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<p>Ezekiel is now among the captives in Babylon; but, as Jeremiah at Jerusalem wrote for the use of the captives though they had Ezekiel upon the spot with them (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.29.1-Ezek.29.21" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.29.1-Ezek.29.21">Ezek. 29:1-21</a>), so Ezekiel wrote for the use of Jerusalem, though Jeremiah himself was resident there; and yet they were far from looking upon it as an affront to one another’s help both by preaching and writing. Jeremiah wrote to the captives for their consolation, which was the thing they needed; Ezekiel here is directed to write to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for their conviction and humiliation, which was the thing they needed.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. This is his commission (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.16.2" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.16.2">Ezek. 16:2</a>): “<i>Cause Jerusalem to know her abominations</i> (that is, her sins); set them in order before her.” Note, 1. Sins are not only <i>provocations</i> which God is angry at, but <i>abominations</i> which he hates, as contrary to his nature, and which we ought to hate, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.44.4" href="/passage/?search=Jer.44.4">Jer. 44:4</a>. 2. The sins of Jerusalem are in a special manner so. The practice of profaneness appears most odious in those that make a profession of religion. 3. Though Jerusalem is a place of great knowledge, yet she is loth <i>to know her abominations</i>; so partial are men in their own favour that they are hardly made to see and own their own badness, but deny it, palliate or extenuate it. 4. It is requisite that we should know our sins, that we may confess them, and may justify God in what he brings upon us for them. 5. It is the work of ministers to cause sinners, sinners in Jerusalem, <i>to know their abominations</i>, to set before them the glass of the law, that in it they may see their own deformities and defilements, to tell them plainly of their faults. <i>Thou art the man</i>.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. That Jerusalem may be made <i>to know her abominations</i>, and particularly the abominable ingratitude she had been guilty of, it was requisite that she should be put in mind of the great things God had done for her, as the aggravations of her bad conduct towards him; and, to magnify those favours, she is in <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.16.1-Ezek.16.5" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.16.1-Ezek.16.5">Ezek. 16:1-5</a> made to know the meanness and baseness of her original, from what poor beginnings God raised her, and how unworthy she was of his favour and of the honour he had put upon her. Jerusalem is here put for the Jewish church and nation, which is here compared to an outcast child, base-born and abandoned, which the mother herself has no affection nor concern for. 1. The extraction of the Jewish nation was mean: “<i>Thy birth is of the land of Canaan</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.16.3" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.16.3">Ezek. 16:3</a>); thou hadst from the very first the spirit and disposition of a Canaanite.” The patriarchs dwelt in Canaan, and they were there but <i>strangers and sojourners</i>, had no possession, no power, not one foot of ground of their own but a burying-place. Abraham and Sarah were indeed their <i>father and mother</i>, but they were only inmates with the Amorites and Hittites, who, having the dominion, seemed to be as parents to the seed of Abraham, witness the court Abraham made to the <i>children of Seth</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Gen.23.4,Gen.23.8" href="/passage/?search=Gen.23.4,Gen.23.8"><span class="bibleref" title="Gen.23.4">Gen. 23:4</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Gen.23.8">8</span></a>), the dependence they had upon their neighbours the Canaanites, and the fear they were in of them, <a class="bibleref" title="Gen.13.7,Gen.34.30" href="/passage/?search=Gen.13.7,Gen.34.30"><span class="bibleref" title="Gen.13.7">Gen. 13:7</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Gen.34.30">34:30</span></a>. If the patriarchs, at their first coming to Canaan, had conquered it, and made themselves masters of it, this would have put an honour upon their family and would have looked great in history; but, instead of that, they <i>went from one nation to another</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ps.105.13" href="/passage/?search=Ps.105.13">Ps. 105:13</a>), as tenants from one farm to another, almost as beggars from one door to another, when they <i>were but few in number</i>, yea, very few. And yet this was not the worst; their fathers had <i>served other gods in Ur of the Chaldees</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Josh.24.2" href="/passage/?search=Josh.24.2">Josh. 24:2</a>); even in Jacob’s family there were <i>strange gods</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Gen.35.2" href="/passage/?search=Gen.35.2">Gen. 35:2</a>. Thus early had they a genius leading them to idolatry; and upon this account their ancestors were Amorites and Hittites. 2. When they first began to multiply their condition was really very deplorable, like that of a new-born child, which must of necessity die from the womb if the knees prevent it not, <a class="bibleref" title="Job.3.11,Job.3.12" href="/passage/?search=Job.3.11,Job.3.12"><span class="bibleref" title="Job.3.11">Job 3:11</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Job.3.12">12</span></a>. The children of Israel, when they began to increase into a people and became considerable, were thrown out from the country that was intended for them; a famine drove them thence. Egypt was <i>the open field</i> into which they were cast; there they had no protection or countenance from the government they were under, but, on the contrary, were ruled with rigour, and their lives embittered; they had no encouragement given them to build up their families, no help to build up their estates, no friends or allies to strengthen their interests. Joseph, who had been the <i>shepherd and stone of Israel</i>, was dead; the king of Egypt, who should have been kind to them for Joseph’s sake, set himself to <i>destroy this man-child as soon as it was born</i> (<a class="bible
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