Ezekiel 16:24

Eze 16:24 [That] thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.

Ver. 24. That thou hast also built unto thee.] How stintless is sin, and how like is this to Jeremiah’s preaching! {Jer 2:3-8}

An eminent place.] Or brothel house, that thy madness may appear to all men.

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.

Eze 16:24-26. Thou hast also built thee an eminent place in every street — Manasseh filled Jerusalem with idols, 2Ch 33:4-5; 2Ch 33:15; the altars of many of which were placed upon high or eminent places. At every head of the way — Not content with what was done in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities, thou hast erected thine altars in the country, wherever it was likely passengers would come. Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians — While the Israelites sojourned in Egypt they learned to practise the Egyptian idolatries. From Josiah’s time the Jews were in strict confederacy with the Egyptians, and, to ingratiate themselves with them, practised their idolatries; and the worship of Tammuz, the idolatry they are upbraided with, chap. Eze 8:14, was derived from that country. Great of flesh — Who are naturally lusty and strong, and men of great stature. This expression seems to signify that the Israelites were allured by the riches and grandeur of Egypt to imitate their idolatries.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

eminent place--rather, "a fornication-chamber," often connected with the impure rites of idolatry; spiritual fornication, on "an eminent place," answering to "fornication-chamber," is mainly meant, with an allusion also to the literal fornication associated with it (Jer 2:20; Jer 3:2).

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

Verse 24. Thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place] גב gab, a stew or brothel; Vulg. lupanar; Septuag. οικημα πορνικον. So my old MS. Bible, a bordel house. "Thou hast builded thy stewes and bordell houses in every place." - Coverdale's Bible, 1535. Bordel is an Italian word: how it got so early into our language I know not. Our modern word brothel is a corruption of it. Diodati translates, Tu hai edificato un bordello, "Thou hast built a brothel." Houses of this kind were of a very ancient date.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(24) Built unto thee an eminent place.—The word means literally, arches. Such arched rooms were used in connection with the worship of idols for licentious purposes, and hence the translation of the margin indicates the real object of the structure, whether the word be taken in its literal sense, or spiritually, of unfaithfulness to God. In the following verse the indiscriminateness of Israel’s idolatry is expressed in the strongest terms, and then in the following verses the adoption of the idolatries of several nations in particular is specified.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24. an eminent place] The term is used of the “back,” the “boss” of a buckler, and the like, and means something elevated to some extent and probably arched; R.V. marg. vaulted chamber. It appears to be the same thing which is called a “high place” or rather: height, or elevated place, in this verse and Eze_16:25 (a different word from that usually rendered “high place”). Small shrines must be meant, as they were put in every street, and at every head of the way. If the places were arches or vaults there is no reason to suppose that they were used for literal prostitution, as A.V. marg. suggests. The language is figurative for idolatry, Jer_2:20; Jer_3:2.

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.

Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way,.... Where two or more ways, or two or more streets, met; and so was most conspicuous, and was seen from different parts; which shows the same as before:

and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred; by the Lord himself, Who otherwise greatly desires and delights in the beauty of his people, when they worship him, Psa 45:11; and by all good men, and such as fear the Lord, who cannot but abhor such idolatrous practices, and those that are guilty of them; and even by the Heathens themselves, to whom the Jews became mean and despicable, when they fell into idolatry, and under the displeasure of God, whom they forsook; as a common strumpet becomes, in process of time, loathsome to her quondam lovers:

and hast opened thy feet to everyone that passed by; an euphemism, signifying the exposing to view the privities or secret parts, in order to allure to impure embraces; and the meaning is, that the Jews were ready to receive any idol, and give into any idolatrous worship that offered to them, and even courted and solicited the Gentiles to join with them in all idolatrous practices:

and multiplied thy whoredoms; or idolatries; the number of their idols being answerable to their cities, and even were as many as the streets and heads of ways in them.

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

That thou ... - Render it: after that thou didst build “unto thee an eminent place,” and didst make “thee an high place in every street” - after that thou didst build “thy high place at the head of every way and” didst make ...”it came to pass, that thou” didst “also” commit “fornication” etc.

An eminent place - literally, “an arched building.” Such places were used as brothels, and so the word is used metaphorically for a place of idol-worship.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Hast also built, with great charge and pains, as those do. who build, hereby declaring thy purposes of continuing thy lewdness.

Unto thee; for thyself, grown so prodigiously public, and followed with such numbers, and such great ones, that no common place was thought great enough, or stately enough.

An eminent place; not only eminent for its situation, but for its structure, that it might invite men in, and have room to treat them, unless you will refer the words that follow to the manner of the building, and the former words to the height of the situation.

An high place in every street; idol temples and brothel-houses were in every street; so common were these sins with the Jews; in every large street capable of and frequented with much company. This in Jerusalem and her cities.

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

24. An eminent place — Rather, vaulted chamber, or dome (R.V. and Kautzsch).

A high place in every street — The word used here and in the next verse is not the one usually rendered “high place.” It may mean a small shrine where lived the religious harlot, as was customary in the streets of foreign cities. With the preceding verse there is a passing from Canaanitish worship to that of foreign countries, the intimation being that Jerusalem gathered to itself all the various abominations of every land.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An eminent place; lofty (Revised Version); but the word strictly points to the form of a vault, with the added meaning, as in the LXX, oikhma pornikon, and the Vulgate, lupanar, of its being used for prostitution. It is, at hast, a curious fact that the Latin fornicari and its derivatives, take their start from the fornices, the vaults or cells which were the haunts of the harlots of Rome. Looking to the fact that all the worst forms of sensual evil came to Rome from the East, and specially from Syria

Jampridem in Tiberim Syrus defluxit Orontes (Juv., "Sat.", 3:62)

it seems probable that the practice was a survival of the custom towhich Ezekiel refers. As in the Mylitta worship at Babylon, (Herod., 1:262 Bar:, 6:43) and that of Aphrodite at Corinth, prostitution assumed a quasi-religious character, and the harlot sat in a small cell, or chapel, inviting the passers by, and treating her hire as, in part, an offering to the goddess whom she served. Such chapels of prostitution were to be found naturally in the "high places" of Judah (the word, however, is not that commonly so translated), and in the crossways of intersecting roads. To such a harlot Ezekiel compares the daughter of Judah, and proceeds to paint her life with a terrible minuteness, even to the very attitude that invited to sin.

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

In every street - Idol temples were in every street; both in Jerusalem and her cities.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

You built yourself an eminent place Heb. גָב, a height such as pedestal or an altar. You built Heb. וַתִּבְנִי, an expression for building.

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.