Discovery BoxEzekiel 16:3-4 
Context16:3 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
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.
