The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 297

Vers. 15-34.-.A pict11,re of flagrant apostasy from God. "' But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the ha.riot because of thy renown," etc. The prophet now passes from what God had done for his people Israel to set forth how they had requited him. He had shown how, under his fostering ea.re, the outcast child had grown into a. beautiful maiden, whom he had espoused and arrayed in robes and ornaments of beauty, until she had become renowned amongst the nations. Now he exhibits the apostasy of the people under the figure of the gross unfaithfulness of this wife to her husband, with whom she bad entered into solemn covenant, and to whom she owed everything good and valuable that she possessed. Idolatry is frequently set forth in the Scriptures under the similitude of fornication or adultery (cf. Jer. iii. 20). 'l'he chief point of the comparison is perhaps this, that, as the marriage covenant is an endearing and sacred one, and the violation of it is therefore a heinous sin, so the covenant between God and his people is intimate and holy, and to violate it is to incur the darkest guilt. 'l'he wife is under the most solemn obligations not to turn aside from her husband to another man, or to allow any one to rival him in her affections. And those who have entered into covenant with God ought not to allow any person or thing to compete with him for the supreme place in their hearts. We can only view this representation of the people's apostasy" generally," as Fairbairn observes, "and with respect to its leading features; as from the very nature of the image it is impossible to be minute, without a.t the same time falling into indelicacy." I. THE BABE BEGINNINGS OF THIS .APOSTASY. 1. Forgetf11,lness of the past. "Ju all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood." The Israelites forgot the helpless and afflicted condition in which the Lord found tbem in Egypt, and how he had championed their ea.use, delivered them from their oppressors, and raised them into an independent, prosperous, and powerful nation. Had they remembered these things, the recollection would have bound them to him by the tender and tenacious ties of gratitude. "They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies. They soon forgot his works. They forgot God their Saviour, Which had done great things in Egypt." (Pa. cvi. 7, 13, 21.) A lively recollection of what God has done for us, and of how much we owe to him, will prove a powerful preventive to our departing from him. 2. Confi,dence in tltem- telves and their pus6tli6iana. .' Thou didst trust in thine own beauty." 'l'he things till. xvr. 1-88.] THE BOOK OF TilE Pl!.OPHET iZEKIEL. 297