Page 80 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

74 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.

and appears to be an allusion to the unnatural way of
Jerusalem in squandering all she had on her objects of
idolatry. Such at any rate is the judgment of some of
the best translators from the oldest of all, the Seventy,
down to Mr. Isaac Leeser, the latest Jewish translator.
It is supposed that the “ filthiness ” of the Authorized
Version was derived from the idea of the poisonous in­
crustation of brass or copper; but this seems far-fetched
and only justifiable if the context pointed to so figura­
tive a notice and was incompatible with the more
obvious sense. But this last I think even more appro­
priate and striking. God then threatens His guilty city
with exposure before all her lovers and haters, and with
such judgments as befit adultery, even abasement, deso­
lation, stoning, cutting in pieces, and burning, till His
fury ceases and His jealousy turns away, and she
should not practise this wickedness with, or in addition
to, all her abominations.
Then the prophet represents (ver. 44) Jehovah giving
the proverb that suits such iniquity—as the mother, her
daughter—re-applying the moral relationship of Jeru­
salem, not to the father of the faithful or other heirs
of promise, but to the flagitious races of Canaan.
“ Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that loatheth her
husband and her children; and thou art the sister of
thy sisters, which loatheth their husbands and their
children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an
Amorite. And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her
daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger
sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and
her daughters. Yet hast thou not walked after their
ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that