Someone emailed and asked:
Ezekiel 16:3 speaks of the descendents of Jerusalem having the origins of an Amorite and Hittite. Can you explain?
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My reply/comment:
The city of Jerusalem was in the land of Canaan (the whole of which was inhabited by Canaanites, hence its name*). It was originally called Jebus, as it was a city founded by the Jebusites, presumably, their capitol.
[* However, I believe that the Canaanites probably exterminated or absorbed the Hebrews who lived there before them. The Canaanites spoke a Semitic (not Hamitic) language related to Hebrew, but the Canaanites descended from Canaan who was the incestuous son of Ham with his own mother (and Canaan then married a woman descended from Cain). It is the nature of tares to supplant the wheat. God told Abraham that he would give him and his seed (who were Hebrews) the land, despite the fact that the Canaanites inhabited the land. The Philistines (another Hamitic people; in Hebrew Pelishtite) also inhabited parts of the land along the coastline (hence the name Palestine had attached; Hebrew Pelesheth). God did not dispossess Edom or the Ammonites or the Moabites, and God told Israel they could not have their lands outside of “Canaan”. It seems reasonable then that the Hebrews originally inhabited the land (the name Hebrew means “colonizer”, or more literally, “one who crosses over”) and possible that later the Canaanites moved among them and eventually adopted their language, and then either absorbed or exterminated the Hebrews (as the Edomites later did to their own kindred, the Hivites who lived in Mount Seir; and as the Edomites later did to true Israel in the land of Israel in 126 B.C. adopting Israelite culture, customs, “blending in”, intermarrying, and eventually supplanting true Israel). Any remaining Hebrews who wanted to live would have migrated back to Aramaea, Ur of the Chaldees (just a little farther north and east*).
* Ur was not in Southern Mesopotamia near the Persian Gulf. It was in far-northern Aramea / Syria near Eden and near the landing spot of Noah’s ark. See my S.T.E. Commentary on Genesis / Judges for greater detail.]
The Jebusites were never fully driven out; some were still living there in King David’s day (II Samuel 24). This saying by in Ezekiel 16:3 about “thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite” seems similar to:
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” (Hosea 11:1)
“14When he arose, he [Joseph] took the young Child and His mother by night, and departed into Egypt: 15And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’.” (Matthew 2)
“A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.” (Deuteronomy 26:5)
Jacob was not a Syrian; more properly the Hebrew and Greek words are Aramaean.
[The Aramites or Aramaeans descended from Shem’s son Aram. The Hebrews descended through Shem’s son Arphaxad, through Arphaxad’s grandson Eber (and the Chaldeans also probably descended from Arphaxad, named for the “-xad” part of his name; Chaldean comes to us from the Greek, but the Hebrew word for Chaldean is “ksed”). The Chaldeans and Aramaeans lived in very close proximity and both influenced their kinsmen the Assyrians (descended from Shem’s son Asshur) and Babylon (which was formed by an offshoot of Assyria). The letter y in many Greek words (and Hebrew words influenced by Greek history as they came down to the translators) such as in Assyria, Babylon, Syria, etc., are not the letter y but the letter u. There is no y in the Greek alphabet; only the i; and these words are not the letter i (iota) but u (upsilon)]
Jacob was a Hebrew, not an Aramaean / Syrian; but Abraham lived in northern Aramaea (Padan-aram) after leaving Ur only for a short distance. As I surmise in my S.T.E.C. on Genesis / Judges possibly Abraham’s father Terah injured himself or grew infirmed and they settled there and Abraham did not continue his journey to Canaan until his father had died. Jacob also lived in Padan-aram for 20 years (where he sired all of his children except for Benjamin) whence he had fled to escape his brother Esau’s murderous rage. Since the Hebrews were colonizers, this designation of “Syrian” figuratively refers to where they had been living at one time. Jacob also, in a sense, languished under “bondage” in Syria (Aram) to his father-in-law, cousin Laban, who took advantage of him continually. Jacob finally declared aloud this fact to Laban in front of witnesses, after having secretly fled his “bondage” in Syria (Aram), when Laban finally caught up with him and was going to force him to return:* “Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight” (Genesis 31:42).
[* This parallels the Israelites’ Egyptian bondage even more, in that after they also had fled (and would have come out empty had God not given the Israelites’ favor in the eyes of the Egyptians to “loan” to the Hebrew slaves whatever they asked for, including jewelry! After having fled, Pharaoh and his army pursued them with intention of bringing them back.]
Thus, all of this history in Syria / Aram and Egypt is intricately connected and thus God made that declaration, as if Israel was speaking, in Deuteronomy 26:5.
Ezekiel is probably the hardest Old Testament book to understand, and it is deeply (and mysteriously) prophetic and symbolic, so clearly the meaning of “mother” and “father” in Ezekiel 16:3 is not literal—
“And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.”
Most importantly, God is employing a method of prophecy, a form of analogy in which He speaks to the city of Jerusalem, not the “people”, but to the city itself, as if it were human. This has a double purpose. In one sense it takes the spotlight off the people (as long as they don’t really think about it) and gets them out of the hotseat, as God is talking about the city itself, attributing life unto it. The people realize, well, clearly God is not talking to us... and they feel a little relieved and their guard is down (sort of like when Christ addressed the Pharisees sometimes)—until the prophecy continues and they realize that God is speaking of them. However, then the second purpose comes in and they realize the insult of it, in that God is speaking of them as if they are not in the room, because they are so sinful and rebellious they are not worthy of God addressing them directly.
The whole huge chapter speaks of Israel’s sinfulness and faithlessness and insult to God... and it is possible that part of the abominations spoken of refer to intermarrying with the Canaanites. Those who did so were cut off and excommunicated; but that does not remove the shame of the family, the shame the progenitors feel, the disgrace the community must assume, or more properly own, that they poorly raised their children if they willingly perverted their heritage and hated God, as did Esau.
Furthermore, the insult becomes even more apparant when the Israelites realize that God is speaking to them as if they were Canaanites! Why should He not...? —they demanded, “give us a king like all the other nations around us”. What nations were those? —Canaanites! What an insult to God (as we shall see in Isaiah 5) that they rejected Him, they rejected His perfect rule—and wanted to be like the vile Canaanites, who were vile and unreformable in their nature, and so vile that God commanded their utter extermination!
Let us consider Ezekiel 16 as a whole:
“1Again the Word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, 3And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. 4And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. 5None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. 6And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast [wallowing] in [the filth of] thy blood, ‘Live’ — yea, I said unto thee when thou wast [polluted] in thy blood, ‘Live’.
Here, it seems that God is referring to Israel’s rather inauspicious beginnings. Jacob had to flee for his life from the murderous designs of his vengeful brother Esau. Jacob then developed a respectable number of sons, but was still nothing by comparison to a clan (such as a family of several brothers who each had 12 sons) or a city, let alone a nation. He then lost most of his vast wealth in famine (it seems that they sold most of their livestock, or ate it) and had to move to Egypt to wait out the famine.*
[* Since we see how history often repeats itself, in cycles and parallels, I believe it would be wise for all of God’s people to buy several years worth of dried food, and store in air-tight sealing food-grade buckets in a cool-dry place; as now God’s people are again being put to bondage by the world (symbolized with Egypt), it would seem that another famine is due (as well as a pestilence / plague)—since Christendom has not really known such for centuries. The Judgments poured out in Revelation mention, like many of the plagues of Egypt, the death of crops, livestock, and the life of the sea; that can only result in famine; and with famine death; and with large numbers of death, disease spreads and a plague overtakes the famine like a giant tsunami being superimposed over a small one. “God save Your people who have truly been regenerated and truly confess Christ (not merely in word, but in deed, showing that the confession is real and that conversion actually transpired) who truly repent of all that You have forbidden and return to obeying all that You have commanded, who truly seek you and separate themselves from the heathen and pour out Your Wrath and Judgment on the wicked and all those who hate You and who hate Your people and send a mighty pestilence of Bubonic proportions, like the Black Death that destroyed 2/3s of the population of Europe and also a great portion of Asia... send it throughout all Christendom where Your enemies have taken over and send it throughout the entire Third World, the breeding centers and springboard areas from which they leap into Christendom.”
“Here is the patience [perseverance] of the saints: here are they that keep the Commandments of God, and the Faith of Jesus.” (Revelation 14:12)
See also my full-color poster / wall chart: Perseverance of the Saints.]
While the Israelites initially were treated as honored guests as long as Joseph was alive, soon a Pharaoh arose who respected not Joseph and reduced the Israelites to slaves. There, in Egypt, they were despised and abused and neglected (as Ezekiel is recounting in poetic analogy) and the majority of Israelites lived little different than the Egyptians, sinfully—even as they did after the elders who outlived Joshua, and they reverted to doing every man that which was right in his own eyes (as they had in Egypt). They did not seek God out—He sought them out (as the Book of Hosea also depicts). God had declared,
“7The LORD did not set His Love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: 8But because the LORD loved you, and because He would keep the Oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a Mighty Hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know therefore that the LORD thy God, He is God, the Faithful God, which keepeth Covenant and mercy with them [of His people] that love Him and keep His Commandments [and He is Faithful unto them] to a thousand generations;* 10And [He] repayeth them that hate Him to their face, to destroy them: He will not be slack to him that hateth Him, He will repay him to his face. 11Thou shalt therefore keep the Commandments, and the Statutes, and the Judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.” (Deuteronomy 7)
[* It has only been about 187 generations from Adam to today. This means that God is still Faithful! Of course, the 1,000 is not merely literal. The number 1,000 in Scripture represents something special—a higher level of Divine Perfect Order (10) magnified by Divine Perfection (3) itself, thus: 103 or 10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000. Since in this earth’s age of 6,000 years (even continuing into the Millennial Kingdom for another 1,000 years of Rest / Peace) the seed of Jacob to 1,000 generations will not be reached in this 7,000 years, so essentially 1,000 represents infinity / eternity. God is Faithful and Immutable and He Promised by unconditional Covenant His Faithfulness to His people; so that Faithfulness can never end. However, we are in the Cycle of Judgment which follows the Cycle of Rebellion / Sinfulness. Once we actually enter the Cycle of Repentance, the Cycle of Deliverance will be in sight!]
Similarly, God declares to the elect of His people,
“8But God commendeth His Love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from Wrath [Judgment] through Him. 10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His Life. 11And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement.” (Romans 5)
Continuing in Ezekiel 16—
7I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. 8Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a Covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest Mine. 9Then washed I thee with water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.
This is also paralleled in Isaiah
“1And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by Thy Name, to take away our reproach. 2In that day shall the Branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. 3And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: 4When [After that] the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the Spirit of Judgment, and by the Spirit of Burning. 5And the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. 6And there shall be a Tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.” (Isaiah 4)
This purging and Spirit of Judgment and Burning refers to the end time just before the Kingdom, once the tares have been weeded out and burned. Here, we see that history repeats itself. God had cleaned Israel up after delivering them from their filthiness in Egypt (commanding them to put away their abominations, submit to God’s Lordship through obedience, circumcising again—which they also did after the 40 years of wandering, after keeping the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread before entering the Promised Land, since even in their wandering they remained in sin and did not do what God had commanded). However, because of their sin, centuries later God would have them to be vomited out of the land, the majority being scattered throughout the world, appearing as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Brits, Goths, Gaels, and other related peoples; but in His Time God would again cleanse them through the Sacrifice of Christ and their conversion into the peoples of Christendom. And now, again, having turned again from God to pollute themselves with the heathen of the world, in Judgment God is having the Dragon (Satan) vomit forth a flood of the Third World to again destroy those who are not truly regenerated (demonstrated by obedience—every tree is known by its fruit)... and shortly God will cleanse the land again (the whole earth) with the Spirit of Judgment and Burning.
