John Calvin on Ezekiel 16:22
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Ezekiel16:22
Here God accommodates to his own ends what he has hitherto related, namely, the extreme wickedness and baseness of the people’s ingratitude in thus prostituting themselves to idols. Hence he recalls to mind their condition when he espoused them. For if the wretched slavery from which they had been delivered had been present to their mind, they had not been so blinded with perverse confidence, nor had they exulted in their lasciviousness. But since they had forgotten all God’s benefits, they became lascivious, and prostrated themselves to foul idolatries, and provoked God in every way. Now the Prophet proves this when he says, behold, through these abominations the people did not remember their youth. Whence happens it that impure and lustful women thus despise their husbands, unless through being blinded by their own beauty? And since they do not recognize their own disgrace, they please themselves in foul loves, as says the Prophet Hosea, (Hosea 2:5.) Such then was the self-confidence of the, Jews, that they pleased themselves by their beauty and ornaments: though God’s glory and brightness shone forth in them, yet they did not perceive the source of their dignity; and hence the addition of ingratitude to pride. You have not remembered, says he, the days of thy youth, when you was naked, and bare, and defiled in thy blood. It follows —
Ezekiel 16:23-25
23. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;)
23. Et fuit post omnem malitiam tuam, Vae vae tibi, dicit Dominator Iehovah.
24. That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.
24. Et aedificasti tibi excelsum, et fecisti tibi excelsum in omni platea. In every street.” — Calvin.
25. Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
25. Ad omne caput Or, “beginning.” — Calvin. viae aedificasti excelsum tuum: et abominabilem fecisti tuam pulchritudinem: et divaricasti “Thou have poured forth, or opened; but we may use the proper word, you has spread.” — Calvin. pedes tuos omni transeunti, et multiplicasti tuas scortationes.
John Calvin, Commentaries, Ezekiel 16:22. Public domain.
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