Thou buildest; see Ezekiel 16:24; whereas the paramours of other lewd women build for them, as it is reported of Solomon, 1 Kings 11:7,8. Here, on the contrary, this unfaithful nation forsake their God, commit fornication with strange gods, and bear the charges both of building their temples, and furnishing them with sacrifices, and maintaining the priests. Thine eminent place: see Ezekiel 16:24. Every way: see Ezekiel 16:25. In every street: see Ezekiel 16:24. Hast not been as an harlot; common harlots make gain of their looseness, and live by that gain, they make a prey of the men that come in to them; thou doest worse, thou lavishest out thy credit, wealth, and all, to maintain and please thine adulterers. Scornest; the Hebrew word is of two significations, and opposite to each other, for it bears, as our translation renders it, contempt, slighting, or disregarding; and so it suiteth with what follows, Ezekiel 16:32-34. It signifieth also to praise, value, and regard, as Buxtorf observes; and it will as well, if not better, be so rendered here, and be the character of a common harlot, which wandereth after her lovers with a design of receiving the rewards of her lewdness; and thus the Chaldee paraphrase reads it; so we shall need no parenthesis, nor begin the antithesis till the 32nd verse.
Related Commentaries of Ezekiel 16:31
Ezekiel 16:31
31 In that thou buildestj thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire;