ISRAEL’S PUNISHMENT WILL CORRESPOND WITH HER SINS. (Ezekiel 16:35-42)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.— Ezekiel 16:35-36. “Because thy filthiness was poured out.” Heb. “Because thy brass has been lavished.” Brass is used here to signify money. Israel had spent the wealth which God had given her in the servise of idolatry. “That the Jews, at least those in the exile, as well as classic antiquity, had copper money, follows even from our passage, and is confirmed by Matthew 10:9, Mark 12:41, where brass occurs directly for money. The paramours are, according to what follows, pre-eminently the world-powers themselves. Along with them are named the heathen gods, whose worship was a consequence of political dependence.—(Hengstenberg.) “And by the blood of thy children which thou didst give unto them.” They were also guilty of murder in sacrificing their children to Moloch (Ezekiel 16:20.)
Ezekiel 16:37. “I will gather all thy lovers.” Chiefly those of Assyria and Babylon. “With all them that thou hast hated.” These were the surrounding nations who were always lying in wait for an occasion against Israel. God would gather friend and foe against Jerusalem and use them as instruments to execute His judgments. Israel is to be punished in kind. She had cultivated friendship with the heathen and partaken of their iniquities, and now she shall be given up altogether into their power. “I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.” “The public judgment. First of all, the assembling of the lovers as witnesses. She who has dishonoured and brought herself to shame becomes now, by the interposition of God, to the one party an object of loathing, to the other an object of mockery. The last attraction, and what might still have been an object of regard, vanishes. Hävernick refers to the procedure in the case of a married woman suspected of adultery (Numbers 5:18).”—(Lange.)
Ezekiel 16:38. “And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged.” This is the explanation of the figurative language employed in the last verse. Israel was to be punished with the punishment of adulterers and murderers. “And I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.” “Thou shalt be turned into blood, so that nothing but blood may be left of thee, and that the blood of fury and jealousy, as the working of the wrath and jealousy of God (compare Ezekiel 16:42). To this end the heathen will destroy all the objects of idolatry, then take from the harlot both clothes and jewellery, and leave her naked, i.e. plunder Jerusalem and lay it waste, and, lastly, execute upon her the punishment of death by stoning and by sword; in other words, destroy both city and kingdom.”—(Keil.)
Ezekiel 16:39. “And leave thee naked and bare.” “As thou wast before the Lord had mercy on thee (Ezekiel 16:7). The unfaithful use of the gifts of God inevitably brings on their loss. God cannot be mocked.”—(Hengstenberg.)
Ezekiel 16:40. “They shall also bring up a company against thee.” “This may be explained from the ancient mode of administering justice, according to which the popular assembly (Proverbs 5:14) sat in judgment on cases of adultery and capital crimes, and executed the sentence, as the law for stoning expressly enjoins (Leviticus 20:2; Numbers 15:36; Deuteronomy 22:21). But they are also applicable to the foes, who would march against Jerusalem” (Keil). “And they shall stone thee with stones.” The usual mode of capital punishment under the Mosaic law, and which was inflicted for the crimes of idolatry, adultery, and murder. This doom pronounced upon Jerusalem was accomplished literally, for she was “stoned” before she was burned (Jeremiah 33:4). “With their swords.” Slaying with the sword was a mode of punishment adopted when there were many criminals to be put to death. It was also the doom of those who seduced men to apostacy (Deuteronomy 13:12-15).
Ezekiel 16:41. “And execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women.” “The many women are the many heathen nations, according to the description of Jerusalem or Israel as an unfaithful wife.”—(Keil.) “As it is the greatest punishment to an adulterous woman to be exposed in her sin before the eyes of other women; so will the severest portion of Israel’s punishment be, that it will stand exposed in its sin before the eyes of all other nations.”—(Klieforth.) Concerning the burning of the houses of Jerusalem with fire, see 2 Kings 25:8-9. “And thou also shalt give no hire any more.” “Because thou wilt have no more lovers; wilt, on the whole, after the dissolution of thy national independence, be no more in a condition which admits of impure intercourse with the world-powers.”—(Hengstenberg.)
Ezekiel 16:42. “So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee.” “The jealousy ceases because it has found its satisfaction in their punishment, and exhausted itself therein, as the fire ceases when it has consumed its fuel.”—(Hengstenberg.) “The Divine justice comes to an end in its character of jealousy—in other words, as the injured faithfulness and love of Israel’s husband. The departing of the jealousy might, perhaps, by comparison with Isaiah 11:13, show grace in the background; but the connection with what follows requires rather a thought like Hosea 2:4. Jehovah gives up the adulterous whorish wife.”—(Lange.)
