The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms # 139
139. Internal Meaning of Ezekiel, Chapter 16
The successive states of the Jewish church. (2)
1-2 There was nothing in it but falsity and evil. (2)
3-6 It was forsaken by the Lord from the beginning, because it was without anything of the church. (2)
7-12 After a time truths and goods of every kind and species were given to it through the Word, and thus evils and falsities were removed. (2)
13-14 Thus it could have been in intelligence. (2)
15-20 It falsified all things of the Word. (2)
21-22 It extinguished truths and goods, and became as in the beginning. (2)
23-25 It turned truths into falsities (2)
26-28 by knowledges [scientifica] of the natural man, by traditions, and by reasonings from them, (2)
29-30 finally profaning [truths]. (2)
31 It exalted itself above all men. (2)
32-34 It obtruded its falsities on others. (2)
35-42 They will utterly perish by the falsities by which the truths of the Word have been destroyed. (3)
43-45 Thus they will be as in the beginning. (3)
46-52 The like has come to pass with the Israelitish church, but in a less degree. (3, 17)
53-55 Nevertheless the church in general shall be restored. (11)
56-58 It is everywhere better than in the Jewish church. (11)
Ezekiel 16:3-6
3
and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: Your birth and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite.
4
As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you; you weren't salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
5
No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, for that your person was abhorred, in the day that you were born.
6
When I passed by you, and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you, [Though you are] in your blood, live; yes, I said to you, [Though you are] in your blood, live.
