What is the main message of this passage about Jerusalem?

This chapter tells the story of Jerusalem like a parable about a woman’s life. God pictures the city first as an unwanted newborn thrown into a field, dirty and left to die. He passes by, tells her to live, cares for her, lets her grow, and then marries her. He washes her, clothes her in fine garments, gives her jewelry, food, honor, and beauty. But instead of loving Him back, she trusts in her beauty, turns to idols, makes alliances with other nations, and even offers her children to false gods. So God announces judgment, yet ends by promising to remember His covenant and bring restoration.

What does it mean that Jerusalem was "polluted in thy blood" and God said "Live"?

The picture of being “polluted in thy blood” is like a newborn baby left unwashed and uncared for, still covered in birth blood, abandoned in a field. It shows how helpless and unwanted Jerusalem was, both in her outward troubles and in her sin. When God says, “Live,” He is not just cheering her on. He is giving life where there was only death. He chooses to rescue, protect, and grow this people by His own grace, not because they were lovely or strong, but because He was merciful.

What is the "time of love" and God spreading His skirt over Jerusalem?

The “time of love” is when the child in the story has grown up into a young woman. God says that at that time He spread His skirt over her and covered her nakedness, then swore an oath and entered a covenant with her. Spreading the skirt is marriage language, like taking someone under your protection. It means God chose Israel to be His own people in a special, binding way. He did not just rescue them from misery, He joined Himself to them, promising care and calling them to be faithful to Him alone.

Why does God call Jerusalem a harlot and an adulterous wife?

God uses the strong picture of a harlot and an unfaithful wife to describe idolatry and unfaithful alliances. He had entered a covenant with Jerusalem like a marriage. When the people used His gifts to serve idols, built high places everywhere, ran after Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldea for help, and even sacrificed their children, it was like a wife throwing herself at other men. God says she is worse than common prostitutes, because instead of being paid, she actually paid her “lovers.” This shows how deeply sin had twisted their hearts away from Him.

What does this passage say was the sin of Sodom?

This passage gives a very clear list of Sodom’s sins. It says Sodom’s iniquity was pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness. They had plenty, lived at ease, and were proud. At the same time, they did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abomination before God, so He took them away. The point here is that Jerusalem had seen Sodom’s judgment, yet still went further in sin. Instead of learning from Sodom’s fall, Jerusalem became even more corrupt in her ways.

Why is Jerusalem said to be worse than Samaria and Sodom?

Jerusalem is called the sister of Samaria and Sodom and then told she has done worse than both. Samaria had her own false worship, and Sodom was known for pride, laziness, plenty, and shocking sin. Yet Jerusalem had greater light and greater gifts from God. She had God’s temple, His laws, and His special care. Still, she multiplied sins beyond them, copied their ways, and then judged them with her mouth. Because of that, God says her behavior makes them look almost righteous in comparison, and she must bear her shame for going further than they did.

How does God describe His judgment on Jerusalem in this chapter?

God says He will treat Jerusalem like a woman caught in adultery and bloodshed. He will gather all her “lovers” and those she loved and hated, and let them see her shame. These nations will strip her, break down her high places, stone her, thrust her through with the sword, and burn her houses. This is a picture of invasion, ruin, and public disgrace. God calls this His fury and jealousy, which will finally rest only when her unfaithfulness is stopped. It shows that His judgment is serious and matches the depth of their betrayal.

What does this passage teach about God’s character?

Here we see both God’s deep mercy and His holy anger. He finds Jerusalem helpless and filthy, yet speaks life and cares for her. He washes, clothes, feeds, and honors her, giving beauty that really comes from Him. He enters a covenant like a faithful husband. When she throws that love away and turns to idols and cruel practices like child sacrifice, He does not shrug it off. He is jealous in a good way, refusing to share His people with idols. Yet even after speaking hard judgment, He says He will remember His covenant and one day be pacified toward them.

What is the everlasting covenant God promises near the end?

Near the end, God says that even though Jerusalem has broken the covenant and despised His oath, He will remember His covenant from the days of her youth and establish an everlasting covenant. This looks beyond the present judgment to a future work of God’s grace. In that time, His people will remember their ways, be ashamed, and stop boasting. God will bring in others, pictured as sisters, and give them to Jerusalem not because of her own covenant, but out of His mercy. The result is that they will know He is the LORD and be humbled by His forgiveness.

How can this hard passage about sin and judgment apply to believers today?

Even though this chapter speaks first about Jerusalem, it gives a pattern that still speaks to us. It reminds us that any goodness we have comes from God’s mercy, not from ourselves. He is the One who says “Live,” washes us, and gives us every gift. When we forget where we came from and trust our own “beauty,” success, or religious status, we can slip into spiritual adultery, putting other things in God’s place. This passage calls us to remember our beginnings, confess sin honestly, take God’s warnings seriously, and rest in His mercy that leads to real repentance and humble gratitude.

Ezek.16.1

Ezekiel 16:1

KJV

Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

Jerusalem’s Unfaithfulness

1 Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,

3 And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.

4 And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.

5 None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.

6 ¶ And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.

7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.

8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.

9 Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.

10 I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.

11 I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.

12 And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.

13 Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.

14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God.

15 ¶ But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.

16 And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.

17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,

18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.

19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord God.

20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter,

21 That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?

22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.

23 And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord God;)

24 That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.

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.

26 Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.

27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.

28 Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.

29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.

30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;

31 In that thou buildest 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;

32 But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband!

33 They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.

34 And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.

Judgment on Jerusalem

35 ¶ Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord:

36 Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;

37 Behold, therefore 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.

38 And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.

39 And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.

40 They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords.

41 And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.

42 So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.

43 Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.

44 ¶ Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.

45 Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.

46 And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

47 Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.

48 As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.

49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

51 Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.

52 Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.

53 When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them:

54 That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them.

55 When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.

56 For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride,

57 Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about.

58 Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the Lord.

The Covenant Remembered

59 For thus saith the Lord God; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.

60 ¶ Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.

61 Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.

62 And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord:

63 That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.

Cross References

No cross references available for this verse.