Ezekiel 16:22

Eze 16:22 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.

Ver. 22. Thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth.] Hence all thy haughtiness and hauntiness. We should often say, as that noble Iphicrates the Athenian once did, Eξ οιων εις ο ια, From how small to how great matters hath the Lord raised me!

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

not remembered . . . youth--Forgetfulness of God's love is the source of all sins. Israel forgot her deliverance by God in the infancy of her national life. See Eze 16:43, to which Eze 16:60 forms a lovely contrast (Jer 2:2; Hos 11:1).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Here God accommodates to his own ends what he has hitherto related, namely, the extreme wickedness and baseness of the people’s ingratitude in thus prostituting themselves to idols. Hence he recalls to mind their condition when he espoused them. For if the wretched slavery from which they had been delivered had been present to their mind, they had not been so blinded with perverse confidence, nor had they exulted in their lasciviousness. But since they had forgotten all God’s benefits, they became lascivious, and prostrated themselves to foul idolatries, and provoked God in every way. Now the Prophet proves this when he says, behold, through these abominations the people did not remember their youth. Whence happens it that impure and lustful women thus despise their husbands, unless through being blinded by their own beauty? And since they do not recognize their own disgrace, they please themselves in foul loves, as says the Prophet Hosea, (Hosea 2:5.) Such then was the self-confidence of the, Jews, that they pleased themselves by their beauty and ornaments: though God’s glory and brightness shone forth in them, yet they did not perceive the source of their dignity; and hence the addition of ingratitude to pride. You have not remembered, says he, the days of thy youth, when you was naked, and bare, and defiled in thy blood. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

22. So absorbed was Jerusalem in her infidelities that she remembered nothing of her early history, “the shame of her youth,” nor the compassion shewed her by Jehovah. On “polluted” cf. Eze_16:6.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And it came to pass after all thy wickedness,.... This refers either to what goes before, so Kimchi; and the sense is, it shall be again as it was at first, after and because of all the above wickedness committed, thou shalt be left naked and bare, and destitute of all that is good: or rather to what follows in the next clause; and the meaning is, to all this wickedness before mentioned, which was so great that it might be thought nothing more could be added to it; and yet the following things were, as building an eminent place, and high places, in all streets and heads of ways:

woe, woe unto thee, saith the Lord of hosts; which is repeated, to show the indignation of the Lord against all this wickedness; to arouse their attention to their sin and punishment, and to show the certainty of it; and it may be it denotes both their misery in this world, and in that to come. The Targum of the whole is,

"what shall be in thine end for all thy wickedness? the prophet said unto her, woe unto thee, because thou hast sinned; woe unto thee, because thou art not converted, saith the Lord God.''

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Thou wast so intent upon and delighted in thy lewd courses, thou never thoughtest what once thou wast, or what again thou mightest be.

In all thine abominations, both corporal and spiritual.

Thy whoredoms: this is the same thing charged thus on her, because she would not consider, or lay it to heart.

Thou hast not remembered; thou hast utterly forgotten; it is a form of speech that contains more than the words seem to have in them, she had forgotten herself and her God.

Thy youth; the misery and loathsomeness of thy birth, which is expressed very elegantly.

1. Naked, as contemptible as poverty could make her.

2. Nay, she was nakedness itself, as the word will bear, exposed to all the suffering that can befall such poor helpless wretches.

3. Bleeding to death in a most loathsome, defiled condition, that none would come near her: but, ungrateful, she forgot all.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thou hast not remembered. The words gain a fuller significance when we recollect those of Ezekiel"s master. (Jer_2:2) The husband remembered "the love of her espousals;" the faithless wife forgot from what a life of shame and misery she had then been rescued.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

the days of your youth My acts of kindness that I performed for you in Egypt.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.