Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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 a Hittite.
3. Thy birth land of Canaan ] of the Canaanite. “Birth” is origin (ch. Eze 21:30, Eze 29:14), the figure being taken from a mine or a quarry, cf. Isa 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 ( Eze 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 (Gen 15:16; Amo 2:9), and at other times the Hittites (Jos 1:4). Jerusalem has the one for father, and the other for mother ( Eze 16:45).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Birth – See the margin; the word represents origin under the figure of cutting out stone from a quarry (compare Isa 51:1).
An Amorite – the Amorite, a term denoting the whole people. The Amorites, being a principal branch of the Canaanites, are often taken to represent the whole stock Gen 15:16; 2Ki 21:11.
An Hittite – Compare Gen 26:34. The main idea is that the Israelites by their doings proved themselves to be the very children of the idolatrous nations who once occupied the land of Canaan. Compare Deu 20:17.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eze 16:3
Thy father was an Amorite and thy mother an Hittite.
Hieroglyphics of truth
I. Man is essentially religious. Religion in the heart of man is something that pertains to the land of Canaan. It has not been invented by man, or created in his soul by human science or culture: it is not a product of education or civilisation. It is part of mans nature more truly than the raindrop is part of the cloud from which it falls, or than the river is part of the sea from which it flows and to which it returns. It is in the soul as fire is in the flint; as the oak is in the acorn, or as the day is in the dawn. Religion belongs to the soul, as hunger and thirst belong to the body. Hunger and thirst may not create bread, any more than the organ of vision can create light, or the organ of hearing sound; but bread and water, light and sound, would be useless without these organs. Were it not that man is essentially religious, all our preaching of the Gospel, and all our missionary labours at home and abroad, would be vain. Go with me in thought, and view the ruins of the temple of Heliopolis on the borders of Arabia, or the gigantic ruins of Luxor and Thebes on the banks of the Nile, or those of Baalbeck in the valley between the Lebanons. Whence the origin and purpose of these ancient temples? These temples, it may be said, were largely the outcome or expressions of mans religious beliefs–superstitious beliefs, if you will. But whence the origin of these superstitious beliefs? What was their root cause? Their root cause was mans religious nature. The word superstition means a resting upon, yes, resting upon mans natural religious convictions.
II. May by nature is morally corrupt. Thy father was an Amorite and thy mother an Hittite. The Amorites and Hittites, though born in the land of Canaan, were aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants with promise; they were without God and without hope in the world. This doctrine of human depravity or moral corruption applies to all races and to men of all ranks. Sin in the soul is not the result of evil habits, as some suppose, nor the issue of a false education and corrupting companionship and circumstances. It is not a thing like cold, which a man may or may not take in certain circumstances, and which, if taken, may develop into consumption or some other disease. No. We are all horn with it. It is a constitutional malady. Apart from the doctrine of sin–original sin in the soul; I know not the doctrine of salvation, even in theory. Apart from the doctrine of mans natural alienation from God, I know not the meaning of Christs mission to the world. What would be the meaning of physicians were there no human ailments? or of drugs were there no human diseases? or of bread and water were there no such things as hunger and thirst? Without sin in the soul, the Gospel could have no meaning, and the Cross could have no power.
III. Christianity is Gods remedy for mans malady. He who at the beginning said, Let there be light, and there was light, now says to all men Live. The description given in the context of mans state by nature, speaks of death, moral and spiritual of orphanage and great feebleness. There is a great amount of life in the world, and man is not without life. It is called natural life; but natural life is somewhat as the river Jordan, that ends its flow in the Dead Sea. Human life, at the best, is as the grass, and its glory as the flower. It does not last, and its duration is a contradiction of our supreme desires. Death is not natural to man. Man was not made to die, as some men seem to suppose, but to live; hence the fear of death makes men subject to bondage. The keynote of Christianity is life, life that cannot die. I am come, said Jesus, that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly. To all who hear and believe the Gospel, God says Live. Is there any other religion in all the world that can be compared with the Christian religion in this respect? Christianity, as a system of truth, is in harmony with the soundest deductions of enlightened reason; Christianity, as exhibited in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, is the complement of the deepest cravings, the strongest desires, and the universal wants of humanity. It makes man great with the hopes which cheer the just. It lifts him as from the dunghill, and sets him among princes. While it fosters the conviction that heaven is needed to complete his life on earth, it opens the way, and gives him health and power to reach it. It makes him hopeful, useful, and great. (J. K. Campbell, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
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, Isa 1:10; and John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a generation or brood of vipers, Mt 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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 Eze 16:2. 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, Jos 24:14, with Eze 16:2. If the prophet refer to those that were in Egypt, the Jews ancestors that dwelt there, it is certain that many of them forgot Abrahams God, closed with the Egyptian idolatry, and were polluted with idols, Jos 24:2. 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, Mat 3:7; 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, Gen 15:16.