Note also, the bloodiness refers to sexual impurity; being a parallel in Scripture with a woman’s menstrual cycle (the bloody period of her uncleanness)—God even exposing our sin: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Filthy rags here refers to used, bloody menstrual rags. When infants are born they are covered in blood (interestingly, that is the method of the New Birth too), after which they are cleaned up. This is interesting. They are cleaned with water (which of course represents the Holy Spirit), but also as v.4 indicated, rubbed with salt. Salt was a key ingredient of every Covenant and every sacrifice. Salt, of course, kills bacteria and dries the skin out from excess oils. God said no one had washed and salted His people from their infancy. This is evidence of God’s people having no other Saviour, as well as, sadly, an indicator that from her very infancy God’s people were bloodied in sin. Blood can also refer to violence, the shedding of blood — “By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood” (Hosea 4:2) — but it primarily refers to adultery / fornication as even in this passage in Hosea shows.
[“Break out” here or “breach” can mean burst... and it may symbolize, figuratively, something like a festering boil eventually bursting, or it may refer, literally, to breaching forth beyond the moral boundaries that God established and can also mean, “disperse, scatter, increase, open”. It can also mean “urge”, and thus it can also parallel the conception and birth of the evil intentions of the heart / mind (which is the focus of the 10th Commandment) as they erupt, as the New Testament also informs us,
“14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (James 1).]
Continuing in Ezekiel 16—
10I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ [antelope’s] skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. 11I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. 12And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. 13Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. 14And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through My Comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.
Here God speaks poetically about all the blessings that He showered down upon His people and that they were exalted and blessed because of God’s Goodness that He placed upon them; not due to their own nature or merit. The Tabernacle was made in part of “badgers” skin, which most likely was a type of antelope; not an unclean ground-burrowing scavenger. The silk and linen may also refer to the vestment of the priests. The jewel on the forehead may refer to Solomon’s Temple and the crown the Davidic Monarchy. The fine flour, oil, and honey may refer to the Manna that fell in the wilderness for 40 years, of which Scripture records, “the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). It, of course, was ground into flour and fried in oil and eaten like bread most of the time (though of course they could also have boiled it like rice / porridge).
Continuing in Ezekiel 16—
15But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. 16And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places [of pagan worship] with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so. 17Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of My silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, 18And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set Mine oil and Mine incense before them. 19My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD. 20Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto Me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter? 21That thou hast slain My children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them? 22And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood. 23And it came to pass after all thy wickedness (Woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD); 24That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street. 25Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened [spread] thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. 26Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger. 27Behold, 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. 28Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. 29Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. 30How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; 31In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire; 32But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! 33They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. 34And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.
Here God reveals the supreme insult, that all the blessings (even children) upon whom God had showered His people, they took and gave unto their false gods as they committed whoredom with alien peoples.
[Note: Originally, the Egyptians (and Philistines who descended from them) were a pure Adamic (white) people and the men could join unto Israel and approach the court of the nations and the women could marry into Israel—if they abandoned their pagan gods and customs and submitted to God’s people and God’s Law. However, after the Israelites left Egypt in ruins, it seems that having lost all her slaves at the time of her greatest national calamity, the Egyptians then imported Nubians as slaves from Saharan Africa and the racial complexion / identity of Egypt changed at that point. Shortly before Israel went down into Egypt, the Hyksos or “Shepherd Kings” had ruled Egypt, who were Aramaens. Originally the Assyrians were a pure Shemitic people; but in time, they absorbed the blood of nations they conquered; as did the Babylonians. As Professor Elmer Pendell shows in Why Civilizations Self Destruct (176pp., pb., 20.00 + P&H) and Myron C. Fagan in How the Greatest White Nations were Mongrelized then Negroized (31pp., 3.00 + P&H) and Drew Smith’s Why Civilizations Collapse (80pp., 10,00 + P&H), this has been the downfall of all empires. It is why Greece and Rome fell. Homoperversion is usually the last stage of this terminal national disease (and was also a factor in Greece and Rome’s self-destruction). The Babylonian Empire conquered the failing Assyrian. Babylon itself degenerated by absorbing aliens peoples (and customs) and it fell to the Chaldeans (a pure people of Aramea, descended most-probably from Arphaxad) who revitalized that empire. King Nebuchadnezzar was a Chaldean.]
God also points out that unlike most whorish women who have gifts lavished upon them by their lovers, Israel had so corrupted herself that she had to give gifts to her lovers even to be given any attention. And abominably, like an adulterous wife, Israel gave all such gifts unto her perverse lovers instead of to her husband—the only rightful, holy recipient of love or gifts.
