16:1-2 The Lord instructed Ezekiel to make the detestable practices of the people of Jerusalem known to them. He prophesied to the exiles, but his message presented the people of Jerusalem as the primary object of his attention.
16:3-4 Yahweh personified Jerusalem as a woman, and he related her history as a parable or allegory. In this parable Jerusalem represents the people of Jerusalem (a metonymy), but it is the people of Jerusalem throughout Israel's history that are particularly in view.231The purpose of the story was to show the exiles that the destruction of Jerusalem that Ezekiel predicted was well deserved so they would believe that God would destroy it.
Canaan was the place of Jerusalem's origin and birth, a land notorious for its depravity. Jerusalem's founders, in pre-patriarchal days, were Amorites and Hittites, not Hebrews. Amorites and Hittites were two of the Canaanite peoples, and they often represent all the Canaanites in the Old Testament (Gen. 10:16; 15:16; Num. 13:29; Josh. 1:4; 5:1; 7:7; 24:15, 18; Amos 2:10) The Jebusites, who occupied Jerusalem from its earliest mention in Scripture, were another Canaanite tribe.232When Jerusalem came into existence, she received no special treatment, not even normal care.
"It was the custom in the ancient Near East to wash a newborn child, rub it with salt for antiseptic reasons, and wrap it in cloths, changing these twice by the fortieth day after the umbilical cord was cut."233
Jerusalem was not an outstanding city from its founding. Many other cities in Canaan had better situations geographically, had better physical resources, and were more easily defensible militarily.
16:5 No one had compassion on Jerusalem but abandoned her because she was an unwanted child. A common method of disposing of unwanted children in the ancient Near East, especially girls, was to abandon them to the elements.234When the Israelites entered the land in Joshua's day, they did not take Jerusalem (Josh. 15:63).
