Bible Strands
Ezekiel 16:3
and tell her that this is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Lord GOD speaks through Ezekiel to Jerusalem, delivering a pronouncement immediately after commanding the prophet to confront the city with her abominations (Ezekiel 16:2).
The words — מְכֹרֹתַיִךְ (me.kho.ro.Ta.yi/kh) translates literally as "your origins" and מֹלְדֹתַיִךְ (Mo.le.do.Ta.yi/kh) as "your births," anchoring the address in physical ancestry rather than spiritual status.
The thread — This insistence on Canaanite parentage mirrors the command to eradicate indigenous nations in Deuteronomy 20:17 and aligns with Isaiah 51:1’s directive to recall one’s ancestral rock.
Why it lands — The passage requires Jerusalem to accept that its lineage derives from paganism, removing any assumed covenantal privilege before the narrative details its abandoned infancy (Ezekiel 16:4).
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
And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 16:45 You are the daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and children. You are the sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.
- Isaiah 51:1 “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were hewn.
- Deuteronomy 20:17 For you must devote them to complete destruction—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you,
- Nehemiah 9:7 You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram, who brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.
- John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
- Genesis 15:16 In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
- 1 Kings 21:26 He committed the most detestable acts by going after idols, just like the Amorites whom the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.)
- Isaiah 1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
- Ezekiel 21:30 Return the sword to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.
- Luke 3:7 Then John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?