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
Ezekiel 23:4
Context23:4 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
Context31:6 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.
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.”
