Ezekiel 16:27

Eze 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.

Ver. 27. I have stretched out my hand over thee.] To cut thee short. {as Hos 2:9}

And have diminished thine ordinary food.] Diminui demensum tuum. What should a father do but snatch away the meat from his child that marreth it? or a husband, but hold his wanton wife to straiter allowance?

The daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.] It must needs be most lewd that Philistines were ashamed of. Zimmah signifieth wickedness with a witness. Jerome interpreteth it an execrable and villanous filthiness. So is Popish idolatry in the eyes of modern Jews; and the hellish blasphemies darted out against God and Christ so ordinarily and openly by pseudo Christians, abominable to the Turks, who do punish them for it with great severity.

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_16:27

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 tyranny of Satan

To be delivered unto the will of them that hate us--this seems given as amongst the most oppressive of calamities--the judgment which God, after having long striven with the unrighteousness of a nation, selects from the stores of His retributive appointments. Suppose one person knew another to be his rancorous enemy, bent on doing him every kind of injury, and causing him every kind of pain; it may be that this enemy had left the kingdom and gone to foreign parts, so that it did not seem likely that he would again cross the path of the object of his bitter dislike. But the individual himself may be called to quit his home, and navigate distant seas; and he himself, falling amongst pirates, may find that, though life is spared, liberty is gone, and that he is to be sold as a slave on reaching the land. Who can tell the anguish of his soul? The endearing recollections of his native shores crowd thickly upon him; and he thinks that not only shall he never again meet the friends of his youth, but that he shall drag out the remainder of his days in subjection to some tyrant whose delight will be to torment. Yet perhaps not so! It is a galling thing that he--a freeborn man--should stand in the slave market, exposed for sale like a mere beast of burden; but it may be that, through this degradation, he shall recover all that he has lost. He therefore waits with trembling eagerness to know who his purchaser shall be. On a sudden his eye rests on his ancient enemy; he cannot be mistaken. He knows that form; it will not allow him to doubt. Oh! that he might hide himself! But in vain! His foe has purchased him; he has paid down the demanded price. Tell me! did the man till this moment feel himself utterly wretched? Now, the case would be much the same with a community or nation as with the individual. If a nation must yield to a foreign power, it would desire that it might not be to a power by which it had always been held in dislike, and with which it had often been at war. The galling thing would be, not merely that we were subdued, but that we were subdued by those to whom we knew ourselves to be objects of inveterate hatred, and who cherished against us deep-rooted antipathy. Now, whilst these may be thoroughly accurate illustrations of our text, they are not those which cause the passage to be surveyed under its most instructive aspects. The text, when separated from its local and temporary application, may justly be considered as describing the state to which the human race was reduced when, by the first rebellion against God, it severed the links which had heretofore associated the Creator and the creature. We all admit that through the apostasy of Adam, Satan acquired a dominion over the globe which he never could have held had our first parents remained firm in their allegiance, He became, in the language of St. Paul, The God of this world. If it were to be said of the Jews that God delivered them unto the will of them that hated them, it is easy to be said of man in general that God surrendered him to the hands of the devil. Though never let it be for a moment forgotten that whilst He thus allowed judgment to fall on sin, and caused the disobedient to eat of the fruit of their own ways, He was providing for the emancipation of our race--arranging that His blessed Son should be manifested for the express purpose of destroying the works of the devil. And you are yet to be told the worst feature in this our natural condition. Not only are we slaves, but they that hate us are they that rule over us. There can be nothing darker, if we may judge from the scattered touches of Scripture, than the character of apostate angels. Fallen from the very summit of created glory, their debasement seems to bear proportion with their original eminence; and they move to and fro burning with the fiercest animosity against God, and eager for nothing but to drag down others to share their sufferings and their shame. It may have been that it was hatred to man which first moved Satan to attempt his destruction. That haughty spirit, chafed by his defeat, and furious at his own exile from happiness, could not endure to look on the purities and felicities of Paradise. Man was innocent, and that made him hateful; man was happy, and he was therefore instinctively detested. And if we may speak of man as an object of hatred to Satan whilst he held fast his allegiance, what may we suppose him now--now that, seduced into apostasy, he hath been rescued by the interference of God manifest in the flesh? Was the lofty angel to be passed by and this inferior being taken note of? And was it to be the result of Satans machinations against the inmates of Paradise that a richer than that rich garden was to open to them all its loveliness, and a deeper than the happiness they then enjoyed be placed within reach as their everlasting portion? This surely were sufficient to account for a hatred the most intense and inveterate on the part of the devil toward man! Again, Satan must hate man, so that whosoever is the servant of this chief of fallen angels is accurately in the condition described in our text; and every one