Bible Strands
Ezekiel 16:60
But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses rebellious Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16, speaking immediately after pronouncing judgment for breaking their ancestral covenant. The prophet delivers this declaration to the exiled community as a structural pivot from condemnation to restoration.
The words — The Hebrew verb זָכַרְתִּי (za.khar.Ti) literally means "I will remember," paired with הֲקִמֹתִי (ha.ki.mo.Ti), "I will establish" or "I will make stand." These terms frame the divine action as both recalling a past commitment and actively upholding a new one.
The thread — This covenantal reversal echoes Hosea 2:19, where God vows to betroth Israel forever in righteousness, and anticipates Jeremiah 50:5, which describes a future return to Zion to join the Lord in an everlasting covenant. The motif appears in Ezekiel 16:8, where God initially spreads His cloak over the nation in its youth.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment that divine commitment operates independently of human fidelity. It requires the reader to accept that restoration follows judgment not as a reward for merit, but as a deliberate act of sovereign recall and establishment.
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
Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.
Cross-references
- Hosea 2:19 So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion.
- Jeremiah 50:5 They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
- Ezekiel 16:8 Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD.
- Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
- Hebrews 12:24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
- Leviticus 26:42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
- Psalms 106:45 And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.
- Isaiah 55:3 Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.
- Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
- Jeremiah 32:38 They will be My people, and I will be their God.