Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 16:30

How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these [things], the work of an imperious whorish woman;

30. How weak is thine heart ] i.e. how passion-sick, consumed by desire. The term “heart” ( fem.) occurs nowhere else, and the plur. (Psa 7:10; Pro 15:11) is hardly evidence for it (Ges.). LXX. renders: how shall I deal with thy daughter (exactly as Hos 11:9 how shall I deal with thee, Ephraim). Our present text lay before the translator: “with thy daughter” is “thy heart” with different points; and “weak” was probably read as part of verb “to fill” (spelled as Job 8:21) and rendered freely. The text, however, may be faulty.

imperious woman ] Not positive: domineering; but negative: subject to no control, unbridled.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Eze 16:30

How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things.

The weak place

Three great errors of the day will stand corrected if due attention be paid to our text.

I. That a mans life may be irregular and yet the mans heart be good. Here is a man who has little or no sense of practical honesty. He thinks the very least of getting into debt without the slightest probability of ever being able to discharge his liabilities. He lives in a superior house, lives in luxury, his family dress well, give entertainments, etc. But they never trouble about paying anybody; they will fail and begin over again, that they may do the same trick. Now, people will say of such an one: Yes, he is sadly wanting in prudence, in discretion, in management; but really, he is as generous, good-hearted a fellow as ever lived. But, in fact, he is nothing of the sort. Content to feed on the fruits of others industry, he is essentially false and cruel. Another of these good-hearted fellows is the man who wont work. People say of him, What a pity! He has a fine disposition, he ought to have been born a gentleman. The fact is, he has made a blackguard of himself, whatever he was born; he has not a fine disposition, but, a base disposition; he lacks all that independence, self-reliance, courage which are the very essence of noble character. Another of these deceivers is the specious fellow, wanting in social purity and honour. People will speak regretfully of the escapades, the gallantries, the scandals, of what are termed the gay Lotharios; but these scoundrels are chided as if their infidelities and libertinism were simply on the surface, and, despite their licence, they are reckoned as honest, kind men of the world. Not so. Such men are profoundly selfish, cowardly, bloodguilty. Or take many intemperate men. People say: Fine fellow; only, his own enemy. But that will not do. Breaking the heart of his friends, killing his wife, reducing his family to shame and wretchedness, he is altogether destitute of the qualities of honourable men. Evil conduct may assume the aspect of innocence, gaiety, greatness, but analyse it and it shall be seen to be mean, base, low, cowardly, ignoble. How weak, corrupt, vile is thine heart, seeing thou doest all these things.

II. That a mans life may be irregular and yet the mans heart be strong. This is the second error to be corrected by our text. There is really weakness in all sin, most pitiful weakness no matter how cunningly it may simulate strength. Take a passionate man. He feels strong, he looks strong, his language is strong; but in truth he is weakness itself. No matter how in his wrath he affects the god, he is the mere sport of the wind. The very word passion signifies the passivity of the man–not that he is the actor, but that he is being acted upon. The calm, patient man is the strong man. Take the ambitious man. He seems strong-natured, strong-willed, but real strength is wanting. A man like Napoleon seems a very incarnation of strength, but the fretfulness displayed by him on the rock of exile betrayed his essential weakness. Take a discontented man. People are ready to think that the complainings of such are signs of a large, powerful genius which frets at narrow conditions; but it is not so. Emerson says: Discontent is the infirmity of the will. And this view is fully borne out by Paul: I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content . . . I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Contentment is a question of strength. Take a selfish man. He is restless, daring, aggressive, assertive, grasping, and may easily be accounted a man of superior force; but one of the greatest preachers of our age has just shown us that the mightiest of all energies is the energy of unselfishness. Take a man of great animal appetites and indulgences. He thinks himself a bold, strong man, and many are disposed to think this type manly; but that is not the view of the prophet: How effeminate is thine heart, seeing thou doest all these things. Carlyle says truly: Crabbedness, pride, obstinacy, affectation are at bottom want of strength. The revelation of divinest strength lies in overcoming wickedness, and he who is overcome by wickedness is in soul dyspeptic, paralysed, crippled, impotent.