of you is that servant, on whom there has not passed the great moral change of conversion. Oh! that we could bring all that imagery which was furnished by the slave market, or the horrors of an invasion, and force those who are yet indifferent to religion to recognise in it a delineation of themselves! He who really feels that the devil is both his master and his enemy is not far from embracing Christ as his Redeemer and his friend. But it in no degree alters the fact of your being ruled by one who hates you that you are blind to your condition, and not even conscious of being ruled at all: it does but make that condition all the worse. Why, suppose that when the inveterate enemy has entered the slave market, and possessed himself of the wretched being who actually quails before his look;--suppose he should speak soothingly to his victim, easing his chains as he leads him away, promising him abundance and enjoyment, and all because he knows a generous friend of the poor captive is waiting on the road, and will be attracted by a cry of disquietude or a shriek of distress;--suppose this, and you suppose precisely the policy of Satan, who, if he can only prevent a man from feeling that uneasiness which would prompt an appeal to the Saviour, is quite content to defer the season for giving swing to all his malice and wreaking all his vengeance. But that season will come. It is little, it is nothing to say that imagination is utterly incompetent to the giving to such season its due measure of horror. We pretend not to lift the veil which shrouds from human gaze the future, with its direful retribution. But we may venture to say that in the brief description of our text is condensed whatever tongue can express, or thought compass, of the wretchedness which must be the portion of the lost. We do not attempt to carry the description further; we have adventured thus far only in hopes that the terrors of the future may scare some of those who, if they were this instant to die, must have these terrors for their own. Why shrink ye from our picture of the man sold to be a slave--a slave to his bitter enemy, who has long sought opportunity of indulging all the vengeance of a fierce and implacable nature? Wherefore are ye moved by this imagined wretchedness? Wherefore is the cheek pale, and wherefore the blood cold, as you fancy that you hear the clanking chain and the stifled cry, and behold the oppressor grinding down the captive? Wherefore is it? Because there is a consciousness which you cannot repress, of being in the power of one who hates you. This is supreme misery in itself, and such a finishing stroke to all others as leaves nothing for imagination to add. It is, indeed, to one who hates you that you are making yourselves slaves in following the course which the God of this world prescribes to the children of disobedience. That the devil hates you witness what he has already done to make mankind wretched. Witness a devastated earth; witness every grave; witness every tear. He was a murderer from the beginning; and to his foul machinations we owe all our woe. Oh! shall it then be that you will so live that, when you come to die, there will remain nothing but that you go down to the prison house of woe, to experience all the terribleness of the saying--a saying from which the most hardened amongst you instinctivley recoils when it is exhibited as brought to pass on earth;--the saying that when God has a vast vengeance to inflict, and a vast retribution to exact, He appoints for the guilty--what:--that they be delivered unto the evil of them that hate them? (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eze 16:27-29. Behold, therefore — Open thine eyes, thou secure and foolish adulteress, see what has been done against thee, and consider it is for thy lewdness. I have stretched out my hand over thee — I have chastised and punished thee already in some measure. And have diminished thine ordinary food — Have taken away some of thy opulence, and abridged thee of many necessaries and conveniences. And delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee — Have excited them to make war against thee, have given them victory over thee, and delivered thee into their power. The daughters of the Philistines — This and what follows was effected in the reign of King Ahaz, 2Ch 28:16; 2Ch 28:18. The daughters of the Philistines are here put for the Philistines, as the daughters of Samaria, Sodom, and Syria stand for the people of those places, to carry on the allegory and comparison between them and Jerusalem, being all of them described as so many lewd women, prostituting themselves to idols, Eze 16:41. By the same metaphor Samaria and Sodom are called sisters to Jerusalem, Eze 16:46. Which are ashamed of thy lewd way — Who have not had the wickedness to imitate thy evil deeds; for they have not forsaken the religion of their country as you Jews have done, nor have been so fond of foreign idolatries. Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians — The Jews courted the alliance of their two potent neighbours, the Egyptians and Assyrians, as it served their present turn; and, to ingratiate themselves with them, served their idols, Jer 2:18; Jer 2:36. This is particularly recorded of Ahaz, 2Ch 28:23. Thou hast multiplied thy fornication in Canaan unto Chaldea — The sense is, thou hast defiled thyself with all the idolatries of the heathen, beginning with those that were practised by the former inhabitants of Canaan, and, by degrees, learning new kinds of idolatry, derived from distant countries, such as Chaldea was reckoned. It is said unto Chaldea, to signify that they learned and practised the idolatries of Chaldea before they were carried captives thither.

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

Or, cities.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

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).

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 27. Have diminished thine ordinary] חקך chukkech means here the household provision made for a wife-food, clothing, and money.