Continuing in Ezekiel 16—
35Wherefore, O harlot, hear the Word of the LORD: 36Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; 37Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover [expose] thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 38And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. 39And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. 40They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords. 41And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more. 42So will I make My Fury toward thee to rest, and My Jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. 43Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted [provoked, quivered, enraged] Me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord GOD: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations. 44Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. 45Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
God exposes Israel’s sin. Her sin was adultery, whoredom, harlotry, fornication—with alien peoples; and her idolatry in addition to her faithlessness and lewdness. A proverb being levelled against them, “Like mother like daughter” infers that her whoredom is incurable! and that their marital infidelity was abominable... using the husband treacherously to supply all her needs and the very gifts that she would bestow upon her alien lovers. This is essentially what the Book of Hosea reveals. Here, we come full circle with v.3, in v.45, “your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite”. This denunciation does not refer to Israel’s own racial origin, but it is contrasting Israel’s perverse sinfulness and whoredoms with the whoredoms of the original inhabitants of Jerusalem: like mother like daughter. While the Israelites did not descend from the Canaanites, by acting no better than them, they can be referred to (in an insulting fashion) as the “spiritual descendents” of the Canaanites: for they are fulfilling their very whoredoms in the very city that the Canaanites founded.
It was for their vile irredeemable nature and unreformable abominations that God commanded the utter extermination of ALL the Canaanites. In Deuteronomy 18:12, after listing various abominations (idolatry, child-sacrifice, witchcraft, necromancy), God declared,
“For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee”.
Likewise, in Leviticus 18, after listing a host of abominations (sexual relations with family members, incest, adultery with kinsman-neighbor’s wife, sexual relations with a woman during her period, homoperversion, child-sacrifice, bestiality—specifically bestiality with a beast that has intelligence and consent to infer responsibility and the result of which causes confusion*), God declared,
“24Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: 25And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.”
[* For more detail see my The Creation of Man in Genesis 1 and 2. This word confusion #8397 tebel means “unnatural mixture” and its root is the word #1101 baw-lahl, “overflow, mix”. The Hebrew word #894 baw-bel likewise, has #1101 as its root and #894 is rendered Babel / Babylon, which means, “confusion by mixing”; which confusion cannot result if the two offenders cannot actually mix / overflow and produce offspring.
{The Old Testament passages in which the word Babylon appears should technically be rendered “Babel”. The Greek word #897 Babulon (bahb-oo-lon)* for some reason tainted how the translators rendered the word. In Hebrew it is Babel.
* the last o is an omega, a long o as in hope. The letter u, upsilon, is often misrendered into English as a y, which is mysterious. The capital upsilon (
) looks like an English y—but language scholars knew this. The Greek long o, omega looks like a w (
) lowercase [and even like a horseshoe in its capital (
)], but the translators and linguists don’t render the omega as a w in English transliterations / Anglicizations.}
The very same words inferring wilful understanding and guilt “their blood shall be upon them” and the result (progeny) causing confusion, are used in Leviticus 20:12 in reference to a man having carnal knowledge of his daughter-in-law. While homoperversion is an abomination, it does not cause “confusion” because there is no chance of offspring. Those who can’t connect the dots have their minds constricted by only thinking of four-legged animals in relation to the word translated “beast”.
The word animal comes from the Latin animus meaning “life; breath, consciousness, courage, feeling, intellect, intention, the mind, passion, pride, rational soul, sensibility, spirit, vehemence, will, wrath”; differentiating this class of beings from mere plants or minerals. The notion of “mind” is inferred or implied, an extended meaning; the primary meaning of “life” is evident in our English word animated. The primary meaning of living then governs the secondary meanings. Living creatures breathe and think (as well as act as a result of that breath and thought). The concept of animosity, likewise, is a secondary implication; and as in the Hebrew and Greek the very words wrath and anger and passion all refer to breathing—breathing in a more-specific, intense, purposive fashion.
Showing the mental confusion of godless people, I once read in a professional regional magazine an article decrying the fact that Africans slaughter whole tribes of gorilla, just to eat their massive hands which are considered a delicacy. The author wrote, “Gorillas are human too”. It seems no answer would even be necessary. But, no, gorillas are not human too. That’s like saying, “dogs are cats too”; or even in the confusion of anthropologists, it would be like saying, “dogs are beagles too”.
This same confusion arises with tribes of savages who are now considered human, but were not so considered centuries, much less millennia ago. God did not write His Word conforming His Own Thoughts and Decrees to what sinful, humanist, liberal, god-hating people in the 21st Century would prefer to believe reality to be. We are to conform to His Thoughts and Ways which are astronomically higher than our own. To not do so brings destruction.
The children of Adam are not “animals” in the modern understanding of the word, but they are animus, “living, breathing, rational creatures”—clearly a higher class of living creatures than lower, unrelated classes. God forbade cross-breeding of different kind (alien species). The very fact that certain different kinds are capable of cross-breeding shows that out-of-kind can often reproduce (bastards), though not every single kind can reproduce with every other kind.
God, it seems created separate kinds, with some being able to interbreed, while others cannot, to give enough rope for fools to hang themselves with and believe that one kind is related to and descended from the other; which is a false and fantastic inference. God-hating people who believe in evolution believe just the opposite, that the very ability of two classes to interbreed means that they are related.
However, if they are the same species and merely different variations of that species, there is no out-of-kind violation; and if it were impossible for two different out-of-kind creatures to reproduce, then there would be no reason for a command against it. God established boundaries and gave Commandments for us to respect and not cross those boundaries. When something is impossible to violate, it is an impregnable (no pun intended) barrier and there is no reason to issue a command for something that is impossible to do.]
God is not speaking of the people of Israel, but Jerusalem itself (as a metaphor) being (abominably) the “spiritual descendent” of the Jebusites and Amorites—carrying on their vile heritage or at least their vile practices in the very same city. The Hebrew word Jerusalem, appears to mean, “established* peace”.
[* literally, “flowing” (yawraw, “to flow as water”) peace. Interestingly, the Prince (heir of the Davidic throne) raised up to lead the captives out of Babylon was named Zerubbabel, “flowing out of confusion”; though employing a different Hebrew word, zawraw, “to flow away”.]
