And thine elder sister is Samaria that dwelleth at thy left hand, she and her daughters; and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
God names Jerusalem's family here, and it is not the family she would have chosen: Samaria to the north, Sodom to the south, Jerusalem the middle sister. God puts the city of the temple in that household because she acts like it, and the rest of the chapter asks whether she is better than her sisters or worse.
The sister-language follows a saying about mothers and daughters. One writer notes that God draws a moral family tree here, not the line Jerusalem would have traced for herself:
Then the prophet pictures the Lord (in verse 44) giving the proverb that suits such wickedness: as the mother, so her daughter. This re-assigns Jerusalem's moral family line, not to the father of the faithful or the other heirs of promise, but to the shameful races of Canaan.
Jerusalem's claim was descent from Abraham. God answers by pointing at her behaviour and naming Canaanite parents instead.
Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom. Sodom was the city God had already wiped off the earth. To a citizen of Jerusalem, both names stood for other people's ruin. One writer shows why God reaches for them:
Still, filled with pride, she would hear nothing of Samaria or of Sodom — names which the Lord now uses to humble her. She was even more worthless than those she must acknowledge as her sisters, despite her pride.
God picks the two neighbours she most enjoyed looking down on.
Jerusalem had watched both sisters fall and drawn no lesson from either. That watching becomes part of the charge:
She who had judged her sisters must now take her place along with them and bear her shame. Jerusalem had looked on in pride of heart while Samaria went into captivity. She had stopped thinking of Sodom, a mere empty spot on the earth that had cast it out. Now she was to display her guilt in her condemnation as fully as they did.
The comparison crushes her because of what God had given her. One writer lists what set her apart from every other city:
Having the word of God, there was no excuse for the favoured city of Jerusalem going the way of Sodom. Jerusalem was the most privileged city on earth. God's holy ark had been brought there, and the Lord's glory had its home there in the temple Solomon had built. The worship of the Lord centred there. His priests served in His sanctuary, and His king sat on His throne. God had given all the enemies of Israel into their hands.
The chapter does not end with the family disgraced. One writer looks ahead to what her restoration will be like:
Samaria and Sodom are called her sisters, no more corrupt and guilty than she. When she is restored, it will be together with those she had despised. Learning her own moral condition will prevent her, for all time, from the pride that marked the days when she thought herself better than the nations.
Another writer follows the story past the humbling:
Once Jerusalem is justly condemned and humbled, God will still act in full grace towards her, and will re-establish her, remembering His love and His covenant. She will never be restored on the old ground, any more than Samaria or Sodom… The Lord will also establish a special covenant with Jerusalem, and her two sisters will be given to her as daughters.
The rule behind this comparison reaches past Jerusalem. One writer states it plainly:
It is God's people, when in a bad state, who are worse than anybody. That is a thing many cannot understand and do not believe… The more light there is, if people are not faithful, the worse they are. And therefore our Lord was very clear in showing that the Jews were the people. It was no question of Sodom and Gomorrah. They talked about the horribleness of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Oh," said the Lord, "it is you who are worse than they."
- Family — God traces Jerusalem's family line by her conduct, not to Abraham but to Canaan. The proverb fits her: as the mother, so her daughter.
- Names — God picks the two names Jerusalem most despised, and uses them to humble her pride.
- Measure — She was the most privileged city on earth: ark, temple, priests, throne. That is why the comparison with her sisters condemns her instead of flattering her.
- Verdict — The city that judged her sisters must now stand beside them and bear her own shame.
- Grace — She is restored alongside the sisters she despised, and they are handed to her as daughters. Knowing what she was cures her pride for good.
And thou hast not walked in their ways, nor done according to their abominations; but as though that were a very little, thou hast been more corrupt than they in all thy ways.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
[As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters!
God speaks here under oath. He swears that the city He had rescued, cleansed and adorned had gone further in evil than Sodom, the most notorious ruin in her own Scriptures. The question is not how bad Sodom was. It is how the favoured city sank lower — and what that says about privilege.
The chapter is not a general survey of Israel. It speaks about one city, and God names her sisters to humble her pride.
When you read Ezekiel 16, remember that the subject is Jerusalem, and not Israel. And the subject is not redemption, but God's dealings. He gave life to what was in misery and had no beauty. He cleansed it, adorned it, and anointed it. But Jerusalem used all that Jehovah had given her in the service of her idols… Still, filled with pride, she would hear nothing of Samaria or of Sodom. Jehovah now uses those very names to humble her. Despite her pride, she was even more worthless than the sisters she had to own.
