This week we are studying Ezekiel 16:44-63, the last third of the longest oracle in the book. Ezekiel replaced the story of the generous king and his adulterous queen with new characters and a different plotline. In the marriage metaphor, Yahweh adopted Jerusalem as an infant and betrothed her when she matured. Ezekiel’s follow-on allegory inspected other branches of Jerusalem’s family tree. Ezekiel conducted his own version of a sibling study: three sisters separated at birth all make the same mistakes and pay a similar price. 

The allegory starts with Ezekiel implying that Jerusalem was the butt of a popular joke. Ezekiel wrote, “See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter’” (16:44). He commented that just as Jerusalem’s mother had hated her husband and children, Jerusalem also hated her husband and children (16:45). Jerusalem was repeating the immoral choices of her mother, as often happens when families get caught up in generational sin. 

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