s, I would answer, if not in the things done, yet in the aggravating circumstances of them; against redeeming mercy, against the law of God, which forbade what they did, and told them what they should do, against admonitions by the mouth of prophets, and against examples of God’s vengeance on Sodom and the cities of the plain.

50. haughty—puffed up with prosperity. abomination before me—"sinners before the Lord" (Ge 13:13); said of those whose sin is so heinous as to cry out to God for immediate judgments; presumptuous sins, daring God to the face (Ge 18:20; 19:5). I took them away—(Ge 19:24). as I saw good—rather, "according to what I saw"; referring to Ge 18:21, where God says, "I will go down, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto Me."

This judgment is perfectly just; for Israel has not only forgotten the grace of its God manifested towards it in its election, but has even surpassed both Samaria and Sodom in its abominations. - Ezekiel 16:43 . Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, and hast raged against me in all this; behold, I also give thy way upon thy head, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, that I may not do that which is wrong above all thine abominations. Ezekiel 16:44 . Behold, every one that useth proverbs will use this proverb concerning thee: as the mother, so the daughter. Ezekiel 16:45 . Thou art the daughter of thy mother, who casteth off her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, who cast off their husbands and their children. Your mother is a Hittite, and your father an Amorite. Ezekiel 16:46 . And thy great sister is Samaria with her daughters, who dwelleth at thy left; and thy sister, who is smaller than thou, who dwelleth at thy right, is Sodom with her daughters. Ezekiel 16:47 . But thou hast not walked in their ways and done according to their abominations a little only; thou didst act more corruptly than they in all thy ways. Ezekiel 16:48 . As I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, Sodom thy sister, she with her daughters hath not done as thou hast done with thy daughters. Ezekiel 16:49 .

Behold, this was the sin of Sodom, thy sister: pride, superabundance of food, and rest undisturbed had she with her daughters, and the hand of the poor and needy she did not hold. Ezekiel 16:50 . They were haughty, and did abominations before me; and I swept them away when I saw it. Ezekiel 16:51 . And Samaria, she hath not sinned to the half of thy sins; thou hast increased thine abominations more than they, and hast made thy sisters righteous by all thine abominations which thou hast done. Ezekiel 16:52 . Bear, then, also thy shame, which thou hast adjudged to thy sisters. Through thy sins, which thou hast committed more abominably than they, they become more righteous than thou. Be thou, then, also put to shame, and bear thy disgrace, as thou hast justified thy sisters. - יען אשׁר, which corresponds to יען in Ezekiel 16:36 , introduces a new train of thought. Most of the commentators take Ezekiel 16:43 in connection with what precedes, and place the pause at Ezekiel 16:44 . But the perfect נתתּי shows that this is wrong. If Ezekiel 16:43 simply contained a recapitulation, or a concluding summary, of the threat of judgment in Ezekiel 16:35-42 , the punishment would be announced in the future tense, as it is in Ezekiel 16:37 . By the perfect נתתּי, on the contrary, the punishment is exhibited as a completed fact, and further reasons are then assigned in vindication of the justice of the divine procedure, which we find in Ezekiel 16:44 .