Ezekiel 16:3-6

16:3 and say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 16:4 As for your birth, on the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water; ¹  you were certainly not rubbed down with salt, nor wrapped with blankets. ²  16:5 No eye took pity on you to do even one of these things for you to spare you; ³  you were thrown out into the open field ⁴  because you were detested on the day you were born.

16:6 “‘I passed by you and saw you kicking around helplessly in your blood. I said to you as you lay there in your blood, “Live!” I said to you as you lay there in your blood, “Live!” ⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “in water you were not washed for cleansing” or “with water you were not washed smooth” (see D. I. Block, Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:473, n. 57, for a discussion of possible meanings of this hapax legomenon).

² sn Arab midwives still cut the umbilical cords of infants and then proceed to apply salt and oil to their bodies.

³ sn These verbs, “pity” and “spare,” echo the judgment oracles in 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:18; 9:5, 10.

⁴ sn A similar concept is found in Deut 32:10.

⁵ tc The translation reflects the Hebrew text, which repeats the statement, perhaps for emphasis. However, a few medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Old Greek, and the Syriac do not include the repetition. The statement could have been accidentally repeated or the second occurrence could have been accidentally omitted. Based on the available evidence it is difficult to know which is more likely.