Ezekiel 16 explained: Jerusalem, the Rescued Bride Who Strayed

Abandoned at birth (vv. 1-7)

Jerusalem is pictured as a newborn girl left in a field to die, without even the basic care of washing, rubbing with salt and wrapping, until the LORD passes by and says "Live!" (v. 6). Her Amorite father and Hittite mother, two peoples of old Canaan, likely recall that Jerusalem was a Canaanite city before Israel took it.

Married and made a queen (vv. 8-14)

Spreading the corner of a garment over a woman was a sign of taking her in marriage (compare Ruth 3:9), and the oath and covenant (a binding agreement) most likely point to God's agreement with Israel at Mount Sinai. The clothes, jewels, fine food and crown picture Israel growing into a rich kingdom, a splendor that v. 14 calls a gift.

Unfaithfulness pictured as prostitution (vv. 15-34)

Worship of other gods is pictured as sexual betrayal: she dresses and feeds idols with the LORD's own gifts, and even kills her children as offerings to them (vv. 20-21). The "lovers" Egypt, Assyria and Babylon (vv. 26-29) most likely stand for political alliances and the gods that came with them, and unlike a prostitute she pays them (vv. 31-34).

The sentence on Jerusalem (vv. 35-43)

Her former lovers are gathered to strip her, stone her and cut her down, echoing the death penalties Israel's law set for adultery and bloodshed and pointing to Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Many readers today are troubled that God's anger is shown as a husband publicly shaming and killing his wife, and the text does not soften it.

Worse than her sisters (vv. 44-58)

Samaria, the northern capital already destroyed by Assyria, and Sodom, the city destroyed in Genesis, are called her sisters, and Jerusalem is told she has outdone both. Verse 49 names Sodom's sin as pride, plenty and careless ease while ignoring the poor, and vv. 53-55 promise to restore all three, a line readers take in different ways.

A covenant remembered (vv. 59-63)

Though she broke her oath, the LORD says he will remember the covenant of her youth, make an everlasting one, and give her the sister nations as daughters, though not through her own covenant, a phrase read in more than one way. Translations differ on whether he "forgives" her or "makes atonement" for her, and Christians have read this everlasting covenant as pointing to the new covenant through Jesus.

Key verse: Ezekiel 16:60

Where Christians differ

Interpreters differ on whether the promise to restore Sodom, Samaria and Jerusalem in vv. 53-55 is real hope, or a biting way of saying Jerusalem will recover only when Sodom does, that is, never, with the true promise of mercy held back until v. 60.

Something to think about

Do you think people who have been given more should be held to a higher standard than others, and why?