Bible Strands
Ezekiel 16:43
Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but enraged Me with all these things, I will surely bring your deeds down upon your own head, declares the Lord GOD. Have you not committed this lewdness on top of all your other abominations?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord GOD speaks through Ezekiel to Jerusalem, personified as a covenant-breaking wife, immediately after declaring in verse 42 that He will cease His active wrath. This statement follows a prolonged historical indictment of Israel's idolatry and moral collapse.
The words — The phrase לֹֽא־זָכַרְתְּ֙ (lo'- za.khar.ti) translates literally as "you did not remember," forming the foundational charge of willful amnesia. The verb וַ/תִּרְגְּזִי־ (va./tir.ge.zi-) means "and you enraged," specifying the active provocation that justifies the coming judgment.
The thread — The failure to recall past grace appears in Ezekiel 16:22, where the same neglect of youthful mercy is condemned, and in Psalms 78:42, which records Israel's refusal to remember God's redemptive power. The warning that deeds will fall upon the perpetrator's own head parallels the consequence outlined in Ezekiel 11:21.
Why it lands — The text states that deliberate rejection of known grace produces inescapable accountability. It requires the reader to recognize that unrepentant actions generate their own consequences without divine mitigation.
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
Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 16:22 And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood.
- Psalms 78:42 They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,
- Ezekiel 11:21 But as for those whose hearts pursue detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”
- Ezekiel 22:31 So I have poured out My indignation upon them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their ways down upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”
- Psalms 106:13 Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.
- Isaiah 63:10 But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.
- Ezekiel 6:9 Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Deuteronomy 32:21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
- Psalms 78:40 How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!
- Psalms 95:10 For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”