Sodom is not a random name to throw at a city.
Sodom is regarded in scripture as a symbol of wickedness. Isaiah calls the heads of Judah the "rulers of Sodom." Isa. 1:10; cf. Ezek. 16:46-56; Rev. 11:8. The Lord showed how terribly wicked it is to reject Him after hearing His gracious words and seeing His mighty works. He declared that in a day of judgement it would be easier for Sodom than for the cities that rejected Him. Luke 10:12.
God sets two sister cities beside Jerusalem. She comes off worse than both.
The sins of Sodom were grievous, and so were the sins of the ten tribes. But they could not compare with the excesses of the city of Jerusalem. Grieving over the sins of Jerusalem, Jehovah said, "Your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done … Samaria has not committed half of your sins; you have multiplied your abominations more than they" (Ezek. 16:48, 51). Ezekiel 8 shows these awful abominations.
Sodom never had what Jerusalem had. The same principle appears in the Gospels.
But there was another city that was favoured even more. It is elsewhere called His own city (Matt. 9:1), because it was where He usually lived. That is why its guilt was so much greater. "And you, Capernaum, who are lifted up to heaven, will be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained to this day." … In other words, the measure of privilege is always the measure of responsibility.
The same writer applies this beyond ancient history, to God's own people.
It is God's people when in a bad state that are worse than anybody. Many cannot understand that and do not believe it… The more light there is, the worse people are if they are not faithful… And so the nearer you are to the blessing, the more guilty you are if the blessing is not yours.
Jerusalem had watched her sisters fall and felt superior. That posture is exactly what collapses here.
As she is reminded again, she had fully proved her Canaanite descent… Her terrible sins went beyond even theirs. As the Lord declares, she had even justified them by comparison — she had gone further than they did in evil. She who had judged her sisters must now take her place beside them and bear her shame. Jerusalem had looked on with pride of heart while Samaria went into captivity, and had stopped thinking of Sodom… Now her guilt would show in her condemnation as fully as theirs did.
The sentence looks final. But it is not the last word of the chapter.
If the story were only a human one, a dealing of man with man, there would be no help and no remedy. And God Himself now counting Judah with Sodom and with Samaria might seem to argue that He had given her up for good… Yet God takes up this argument and answers it in a way of His own. He meets the challenge from His own words, and says: Well, I will do this thing which is impossible.
- Gift. God found Jerusalem in misery, cleansed and adorned her — and she spent every gift on idols.
- Pride. She refused to hear the names Samaria and Sodom; God uses those very names to humble her.
- Measure. Privilege sets the measure of responsibility. The nearer the light, the heavier the guilt of despising it.
- Verdict. The city that judged her sisters now stands beside them. She outdid both, and by comparison even justified them.
- Grace. The chapter does not end at the sentence; God answers the hopeless case by doing what looked impossible.
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom pride, fulness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
God names Sodom's sin to Jerusalem, and it is not the sin most readers expect. He names pride, food, ease, and hands never opened to the poor. So what happens to a people who take God's goodness and never pass it on? (Where older translations read "fullness of bread" and "abundance of idleness," the ESV reads "excess of food, and prosperous ease.")
Sodom sat on rich land. The prophet points at what that wealth did to the city.
Lot saw the country around Sodom was "well watered everywhere"; it was "like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt" (Gen. 13:10). With such rich land around it, Sodom no doubt became prosperous, and its prosperity caused its downfall. The Lord makes this clear through the prophet... God, in His goodness, had given them prosperity to relieve the conditions of those in need. Instead, they used their wealth to gratify themselves in gross wickedness.
God names pride first. Scripture puts it first elsewhere too.
Pride is the first thing the Lord mentions. It leads the seven things that are an abomination to the LORD (Prov. 6:17). It was the cause of Satan's downfall (Ezek. 28:17), and the cause of the fall of many another, as Scripture teaches: "One's pride will bring him low" (Prov. 29:23), and "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18). Pride marks nations... it marks people, and also cities, as here in Sodom.
Full tables were not the sin. Sodom's notorious wickedness grew out of them.
"Fullness of bread" in Sodom certainly showed prosperity. But the people did not thank God, and had no desire to use what He had given them in His interests. Instead they gave themselves over to pleasure, and that of the most depraved kind. They were "lovers of their own selves," for they did not "strengthen the hands of the poor and needy," as they ought to have done.
