Discovery BoxEzekiel 16:3-5 
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 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.
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.