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, Gen 27:46, enough to make a good soul weary of life. Such is your race, O ye Jews.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. birth . . . nativitythyorigin and birth; literally, “thy diggings” (compare Isa51:1) “and thy bringings forth.”
of . . . Canaaninwhich Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sojourned before going to Egypt, andfrom which thou didst derive far more of thy innate characteristicsthan from the virtues of those thy progenitors (Eze21:30).
an Amorite . . . anHittiteThese, being the most powerful tribes, stand for thewhole of the Canaanite nations (compare Jos 1:4;Amo 2:9), which were soabominably corrupt as to have been doomed to utter extermination byGod (Lev 18:24; Lev 18:25;Lev 18:28; Deu 18:12).Translate rather, “the Amorite . . . theCanaanite,” that is, these two tribes personified; their wickedcharacteristics, respectively, were concentrated in the parentage ofIsrael (Ge 15:16). “TheHittite” is made their “mother”; alluding to Esau’swives, daughters of Heth, whose ways vexed Rebekah (Gen 26:34;Gen 26:35; Gen 27:46),but pleased the degenerate descendants of Jacob, so that these arecalled, in respect of morals, children of the Hittite (compare Eze16:45).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 sojourned, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and so the Targum, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret the first word, “thy habitation” or “sojourning” f: but whereas it follows, “and thy nativity”, this does not solve the difficulty; which may be said to be of the land of Canaan, because their ancestors were born here; for though Abraham was a Chaldean he was called out of Chaldea into the land of Canaan, where Isaac was born; and so was Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes; besides, the Israelites were the successors of the Canaanites in their land, and so seemed to descend from them; and it is not unusual for such to be reckoned the children of those whom they succeed; to which may be added, that they were like to the Canaanites in their manners, particularly in their idolatries; and so their children, as such, are said to be the offspring and descendants of those whose examples they follow, or whom they imitate; see the history of Susannah in the Apocrypha:
“So he put him aside, and commanded to bring the other, and said unto him, O thou seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thine heart.” (Susannah 1:56)
thy father [was] an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite; Abraham and Sarah, who were, properly speaking, the one the father, the other the mother, of the Jewish nation, were Chaldeans; and neither Amorites nor Hittites; yet, because they dwelt among them; are so called; and especially since before their conversion they were idolaters, as those were; besides, the Jews who descended from Judah, and from whom they have their name, very probably sprung from ancestors who might be Amorites and Hittites: since Judah married the daughter of a Canaanite, and such an one seems to be Tamar, he took for his son Er, and by whom he himself had two sons, Pharez and Zarah, from the former of which the kings of Judah lineally descended, Ge 37:2; besides, the Jews were the successors of these people, and possessed their land, and imitated them in their wicked practices, Am 2:10; and these two, the Amorite and Hittite, of all the seven nations, are mentioned, because they were the worst, and the most wicked, Ge 15:16. The Jews g say Terah the father of Abraham, and his ancestors, came from Canaan.