However, Jerusalem’s original name was Jebus (Judges 19:10); which means “trodden”, that is “threshing place”. The Canaanite tribe of the Jebusites (Jebusi), the founders, seem to have been a smaller tribe, but for some reason Judah and Benjamin were unable to remove them. Even in King David’s day (I Chronicles 21) there was a Jebusite family that owned a field with a threshingfloor (though a different Hebrew word is used) from whom David purchased the area. Why these Canaanites were permitted to live in Israel’s capitol right under King David’s nose is indeed a mystery.
Regardless, though the Jebusites were the founders, it appears that two of the much-larger, much-stronger Canaanite tribes, the Hittites and the Amorites, at different times, put their own cousins to tribute and ruled over them. The Hittites and Amorites were all over the place within the land of Canaan and beyond: east, west, north, and south. Two Amorite tribes, with separate kings, had conquered the northern territory of the Ammonites’ transjordan territory in what became the territory of Gad Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. These two Amorite kings (Og of Bashan and Sihon of the Amorites) were remnants of the giants (nephilim) and the Amorites seem to have had more giant blood than other Canaanite tribes. Gath, though a city of the Philistines (its inhabitants being called Gittites), had an Amorite presence, and Goliath and his kin were most probably Amorite (or at least, descended of them).
In Joshua 10, we learn that 5 Canaanite kings, after the Israelites’ destruction of the city of Ai (only their second conquest after entering Canaan) joined together to exterminate a Canaanite city (a royal city) of Hivites, Gibeon, for having tricked Joshua and the elders into signing a peace treaty with them (the other Canaanite tribes probably were jealous that they had not been as shrewd; but the treaty also represented the Gibeonites’ betrayal of their own people—and Gibeon was a royal city, much more powerful than Ai, and all the men of Gibeon were mighty warriors). This is an oddity itself, which we will discuss in a bit.
However, what is interesting, is that of these 5 Canaanite kings, we learn that one of them was Adonizedek “lord of justice” who was king of Jerusalem. What is even more striking is that we are told that these 5 kings, kings of the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon were “five kings of the Amorites” (v.5). The Amorites liked the hill country and these cities were all in what became the territory of Judah. So it seems that that Amorites conquered the Jebusites of Jerusalem. However, they did not exterminate their own kin, but must have lived together with them (as Rome later did), ruling over them, because as we saw, centuries later in David’s day the Jebusites were still in Jerusalem and Scripture says that the Israelites never fully drove the Jebusites out of Judah or Benjamin.
When Sarah died Abraham was in Hebron. At the time of the conquest, we saw above that Hebron was an Amorite city; but in Abraham’s day, Hebron was peopled by the children of Heth—Hittites. I do not see anywhere in the Scriptural record the Hittites having anything to do with Jerusalem. This does not mean that they did not; only that we do not know the particulars. the Hittites seem to have been the most-powerful Canaanite tribe. They survive today in one of their largest kingdoms: Turkey and other related nations in the region farther east). The Edomites themselves descended in part from the Hittites. Esau married Hittite wives and a Hivite wife; and later married the daughter of Ishmael when he realized his marrying Canaanite women was a grief to his parents. It is Esau’s descendents of this Ishmaelite wife that are the “Edomites” (for a limited period of time, as long as they did not intermarry with cursed peoples) who were Israel’s brethren, the women of whom could marry into Israel (Deuteronomy 23:7). See my color wall chart, Peoples of the Bible.
[Joshua 9 and 10 are contain some odd information. Joshua and the elders were fooled by the Gibeonite-Hivites into making a treaty, when the Gibeonites pretended to be from a country far, far away. The argument really seems unbelievable. If they lived in a country so far away that their shoes and clothes and winebags would wear out from the journey, how could they have possibly heard of Israel’s most-recent victories against the transjordan Amorites...? If they lived in a country that far away, why would they even feel the need to make a treaty with Israel, grovelling, calling themselves Israel’s “servants” (which became a self-fulling prophecy)...? If they lived in a country that far away, they would not have had any bread left to go moldy, since they would have eaten it all and needed to buy more along the way. Regardless, it seems that because Joshua and the elders did not consult God in the matter, He had their eyes and minds blinded to be so fooled by such a vapid fraud. Did Joshua and the elders take the individual emmisaries aside into separate groups and ask them questions like, “What is the name of your people? What is the name of your country? What is the name of your king? From whom do your people descend? What are the names of other countries that neighbor you?” If you are from a far country how is it that you speak Canaanite? What is your mother-tongue and please speak and write down these phrases in your mother-tongue. Then, of course, Joshua and the elders from the sequestered groups could have then “compared notes”.
It would seem to me, even as expressed elsewhere in Scripture (which became part of the Common Law of Christendom), that if one party breaks his end of the contract, the other party is not lawfully required to fulfill his end; and a contract based upon fraud is invalid from its inception. Since the Gibeonites lied, Israel had no legal obligation to honor the treaty. However, it seems that the cementing factor was that the elders sealed the treaty by swearing in Yahweh’s Name—which upped the issue to one of Holiness. This does not mean that any of God’s people can swear something in Yahweh’s Name, and then use as an excuse that he is dutibound to do it. Indeed, he is dutibound to do it, but also to suffer the legal consequences of actually doing it. Such a person paints himself into his own “Catch-22” corner through greed or lust or hate. I dicussed this in an older Rumination (in Vol. 1) concerning Jephthah’s Rash Vow. For this reason Christ in the New Testament admonishes us,
“34But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by Heaven; for it is God’s Throne: 35Nor by the earth; for it is His Footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the City of the Great King. 36Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 37But let your communication be, ‘Yea, yea; Nay, nay’: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Matthew 5).
