Ezek. 16:53-63 A Foundling’s Tail

53   “I will restore their fortunes, both the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes in the midst of them,  54 that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them.  55 As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; and you and your daughters shall return to your former estate.  56 Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride,  57 before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you have become like her an object of reproach for the daughters of Edom and all her neighbors, and for the daughters of the Philistines, those round about who despise you.  58 You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, says the LORD. 

59   “Yea, thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant,  60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant.  61 Then you will remember your ways, and be ashamed when I take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you.  62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD,  63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord GOD.” “Ezek. 16:53-63

Abruptly and unexpectedly, the rebuke takes a turn. The tone of condemnation is subjugated to one of forgiveness and restoration. As a Historicist I do not like to speculate on an unfulfilled passage. Historicist’s prefer to wait until the event is in the history books before commenting. So we shall look at some ideas that have been proposed.

The covenant theologians have a simple solution. All the prophecies concerning Israel and Judah are transferred to the church. Because they teach that Israel and Judah are cut off forever. So this is just about the church repenting as they are saved.

For the dispensationalist, there is a real problem here, for those who are incline to believe and teach that Judah’s fortunes began being restored in 1948.  Where is Samaria i.e. the Northern Kingdom of Israel? Sodom was gone before Ezekiel wrote this prophecy. Because dispensationalist take everything woodenly literal they need Sodom to be restored. However Sodom was so utterly eliminated, that the archeologist still don’t agree where it was. There simply are no people to restore. Also the present country of Israel is unrepentant, and still refusing to accept that a first century Rabbi from the backwaters of Nazareth is their Messiah. Some  of them teach that Sodom stands for the Moabites and Ammonites, the descendants of Lot who were the only survivors of the judgment [Gen 19].  However, today there are no Moabite or Ammonites left. Neither is there a Philistia or Edom.

Yes! we see the little hopeful Messianic in the back of the room, chirping, “but nothing in impossible with God”. Yes! but a lot of things are improbable. Scripture interprets Scripture, not our hopes and ideas.

It is also possible that Ezekiel means something else when he says Sodom. In the Book of the Revelation, Sodom and Egypt are an allegory for “the great city” which we know to be Papal Rome. [Rev 11:8]

And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, Heb. 9:27 There are no second chances. We don’t see how all these people can literally come back and be restored. But then it doesn’t have anything that would make one think that it is symbolic either.

Time will tell. Somehow the Northern Tribes and Sodom must be repentant and restored back from their captivity, at the same time as Judah, and since Judah is due to be exiled once more, maybe this is farther in the future then we think. (See Also: Zech. 14:1-5]

Ezekiel 16:43b-52 A Foundlings Tail (part 7)

 

The Lack of Charity

“Have you not committed lewdness in addition to all your abominations?  44 Behold, every one who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’  45 You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.  46 And your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters.  47 Yet you were not content to walk in their ways, or do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.  48 As I live, says the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.  49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.  50 They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them, when I saw it.  51 Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations which you have committed.  52 Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have made judgment favorable to your sisters; because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous. Ezek. 16:43b-52

God starts out with the insult of insults, instead of being His beloved, pure and clean, she is rather the daughter of a Hittite and Amorite  and a sister to Samaria. But to top it off, He compares them to Sodom, nothing in the Bible is a greater insult than being compared to Sodom. Even in our culture Sodom is a byword for all that is evil and destined to be destroyed. A city so wicked that God erased them from the face of the earth. Archeologist  are still not definitive as to where it was. One of the mistaken interpretations of Gen 19, that the great sin of the city was homosexuality. We see here that the greater sin was being uncharitable to the poor and needy.

A careful reading of Gen 19 reveals that it is not their homosexuality that was condemned, but the fact that their homosexuality caused them to behave in an inhospitable manner. Throughout the ancient world hospitality was a cardinal responsibility of everyone. There were no inns or hostile for travelers to stay in. So it was a universal rule that travelers be taken in and cared for and protected. Most pagan culture have a similar story where the god or king goes traveling to see if his people are kind and charitable or not. If they treat him well they are rewarded, if not they are punished or cursed. In Gen 19, where the three visitors come to Sodom, only Lot offers them hospitality. Because of the wholesale homosexuality the citizens of the city, they only want to prey on the visitor rather than protect them, and this is why they were cursed. This is not the instructions of God. The law states that the traveler is to be shown hospitality.

Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Deut. 10:19

Because Judah had the temple, she is more guilty than the Northern tribes.  After Solomon’s reign the Northern ten tribes had split politically with Judah. This left Samaria or the northern tribes with no access to the temple, and it’s distribution system. The reason that this is important is that God’s welfare system was to be run by the priests and Levites through the temple.  See Also: Tithing.

Where Samaria’s inhospitality was there because they had lost the distribution network. Judah was without excuse as they had the temple and the Priests and Levites to instruct them. Clearly from this text we see that they had not kept these laws of charity and hospitality. They now stand condemned by God for not caring for the poor and needy, their neighbor or the traveler.

God clearly intended for his spiritual leaders to care for the poor and needy, not the government. It was to the temple and Levites that the widow and orphans were to turn, not the king. When the early church was uninvited to the temple they picked deacons to fulfill this need. [Acts 6] They did not complain to the temple authorities. They did not turn to the Roman government.

Ezek. 16:35-43a A Foundlings Tail (part 6)

35   “Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD:  36 Thus says the Lord GOD, Because your shame was laid bare and your nakedness uncovered in your harlotries with your lovers, and because of all your idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them,  37 therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you loathed; I will gather them against you from every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.  38 And I will judge you as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy.  39 And I will give you into the hand of your lovers, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your fair jewels, and leave you naked and bare.  40 They shall bring up a host against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.  41 And they shall burn your houses and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women; I will make you stop playing the harlot, and you shall also give hire no more.  42 So will I satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall depart from you; I will be calm, and will no more be angry.  43 Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things; therefore, behold, I will requite your deeds upon your head, says the Lord GOD. Ezek. 16:35-43a

To often the preachers will console the church by teaching that these judgment passages are about Israel and have nothing to do with the church. But we are the same people. There is neither Jew nor Greek [Gal. 3:28]. And the church is guilty of the very same sins. We have merely renamed the pagan gods with the names of Mary and the saints. All the pagan attributes are now applied to Mary and the saints, and of course you can pray to them, because you know God is too busy. Mary has become the mother goddess of paganism, Peter is father Zeus etc.

Praying to anyone or anything other than God Himself is forbidden in the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me.  Ex. 20:3

The language of this harlot Judah is the same as the language used in The Revelation for the apostate church or Whore of Babylon.  Both have great wealth and both are destroyed by their lovers.

And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, Rev. 17:16 c.f. Rev. 18:11-13

 

It is long passed time to consider your faith. Are you a bride or whore? Is your faith Biblical or contaminated with pagan thought and ideas? Are you actually worshiping the God of the Bible, or rather a fiction created by pastors, priests, or teachers, who are prey on you?  They are in this for the power and or money. We have our Bibles, it is time to pick them up, and read them for ourselves.  The only way out of the darkness of falsehood it to walk into the light of truth.

See Reading Program, The One Year Bible.

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; Rev. 18:4

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls. Rev. 18:11-13

Do not forget Paul’s warning.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree,  do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say,  “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”  That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off.  And even the others, if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree. Rom. 11:17-24

See also  Mystery Religions

The Pagan Origins of Christmas

The Pagan Origins of Easter

Ezek. 16: 30-34 A Foundlings Tail (part 5)

30   “How lovesick is your heart, says the Lord GOD, seeing you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot;  31 building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a harlot, because you scorned hire.  32 Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!  33 Men give gifts to all harlots; but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side for your harlotries.  34 So you were different from other women in your harlotries: none solicited you to play the harlot; and you gave hire, while no hire was given to you; therefore you were different. Ezek. 16:30-34

God’s people are as an Adulterous wife. Unfaithful to the Covenant that we have agreed to. It would be one thing if all these pagan gods did something for us. But they are all false gods and only further impoverish us morally, spiritually and/or financially.  Santa Clause may make a kid feel richer, but the truth is his parents are poorer for it. The devastation that earth worship has brought us is almost beyond comprehension. We don’t want drill for our own oil, so we are dependent on others even enemies for our fuel. We believe that humans are depleting the earth, so we depopulate to dangerous levels. Science isn‘t science anymore, it is myth and a  religion, rather than observable facts and repeatable results. We are in love with every lie, with every false god, and with every false prophet. We are returning to an age of superstitions and myths, rather than the one of truth that our one true God meant for us to have. How about you? Do you love the truth, or can you put up with that which is not true, if it is pleasant? Do you pant after that which is true?  Do you desire truth to be in your head, in your heart, on your tongue, and in your life? Or are you content with what is false? If you love falsehood, your mind is full of disease; and unless you are healed of the plague, you can never enter heaven. You must be transformed and made true, and only the Spirit of truth can effect the mighty change.

Our religious leaders are no longer men of the word of truth, they neither read Greek nor Hebrew. The most basic thing that any spiritual leader should know, is how to read the Bible, not a translation. Honestly, would you go to a Doctor who could not even name the bones of the human body? The languages of the Bible are the basic tools of the preacher’s trade. Without a sound foundation of the true Word of God these spiritual leaders often degrade into sorcery and witchcraft, teaching that they are somehow spiritually superior, and deserving of ten percent of our incomes. They use the Bible as a gypsy would use a crystal ball. They only want to keep you coming back for more, while never actually bringing you to a full knowledge of your True Beloved. They not only condone your sinfulness, they teach you more lies. These humbugs only want your money. Why are you sitting under the teachings of a man who knows no more than you? Why sit under one of these charlatans buying all the hooey they dish out? Maybe you can’t leave because you’ve always there, you mother goes there, it is your tradition, whatever your excuse, it is time to pick up your Bible and study, your eternal soul is at stake. Leave the false lovers.

The Creator of the Universe has much to tell you, much to teach you. Where do you think Einstein and Newton learned what they did? They were both students of the creator. Most of the truly great men of real science, are. Not the make believe stuff they spread now. But the real demonstrable science that built our great culture and lifestyle.

Quit selling your soul to these false gods. The One True God, and His love for you, is far deeper than any false god. We have forgotten who it is that told us to live, who watched us grow, and took us into His arms and bed of love. The pagans tell you love is everywhere, you can sleep with anyone. The preachers tell you off for your lustful nature. But God meant for all your desires to be filled. They are only lustful in the wrong context.

This last church age is lukewarm and has shut the doors on Messiah. They do not wish Him to even enter. They do not wish to eat with Him. We must conquer the paganism of the churches and open our own door and have our own relationship.

14   “And to the angel of the church in La-odicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. 

15   “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!  16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.  17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  18 Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.  19 Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent.  20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.  21 He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.  22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” Rev. 3:14-22

This is the way back. Sell off all your pagan ideas, beliefs, and fable’s. Only in reading our Bibles, can we make everyone prove everything to us. Only in self discipline and learning can we by the gold, and white garments we need. Salvation maybe free, but open eyes and white garments must be purchased.

Ezekiel 16:23-29 A Foundling’s Tale (part 4)

 23   “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! says the Lord GOD),  24 you built yourself a vaulted chamber, and made yourself a lofty place in every square;  25 at the head of every street you built your lofty place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself to any passer-by, and multiplying your harlotry.  26 You also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your harlotry, to provoke me to anger.  27 Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you, and diminished your allotted portion, and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.  28 You played the harlot also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yea, you played the harlot with them, and still you were not satisfied.  29 You multiplied your harlotry also with the trading land of Chaldea; and even with this you were not satisfied. Ezek. 16:23-29

After all the attention and costly ornaments the Lover has bestowed upon His beloved, she has not been faithful.  She has gone after every other lover she could find.  He refers to the high places as if they were houses of prostitution. They apparently were at every cross road. She had shamelessly gone after the gods and protection of the Egyptian army, then in turn had gone after the Assyrian gods and the Assyrian’s army. Sitting as Judah does, between Egypt and Assyria the two greatest powers of the day, Judah constantly played one against the other.  Changing her allegiances as the two empire struggled for supremacy. Saying that Philistine, who had allied herself with Assyria, and was ashamed of the Judah’s harlotry is the ultimate insult. The Philistines were Judah’s greatest nemesis. There was a continuous war from the time of Joshua till Hezekiah, a period of about 700 years. To say that Philistia has more morals, and is more faithful to her gods, is quite damning.

The Church, like Judah of old has inflicted the same ultimate hurt, that of going after foreign lovers. Judah took on the pagan gods of Chaldea, where the church, trying to hide there duplicitous nature, gave these same pagan gods the names of Mary and the saints. The source of all paganism is Chaldea the very place that our father Abraham had been called to leave. We seem to be repeating the same sin over and over, never learning. So back to the pig trough we return. To the place where all the paganism of the entire world has its start. Babylon! Though out the Bible, Babylon stands for all that is evil, idolatrous, and pagan. And neither the Jews nor the Church has been able to resist her siren call. There is no apostasy that cannot be traced back to the banks of the Tigris.