f “habitationes tuae”, Pagninus, Calvin; “mansiones tuae”, Montanus; “habitatio tua”, Vatablus, Grotius; so R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 30. 1. g T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 44. 2. & Gloss. in ib.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
A question arises here — When God had adopted Abraham two hundred years previously, why was not that covenant taken into account? for he here seems not to magnify his own faithfulness and the constancy of his promise when he rejects the Jews as sprung from the Canaanites or Amorites; but this only shows what they were in themselves: for although he never departed from his purpose, and his election was never in vain, yet we must hold, as far as the people were concerned, that they are looked upon as profane Gentiles. For we know how they corrupted themselves in Egypt. Since, then, they were so degenerate and so utterly unlike their fathers, it is not surprising if God says that they were sprung from Canaanites and Amorites. For by Hosea he says, that they were all born of a harlot, and that the place of their birth was a house of ill fame. (Hos 2:4.) This must be understood metaphorically: since here God does not; chide the women who had been false to their husbands, and had borne an adulterous offspring; but he simply means that the Jews were unworthy of being called or reputed Abraham’s seed. Why so? for although God remained firm in his covenant, yet if we consider the character of the Jews, they had entirely cut themselves off by their faithlessness. Since, then, they did not differ from the profane Gentiles, they are deservedly rejected with reproach, and are called an offspring of Canaan, as in other places. Now therefore, we understand the intention of the Prophet, or rather of the Holy Spirit. For if God had only said that he would pity that race when reduced to extreme misery, it would not have been subjected to such severe and heavy reproof, as we shall see. Hence God not only relates his kindness towards them, but at the same time shows from what state he had taken the Jews when he first aided them, and what, was their condition when he deigned to draw them out of such great misery. Moreover, since he was at hand to take them up, their redemption was founded on covenant, and so they were led forth, because God had promised Abraham four centuries ago that he would be the liberator of the people. That they should not be ignorant of the favor by which God had bound himself to Abraham, the Prophet meets them, and pronounces them a seed of Canaan, having nothing in common with Abraham, because, as far as they were concerned, according to common usage, God’s promise was extinct, and their adoption dead and buried. Since they had acted so perfidiously, they could no longer boast themselves to be Abraham’s children. Hence he says, thy habitations, that is, the place of their origin. Jerome translates it “root;” but the word “nativity” suits better, or native soil, or condition of birth in the land of Canaan: and thy father an Amorite and thy mother a Hittite There were other tribes of Canaan, but two or three kinds are put here for the whole. Now it follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(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 (Joh. 8:44; comp. Mat. 3:9); and Isaiah addresses his contemporaries as rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrha (Isa. 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 Isa. 51:1. Israels 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 (Gen. 15:16; Deu. 1:44, with Num. 14:45; Jos. 10:5; 2Ki. 21:11, &c). The dealings of the patriarchs in Canaan were particularly with the Hittites (Genesis 23; Gen. 26:34-35; Gen. 27:46; Gen. 28:1; Gen. 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.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Land of Canaan Though Abraham came from Babylonia his religious training was in Palestine, as also the religious origin of the nation. It is an interesting fact that the name “Land of Canaan” is found in inscriptions back as far as Moses’s day, and earlier.
Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite Of course this is a description of religious conditions. It is by no means certain that Abraham came of Hittite and Amorite origin, but certainly the Hittite and Amorite impurities of religion influenced primitive Israel. The fact that Jerusalem was once a Hittite city does not bear on the argument here, except possibly by making the illustration more vivid. (Compare Mat 23:33; Joh 8:44.) The close relations of the early Israelites with the Amorites and Hittites is seen from the fact that all Palestine, previous to the Exodus, was called in the Babylonian inscriptions the “land of the Amorites” and in Egyptian inscriptions in the time of Shalmaneser II, the “land of the Hittites.” (Compare Gen 15:16; Amo 2:9; Jos 1:4.) The writer believes that he has observed Amorite and Hittite characteristics even in the modern populations of Philistia.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And say, thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem, Your birth and your nativity is the land of the Canaanite. The Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.”
‘To Jerusalem.’ This word conjures up two thoughts, Jerusalem as a city, which God had chosen as His dwellingplace (Psa 132:13), and Jerusalem as representing the whole of what was left of Israel. Israel, even the exiles, were often described as ‘Zion’ (e.g. Zec 2:7). What remained of the land of Israel was not very large, being composed of Jerusalem and its environs, so that Jerusalem could be seen as representing the whole. Indeed it was the heart of Israel, and bore within it the stamp of the whole. So we do not need to choose between whether he has Jerusalem in mind or Israel. The one was represented by the other.
These words are derogatory. Israel prided itself on its ancestry, and the Canaanites were a byword for immorality and sin, which was why God had demanded that they be utterly destroyed. This latter condemnation was also aimed at the Amorites and the Hittites who dwelt in the land (Deu 7:1-5; Deu 20:17). All three names could in fact be used as a general designation for the inhabitants of the land. See among others Gen 10:16; Gen 15:16; Num 13:29; Jos 1:4; Jos 5:1; Jos 7:7; Jos 24:15; Jos 24:18; Amo 2:10.
