Ezekiel 16:3

3 Say this: 'The Message of God, the Master, to Jerusalem: You were born and bred among Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

Ezekiel 16:3 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 16:3

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" ^F6: 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, ( Genesis 37:2 Genesis 37:6 Genesis 37:29 Genesis 37:30 ) ( Matthew 1:3 ) ; besides, the Jews were the successors of these people, and possessed their land, and imitated them in their wicked practices, ( Amos 2:10 ) ( 9:7 ) ; and these two, the Amorite and Hittite, of all the seven nations, are mentioned, because they were the worst, and the most wicked, ( Genesis 15:16 ) ( 27:46 ) . The Jews ^F7 say Terah the father of Abraham, and his ancestors, came from Canaan.

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 (Kytyrkm) "habitationes tuae", Pagninus, Calvin; "mansiones tuae", Montanus; "habitatio tua", Vatablus, Grotius; so R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 30. 1.
F7 T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 44. 2. & Gloss. in ib.

Ezekiel 16:3 In-Context

1 God's Message came to me:

2 "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her outrageous violations.

3 Say this: 'The Message of God, the Master, to Jerusalem: You were born and bred among Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.

4 "'On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren't bathed and cleaned up, you weren't rubbed with salt, you weren't wrapped in a baby blanket.

5 No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed - a newborn nobody wanted.