III. That a mans life may be irregular and yet the mans heart be neutral. The third error corrected by the text. Without saying, perhaps, that a man who leads a bad life has a noble heart, or a strong one, many are prepared today to say that the mans heart has nothing to do with his conduct whatever. The fault is not in the thoughts, affections, will, at all. The source of mans conduct is boldly affirmed to be his organisation; the man has an inborn character from which he cannot escape, his general constitution determines his personal conduct. And the circumstances of the man complete the ring of necessity in which he moves. Now, in opposition to this, the text declares the heart to be originative, the prime source of mischief. The conduct of Israel in entering into alliances with Egypt and Babylon and Nineveh is not condoned on the ground of Israel occupying a peculiar geographical situation, which rendered such alliances politic and necessary in the view of worldly wisdom; nothing is said of the peculiar geographical position, but the conduct of Israel is referred at once to their lack of true faith, of noble will, of inward loyalty to their covenant-keeping God. So today God does not excuse our bad conduct on the grounds of the nature we inherit, or the events which influence us, but He attributes to the individual a full, solemn responsibility. It is false; we are not waifs and strays, the sport of winds and currents: we are ocean steamers throbbing with a mysterious independent energy; we can set winds and waves at defiance, we know in which direction lies our path, we can turn the helm whithersoever we list, and if we make shipwreck we are not blameless, as an empty bottle driven on this shore or that, but we are found guilty and condemned by God and man as men at the wheel are found disobedient, as captains are found asleep, as pilots are found drunk or presumptuous. The great need then is the renewal of the human heart. Society needs regeneration before it will permit any considerable reconstruction. Seek in the Church to strengthen the conscience, to purify the life–that is our first grand work. And as to the individual, the defects of our life must be cured in the defects of our spirit. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Half-hearted men

A half-and-half man, a half-and-half creed, will never meet with violent opposition or enmity from the world. Even what might be called a three-quarters man will escape without very much harm. It is the out-and-out Christian, and the out-and-out creed that the world hates. Making compromises is an old trade of Satans. It is one at which he shows consummate skill; he is wilting to be large and liberal; he will concede far more than at first sight anyone would suppose; in fact, he will go so far as to say, You may be nine-tenths Christs if only as regards the remaining tenth you will agree to be mine. The man of God must nail his colours to the mast, and not listen even for a moment to any terms upon which those colours are to be struck. (P. B. Power.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Weak; unstable, like water that melts away. Neither hast strength of judgment to discern the truth and purity of religion, nor hast strength of resolution to hold fast to it.

Doest all these things; changest thy God and religion, or detest on all the gaudy, pompous religions and idols thou hearest of.

Imperious whorish woman; a woman who thinks herself her own, that knows no superior, nor will be either guided and governed to do good, nor reproved and reclaimed from evil; a woman whose lust is her law, and her husband her contempt and burden. Such will be boundless in her disorders, and shameless too.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

30. weak . . . heartSinweakens the intellect (“heart”) as, on the contrary,”the way of the Lord is strength to the upright” (Pr10:29).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God,…. Through sin; and being destitute of the grace of God, and so unable to resist any temptation, or oppose any corruption or lust, but carried away with everyone that offers; indulging every lust, and yet not satisfied; weak as water, unstable, fickle, and inconstant, seeking after new gods, and new kinds of worship. The Targum is,

“how strong is the wickedness of thy heart!”

the stronger the wickedness of the heart, the weaker, the heart is:

seeing thou doest all these [things]; all the idolatries before mentioned; which was an argument not of her strength, but weakness, and yet of boldness, impudence, and resolution, to have her will:

the work of an imperious whorish woman; a whore, as she is impudent, is imperious, is one that rules and governs. The Targum is, who rules over herself; does what she pleases, will have her will and way, and cannot bear any contradiction; and who rules over others, such as are her gallants, obliging them to do as she commands. Jarchi’s note is,

“over whom her imagination (or corruption) rules.”