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

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 complains, when he had chastised the Jews, that even this did not profit them, for they were so perverse that they did not apply their minds to reflect upon their sins. For God’s blows ought to rouse us up, so that our faults previously hidden ought to be brought to light and knowledge; but when we champ the bit, and are not affected by the blows, then our abandoned disposition is made manifest. Now the Prophet condemns this obstinacy in the Jews: I have extended, says he, my hand over thee. He now enumerates two kinds of chastisement, first, when God deprived the Jews of the abundance of the possessions by which they were enriched; and then because he had subjected them to the lust of their enemies. Those who translate justification as Jerome does, depart from the sense of the Prophet: חק, chek, signifies, indeed, a statute and edict, and he explains it of the law. But how will this agree with the Prophet’s retaining the simile already used? for he compares God to a husband. God now pronounces that he had taken away their appointed portion, when he saw himself a laughingstock through his impure wife; that is, what he had intended for both food and clothing: for husbands spend a fixed sum on their wives in food, clothing, and ornament. And God previously recounted, among other things, that what he had conferred upon the Jews they had spent in superstitions. Hence, for this reason, he now says, I have taken away their allotted portion, that is, what I had assigned to them. This was one part of the chastisement: for he compares the fruitfulness of the land and other advantages to the portion which the husband assigns to the wife.

Now the other chastisement follows — their being harassed by their enemies; for not only did the Jews find themselves encompassed by the Philistines, but they were delivered up and bound to slavery, as Moses says, (Deuteronomy 32:30,) How, then, could one vanquish ten, and ten chase a thousand, unless we had been shut up in his hand? He shows, therefore, that our enemies are never our superiors unless God enslaves us to them. But those who do not calmly subject themselves to God’s command, but are refractory, are delivered into the enemy’s hand, that their contumacy may be subdued by severe tyranny. Now we understand what the Prophet means by this verse: he enlarges upon the people’s wickedness in not turning to God, though they felt by clear experience that they were under a curse. They ought to examine their lives, to groan before God, to acknowledge their fault, and to beg for pardon: since no feeling was awakened, the Prophet gathers that their obstinacy was desperate. This passage is worthy of our notice, that we may be attentive to God’s chastisements. Whenever God even raises his finger and threatens us, let us know that he is anxious for our safety: hence in our turn let us rouse ourselves and implore his pity, and especially let us repent of our sins by which we see his anger to have been enflamed. (Jeremiah 2:30.) But if we remain slothful, we see that no excuse for us remains, since God elsewhere complains that he is trifled with, when he has chastised his children in vain. Here, נפש, nepish, the soul is used for lust or desire, as I have explained it. 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.

(27) Diminished thine ordinary food.—This cutting short of the power and prosperity of Israel was a discipline of correction designed to bring her to a consciousness of her sin.

The daughters of the Philistines, i.e., their cities, according to the figurative language of the chapter, and indeed the common figurative language of Scripture. Philistia was but a small power in the south-west corner of Palestine, yet from the time of the Judges down through the whole period of the monarchy, they were the persistent foes of Israel. During the time immediately before Samuel, they held nearly the entire land in subjection, and although subdued by David, they became troublesome again in the times of the later kings (see 2Ch_26:7; 2Ch_28:18), and are often spoken of not only by the earlier prophets, Isaiah and Amos, but also by Jeremiah (Jer_25:20; Jer_47:1; Jer_47:4), Ezekiel (Eze_25:15-16), and Zechariah Zec_9:6).

Ashamed of thy lewd way.—The Philistines, true to their own false gods, despised the Israelites for their unfaithfulness to Jehovah. It is the old but ever new story of the heathen repelled from the truth by the unworthiness of its professed followers.

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

27. I have stretched] I stretched … and diminished … them that hated … were ashamed. The reference appears to be to the distant times of the Philistine supremacy in the last days of the Judges.

thine ordinary food] Or, allotted portion, Exo_21:10. The measure is one to which an offended husband might have recourse. Hos_2:9, “therefore will I take back my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof.”

daughters of the Philistines] i.e. the cities or small Philistine lordships. The clause might explain the phrase “diminished thy portion”—her territory was seized by her enemies.

which are ashamed] were ashamed. Cf. Amo_3:9, “Publish ye in the palaces of Ashdod and say, Assemble ye on the mountains of Samaria, and behold what oppressions are in the midst thereof.” Whether the prophet speaks of Egyptian idolatry in the early times of Israel’s life from historical sources may be uncertain. Such idolatry at this period seems nowhere else spoken of; comp. the list Jdg_10:6. Possibly as he charges the people with idolatry in Egypt (ch. Eze_20:7; Eze_23:3; Eze_23:8; Eze_23:19; Eze_23:21) they may not have shaken themselves clear of it even in the period of the Judges. The connexion of the country with Egypt was at all times very close.

