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Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 16:3

Commentary and Critical Notes. Browse this work.

Ezekiel16:3

Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan - It would dishonor 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, Mat 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. 4:365. "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.

Adam Clarke, Commentary and Critical Notes, Ezekiel 16:3. Public domain.

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