Yet we are never satisfied. Time and time again, great men have come forward to clean out the church. Time and time again they have missed or not notice something was not of God, or after a complete cleaning, future generations drag what was pagan right back in. It is amazing that how little leaven, leavens the whole lump.  We must clean house again.  If it is of Babylon it must go. (See our sister blog, The Mystery Religions)

Ezek. 16:15-22 A Foundling’s Tale (part 3)

 15   “But you trusted in your beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and lavished your harlotries on any passer-by.  16 You took some of your garments, and made for yourself gaily decked shrines, and on them played the harlot; the like has never been, nor ever shall be.  17 You also took your fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the harlot;  18 and you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them.  19 Also my bread which I gave you — I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey — you set before them for a pleasing odor, says the Lord GOD.  20 And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter 21 that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?  22 And in all your abominations and your harlotries you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, weltering in your blood. Ezek. 16:15-22

This is where the church usually misses the point, and they go on and on about how unfaithful the Jews were or are.  But His people are His people, and our nature has not changed even if our national heritage has become a mixture of every peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues Rev. 17:15 b The church is now as guilty of idolatry as ancient Israel was. Only we have changed the names of the ancient gods to christian saints, to hide our sin.

To fix the problem the church needs to admit that there is a problem.  Repentance comes from first acknowledging that there is sin. To turn and go the other way there must be a realization we have wandered away from the truth and are on the wrong path.

Just as Judah had corrupted the faith and brought pagan shrines into the city of Jerusalem and even the temple itself, the church has brought in the same corruption, in exactly the same way.  That attitude that we can worship the one true God and all these others as well, is deep in our psyche. Christianity has just white washed them so thick and deep that as time has passed, only those who study paganism can see the truth. So the paganised church went ahead and changed Molech into Jesus, and Ashtaroth was truncated into easter, and the false teachers taught the Congregation of the Lord that “the Law had passed away.”

We no longer sacrifice our children by throwing them into the fires of Molech, but we do scorch their consciouses in the flames of lies. There ARE Ten Commandments, they are not suggestions, Jesus was not born at xmas, He did not raise from the dead on easter. The average person in the pew is completely unaware of the origins of these abominations. These festivals were added by the corrupting church, so pagans coming into the faith could still have their parties.

There are plenty of parties in the Bible. But the false teacher label them as Jewish holidays, rather than Biblical Holy Days. We can’t have anything Jewish, can we? This corruption is all pervasive and very old. It is anti-Semitisim at its core. These false teacher would Quit listening to supposed Bible teachers who are anti-Semitic. They are Biblical Holidays, they were given to all, not just Jews.

 

For more on this you can read the sister blog to this one, The Pagan origins of Christmas, Pagan Origins of Lent, and The Pagan Origins of Easter.

The church, like Judah before it has not remembered her first love. We don’t remember because we have not been taught who gave us these riches. We have returned to our naked state after giving our silken robes to the same pagan deities. Come back to a true Biblical faith. Walk away from your pagan church. Your eternal soul is at stake.

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Rev. 2:4

Ezekiel 16:8-14 A Foundling’s Tale (part 2)

8   “When I passed by you again and looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yea, I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord GOD, and you became mine.  9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you, and anointed you with oil.  10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with leather, I swathed you in fine linen and covered you with silk.  11 And I decked you with ornaments, and put bracelets on your arms, and a chain on your neck.  12 And I put a ring on your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head.  13 Thus you were decked with gold and silver; and your raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and embroidered cloth; you ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful, and came to regal estate.  14 And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor which I had bestowed upon you, says the Lord GOD. Ezek. 16:8-14

God has waited patiently for his beloved to grow to the age of love. He has been down right indulgent in His forbearance. But now she is a grown woman.

Covering her with His “skirt” is an interesting word “kenaf”. The word has three uses;

1. The edge of a garment, as in where one would tie on Tzitzi. [Deut 22:12; 1 Sam. 24:5 ]
2. A euphemism for sexual relation, [Deut 22:30; 27:20]  but that seems out of order here.  It is placed before He even plights His troth.
3. It is far more commonly used for wings of birds, cherubim, and seraphim.

