Ezekiel 16:3
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
And say, Thus said the Lord GOD to Jerusalem; Your birth and your nativity is of the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite, and your mother an Hittite.
American King James Version (AKJV)
And say, Thus said the Lord GOD to Jerusalem; Your birth and your nativity is of the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite, and your mother an Hittite.
American Standard Version (ASV)
and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah unto Jerusalem: Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father, and thy mother was a Hittite.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
And say, This is what the Lord has said to Jerusalem: Your start and your birth was from the land of the Canaanite; an Amorite was your father and your mother was a Hittite.
Webster's Revision
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD to Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.
World English Bible
and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: Your birth and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.
English Revised Version (ERV)
and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem: Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father, and thy mother was an Hittite.
Clarke's Ezekiel 16:3 Bible Commentary
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.
Barnes's Ezekiel 16:3 Bible Commentary
Birth - See the margin; the word represents "origin" under the figure of "cutting out stone from a quarry" (compare Isaiah 51:1).
An Amorite - the Amorite, a term denoting the whole people. The Amorites, being a principal branch of the Canaanites, are often taken to represent the whole stock Genesis 15:16; 2 Kings 21:11.
An Hittite - Compare Genesis 26:34. The main idea is that the Israelites by their doings proved themselves to be the very children of the idolatrous nations who once occupied the land of Canaan. Compare Deuteronomy 20:17.
Wesley's Ezekiel 16:3 Bible Commentary
16:3 Jerusalem - The whole race of the Jews. Thy birth - Thy root whence thou didst spring. Thy father - Abraham, before God called him, (as his father and kindred) worshipped strange gods beyond the river, 24:14 .An Amorite - This comprehended all the rest of the cursed nations.