Ezekiel 16:3-4

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 

Ezekiel 23:4

23:4 Oholah was the name of the older and Oholibah ³  the name of her younger sister. They became mine, and gave birth to sons and daughters. ⁴  Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 31:6

31:6 All the birds of the sky nested in its boughs;

under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth,

in its shade all the great ⁵  nations lived.

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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 tn The names Oholah and Oholibah are both derived from the word meaning “tent.” The meaning of Oholah is “her tent,” while Oholibah means “my tent is in her.”

⁴ sn In this allegory the Lord is depicted as being the husband of two wives. The OT law prohibited a man from marrying sisters (Lev 18:18), but the practice is attested in the OT (cf. Jacob). The metaphor is utilized here for illustrative purposes and does not mean that the Lord condoned such a practice or bigamy in general.

⁵ tn Or “many.”