Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Ezekiel 16:15 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 15. 15But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
The prophetic word through Ezekiel turns or qualifies the movement with “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst…” at Ezekiel 16:15 inside “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity.”
Thou didst trust in thine own beauty
This verse is one part of that explanation in Ezekiel 16:15–34. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Ezekiel 16:15–34
Read Ezekiel 16:15 with 16:15–34. By itself, “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst…” can be detached from the speaker, addressee, date, exilic horizon, visionary movement, or outcome that gives it force. The complete unit establishes: The woman-city trusts beauty, uses gifts in cultic and diplomatic betrayal, sacrifices children, forgets abandonment, and is portrayed through explicit sexual and payment imagery.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Within the same chapter, this unit advances from “Jerusalem Is Portrayed as an Abandoned Child Raised and Adorned” into “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity.” Its non-interchangeable contribution is: The woman-city trusts beauty, uses gifts in cultic and diplomatic betrayal, sacrifices children, forgets abandonment, and is portrayed through explicit sexual and payment imagery. This verse's placement is specific: The prophetic word through Ezekiel turns or qualifies the movement with “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst…” at Ezekiel 16:15 inside “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity.”
Follow the Context
- The unit begins at 16:15 with the address, action, vision, lament, or measurement named in its title.
- The woman-city trusts beauty, uses gifts in cultic and diplomatic betrayal, sacrifices children, forgets abandonment, and is portrayed through explicit sexual and payment imagery.
- By 16:34 the movement reaches its stated warning, promise, response, or transition before the next unit begins.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
The city's infidelity metaphor does not make beauty, women, or sexuality inherently corrupt.
What Remains True
The unit charges Jerusalem with redirecting received gifts into cultic and political betrayal. In Ezekiel 16:15, that bounded truth is carried through this verse's role: The prophetic word through Ezekiel turns or qualifies the movement with “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst…” at Ezekiel 16:15 inside “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity.”
How It Can Shape Life
- Track stewardship and loyalty without sexual shaming. This verse directs that response through its exact role: The prophetic word through Ezekiel turns or qualifies the movement with “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst…” at Ezekiel 16:15 inside “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity.”
Teach It Back
Explain Ezekiel 16:15's precise role in Ezekiel 16:15–34: The prophetic word through Ezekiel turns or qualifies the movement with “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst…” at Ezekiel 16:15 inside “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity.” State how “Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of Infidelity” controls the line, keep this uncertainty visible—The allegory does not make sexual activity, women's desire, clothing, infertility, or surviving exploitation proof of spiritual guilt.—trace role to contextual meaning to enduring truth to application, and reject one use the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.
Read Ezekiel 16:15–34 — Jerusalem's Gifts Become the Allegory's Catalogue of InfidelitySources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Responsible readings differ over composition, rhetoric, historical reconstruction, symbol, and later reception. The preferred reading follows the complete unit and received-book placement while preserving this limit: The allegory does not make sexual activity, women's desire, clothing, infertility, or surviving exploitation proof of spiritual guilt.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Ezekiel 16:15–34, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ezekiel
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a critical apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ezek.xml, OSIS 16:15–34
Open the fixed Hebrew Ezekiel file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Notes: Ezekiel
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2016; current official PDF
Supports: Verse-level controls for difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, dates, place names, textual issues, vision language, and material alternatives.
Exact location: Official NET Ezekiel PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Ezekiel 16:15–34
Open the official NET Ezekiel PDF ↗modern scholarly book course
Ezekiel course: summary, outline, background, introductory issues, themes, and passage studies
Alan G. Padgett; revised by Tyler Mayfield
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, revised June 2023
Supports: Reader-oriented historical, literary, theological, and pastoral synthesis with visible alternatives and ancient-to-modern limits.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Ezekiel course, Outline and Theological Themes: responsibility, allegory, history, and Jerusalem judgment; applied to Ezekiel 16:15–34
Open the Enter the Bible Ezekiel course ↗open university study guide series
Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Ezekiel Parts 1-3 Study Guides
Joel S. Baden and Jacqueline Vayntrub
Yale Bible Study, 2024
Supports: Current university-level literary-historical synthesis and interpretive questions, including ethical attention to gendered rhetoric and the final vision.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Ezekiel Part 2 and Part 3 study guides: sign acts, responsibility, allegory, chapters 16 and 23, and Jerusalem's fall; applied to Ezekiel 16:15–34
Open the Yale Jeremiah and Ezekiel course ↗peer reviewed trauma and gender critical chapter
Uncovering the Nymphomaniac: The Development of the Image of Israel as an Unfaithful Wife in Ezekiel 16 and 23
Anja Klein
The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel, 2019
Supports: Gender-critical analysis of personified cities, sexualized accusation, exposure, and violence without normalizing abuse or victim blame.
Exact location: Klein, 'Uncovering the Nymphomaniac,' published pp. 167-186, accepted manuscript sections on Ezekiel 16 and 23; applied to Ezekiel 16:15–34
Open Klein's accepted manuscript ↗peer reviewed translation and ethics article
There's no sex in your violence: Patriarchal translation in Ezekiel 16 and 23
Bryan D. Bibb
Review & Expositor 111.4, 2014
Supports: Abstract-level warning that patriarchal translation choices can conceal or naturalize sexualized violence; no inaccessible detail is claimed.
Exact location: Bibb, 'There's no sex in your violence,' Review & Expositor 111.4 (2014), publisher metadata and abstract only; applied at abstract level to Ezekiel 16:15–34
Open the publisher record and abstract ↗