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Ezekiel 16:1

King James Version (KJV)
Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Idolatry is frequently represented by the prophets under the figure of a wife‘s unfaithfulness to her husband. This image is here so portrayed, as to exhibit the aggravation of Israel‘s guilt by reason of her origin and early history. The original abode of the progenitors of the race was the land of Canaan, defiled with idolatry and moral corruption. Israel itself was like a child born in a polluted land, abandoned from its birth, left by its parents in the most utter neglect to the chance regard of any passer-by. Such was the state of the people in Egypt Ezekiel 16:3-5. On such a child the Lord looked with pity, tended, and adopted it. Under His care it grew up to be comely and beautiful, and the Lord joined it to Himself in that close union, which is figured by the bonds of wedlock. The covenants made under Moses and Joshua represent this alliance Ezekiel 16:6-8. In the reigns of David and Solomon, Israel shone with all the glory of temporal prosperity Ezekiel 16:9-14. The remainder of the history of the people when divided is, in the prophet‘s eye, a succession of defection and degradation marked by the erection of high places Ezekiel 16:16-20; by unholy alliances with foreign nations Ezekiel 16:26-33. Such sins were soon to meet their due punishment. As an unfaithful wife was brought before the people, convicted, and stoned, so should the Lord make His people a gazing-stock to all the nations round about, deprive them of all their possessions and of their city, and cast them forth as exiles to be spoiled and destroyed in a foreign land Ezekiel 16:35-43.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose.