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.
Ezekiel 40:16
40:16 There were closed windows toward the alcoves and toward their jambs within the gate all around, and likewise for the porches. There were windows all around the inside, and on each jamb were decorative palm trees. 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 sn Decorative palm trees were also a part of Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 6:29, 32, 35).