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 played the whore also with the Assyrians,.... By entering into alliances with them, and worshipping their idols; which was done in the times of Ahaz, who sent to Tiglathpileser king of Assyria for help, and to Damascus for the fashion of the altar there, and built one according to it, Kg2 7:10;

because thou wast unsatiable; not content with the alliance and idolatries of the Egyptians:

yea, thou hast played the harlot with them; with the Assyrians:

and yet couldest not be satisfied; with their idols, and the worship of them, but sought out for new gods, and new modes of worship; like a lewd woman, who having prostituted herself to one, and to another, yet remains insatiable, and seeks out for other lovers.

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

Have diminished thine ordinary food - As a husband lessens the things which minister to the luxury of an unfaithful wife, so did the Lord cut Israel short in consequence of her unfaithfulness.

Daughters - The small cities. The Philistines have left a permanent record of their supremacy in the name of the holy land - Palestine. It was a special shame to be subjected to so small a power as that of Philistia (see Isa 14:29); but the very Philistines were ashamed of Judah’s unfaithfulness, and were themselves truer to their false gods than Judah was to Yahweh.

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

Justification; law, &c. Hebrew, "thy right," or allowance, Exodus xxi. 10. --- Hate thee. To be abandoned to the will of a rival, is most dreadful for a woman. The Jews were subjected to the nations which they had despised, as they are still to Christians. Even other less favoured idolaters were astonished (Calmet) at their apostacy. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Behold; open thine eyes, thou secure and foolish adulteress, see what hath been done against thee, and consider it is for thy lewdness.

I have stretched out my hand; I have chastised and punished already in some measure.

Over thee; it may be read, against thee. In like phrase Isa 5:25; 9:12,17,21; 10:4, expresseth the punishing of this people.

Diminished thine ordinary food; abated of that plentiful allowance a kind Husband made, and an unfaithful wife abused: it refers to scarcity and penury, with which God did punish idolatrous Israel, and this more than once.

Delivered thee; stirred up first such to fight against them, and then gave victory to their arms, yet they might use the conquered as they pleased; sent them into captivity into an enemy’s land, where they that hated them ruled over them, and no doubt such would satisfy their own lusts on these captives.

The daughters of the Philistines: either it is a Hebraism, the daughters of the Philistines for the whole nation, or else some particular cities and principalities of the Philistines, which quarrelled with and prevailed against the Jews, when God had been so provoked by the sins of the Jews. Idolaters, but in this honester than the Jews; they were constant to their own god, and did not, as the Jews, lewdly go a whoring with every idol they saw.

Which are ashamed of thy lewd way; will therefore reprove, and teach thee some modesty and chastity.

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

27. I have stretched… have diminished thine ordinary food… hate thee — Literally, I stretched… diminished their allotted food… hated thee. “That is, her fixed or allotted support was lessened, just as an insulted husband would take something from the wife’s stipend.” — Orelli. “The reference seems to be to the distant times of Philistine supremacy in the last days of the judges.” — Davidson.

The daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way — Even the Philistines are ashamed of this harlot (Amo_3:9). Even the cities of Philistia do not encourage such a mixed religious cult as this “holy city” of Jerusalem, and this is seen to explain why so much of Israelitish territory is controlled by Philistia.

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

Have diminished thine ordinary food. The husband was bound to provide his wife with food and raiment. (Exo_21:10) Here his first discipline for the unfaithful wife is to place her on a short allowance. Jehovah, to interpret the parable, had placed Israel under the discipline of famine and other visitations that involved a loss of wealth and Hos_2:9, 10 supplies a striking parallel. The daughters of the Philistines. So in ver. 57. The phrase, like "the daughter of Zion," indicates the Philistine cities. These had been, from the days of Samuel to those of Ahaz, (2Ch_28:18) among the most persistent enemies of Judah. (comp. Amo_1:6 Amo_3:9; Joe_3:4; Isa_9:12 Isa_14:29) In the words, were ashamed of thy lewd way, the prophet points, as his master had done, (Jer_2:10) to the fact that other nations had at leastbeen faithful to their inherited religion, while Judah had forsaken hers.

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

General Information:

Yahweh continues to speak about Jerusalem as if the city were his unfaithful wife. The city represents the people who live there. (See: Metaphor and Metonymy)

See!

The word "see" here alerts us to pay attention to the surprising information that follows.

I will strike you with my hand

Here "hand" represents power. AT: "I will use my power to strike you" (See: Metonymy)

cut off your food

Yahweh speaks of stopping the supply of food as if it were cutting off the food. AT: "stop your food supply" (See: Metaphor)

I will hand your life over

Here "life" represents the person. AT: "I will hand you over" (See: Synecdoche)

the daughters of the Philistines

Here Yahweh speaks of the cities of Philistia as if they were the daughters of the Philistines. The cities represent the people who live there. AT: "the Philistine people" (See: Metaphor and Metonymy)

translationWords

hand

cut off

life

adversary

Philistines

shame

prostitute

Assyria

Chaldea

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

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.

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.