Ezekiel 16:44-47

Ezekiel 16:44-47

[44] Behold, every one that useth proverbs  against thee, saying,  As is the mother,  so is her daughter.  [45] Thou art thy mother's  daughter,  that lotheth  her husband  and her children;  and thou art the sister  which lothed  their husbands  and their children:  your mother  was an Hittite,  and your father  an Amorite.  [46] And 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.  [47] Yet 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. 

What does Ezekiel 16:44-47 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

Other people would quote the proverb, "Like mother, like daughter," in regard to Jerusalem. She was like her Hittite "mother" who was also idolatrous and selfish. And she was like her older (larger) sister, Samaria, and its dependent villages, and her younger (smaller) sister, Sodom, and its dependent villages, both of which despised their husbands and children. The Hebrew text describes Samaria and Sodom as on Jerusalem"s left (north) and right (south) respectively, reflecting the customary eastern orientation of the Old Testament. However, Jerusalem acted even worse than they. The depraved worship of the Canaanites had affected all three of these cities, but Jerusalem had become the worst of the lot.