Ezekiel 16:59

Eze 16:59 For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.

Ver. 59. I will even deal with thee.] I will avenge upon thee the quarrel of my covenant. {Lev 26:25}

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.

16:59-63 Jerusalem’s sins were serious and had to be judged, but judgment was not God’s last word on Jerusalem. She had been comprehensively breaking God’s covenant and deserved the consequence of death, but God would remember the covenant he had made with her in the beginning. God’s purposes for his people cannot be derailed even by their sin, for his covenant commitment is everlasting (Ps 136). God’s forgiveness of her sins would finally bring Jerusalem to repentance.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

When thou brakest the covenant which was made between thee and me, as verse 8.

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

the oath--the covenant between God and Israel (Deu 29:12, Deu 29:14). As thou hast despised it, so will I despise thee. No covenant is one-sided; where Israel broke faith, God's promise of favor ceased.

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, also, God meets the false objection by which the Jews might strive with him; for whatever they were, yet God had entered into covenant with them. They might, therefore, fly to this refuge, that God had bound himself in covenant with them, since he had adopted Abraham with his seed. Although they had provoked God’s anger a thousand times, yet this exception remained, that God ought to stand to his agreement, and not to look at what they had deserved by their ingratitude, but rather to be consistent with his promises. Now, therefore, he returns to this cavil, and says that he is free to break the covenant since they have done so first. I will do, says he, to thee as thou has done. We see, therefore, that the calumny is here repelled by which the Jews could obliquely defame God, as they were accustomed to do, as if he had rendered his covenant void. He says, then, that in agreement it is customary for a person, when deceived, no longer to be necessarily bound to a perfidious breaker of agreements; for covenanting requires mutual faith: but the Jews had violated their agreement, and reduced it to nothing. Hence, through their perfidy and wickedness, God had acquired the liberty of rejecting them, and of no longer reckoning them among his people. Hence, as in the last verse, he said that the Jews paid a just penalty; so now, he adds specially, that he could not be condemned for bad faith in departing from his agreement, because he had to deal with traitors and covenant-breakers who had rendered void their agreement: for there is no covenant when either party declines it. I will do, therefore, to thee as you has done, namely, because you have despised an oath, so as to render the covenant void Here God enlarges upon the crime of revolt, because the Jews had not only dissipated the covenant, but had despised an oath. אלה, aleh, signifies both an oath and a curse; (Deuteronomy 27;) hence some think that the Prophet here looks to the curses by which the law was sanctioned, which I willingly adopt. But we must remark what I have already said, that their criminality is increased, because the Jews had not only acted falsely, but had also set at naught that solemn oath by which they had bound themselves. For as God promised that he would be their God, so Moses stipulated in his name that the people should remain obedient to him, and they all answered, Amen; (Leviticus 26.) A punishment was announced, and such as ought to have terrified them. For the Jews then to neglect this covenant as a mere trifle, was the act of brutal stupidity. Whence we see that their crime was doubled, when the Prophet accuses them of not only being truce-breakers, but also of wantonly deriding God, and of treating their own solemn oath, by which they had bound themselves, as a childish action. 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.

(59) In breaking the covenant.—This was the especial point of the heinousness of the sin of the Jews, and the one which so greatly aggravated their guilt. The sin was necessarily proportioned to the light against which it had been committed. (Comp. Joh_9:39; Joh_9:41; Joh_15:22; Joh_15:24.)

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

59. The fall of Jerusalem, prophetically assumed in Eze_16:58, is now directly threatened. On the “oath” cf. Deu_29:12; Deu_29:14.

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.

Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth,.... The covenant made with them at Sinai, quickly after they came out of Egypt, when they were, both as a body politic and ecclesiastical, in their infant state; for, as Kimchi says, all the while they were in Egypt, and until they, came into the land of Canaan, were called the days of their youth; and to this covenant, which had the nature of a matrimonial contract, the, prophet refers when he speaks of the "love" of their "espousals", and the "kindness" of their "youth", Jer 2:2; this covenant the Lord remembered, and made good his part, though they neglected theirs; and it was particularly remembered when Christ was made under this law, and became the fulfilling end of it to his people; yielding perfect obedience to it, and bearing the penalty of it in their room and stead; for here begins a declaration of the grace and mercy of God to the remnant, according to the election of grace, which were among this degenerate people, and whom the Lord had a special regard unto:

and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant; the covenant of grace, made with the Messiah and his spiritual seed; which is confirmed of God in Christ; ordered in all things and sure; whose promises are yea and amen in Christ; and the blessings of it, the sure mercies of David; a covenant that shall never be broken, made void, or removed; but will continue for ever. This is the new covenant, or the covenant of grace, as exhibited and administered under the New Testament; see Heb 8:8.

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

Covenant at Sinai, or under Josue, [Josue] viii., and Exodus xix. 7.

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).

This is ushered in with a most solemn and sacred asseveration.

I will even deal with thee; either thus: Thou hast despised the laws and privileges of my covenant with thee, and I will despise all thy pretensions to my favour by virtue of my covenant; it is mutual, and who breaks it forfeits all benefit by it. Or, deal with thee according as thou hast done to other punished sinners, over which thou hast insulted and condemned.

Hast despised the oath; by wilful and contemptuous despite hast perjured thyself, which is a sin the nations about thee could not be guilty of, for they were not, thou only wast, in covenant with me. Or else, Thou hast contemptuously slighted my bounty and grace, and my faithfulness and truth, and bound thyself by covenant with idols and idolaters, though I had so expressly forbidden them.

The covenant, made in Horeb.

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

59. I will even deal with thee as thou hast done — The covenant which Israel has broken is now by Jehovah also declared annulled. (See Eze_16:8 and Deu_29:12.)

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

In breaking the covenant - So will I break my covenant with thee.

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

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)

despised your oath by breaking the covenant

Jerusalem broke her marriage covenant with Yahweh, thereby showing that she did not care about the oaths that she had made to him. AT: "despised your oath to me by breaking the covenant that you made with me" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

Lord Yahweh

oath

covenant

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

I have done with you, etc. I have done evil to you commensurate to your [ungrateful] repayment [to Me] which you made.

that you despised an oath, etc. That one that you accepted upon yourself in Horeb (Deut. 29:11): “That you pass into the covenant of the Lord your God, etc.” But I shall not violate the covenant by not remembering it, because I am not like you.

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.