Ezekiel 16:27 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 16:27
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.
a road (as trodden) · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 9:12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but…
Ezekiel 16:57 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 daught…
Ezekiel 16:37 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 th…
Deuteronomy 28:48-57 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of…
2 Kings 24:2 And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon…
2 Chronicles 28:18-19 The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the low country, and of the south of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, and Ajalon, and Geder…
Psalms 106:41 And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them.
Isaiah 3:1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 16:15-34
In these verses we have an account of the great wickedness of the people of Israel, especially in worshipping idols, notwithstanding the great favours that God had conferred upon them, by which, one would think, they should have been for ever engaged to him. This wickedness of theirs is here represented by the lewd and scandalous conversation of that beautiful maid which was rescued from ruin, brought up and well provided for by a kind friend and benefactor, that had been in all respects as a father and a husband to her. Their idolatry was the great provoking sin that they were guilty of; it began in the latter end of Solomon's time (for from Samuel's till then I do not remember that we read…
The consequent judgments, which, however, proved of no avail in reforming the people (Isa 9:13; Jer 5:3).
delivered thee unto . . . Philistines-- (Kg2 16:6; Ch2 28:18-19).
ashamed of thy lewd way--The Philistines were less wanton in idolatry, in that they did not, like Israel, adopt the idols of every foreign country but were content with their own (Eze 16:57; Jer 2:11).
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 16:27
Have diminished thine ordinary - חקך chukkech means here the household provision made for a wife - food, clothing, and money.
John Gill on Ezekiel 16:27
Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee,.... His chastising and correcting hand, to show his resentment at their sins, and bring them to a sense of them, and repentance for them:
and have diminished thine ordinary food; their stated allowances, the common mercies and blessings of life they had been indulged with, but now were lessened; and particularly a famine was brought upon them, as well as they were deprived of other favours for their sins; God dealing with them as husbands with their wanton wives, who keep them to stricter allowance, and closer confinement, in order to check and tame them:
and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 27.) Behold, I will stretch forth my hand over you and will take away your righteousness, and I will give you over to the souls of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your wicked way. LXX: But if I stretch out my hand against you and take away your lawful possession and give you over to the souls of those who hate you, the daughters of foreigners who led you astray from your path. And what follows, 'ἠσέβησας,' that is, 'you acted impiously,' is connected with the following chapter according to the Septuagint, but according to the other translations, it is the end of the previous chapter. However, the Lord stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to correct the wrongdoer and take away its rightful possessions, which, as long as he observed God's commandments, were called the rightful possessions of the Lord. But when he worshiped idols and changed his religion into impiety, they are by no means called his rightful possessions. Which not only in the law and ceremonies, but also in the Sabbaths and feast days and new moons, must be observed. For in the law, it is said: My Sabbaths and my feast days. But when they turned away from God, it is said to them: I will not receive your new moons, and Sabbaths, and great day: my soul hates your fasting and rest, and your solemnities (Exodus 31; Deuteronomy 5; Isaiah 1:14). This is also written about the people (Deuteronomy 7). For when the people, who were previously called the people of God, turned away from the Lord, it is said of them concerning Moses: 'Your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, has sinned' (Exodus XXXII, 7). The stretching out of the hand is here called elsewhere as lifting up or visiting. For when God does not correct the sinner, He withdraws His hand. But if the sinner sins and begins to be sick in God's law, a visitation is sent to him; according to what is sung in the psalm: 'If his children forsake my law and do not walk in my judgements, I will visit their iniquities with the rod' (Psalm LXXXIX, 31, 32). And in this the prophet has written: If the earth sins against me to commit a crime, I will stretch out my hand against it and break its bread supply, and so on. In this we are questioning what the difference is between the stretching out of the hand and its emission. However, the devil speaks to the Lord: Stretch out your hand and touch…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Fornication — In every form of it was sternly condemned by the Mosaic law (Lev. 21:9; 19:29; Deut. 22:20, 21, 23-29; 23:18; Ex. 22:16). (See ADULTERY.) But this word is more frequently used in a symbolical than in…
Solomon, Song of — Called also, after the Vulgate, the “Canticles.” It is the “song of songs” (1:1), as being the finest and most precious of its kind; the noblest song, “das Hohelied,” as Luther calls it. The…
High Places · Licentious practices at — Licentious practices at
Lasciviousness · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Ezekiel 16:27
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.
27. Et ecce, extendi manum meam super te, et diminui demensum tuum, et tradidi te desiderio [105] earum quae te oderant filiarum Philistim, quae pudefactae sunt a viis tuis sceleris. [106]
Here God reproves the hardness of the Jews because admonition did not render them wise. The common proverb aptly says, "fools grow wise only by the rod;" and when their obstinacy is such that the rod does no good, their faults are indeed desperate. Hence God compla…
Extent and Magnitude of the Idolatry
Eze 16:23. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness - Woe, woe to thee! is the saying of the Lord Jehovah - Eze 16:24. Thou didst build thyself arches, and didst make thyself high places in all the streets. Eze 16:25. Thou didst build thy high places at every cross road, and didst disgrace thy beauty, and stretch open thy feet for every one that passed by, and didst increase thy whoredom. Eze 16:26. Thou didst commit fornication with the sons of Egypt thy neighbours, great in flesh, and didst increase thy whoredom to provoke me. Eze 16:27. And, behold, I stretched out my hand against thee, and diminished thine allowance, and gave thee up to the desire…
Jerusalem actively promoted promiscuity in pursuing Egypt, the Assyrians, and Babylonia in alliances that were financially costly and that rarely delivered the expected benefits. These alliances would have been just as reprehensible if they had delivered tangible political benefits, because they demonstrated lack of trust in the Lord. Inevitably, they also led Israel into worship of the allied nations’ gods.
Rashi on Ezekiel 16:27
your ration Your food, in the days that the judges judged.
and I delivered you to the will of those who hate you in the days of Samson.
who were embarrassed by your lewd way Jonathan [paraphrases]: For had I sent My prophets to them, they would have humbled themselves, and they would not have gone in the way of your lewdness.