Idleness sounds harmless. One writer, asked whether work began only after the fall, names idleness as a sin.
Man placed in the garden "to work it and keep it" shows that it was not God's will that His creature should be idle. But there was no "toil" or "sorrow" connected with such occupation... Idleness was one of the iniquities of Sodom (Ezek. 16:49). It had no place in innocence, nor will it fit the millennium (Amos 9:13)... Work here is good for all, and in it there is profit.
The verse is a mirror held up to God's own city. Jerusalem had every advantage Sodom lacked, and came out worse.
The sins of Sodom were grievous, and so were the sins of the ten tribes. But they could not be compared with the excesses of the city of Jerusalem. Grieving over the sins of Jerusalem, the LORD said, "Your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done... Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they" (Ezek. 16:48, 51).
One writer applies this to anyone who assumes the worst sinners live somewhere else.
It is God's people when in a bad state who are worse than anybody. That is a thing many cannot understand and do not believe... They talked about how horrible Sodom and Gomorrah were. "Oh," said the Lord, "it is you who are worse than they."... And therefore the nearer you are to the blessing, if the blessing is not yours, the more guilty you are.
It is easy to read the verse as being about other people. One writer points at Abraham instead of Lot.
In his heart, as a natural man, Abraham was just as fond of the honours and ease and luxury of Sodom as Lot. We are all alike in this, but it is fatal (if not judged) to the ministry of the Spirit, who would lead us into heavenly things. And this was the character of Sodom in her day.
The same four marks are traced in the modern world by another writer.
No one need be hungry, for there is fullness of bread, just as there was in Sodom, and there is plenty of leisure, or as it says about Sodom, "abundance of idleness." Men are not seeking God in their leisure, for they are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
The chapter that exposes Sodom also promises a future to her and to her daughter cities.
Sodom and her daughter cities are to be divinely restored for millennial blessing (Ezek. 16:55). Does this strike any reader as strange? Here is the explanation. God favoured Nineveh with a special message, and Nineveh submitted to it. But the generations that followed profited nothing from it... But Sodom was never favoured as Nineveh was... Favour granted by God but despised brings heavy judgment from Him.
- Given — Sodom's plain was rich because God made it rich; the gift is where the story starts.
- Grasped — pride heads the list, and Scripture puts pride at the head of what God hates.
- Consumed — full tables and free time produced not thanksgiving but self-indulgence.
- Withheld — God names the hand that never helped the poor as part of the guilt.
- Judged — the more light a people has, the heavier the account. Yet God promises even Sodom a restored future.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me, and I took them away when I saw [it].
Ezekiel 16 is God's long case against Jerusalem. Near its end He sets her beside two ruined neighbours, Samaria and Sodom, and names what destroyed Sodom: an attitude, an act, and a sentence carried out at His own chosen moment.
Jerusalem would not have her name spoken beside Sodom's. That is why God speaks it there.
Remember in reading Ezekiel 16 that Jerusalem is the subject, not Israel. The subject is not redemption either, but God's dealings... Still, filled with pride, she would hear nothing of Samaria or of Sodom — names Jehovah now uses to humble her. Despite her pride, she was even more worthless than those she must own as her sisters... Samaria, Sodom and Jerusalem go together in judgment; but sovereign grace has its own way and its own time, and so all three might be restored, and would be.
Sodom is famous for one sin. But God's list starts somewhere else, with pride — which Scripture traces through Satan, nations and cities alike.
Pride is the first thing the Lord mentions. It heads the seven things that are an abomination to the Lord (Prov. 6:17). It caused Satan's downfall (Ezek. 28:17), and the fall of many another, as Scripture teaches: "One's pride will bring him low" (Prov. 29:23), and "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18). Pride marks nations... it marks people, and also cities, as here in Sodom. The Lord, who hates pride, takes account of it wherever He finds it, and deals with it in His government.
Another writer puts the reason in one line:
Pride is the very essence of sin; the creature lifted up out of its place and God dethroned from His; and for this the stroke must come.
Sodom's wickedness grew out of her wealth, and out of what she did with it.
With such rich country around it, Sodom no doubt became prosperous, and its prosperity was the cause of its downfall... God in His goodness had given them that prosperity to relieve those in need. Instead, they used their wealth to gratify themselves in gross wickedness.
God struck at His own chosen moment. The wait before it was not indifference.
What brought down His judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah? The moral filth of those wicked cities is not as bad as the guilt of treating grace lightly! God is never in a hurry to carry out judgment. The language of Gen. 19 shows us He is righteous in all His ways... One thing holds good in Scripture, whether a passage says so or not: God never sends a blow without warning. The space between the warning and the blow is His long-suffering.
What He left behind still speaks.
The case of Sodom and Gomorrah presents immorality and corruption as the cause of judgment. Their condition is a perpetual testimony here on earth to their judgment.
Sodom comes out of this comparison better than Jerusalem does. The same measure is used again, where Sodom fares better than a city that had more light:
"It shall be more tolerable for Sodom in that day than for that city"... People are apt to pity the heathen and to think of distant lands. It is right for those who rejoice in the Lord to feel for those who lack Him. But there is no greater delusion than to suppose that, when the judgment comes, men will be better off in England than in Tartary... Israel was privileged, yes; but privileges despised or misused only bring deeper ruin on those who reject or twist them.
The same three faults can settle on a comfortable, religious society — and on believers inside it.
The iniquity of Sodom — "pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease" (Ezek. 16:49) — prevailed in these "civilised" countries of Europe, and much of the church had fallen under their seductive spell. Christians caught by the spirit of the times have chased the prizes the world offered. It has cost them dearly: spiritual life has weakened, faith has declined, the Lord's work has languished, and His interests are neglected.
- Pride starts it. God names the haughtiness before the abomination. Pride is "the creature lifted up out of its place and God dethroned from His."
- Plenty feeds it. Sodom spent on herself what the poor and needy needed. Her prosperity became her ruin.
- God sees it. Sodom sinned "before me" — under the eye of the One who takes account of pride wherever He finds it.
- God times it. He "is never in a hurry" to judge, and He never strikes without warning. The gap between the two is His long-suffering.
- The ruin still speaks. Sodom's overthrow stands as "a perpetual testimony." Its lesson lands hardest on those with the most light, because privileges despised bring deeper ruin than Sodom's.
And Samaria hath not sinned according to the half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters by all thine abominations which thou hast done.
In Ezekiel 16 God speaks to Jerusalem as a wife He had rescued, dressed in beauty, and then watched betray Him. Here He sets His own city beside Samaria, capital of the ten tribes, and beside Sodom, and says Jerusalem is worse than both.
Jerusalem thought she stood in a different class from her neighbours. One writer traces why God brings up these two names at all:
She had no thought of standing on her own, leaning on Jehovah. He would judge her as an adulterous woman. He would bring against her the very nations she had courted. Still, filled with pride, she would hear nothing of Samaria or of Sodom — the names Jehovah now uses to humble her. Despite that pride, she was even more worthless than the sisters she must own.
God also gives Jerusalem a family tree, and it does not run back to Abraham:
Then the prophet shows Jehovah giving the proverb that fits such wickedness: as the mother, so her daughter. He traces Jerusalem's moral family line not to the father of the faithful or the other heirs of promise, but to the wicked races of Canaan.
Samaria and Sodom were the accepted extremes of evil. Set beside Jerusalem, they fall short:
The sins of Sodom and the sins of the ten tribes were terrible. Even so, they did not compare with the excesses of the city of Jerusalem. Ezekiel 8 shows these dreadful abominations.
The verse does not say Samaria and Sodom were innocent. It says her excess made them look better by comparison. The city that judged them must now stand beside them:
In her terrible sins she had gone beyond even these, and, as the Lord declares, had even justified them by comparison. She had outdone them in sin. She who had judged her sisters must now take her place beside them and bear her shame. Jerusalem had looked on with a proud heart while Samaria went into captivity. She had stopped thinking about Sodom, little more than an empty space on the earth that had thrown it out. Now her own condemnation would show her guilt as plainly as theirs showed theirs.
One writer puts the rule behind it in a single line:
In other words, the measure of privilege is ever the measure of responsibility.
The same writer presses it where it stings most — on God's own people, not on the nations outside:
And these were not the pagan nations; the pagan nations were never so bad as that. It is God's people, when in a bad state, who are worse than anybody. Many cannot understand that and do not believe it. … The more light there is, the worse people are if they are not faithful. … So the nearer you are to the blessing, the more guilty you are if the blessing is not yours.