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Prophet seems at variance with himself when he compares the Jews to a robust or very strong woman, and yet says that their heart was dissolute. For those who translate an obstinate heart are without a reason for it, for this seems to imply some kind of resistance, as they were strong and bold, and yet of a soft or weak or infirm heart. But in the despisers of God both evils are to be blamed when they flow away like water and yet are hard as rocks. They flow away, then, when there is no strength or constancy in them; for they are drawn aside this way and that, as some explain it, by a distracted heart, but we must always come to the idea of softness. All who revolt from God are borne along by their own levity, so that the minds of the impious are changeable and moveable: for the heart is here taken for the seat of the intellect, as in many other places. Hence the Prophet accuses the Jews of sloth, but under the name of a dissolute heart: as in French we say un coeur lasche , and the Prophet’s sense is best explained by that French word — faint-hearted. But it is sufficient to understand the Prophet’s meaning, that the Jews were unstable, and agitated and distracted hither and thither, since there was nothing in them either firm or solid. Meanwhile he compares them to a strong and abandoned woman, since we know the boldness of the despisers of God in sinning against him. Since then they are dissolute, because they have no power of attention, and nothing is stable in their minds: yet they are like rocks, and carry themselves audaciously, and do not hesitate to strive with God. Although therefore these two states of mind appear contrary in their nature, yet we may always see them in the reprobate, though in different ways. Thus he properly calls the Jews not only a robust or abandoned woman, but “a high and mighty dame,” as it may best be rendered in French, une maitresse putain ou painarde . (112) It is forced to explain the word “lofty,” as taking license for her desires. I do not hesitate to interpret it of the people being like dissolute women, who throw aside all modesty, and seek lovers from all quarters, and entertain them all. This is the Prophet’s sense. It now follows —

(112) The readers of Shakespeare will readily translate this into idiomatic English.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(30) Weak.The English word scarcely expresses the force of the original :languishing with desire. The word heart occurs here only in the feminine.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

30. How weak is thine heart imperious The Polychrome Bible reads, “How consumed wert thou by passion.” Cornill, following the Coptic and Arabic versions, reads, “What have I to do with thy covenant?”

(See Eze 16:8.) Plumptre suggests “masterful” as a synonym for “imperious;” “one who is subject to no outward control.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“How weak is your heart,” says the Lord Yahweh, “seeing you do all these things, the work of an imperious, whorish woman, in that you build your eminent place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been like a prostitute in that you scorn hire. A wife who commits adultery. Who takes strangers instead of her husband.”

Israel’s behaviour is shown for what it is, the product of a weak and faithless heart. She behaves just like a prostitute, with her prostitute podiums and cultic shrines offering these services. But she is worse than a prostitute, for she does not do it for money in order to survive, but she does it because she loves it, deliberately faithless to her husband with any stranger who passes by. And it is flagrant. She does not creep about, ashamed of what she is, but is ‘imperious’, proudly displaying her behaviour and arrogant with it.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Eze 16:30. How weak is thine heart, &c. How shall I circumcise thine heart, &c. Houbigant.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eze 16:30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these [things], the work of an imperious whorish woman;

Ver. 30. How weak is thine heart. ] Weak as water, melted in spiritual lust, putrefying alive, and perishing daily, as Tiberius said he perceived himself to do at Capreae. a This is here uttered by way of admiration; and the word rendered heart, being otherwhere of the masculine gender, is here made feminine, to show how idolaters are effeminated to a base and sensual esteem of God and his service. Hebrew Text Note

The work of an imperious whorish woman. ] b Of a strong whore; c weak to do good, but strong to do evil; so are all idolaters with their hippomanes et cacoethes. The word rendered imperious signifieth a sultaness or queen; who, if with a queen, what will she not dare to do? See it in that whore of Babylon, who sitteth as a queen, &c. The unbridled boisterousness of idolaters, see Jer 44:16-17 .

a Sueton.

b Pervicacissimae et procacissimae.

c Une paillarde robuste. – French.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)