Bible Strands
Ezekiel 16:47
And you not only walked in their ways and practiced their abominations, but soon you were more depraved than they were.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord speaks through Ezekiel to Jerusalem, addressing the city within an allegory that compares it to a woman with two sisters, Samaria and Sodom.
The words — The Hebrew `תּוֹעֲבֽוֹתֵי` (to.'a.vo.tei) translates as abominations, and `תַּשְׁחִיתִי` (tash.Chi.ti) translates as behaved corruptly. These verbs mark the transition from copying neighboring practices to surpassing them in moral decay.
The thread — The escalation of covenant rebellion appears in Ezekiel 5:6, where Israel rebels against ordinances more wickedly than the nations. The same comparative condemnation reappears in Ezekiel 16:48, where God swears Sodom never matched Jerusalem's deeds. Manasseh's reign mirrors this trajectory in 2 Kings 21:9, as he leads the people to do greater evil than the surrounding nations.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that proximity to covenant blessings does not prevent moral decline. It requires the reader to measure spiritual condition against divine standards rather than cultural baselines.
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
Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 21:9 But the people did not listen and Manasseh led them astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
- Ezekiel 5:6 But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes worse than the countries around her. For her people have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.’
- Ezekiel 16:48 As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did as you and your daughters have done.
- Ezekiel 16:51 Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous.
- 1 Kings 16:31 And as if it were not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he even married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and he then proceeded to serve and worship Baal.
- 2 Kings 21:16 Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the LORD.
- Ezekiel 8:17 “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see this? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and continually provoke Me to anger? Look, they are even putting the branch to their nose!
- John 15:21 But they will treat you like this because of My name, since they do not know the One who sent Me.
- 1 Corinthians 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is intolerable even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.