NOTES for Eze 16:1-63
The accusations that the Lord, through the prophet, hurls at the chosen people surpass to a considerable degree many earlier angry reproaches, as well as later ones. The Lord does not merely accuse them of sins and compare the apostates to a prostitute; He had already said such things more than once through the prophets. But now the prophetic speech reminds its hearers that the people chosen for union with God, after betraying the Covenant, are no different from the pagan neighbors from whom they try to separate themselves. The very separation from neighboring peoples loses the meaning given by the Lord, a meaning that consists immeasurably more in keeping God's commandments pure and remaining faithful to Him than in ethnic distinctiveness. But now the apostates commit the same pagan abominations, and even worse ones: the higher you climb up a mountain, the farther you fall from it.
But He not only remembers the Covenant with the people; He also preserves it. He keeps faith not only with the Jews of the Old Testament but also with all of us, who constantly violate it. Not according to the merits of sinners, but according to His mercy, He is again and again ready not only to forgive but also to cleanse us from the filth in which we again and again gladly wallow.
Sin will be forgiven, but a sense of shame for the evil committed will remain. It is left not so that former sinners will constantly torment themselves by remembering the past, but as fruitful memory of bitter experience and as a warning for the future.