Prophetically it is used for things flying quickly either for to bring war or protection from war. I have no idea why the English translations prefer “skirt”, especially when the Septuagint translates “wing”. Maybe the kilt wearing Scots had something to do with it. So even though this could be a sexual reference it is more likely that it is a sign of protection and sanctuary. She is safe now. Nothing can harm her. (See Also: Of Kings, Cloaks and Sex)

He pledges His troth, (a troth is all a persons worldly possessions) which for the creator of the Universe is quite a lot, any bride would be impressed with absolutely everything that there is or can be. His most impressive attribute is Himself. He is so many things the bride can scarcely understand Him. He fills all creation, He controls all elements, there is nothing beyond Him. His only weakness is His love and devotion to His beloved bride.

He gave it all to acquire Her, even His own life. Nothing else would have been enough. The vatar covenant was first made with the blood of animals [Gen 15], resealed with a lamb [Ex 12] and finally He stepped up and presented the ultimate gift, His own blood. A life for a life, there is no higher price that can be paid.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. John 19:34

Now he goes about washing and clothing her in all the finest things, silks, linens, baubles, bangles, bright shiny things that all women just love. The nose ring seems a little strange, we tend to think of wild tattooed teenagers, but it was part of the normal wedding adornments of the time, and are still worn in some parts of India.

Then I asked her,  ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her arms. Gen. 24:47

God’s people build the most beautiful and productive nations on this earth. The more of God’s Laws and precepts a nations codifies, the more blessed with wealth and security they are.  Ancient Israel went from a band of nomads at the crossing of the Jordan, to David and Solomon in less than 400 years. The USA went from a party of religious riff raff landing on Plymouth Rock in 1621, in just 300 years, leading the world in WW2. And like Rehoboam we are about to loose it all. It will be our choice. Will we continue to follow God’s Law, or go the way of Jeroboam into lawlessness?[1Kings 11 f.f.]

FYI: riff raff derives from the Hebrew word for mixed multitude EVEV RAV.

Ezekiel 16:1-7 A Foundling’s Tale

Prosopopaspia – Judah is personified as a young woman.

1   Again the word of the LORD came to me:  2 “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations,  3 and say, Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.  4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your navel string was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor swathed with bands.  5 No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you; but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. 

6   “And when I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live,  7 and grow up like a plant of the field.’ And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full maidenhood; your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. Ezek. 16:1-7

 

FYI: Our passage starts with a familiar scene in the ancient world, an abandoned baby. There was an appalling how be it common practice in the ancient world of abandoning newborn babies, especially girls. The early church was persecuted by Rome for going out at night into the open spaces and fields around the city and collecting these unwanted, rescuing and adopting them. The pagan’s considered this interfering with their gods. It was believed that if they were worthy that a god or goddess would see them and take care of them. The story of Hercules is just this, His mother Alcmene abandoned him in an open field, where Hera queen of the gods saw him and suckled him. This went well until she found out that he was the son of her own philandering husband Zeus.

The true God is Almighty in the Hebrew El-Shaddai, this is not strength of arms, rather strength of breast, a nurturing strength. He speaks “Live” and His people grow like plants of the field. His word is just and true, and will always comes to pass. Unlike the pagan gods who manipulated exploited, and engineered to get what they wanted, the true God needs only speak, and a thing is so. The One True God is jealous of the pagan gods. They are not real. They did not/cannot do the thing He did and does. They are just the personifications of men, they have desires and cravings, that they scheme and plot to acquire. They are easily understood, unlike the God of creation, who is so far beyond our comprehension that we are at a lost to explain why He allows or disallows things. Where did Satan come from? Why do good people suffer? Why do bad people prosper?  Zeus can be explained, the one true God, not so much. We must simply clutch our mohar and trust.

So there we were the people of God, discarded and rejected, left for some animal to tear apart. Left in our own blood, we were not cleaned or cared for, but rather abandoned, unwanted, and unloved. That about sums up how the world feels about us. We are not worth acknowledging that we were worthy of anything but disgust.  But the creator of the Universe, said “live”, and so we have.

(The Hebrew word blood is plural here which is put for the defiling guilt of bloodshed. Ezekiel will later make this blood guilt connection quite clear in 22:2; 24:6.)

Our hair grew, which sounds kind of sweet in English, however what is meant is the pubic hair of maidenhood. God compares His attentiveness to that of a man watching the young girls in His community. Waiting and watching for the one that He wants, to be ready for love. There is a warning in Songs of Solomon that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please. [S of S 3:5] But He has been watching. He knows that His people are ready. It is not too soon. He knows that our hair has grown for we are naked. [not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Rev 3:17b] It is time, to give ourselves wholly to our God. Hold nothing back. He knows that we are ready for love. He is ready to fulfill that hunger, and gratify our desires.