Ezekiel 16:50

Eze 16:50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw [good].

Ver. 50. And they were haughty.] This sin of theirs is once more instanced as the root of the rest, the hate of heaven, and gate to hell.

And committed abomination before me.] That unnatural filthiness which taketh its name from them. This in the Levant is not held a vice, and in Mexico it is one of the Spanish virtues.

Therefore I took them away as I saw good,] sc., By raining down hell from heaven upon them. Hereby also God gave men an example of that rule, that heinous sins bring hideous plagues, as Herodotus also saith of the fall of Troy.

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.

haughty--puffed up with prosperity.

abomination before me--"sinners before the Lord" (Gen 13:13); said of those whose sin is so heinous as to cry out to God for immediate judgments; presumptuous sins, daring God to the face (Gen 18:20; Gen 19:5).

I took them away-- (Gen 19:24).

as I saw good--rather, "according to what I saw"; referring to Gen 18:21, where God says, "I will go down, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto Me."

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

We must diligently attend to this passage; for God does not here excuse the wickedness of Sodom; but, abominable as that people was, he says that the Jews were yet more abandoned. We know why God inflicted his vengeance in a terrible manner against the Sodomites and their neighbors, for that was a fearful example; and Judea says that it was a kind of mirror of the wrath of God which awaits all the impious, (Jude 1:7;) and Scripture often recalls us to that proof of God’s judgement: but we must see how Sodom rushed forward to that degree of licentiousness so as to be horrified by no enormity. God says that they began by pride, and surely pride is the mother of all contempt of God and of all cruelty. Let us learn, then, that we cannot be restrained by the fear of God, unless moderation and humility reign within us. Pride, we know, has two horns, so to speak; one is, when men forget their own condition, and claim to themselves not only more than is right, but what God alone calls his own. This, then, is one horn of pride, when men, trusting in their dignity, excellence, plenty, and wealth, are intoxicated by false imaginations, so as to think themselves equal to God. Now, another horn of pride is, when they do not acknowledge their vices, and despise others in comparison with themselves, and please themselves in enormities, just as if they were free from any future account. Since, therefore, pride is contained in these two clauses, when men arrogate too much to themselves, and thus are blind to their own vices, each of these is doubtless condemned in the Sodomites, since they first raised themselves by a rash confidence, and then refused to subject themselves to God, and rebelled against him as if they could shake off his yoke.

He afterwards adds fullness of bread. But the Prophet seems to condemn in the Sodomites what was not blamable in itself: for when God feeds us bountifully, fullness is not to be considered a crime; but he takes it here for immoderate gluttony; for those who have abundance are often luxurious, and nothing is more rare than self-restraint when materials for luxury are supplied to us. Hence fullness of bread is here taken for intemperance, since the Sodomites were so addicted to gluttony and drunkenness, that they gratified their appetites worse than the brutes, who do retain some moderation, for they are content with their own food: but men’s covetousness is altogether insatiable. Let us observe, then, that by fullness of bread we are to understand that intemperance in which profane men indulge when God supplies them bountifully with the means of living; for they do not consider why they abound in wine, and corn, and abundance of all things, but they drown themselves in luxuries with a blind and brutal impulse. Hence such greediness, so inflaming to the spirits of the Sodomites, is added to pride, that they arrogate to themselves more than is just. He afterwards adds, and rest; תולש, sheloth: some translate it abundance, but almost everywhere it means peace; the noun טקש, sheket, which is added next, means properly rest; so that it will be the peace of rest or ease, and this seems without blame: for why shall we not be permitted to enjoy ease, if no one molests or troubles us? nay, it is reckoned among God’s blessings: you shall sleep, and no one shall frighten thee. (Leviticus 26:6.) Since God, therefore, wishes this to be considered among his blessings, that the faithful should sleep soundly, without any anxiety or trouble, why is Sodom condemned for thus enjoying ease and peace? But here its excess is pointed out, not its true use, since the use of peace is to render our minds tranquil, that we may return thanks to God, and dwell calmly under his sway. But how do the reprobate act? They grow brutish, so to speak, in their own peacefulness. Hence sloth is in this passage meant by the peacefulness of ease, and God means that the Sodomites were intoxicated by their luxuries when they enjoyed peace. We must put off the remainder.

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.

(50) As I saw good.—The word good is not in the original, and should be omitted, and the particle translated when: “Therefore I took them away when I saw this.” Punishment followed upon the manifestation of their sin. (Comp. Gen_18:21.)

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

50. as I saw good] Or, when I saw it. Gen_18:21, I “will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry which is come up unto me.”

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.

Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins,.... The sins of Samaria, or the ten tribes, of which Samaria was the metropolis, were the worshipping of the calves at Dan and Bethel; but the gods of Judah were according to the number of their cities, and they even set up their idols in the temple of Jerusalem, Jer 2:28, Eze 8:5; and, besides, their sins were aggravated by the benefits privileges they enjoyed; having the temple, the place of worship, among them; the priests of the Lord to officiate for them; the prophets to instruct and teach them; and many good kings to rule over them, who encouraged them in the pure worship of God, and set them examples; as also by their not taking warning at the captivity of the ten tribes, which were some years before; so that they were guilty of great ingratitude and obduracy:

but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they; than Samaria and her daughters, or the ten tribes; or than Sodom and Samaria, since both are intended in the next clause:

and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done; justified them in what they did; countenanced them in their wickedness, by doing the same abominations, and more, and much greater; saying, in effect, that they did right in what they did; and, by exceeding them in sin, made them to appear righteous in comparison of them; and gave them an opportunity of saying, in excuse for themselves, that the men of Judah had been guilty of more and greater sins than they, and yet had not been punished as they had been.

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

As I saw good - Or, “as soon as I saw it.” Omit “good.” God saw and punished. Compare Gen 18:21.

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

Seen. This would seem to allude to the Israelites beyond the Jordan, who had been led away into Assyria. The Moabites, &c., beheld the downfall of Jerusalem, (Haydock) and were treated in like manner, only five years later. (Jos.[Josephus?]) (Jeremias xlviii., &c.)

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).

Haughty; insufferably arrogant in their deportment towards good men, they vexed the soul of righteous Lot; and towards the angels, whom they assaulted in Lot’s house; and towards God himself, as both in this verse, and in Gen 13:13.

Committed; worked, as if it were their trade.

Abomination; the whole of these men’s life was as one continued act of the highest wickedness.

Before me; either against God, or openly and publicly, as Isa 3:9.

I took them away; destroyed their state, cities, people, and country, turned them into a lake of dead and deadly water, or rather bitumen and sulphur.

As I saw good; in a way none could have suspected, and, for aught I know, none ever saw before or since. If you inquire how Jerusalem’s sins were greater than Sodom’s, I would answer, if not in the things done, yet in the aggravating circumstances of them; against redeeming mercy, against the law of God, which forbade what they did, and told them what they should do, against admonitions by the mouth of prophets, and against examples of God’s vengeance on Sodom and the cities of the plain.

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

And they became haughty She and her daughters, as is delineated in Job (28:5): “A land from which bread emerged,” and the entire piece (ibid. 4-9). [The Sodomites grew in haughtiness] until they said, “Let us cause the habit of traveling [lit. the foot] to be forgotten from our land, for they come only to cause us loss.”

and I removed them when I saw their way, as the matter that is stated regarding Sodom (Gen. 18:21): “I shall go down and see.”

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.