I caused you to multiply as that which grows in the field, and you increased and grew great, and you attained to excellent ornament. Your breasts were formed, and your hair grew; yet you were naked and bare.
Parallel translations
- KJV I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
- BSB I made you thrive like a plant of the field. You grew up and matured and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, but you were naked and bare.
- NKJV I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare.
- NASB I made you very numerous, like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine jewelry; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare.
- NLT And I helped you to thrive like a plant in the field. You grew up and became a beautiful jewel. Your breasts became full, and your body hair grew, but you were still naked.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God made the child flourish and grow into beautiful maturity, yet she remained naked and bare. Growth without covering still left her exposed.
Overview
Under God's blessing, Israel multiplied and grew great, a likely allusion to her increase in Egypt and the wilderness. Yet she was still 'naked and bare,' not yet brought into covenant. The verse shows God's providential care preparing her for the covenant relationship He will establish next.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 24
- Exod 1:7The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
- Deut 1:10Yahweh your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as the stars of the sky for multitude.
- Isa 62:3You will also be a crown of beauty in Yahweh‘s hand, and a royal diadem in your God‘s hand.
- Ezek 16:10–13I clothed you also with embroidered work, and put sealskin shoes on you. I dressed you with fine linen and covered you with silk.
- Neh 9:18–25Yes, when they had made themselves a molten calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies;
- Hos 2:3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- Ezek 16:16You took some of your garments, and made for yourselves high places decked with various colors, and played the prostitute on them. This shall not come, neither shall it be.
- Ps 149:2–4Let Israel rejoice in him who made them. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
- Ps 148:14He has lifted up the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise Yah!
- Acts 7:17“But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
- Exod 12:37The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot who were men, besides children.
- Job 1:21He said, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be Yahweh’s name.”
- Ps 135:4For Yah has chosen Jacob for himself; Israel for his own possession.
- Deut 4:8What great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you today?
- Song 4:5Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies.
- Deut 33:26–29“There is no one like God, Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens for your help, in his excellency on the skies.
- Exod 3:22But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her who visits her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothing; and you shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters. You shall plunder the Egyptians.”
- Isa 61:10I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh! My soul will be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
- Ezek 16:22In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood.
- Deut 32:10–14He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.
- Ps 147:20He has not done this for just any nation. They don’t know his ordinances. Praise Yah!
- Gen 22:17that I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your offspring greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies.
- Hos 2:9–10Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
- Rev 3:17–18Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked;
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 16:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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