Ezekiel 16:63 - Exposition

That thou mayest remember. The words paint vividly the attitude of the penitent adulteress, humble, contrite, silent, ashamed ( Hosea 3:3-5 ), and yet with a sense that she is pardoned, and that the husband against whom she has sinned is at last pacified. Revised Version, when I have forgiven thee. The Hebrew verb so rendered is that which expresses the fullest idea of forgiveness, and which marked both the "day" and the "sacrifice" of atonement ( Numbers 8:12 ; Le Numbers 23:27 , et al. ) . This, according to the received etymology, was represented in the mercy seat, the ἱλαστήριον , of the ark of the covenant ( cophereth, as from caphar ) . So the prophet closes with the wet, Is of an eternal hope what had at first seemed to heal up to nothing but eternal condemnation. How far the prophet expected a literal fulfilment in the restoration of Sodom and Samaria, we cannot define with certainty; but the ideal picture of the purification of the waters of the Dead Sea in Ezekiel 47:8 suggests that it entered into his vision of the future. For us, at least, it is enough to pass from the temporal to the eternal, from the historical to the spiritual, and to see in his words the noblest utterance of mercy prevailing over judgment—a theodikea , a "vindication of the ways of God to man," like that of Romans 11:33-36 .