HOMILETICS
THE PUNISHMENT OF APOSTACY
I. The loathsome nature of the sin is made manifest. The sin which the children of Israel had committed by their idolatry is called by its right name. It was the breaking of the sacred marriage-covenant into which God had entered with His people. All what whoredom and adultery is in the social state, all what filthiness is in the morals and manners of a people, such was their sin in the sight of God (Ezekiel 16:38). Israel was guilty of unfaithfulness of the worst kind. God had given the nation the privileges of an espoused wife, but she sinned with many lovers, thus despising the great grace which had called her to such distinction and honour. God’s punishments sometimes begin by revealing our sin to us in all its real vileness. The very conviction of sin is a painful wound—the arrows of the Almighty within our spirit.
II. The very objects of sinful desire are turned into the instruments of punishment. “I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness” (Ezekiel 16:37). Those who contributed to her sin shall be made the instruments of her punishment. Sinful love, sooner or later, changes into hate. The boon companions of the profligate turn out to be his bitterest enemies. They thus become a scourge in the hands of God to chastise him for his iniquity. There is no true honour amongst transgressors, for their life is founded upon a falsehood. And as God employed as a scourge for His people those who once were friends, He will also employ for chastisement those who were always enemies. “And with them that thou hast hated.” Those with whom the children of Israel sinned would make common cause with their enemies for their punishment.
III. The punishment will correspond with the sin.
1. In degree. They were to be punished as murderers and adulterers, for they had sinned “as women that break wedlock and shed blood” (Ezekiel 16:38). Stoning was the punishment of adultery, and this threat was literally fulfilled upon Jerusalem, for she was stoned before she was burned (Jeremiah 33:4). Their sin was great, and therefore their punishment, so great that even God’s fury is represented as being satisfied upon them, and quite brought to a pause (Ezekiel 16:42). They could no further go in iniquity, and so God’s fury is represented as ceasing; by which we are to understand that it rested upon them. He left them to their fate. God can bring it about that we shall be able to sin no further.
2. In kind. Their sin was public, and so their shame and their judgment were public. Their sin was unfaithfulness towards God, and they are punished by the unfaithfulness of men. They cast God off, and men cast them off. That law which is true of individual man is true also of nations, that the very things which they sow they shall also reap.
1. God’s hatred is so great, against idolatry and idolators that He will not endure the places where they have used idolatrous worship. The places where they sinned must be destroyed, broken, utterly razed and ruined. Hezekiah is commended for four things; and the first is for removing the high places; then for breaking the images, cutting down the groves, and breaking the brazen serpent.
2. When we abuse the mercies of God, we give Him cause to take them away. They decked their high places with their garments (Ezekiel 16:16); they made images of their jewels (Ezekiel 16:17). Here God threatens to take away both the one and the other. He would give them into their hands who should rob them of their fair jewels, and strip them of all their clothes (Isaiah 42:22). “And leave thee naked and bare.” Before, in Ezekiel 16:8, it is said, that God covered her nakedness. He found her naked, and now He would leave her naked and bare.
3. When God hath showed much kindness to a people, and they have been ungrateful, He will reduce them to their former condition. God did much for Ephraim, yet he was ungrateful, forgot God, went out to other lovers (Hosea 2:2-3). God had spread His skirt over this Jewish woman, clothed her with embroidered silk and fine linen, decked her with choice ornaments and jewels, put His comeliness upon her; but she abused all His bounty and love, proved ungrateful and whorish, and therefore He would put her into her first condition, strip her of all, and leave her naked. She came out of captivity, she should now go into captivity; she was cast out, and now she should be cast out again; she was poor, beggarly, and had nothing, and should be made so again.
4. When judgments are executed upon a backsliding people, then God is at rest and is satisfied. When this woman, this Jewish state, fell into the hands of enemies, was plundered and spoiled, and all her glory laid in the dust; then God caused His fury to rest, His jealousy to depart, then He was quiet, and angry no more. Before judgment be thoroughly executed, God is troubled and restless; but when it is done, He is pacified, comforted, as it is in Ezekiel 5:13. Before Jonah had judgment passed upon him, there was a great wind, and a mighty tempest in the sea. The Lord’s anger was let out. But when Jonah was sent, and cast into the sea—justice done—it is said the sea ceased from her raging. The Lord first ceased from His fury, He was pacified, and manifested it by stilling of the seas. God would bring the Assyrians upon the Jews; and what then? “The indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction” (Isaiah 10:25).—(Greenhill.)
This dire judgment is just; for Israel has not only forgotten God’s undeserved favour to her in her election, but has even surpassed both Samaria and Sodom in her abominations.