There are a number of points here. One is that neither Jerusalem nor Israel were in fact as racially pure as they thought. They were of mongrel descent. Israel did in fact include Canaanites, Amorites and Hittites in their ancestry, for such would be among the servants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and among the mixed multitude that became a part of Israel at the exodus and at Sinai, and this was added to by intermarriage contrary to God’s command (Deu 7:3). And the suggestion is that this was now coming out in their behaviour.
The second is that they had become like those that they had lived amongst. They had been established in the land of the Canaanites and had aped the Canaanites, Amorites and Hittites in the land, who had ‘fathered’ and ‘mothered’ them. That was why they were behaving as they were.
The third was that Jerusalem itself was a city of bastard descent, a city of mixed race, and those races evil. In the wider meaning of the terms the Jebusites who dwelt in Jerusalem were Canaanites and Amorites, and were associated with the Amorites and Hittites as dwellers in the mountains (Num 13:29), and they lived among the Israelites, no doubt being forced to submit to the covenant with Yahweh after the capture of the city by David.
Thus Israel’s professed purity was a farce. There was nothing in their background to make them especially attractive. Anything they had was because of God’s goodness to them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 16:3. Thy birth, and thy nativity, &c. Thy root, or origin, and thy nativity, &c. As much as to say, “You dishonour the race of Abraham, whence you are descended; you deserve much rather the name of a Canaanite than of an Israelite.” The Amorites and Hittites appear to have been the most corrupted of all the Canaanites: a more ignominious appellation could not be given to a Hebrew, than to call him of the race of Canaan. Isaiah calls the princes of Judah, rulers of Sodom; ch. Eze 1:10 and St. John the Baptist calls the Pharisees, a generation of vipers. Heathen authors, in the transports of their enthusiasm, frequently expressed themselves in the same manner. Virgil makes Dido say to AEneas,
Nec tibi diva parens, &c. Perfidious monster! boast thy birth no more; No hero got thee, and no goddess bore. No!thou wert brought by Scythian rocks to day, By tigers nurs’d, and savages of prey; But far more rugged, wild, and fierce than they. AEn. book 6: ver. 525, &c. WARTON.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 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 Isa 51:1 .
And thy nativity.
Thy father was an Amorite.
And thy mother an Hittite.
a De Nat. Deor.
b Duris genuit te cautibus horrens Caucasus. – Virg.
the Lord GOD. Hebrew. Adonai Jehovah. See note on Eze 2:4.
birth, &c. = excisions and kinships. Compare Isa 61:1. Only other occurrences, Eze 21:30; Eze 29:14.
thy father, &c. i.e. thy founder. This refers to the first builders of Jebus; not to Abraham and his seed. Jebus was a Canaanite city. See App-68. Thus Satan occupied in advance both land and capital as soon as the promise to Abraham was known. See App-23and App-26.
Thy birth: Heb. Thy cutting out, or habitation, Eze 16:45, Eze 21:30, Gen 11:25, Gen 11:29, Jos 24:14, Neh 9:7, Isa 1:10, Isa 51:1, Isa 51:2, Mat 3:7, Mat 11:24, Luk 3:7, Joh 8:44, Eph 2:3, 1Jo 3:10
Amorite: Gen 15:16, Deu 20:17, 1Ki 21:26, 2Ki 21:11
Hittite: Ezr 9:1
Reciprocal: Jos 5:1 – all the kings Jos 24:2 – Your fathers Jdg 3:6 – General Psa 136:23 – remembered Isa 43:27 – first father Isa 48:8 – a transgressor Eze 16:22 – General Eze 16:44 – As is Eze 20:4 – cause Hos 12:7 – a merchant Mat 14:11 – and given
Eze 16:3. Nations, like individuals, may rise from very humble circumstances to a position of dignity and favor. If that rise is caused solely by the unselfish favor of another nation or person, such advancement will be no just cause for the favored one to become proud or have a feeling of importance. Instead, such nation should show its appreciation by the most faithful devotion. This verse shows the insignificant and obscure origin of Jerusalem (or Judah), She was born in Canaan which was a country of much unworthiness before the Lord took it over and dignified it by His oversight. Amorites and Hittit.es were two of the inferior heathen peoples who inhabited the land of Canaan at the time Gods people appeared. The terms father and mother are used figuratively to conform to the parable of family relations that has been adopted on the present occasion. We are supposed to think of a babe who is born of a very ordinary father and mother, in a land out of which no great personage would he expected to come. (For a like comparison see Joh 1:46.)