This was a lesson to Joshua and the elders to do nothing of such monumental proportions without first consulting God.
However, what seems even more odd, was that when the 5 Amorite kings decided that they were going to exterminate their crafty Gibeonite cousins, and the Gibeonites called to Joshua for help, it seems that Joshua there had a clear “out”—a way out of the contract. Joshua had agreed not to kill the Gibeonites, but the contract does not seem to have inferred that Joshua would protect them from their own people. Even if the contract stipulated that the Israelites would defend these _____ whoever they were, from their enemies, surely their own people could not have been considered, at the time of the contract, their “enemies”. And their own people were rising against them not as enemies, but to punish them for their crimes; which is not persecution, but justice. Joshua should have said, “Okay, good, return to your nation far-far-far away and if your enemies pursue you there, we will come to your aid... just leave us a road map so that we know how to find you; because we did not sign a peace treaty with any Canaanite peoples living in Canaan, for that would have been a violation of what God commanded us.
The original contract was, it appears, one of peace; but after learning of the fraud Joshua subjected the Gibeonites to being Israel’s servants (hewers of wood and drawers of water). That itself was an alteration of the original contract; so I don’t see how not protecting the Gibeonites from their own family would have been a violation of it either. Also, though we are not told in Scripture that Joshua had learned his lesson and actually consulted God before undertaking this war to protect the Gibeonites, in Joshua 10:8 we learn that God gives Joshua His Blessing and informs him not to fear and that God would give Israel the victory. Clearly, there is more concerning the terms of the contract (whether stated or unspoken and understood / implied) and the bottom line is that God had ordained it and the Gibeonites existence was itself a consequence of disobedience, the Law of the Harvest, with which they would have to live. God ordains all. Even as we see in Joshua 11:20 that none of the other Canaanite tribes attempted to surrender or make peace with Israel: “For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that He might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses.” God likewise had hardened Pharaoh’s heart, many times (playing handball with it, hardening and softening); and likewise at the end of Moses’ life God hardened the heart of Sihon, Amorite King of Heshbon (Deuteronomy 2:30) so that those transjordan Canaanites would also be destroyed.]
Regardless God is speaking of the City of Jerusalem itself (as if it was a living organism) and using that as a diversion, an analogy to reveal Israel’s very sin, by comparing sinful Jerusalem to the vile Canaanite founders and former possessors of the city of Jerusalem. Clearly, when God gives us information that is in complete opposition to known Scriptural facts, then the usage is allegorical and the purpose instructional in a different way. This analogy-lesson is continued in the next verses.
Continuing in Ezekiel 16—
46And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters. 47Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways. 48As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. 49Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. 51Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done. 52Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters. 53When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them: 54That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them. 55When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. 56For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride, 57Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about. 58Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the LORD. 59For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the Oath in breaking the Covenant.
Here we have an incredible eye-full of God’s disgust with “faithful Judah”—which is whom the brother of the Prodigal son represents (Luke 15); who is also whom the “faithful” son in Christ’s other parable represents, who when ordered to work in his father’s field replied, “I go, sir” but went not (Matthew 21:28ff.). Of course, all the wickedness of Judah is distilled in her capitol, Jerusalem. The fact that only sisters and daughters are referred to is also an indicator that it is allegorical, referring to the cities themselves as if the cities are living beings.
Here we see the simple allegorical nature of this denunciation. We know that the city of Samaria was not descended from a common ancestor city that also gave birth to Jerusalem. Canaanites did not found Samaria. King Omri of Northern Israel actually built the hill and his fortress upon it, which capitol city was named Samaria, and which capitol then often represented the whole Northern Confederation of Israel. However, analogies and parables are not meant to parallel every single possible point; but merely one or a few key points. If we say that someone eats like an ox, it does not mean that he has a five-foot trail of green drool hanging to the ground, that he shoves his face in a trough, eats hay and raw, unhulled grain, grass, and flicks his ears and tail and grunts as he eats or that he eats standing up and then later kneels in the shade, regurgitates his food and chews it again. We simply mean that he consumes a lot of food. The metaphor could also be mixed by adding “and he drinks like a fish”. This would not invalidate the earlier ox-like comparison, and it does not mean that he is a half-ox and half-fish creature. It simply means that two different analogies were used to express two different things.
Samaria is actually given the inferior position of the left hand (due possibly, merely to geographic reality). Sodom, one of the 5 homopervert Canaanite cities of the plains is given the more noble position of the right hand (possibly inconsequentially). Israelites faced east in their geographic and prophetic and religous outlook (the Temple faced east; most likely when the Tabernacle was set up, it always faced east—the direction of the rising sun; to which Christ Himself was even compared: Malachi 4:2; Matthew 24:27, “lightning” should have been rendered “light”). Indeed, Sodom was geographically to the south of Jerusalem, and Samaria geographically to the north and facing east, the right hand is the south hand, etc. However, the issue may not merely be geographic, but moral. The right hand represents favor and blessing. This is astounding. Indeed, the Canaanites were far-more wicked than the Israelites—and God commanded Israel to utterly destroy or drive them out and to not learn their ways; but Israel, like a squeeling pig running to return and dive into the mire and grunt in ecstacy, abandoned God and lusted after the pagan gods and customs of their vile enemies. This is only understood for the abomination it is by those who actually understand even a glimpse of the Holiness of God and to realize that God does not love everyone and that God ordained some people unto destruction as vessels of wrath to accomplish His Will. To then declare that those vile, unreformable, irredeemable vessels of wrath were more honorable, is the height of insult. Christ Himself declared in Judgment:
“23And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto Heaven, shalt be brought down to Hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment, than for thee.” (Matthew 11)
“12But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. 13Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the Judgment, than for you. 15And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to Heaven, shalt be thrust down to Hell.” (Luke 10)
[Why was repentance not preached unto Sodom, Gomorrah, Tyre, and Sidon if they would have repented...? —because it was not God’s Will that they repent. Similarly Christ purposely preached hard sayings that would offend some in the land of Israel so that they would stop following Him because they were not ordained unto life and for the same reason God blinded the hearts, minds, ears, eyes and stiffened the necks of all so that they do not believe, repent, and be saved / healed—but God opens only the hearts, minds, ears, eyes of the elect whom God in Christ determined before the foundation of the world. See my book, Does God Repent? —Can God Change His Mind? God determines all. He is Master of His Universe.]
“30For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. 31The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. 32The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” (Luke 11)
[The Ninevites repented temporally which averted their immediate physical destruction. This is not talking about Covenantal Redemption / Salvation / Regeneration. See my very detailed, S.T.E. Commentary on Jonah.]
However, though this passage says that Jerusalem was more evil than Sodom, it is intended from a limited, specific, comparative context. Israel / Judah knew better. Israel is God’s people, they had the Law of God, they had prophets and priests to lead them; they had the Word of God and the Law of God. Their offense is a greater abomination as children of God and Covenantal children of God—Covenantal children of God who swore to obey the Covenant. Even as Peter says that Judgment will begin with the House of God—it indeed will because we are God’s people and know better; and thus, our sin is even more reprehensible. This is not to downplay the perversity and violence of Sodom—for had Sodom and the other cities of the plains not been guilty of such a high magnitude of abominations God would not have specifically destroyed them before Israel ever came into existence, centuries earlier in Abraham’s day.
Thus we see that the analogy is not meant to be literal. Sodom existed back in Abraham’s day 910 years before Omri would build Samaria, and yet Sodom is described as Jerusalem’s “younger” sister. The purpose seems to be like Peter’s Vision (which had NOTHING to do with food). God compared His disgust to Peter’s “giving in” to the Judaizers and disassociating himself with the Israelites of the dispersion who came to Christ (the so-called “Gentiles”) by asking Peter to kill and eat unclean animals (which Peter never did because it was an analogy and Peter knew that; see my booklet, So, You Call Yourself A Christian...). The purpose was to initiate a knee-jerk reaction (even as Nathan’s story to David about a man with many sheep who stole his neighbor’s one little beloved lamb and slew and ate it) of revulsion—then once that revulsion was initiated, to turn it, like turning a stampeding herd, and aim all that mass and enertia in a different direction at the real issue.
Jerusalem’s sin did not literally “justify” Samaria and Sodom’s sin. It is merely an over-the-top expression to indicate the monumental abominations of which Jerusalem was guilty. Also, Sodom had no existing population from which any could be brought back from captivity. It is possible as Christ declares, that the return of this captivity can refer to Final Judgment. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah because Israel knew better and “to whom much is given much shall be required”.
It is an analogy to reveals the greatness of Jerusalem’s guilt. It is similar to Christ saying that unless a man hates his mother and father he cannot be My disciple. God commanded His people to love and honor thy father and mother—and cursed those who do not. Therefore, it is either a comparative analogy indicating, “Your love and allegiance for Me should be so complete and strong that it makes your love of anything else look like hate”; or it could have meant that we were to hate the “carnality” in mother and father (and even in ourselves)—anything that would get in the way of serving God. It also would be no comfort to someone bearing God’s Judgment, to know that someone else is being judged too. In the midst of that Judgment there is nothing but existential reality of suffering in relation to self. Nothing else exists to a mind and body in such torment. Therefore, this is all simply an analogy to convey to Jerusalem just how serious their sin is. If their sin is considered far worse than the abominations that cause God to rain down fire and brimstone upon 4 entire Canaanite cities of the plains without any warning to give them opportunity to repent... to then be told that God considers your sin FAR WORSE, so bad that it even JUSTIFIES and COMFORTS those wicked cities that were destroyed... that should cause you to sober up and pay attention and repent.
Continuing in Ezekiel 16—
60Nevertheless I will remember My Covenant [that I made] with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish [confirm, continue] unto thee an Everlasting Covenant. 61Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy Covenant. 62And I will establish My Covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: 63That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD.”
This indeed is very odd: to make a person’s sisters to become his daughters—especially since Sodom was a city of Canaanites that was utterly destroyed. Again, this shows the highly figurative language, because God forever forbade any peaceful dealing and forever forbade any familial bonding with the Canaanites, the people of His Perpetual Curse. This entire city was destroyed and did not even exist. However, this passage also says that Samaria and Sodom would not share in the Covenant that God gave to Jerusalem, though they would be Jerusalem’s daughters and not merely sisters. This indeed is a riddle; it is certainly not intended to be literal.
However, Samaria does not share in the Covenant that Jerusalem has. This may mean that God is speaking to the House of David, the rulers of Jerusalem. Indeed, to give the sister as a daughter infers authority over the former sister, and this may refer to the re-unification of Israel with Judah (the “two sticks”). The prophecy concerning Sodom here, Sodom (which was in the land of Judah) may symbolize the rest of the House of Judah, who was equally sinful. After God destroyed the Canaanite cities of the plains in Abraham’s day, surely other cities sprang up in their place (eventually to be exterminated or driven out by the Israelites under Joshua). The tiny town of Zoar was unfortunately spared in Abraham’s day; those homoperverts may have later spread to the Benjamite town of Gibeah, in which a Sodom-like event took place that resulted in the near-extermination of the entire Tribe of Benjamin (which I explain in my S.T.E.C. on Genesis / Judges).
After I completed this study, I decided to see what some commentators had to say, and they all seem to be completely useless on this chapter.
