Ezekiel 16:4-5

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.

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.