20 And thou didst take thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hadst borne unto me, and these didst thou sacrifice unto them, to be devoured. Were thy whoredoms a small matter, 21 that thou didst slay my children and give them up in passing them over to them? 22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, when thou wast weltering in thy blood. 23 And it came to pass after all thy wickedness (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord Jehovah), 24 that thou didst also build unto thee a place of debauchery, and didst make thee a high place in every street: 25 thou didst build thy high place at every head of the way, and madest thy beauty to be abhorred, and thou didst open thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiply thy whoredom. 26 And thou didst commit fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and didst multiply thy whoredom to provoke me to anger. 27 And behold, I stretched out my hand over thee, and diminished thine appointed portion; and I gave thee over unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, who were confounded at thy lewd way.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel 16:20-27
Commentary on Ezekiel 16:1-58
(Read Ezekiel 16:1-58)
In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose.