Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan - It would dishonor Abraham to say that you sprung from him: ye are rather Canaanites than Israelites. The Canaanites were accursed; so are ye.
Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite - These tribes were the most famous, and probably the most corrupt, of all the Canaanites. So Isaiah calls the princes of Judah rulers of Sodom, Isaiah 1:10; and John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a generation or brood of vipers, Matthew 3:7. There is a fine specimen of this kind of catachresis in Dido' s invective against Aeneas: -
Nec tibi Diva parens, generis nec
Dardanus auctor, Perflde;
sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus, Hyrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres .
Aen. lib. 4:365.
"False as thou art, and more than false, forsworn;
Not sprung from noble blood, nor goddess born:
But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock, -
And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck."
Dryden.
This is strong: but the invective of the prophet exceeds it far. It is the essence of degradation to its subject; and shows the Jews to be as base and contemptible as they were abominable and disgusting.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Ezekiel 16:3:
Revelation 17:1
DISCLAIMER: Church of the Great God (CGG) provides these resources to aid the individual in studying the Bible. However, it is up to the individual to "prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21). The content of these resources does not necessarily reflect the views of CGG. They are provided for information purposes only.
