Bible Strands
Ezekiel 16:17
You also took the fine jewelry of gold and silver I had given you, and you made male idols with which to prostitute yourself.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet delivers Yahweh’s indictment to Jerusalem, portrayed as an unfaithful wife, at the precise moment of cataloging her idolatrous corruption.
The words — תִפְאַרְתֵּ֗ךְ (tif'aretek) means "your beauty," and נָתַ֣תִּי (natatti) means "I had given," anchoring the verse in the origin of the materials.
The thread — This pattern of repurposing divine provision into idolatry appears in Ezekiel 23:14 with Oholibah’s actions, Exodus 32:1 regarding the demand for molten gods, and Isaiah 44:19 on the absurdity of crafting idols from supplied wood.
Why it lands — It forces the reader to confront the specific mechanism of covenant betrayal: taking what God supplied and manufacturing objects for illicit worship.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 23:14 But Oholibah carried her prostitution even further. She saw the men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans, engraved in vermilion,
- Exodus 32:1 Now when the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!”
- Isaiah 44:19 And no one considers in his heart, no one has the knowledge or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, and I baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make something detestable with the rest of it? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
- Isaiah 57:7 On a high and lofty hill you have made your bed, and there you went up to offer sacrifices.
- Jeremiah 2:27 say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet in the time of trouble, they say, ‘Rise up and save us!’
- Jeremiah 3:9 Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.
- Ezekiel 7:19 They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.
- Ezekiel 16:11 I adorned you with jewelry, and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain around your neck.
- Hosea 2:13 I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she burned incense to them, when she adorned herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers. But Me she forgot,” declares the LORD.
- Hosea 10:1 Israel was a luxuriant vine, yielding fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he increased the altars. The better his land produced, the better he made the sacred pillars.