Eze 16:3. Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem Unto the whole race of the Jews, and especially to the natives and inhabitants of that proud city, who thought it a singular privilege to be born or to live there, counting it a more holy place than the rest of the land of Canaan. Thy birth and thy nativity The LXX. render it, , thy root and thy generation, and so also the Vulgate. The word rendered birth, or root, however, , seems rather to mean, commerce, or dealings, appearing to be derived from , to sell. Accordingly Buxtorf translates it commercia tua, thy dealings. Houbigant, indeed, whom Bishop Newcome inclines to follow, prefers deriving the word from , to dig, referring to Isa 51:1, and then the sense will be, thy origin, or thy rise, and thy nativity, is of the land of Canaan. If understood of the city of Jerusalem, the assertion is strictly true. It was a Canaanitish city, or strong hold, possessed and inhabited by the Jebusites, till David took it from them: see 2Sa 5:6. The father, therefore, of this city, might be properly said to be an Amorite, and its mother, a Hittite; these names comprehending all the idolatrous nations of Canaan, of which the Jebusites were a branch. Or if the Jews or Israelites be intended, their progenitors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sojourned in the land of Canaan long before the possession of it was given to their posterity; and the two latter were natives of that country. But as those are said to be our parents, in Scripture language, whose manners we imitate, the Jews or Israelites, may be here represented as being of Canaanitish origin, because they followed the manners of the idolatrous inhabitants of that country, rather than those of the pious patriarchs: see Eze 16:45; Joh 8:44; Mat 3:7. There is an expression of the same import in the history of Susannah, Eze 16:56, that seems to be borrowed from this passage, O thou seed of Canaan, and not of Judah, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thy heart.
16:3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD to Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity [is] of the land {a} of Canaan; thy father [was] an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
(a) You boast to be of the seed of Abraham, but you are degenerate and follow the abominations of the wicked Canaanites as children do the manners of their fathers, Isa 1:4; Isa 57:3 .
Yahweh personified Jerusalem as a woman (cf. Isa 1:21), and he related her history as a parable (allegory). In this parable Jerusalem represents the people of Jerusalem (a metonymy), but it is the people of Jerusalem throughout Israel’s history that are particularly in view. Some interpreters take Jerusalem as representing Israel as a nation. [Note: E.g., Cooper, p. 167; Feinberg, p. 86; and Taylor, p. 133.] Others believe Jerusalem identifies the city that is only similar to the nation in its history and conduct. [Note: E.g., Alexander, "Ezekiel," p. 810; and Dyer, "Ezekiel," p. 1255.] I think it is best to take Jerusalem as describing the city for three reasons. First, the Lord compared Jerusalem to two other cities, Samaria and Sodom (Eze 16:44-56; Eze 16:61). Second, everything the prophet said about Jerusalem fits the city, its history and inhabitants. Third, the purpose of the parable was to convince the Jews in exile that the city of Jerusalem, specifically, would experience destruction because of the sins of its people. The purpose of the story was to show the exiles that the destruction of Jerusalem that Ezekiel predicted was well deserved so they would believe that God would destroy it.
Canaan was the place of Jerusalem’s origin and birth, a land notorious for its depravity. Thus it was understandable that the Israelites would tend toward idolatry. Jerusalem’s founders, in pre-patriarchal days, were Amorites and Hittites, not Hebrews. Amorites and Hittites were two of the Canaanite peoples, and they often represent all the Canaanites in the Old Testament (Gen 10:15-16; Gen 15:16; Num 13:29; Jos 1:4; Jos 5:1; Jos 7:7; Jos 24:15; Jos 24:18; Amo 2:10). The Jebusites, who occupied Jerusalem from its earliest mention in Scripture, were another Canaanite tribe. The Table of Nations lists the Jebusites between the Hittites and the Amorites (Gen 10:15-16). When Jerusalem came into existence, she received no special treatment, not even normal care.
"It was the custom in the ancient Near East to wash a newborn child, rub it with salt for antiseptic reasons, and wrap it in cloths, changing these twice by the fortieth day after the umbilical cord was cut." [Note: Alexander, "Ezekiel," p. 811. See also Fisch, p. 84; Greenberg, p. 274; and Cooke, p. 162.]
Jerusalem was not an outstanding city from its founding. Many other cities in Canaan had better situations geographically, had better physical resources, and were more easily defensible militarily.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)