Standing level with Samaria and Sodom is not the end of her story. It lays the ground for a restoration she cannot claim as a right, and the lesson lasts:
Samaria and Sodom are called her sisters, no more corrupt and guilty than she is. When she is restored, it will be together with these sisters she had despised. Learning her own moral condition will keep her for all time from the pride that marked the days when she assumed she was better than the nations.
The guilt this verse exposes ruled out any restoration on the old terms, so God promises a new basis:
This is the final restoration of Jerusalem under the new covenant. Here, as elsewhere, God calls it an everlasting covenant, in contrast with the covenant made at Sinai. Under that covenant, restoration from guilt had been impossible — above all from guilt like hers, which nothing could match.
- Privilege — the measure of privilege is always the measure of responsibility. Jerusalem stood nearest to God, so her guilt ran past Samaria's and Sodom's.
- Pride — she refused to hear the names of her sisters, so God used those very names to humble her.
- Proportion — her excess did not make them clean. It made them look better by comparison, and the judge ended up beside the judged.
- Pattern — the rule reaches past Jerusalem. God's people in a bad state are worse than anybody, and more light means more guilt when it is not obeyed.
- Pardon — being levelled with Sodom clears the ground for grace. The old covenant could not restore guilt like this, so God promises an everlasting covenant instead.
Thou also, who hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own confusion, because of thy sins in which thou hast acted more abominably than they they are more righteous than thou. So be thou ashamed also, and bear thy confusion, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.
God has just set Jerusalem beside her two "sisters" — Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, and Sodom, the city He destroyed. She comes off worse than both, and now the city that judged others must bear the shame herself.
Jerusalem was proud of her standing. God names the two cities she would least want to be linked with.
Yet, filled with pride, she would hear nothing of Samaria or of Sodom — names which Jehovah now uses to humble her. She was even more worthless than those she had to own as her sisters, despite her pride.
The sting of the verse is not that Jerusalem sinned. It is that she saw the same sins clearly in others, and then outdid them.
Jerusalem had gone beyond not only Samaria her elder sister, but her younger sister Sodom. Jerusalem knew enough to judge them, yet rushed even more eagerly into worse sins. Those nations knew God, but did not glorify Him as God. Thankless and empty, they gave Him up, and were themselves given up to false gods, to shameful desires, and to a corrupt mind. Yet even they were excusable compared with Jerusalem.
The rule is wider than Jerusalem. It reaches anyone who judges others.
Men judge others and yet do the same things, and so condemn themselves. How can this stop or even soften God's sentence? … For the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, and judging in others what they live in themselves shows that their doom is just.
This does not mean Sodom was innocent. It is a comparison, and it moves Jerusalem out of the judge's seat and in among the accused.
Her crimes went beyond even theirs, and, as the Lord says, she had even made them look righteous by comparison — she had outdone them in sin. She who had judged her sisters must now take her place beside them and bear her shame. Jerusalem had looked on with pride while Samaria went into captivity, and she had stopped thinking of Sodom, by then an empty spot on the earth that had cast it out. Now her own condemnation would show her guilt as fully as theirs did.
Jerusalem had more light than Sodom, not less. Nearness to God raises the standard, and wasted nearness raises the guilt.
It is God's people, when in a bad state, who are worse than anybody. Many cannot understand that and do not believe it… The more light there is, if people are not faithful, the worse they are. The Jews talked about how horrible Sodom and Gomorrah were. "Oh," said the Lord, "it is you that are worse than they." … The nearer you are to the blessing, if the blessing is not yours, the more guilty you are.
Carrying your own shame sounds like the end. It is not. God will yet bring this people to admit the truth about themselves.
What a complete change, and what a deep humbling, when the Jew feels and honestly confesses the truth Jehovah declares here! And he certainly yet will.
And what she learns about herself will stay with her.
Samaria and Sodom are called her sisters, no more corrupt and guilty than she is. When she is restored, it will be together with these she had despised. Learning her own moral condition will keep her for ever from the pride that marked the days when she assumed she was better than the nations.
- Pride — Jerusalem hated to be linked with Samaria or Sodom. God uses those two names to humble her.
- Privilege — the closer a people stands to God's blessing, the greater the guilt if that blessing is not theirs. Unused light makes sin worse, not lighter.
- Judging — she knew enough to condemn her sisters, then outdid them. Judging others for what you do yourself seals your own sentence.
- Shame — the judge must step down and stand with the accused, bearing the disgrace she once handed out.
- Restoration — the humbling is not the end. She will own the truth, God will restore her beside the sisters she despised, and her pride will be gone for good.