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.

Verse 24. - An eminent place; lofty (Revised Version); but the word strictly points to the form of a vault, with the added meaning, as in the LXX., οἵκημα πορνικόν, and the Vulgate, lupanar, of its being used for prostitution. It is, at hast, a curious fact that the Latin fornicari and its derivatives, take their start from the fornices, the vaults or cells which were the haunts of the harlots of Rome. Looking to the fact that all the worst forms of sensual evil came to Rome from the East, and specially from Syria -

"Jampridem in Tiberim Syrus defluxit Orontes"

(Juv., 'Sat.', 3:62) - it seems probable that the practice was a survival of the custom to which Ezekiel refers. As in the Mylitta worship at Babylon (Herod., 1:262; Bar., 6:43), and that of Aphrodite at Corinth, prostitution assumed a quasi-religious character, and t

That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place,.... Or a "brothel" (k); and so the Septuagint version, "a whoring house"; not content to commit idolatry privately, they built a public place for idolatrous worship. The Targum renders it, "altar", The word has the signification of a pit or ditch; with which compare Proverbs 22:14;

and hast made thee an high place in every street; of Jerusalem, and other cities; it was usual to erect high places in streets, where altars were built, and idols set up to be worshipped: it denotes the public manner in which they committed idolatry, and the multitude of their idols; which shows their impudence and hardness of heart.

(k) , Sept. "lupanar", V. L. "prostibulum", so some in Starckius.

24. eminent place—rather, "a fornication-chamber," often connected with the impure rites of idolatry; spiritual fornication, on "an eminent place," answering to "fornication-chamber," is mainly meant, with an allusion also to the literal fornication associated with it (Jer 2:20; 3:2).

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