The main thing to keep in mind is that God is not talking about peoples. He is talking about cities and he is talking about their sinfulness. He chose the two other most-sinful cities within the land of Israel to make His comparison; the focus is the cities and their sin, not the identity of the people of those cities.
God is not double-minded. He does not make mistakes or contradict Himself or change His Mind or change Morality. This has nothing to do with the generally confused notion of "adoption". Biblical adoption does not refer to the bringing in of an alien into the family—which God forbade. God commanded the very opposite: expelling all aliens and mixed children with alien women whenever they crept in. Biblical adoption refers to a child coming of age in the family to responsibility, or a disgraced son being restored to a place of honor (like the Prodigal); or it can refer to a family member adopting a child of a deceased kinsman (but that is not the sense used in the New Testament).
God will not contradict His Own Law. He forbade all Canaanites and mixed blood even as He forbade homoperversion. He will never then allow it. The Sodomite-Canaanites were not to be adopted. They no longer existed and they were not kinsmen. The use of the word sister here is only metaphoric and does not refer to the original Canaanites of Sodom; it refers to the general stigma of sinfulness of that town. Since the Canaanites were destroyed, it is the stigma that continued to any Israelites who settled in that area and probably refers to all of the House of Judah even as Samaria may refer to all of the House of Israel; and Jerusalem, which is the city of the great King, is symbolizing the House of David—and most of Judah's kings were sinful and led the people into sin; even as the non-Davidic kings of the Northern Confederation were ALL wicked and led the people into sin, idolatry, etc. Even Solomon himself was guilty of mass whoredom and idolatry.
The Canaanites were all exterminated and God had exterminated all the Canaanites of Sodom nearly 1000 years before Ezekiel's prophecy, so God is not saying that He will bring the captivity of the Canaanites who were destroyed, because they were all dead and God declared, "It is appointed unto men once to live and after this the Judgment". God would not bring them back from Judgment in Hell to be Jerusalem's daughters. Even as Peter's Vision had nothing to do with food or abolishing the dietary laws (though sadly, the majority of Bible "experts" believe the very opposite of what many Biblical texts teach, and lead millions astray in their anti-intellectual, carnal interpretations) it was stated to cause a profound reaction Peter KNOWING that God was not abolishing His Law. As I explain in So, You Call Yourself A Christian..., Peter never killed and ate after he awoke from the vision; he was confused about what the vision could possible mean, since He knew God would not want him to pollute and defile and make himself abominable. Several days later the MEANING of the vision came to him and he realized that God was telling him not to call unclean his converted brethren of the diaspora who came to Christ, which was the purpose of the Great Commission. Yet sinful Bible "experts" and pastors ignore the truth of Scripture and lead their flocks in rebellion to sin against God based upon what a Scriptural passage does NOT say. So it is with this prophecy about making Israel's YOUNGER "sister" Sodom to be her daughter. Since Sodom existed long before Samaria, calling Sodom the younger sister clearly refers to any Israelite community that grew up around it... or possibly referring to the Benjamite city of Sodomites in Gibeah who carried on that vile sin. But again, the municipal, geographic CITIES are being spoken of as METAPHORS to convey the message that God has—and the true meaning will never contradict what God has already declared, or change or abolish His Law, or violate what He commanded and decreed.
Commentators of course wax into all sorts of theories about Jews and Gentiles. Samaria certainly does not fit their concept of “Gentile” and the Sodomite Canaanites were all non-existent and were never to be included in salvation. Furthermore, the prophecy was not against Judah (whom they erroneously think of as “Jews”), but against JERUSALEM. Israel had been conquered and deported 130 years before Ezekiel prophetically declared what was later written in captivity as chapter 16. Samaria was the capitol of the Northern Confederation. Was Sodom the capitol of anything?
Sodom is mentioned 53 times in the Bible. Gomorrah is mentioned 19 times in the Bible. In every verse that Gomorrah is mentioned, Sodom is mentioned. In every verse Sodom is mentioned first. This may seem to indicate that Sodom was the chief of some confederation. Sodom and Gomorrah and 3 other cities (Admah, Zeboiim, Zoar / Bela) rebelled against their overlord Chedorlaomer King of Elam and his confederates Tidal, king of nations, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar (Genesis 14). Quite possibly Sodom was the leader of this rebellion.
This chapter of Ezekiel was only written about 6 years before the final fall of the Kingdom of Judah and the final deportation—and Jerusalem, the capitol was the final hold out. While it may possibly refer to all of Judah, much of Judah had already been deported; and it is specifically stated to Jerusalem—the head and therefore, the one held to a higher level of accountability, having not only the King but the Temple and the priests, in addition to many prophets sent to it.
Even as Jerusalem’s sin is superimposed over that of the former origin of the city of Jebus, so also, possibly Sodom represents the Judaean who carried on the sinful spiritual legacy of the Sodomites, and thus, possibly represents all of Judah separate from the House of David.
Isaiah 5 gives us a similar picture, in one of the most moving passages of the prophets:
“1Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching His vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: 2And He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. 3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard. 4What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 5And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: 6And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the House of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant: and He looked for Judgment [Justice], but behold [instead, He found] oppression [slaughter]; [He looked] for righteousness, but [instead] behold a cry [shriek].”
Gathering the stones thereof out refers to God driving the Canaanites. Stones—spiritually dead. This is entirely different than a different analogy referring to God’s people as lively (and precious) stones (not ordinary rocks). God also condemned his people for their fornication / whoredom with these vile, cursed aliens:
“And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.” (Jeremiah 3:9)
Stocks are dead trees—lumber, posts, beams, boards. Briers and thorns coming up, likewise, refers to Canaanites and other vile, cursed peoples, returning to populate the land after Israel was deported.