Ezekiel 16:44, commentary and pictures

The saying means a daughter takes after her mother in character and conduct.
Ezekiel 16 is a sharp rebuke of Israel and Judah for breaking covenant with God, picturing their idolatry, worldliness and turning to other powers as the adultery of an unfaithful wife.
A lewd woman stands for a corrupt church, so the Jewish church became a harlot like Babylon by unlawfully joining itself to the world and its kings.
That same likeness explains Babylon as a mother with daughters, for churches that share Rome's worldly spirit and practices show themselves her daughters.
In the home the likeness works through example, for a mother's daily life and atmosphere shape her children more than occasional lessons, and she must herself be what she would have them become.

The Faithless Wife

Ezekiel 16 is a strong parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel and showing God earnestly pleading with His people to turn back to Him. It exposes Judah's sins through the figure of an immoral woman. It portrays the Lord's covenant relationship with His people, in which they became His but broke the covenant and turned to others.

It is an example of the marriage figure applied to God and His people, not the marriage of the Lamb at the end. Jerusalem represents God's chosen people as an unfaithful woman when the Jews turned from God and worshiped the surrounding nations' gods. In that setting the proverb about mother and daughter is connected with the image of a city and its people portrayed as a harlot.

The Jewish church, once represented as espoused to the Lord, became unfaithful to Him like a harlot through its unlawful connection with the world. A harlot is the symbol of a corrupt church, and the Jewish church became a harlot in the same manner as Babylon, by unlawful connection with the world and with the kings of the earth. Its unfaithfulness consisted in forsaking God's precepts and joining itself to the world, as Israel and Judah turned from God and followed the ways of Babylon and the heathen.

Instead of seeking the Lord, Israel sought help from earthly powers, and that history of apostasy serves as a pattern for an apostate church joining itself to the world. The chapter portrays Israel's backsliding, idolatry, conformity to the world, and departure from God as adultery, and uses the daughter-compared-with-mother proverb within that picture of unfaithfulness. Joining with the world is spiritual adultery.

Applied to the Jewish church portrayed as a harlot, the proverb marks her fall as her rejection by God, which is distinct from her destruction. Her destruction was delayed for a considerable time after her rejection.

Mother Church and Daughters

A harlot is the symbol of a corrupt church, and a corrupt, licentious, lewd woman represents a corrupt, fallen, apostate church. God's church becomes such a harlot when it departs from Him and unites with the world, and Ezekiel 16 belongs to that scriptural picture of unfaithfulness. As a woman is the symbol of the church, Babylon pictured as a harlot must therefore be a fallen professedly religious body. It is distinct from the kings of the earth though unlawfully united with them, and is not the earthly power of human government as an abstraction.

The use of a woman to represent Babylon in Revelation 17 rests on this same symbolism of a woman for a church. The mother-and-daughters imagery explains how Babylon can include the Roman church and other churches that share its worldly spirit and practices. For the proverb that as is the mother so is her daughter means daughters share the mother's character.

Daughters follow the mother's pattern when Protestant churches and rulers repeat the Roman church's wrongdoing by joining religious authority to civil power and persecuting dissenters. The Reformation itself was right, but rulers used it to establish state religion and oppress others. The same pattern appeared in persecution of Baptists and Quakers in America, showing that nation was not exempt. Churches likewise show the daughter resembles her mother when they repeat the mother church's principle that an end justifies improper means. Their use of worldly pleasures and gambling to raise money shows the same moral character and practice.

Mothers Shape Daughters

The proverb states that a daughter resembles her mother, so that a person's character and conduct follow the pattern of her parent. A daughter tends to follow her mother's pattern, and a parent's example with the whole daily atmosphere of the home shapes a child far more deeply than occasional lessons. Prayer, instruction, example, and restraint belong together as essential parts of religious training, and when they are united children follow in a pious parent's footsteps, while neglecting even one of them may contribute to a child's ruin.

A daughter's character is shaped by her mother's example, so that the better the mother the better the daughter. This highlights the strength of a mother's influence and the weight of her responsibility in forming her child. A daughter becomes like her mother because a mother forms the character of her children, including her sons. A mother who desires truly pious children who love her must therefore herself be what she wishes her children to become, keeping Bible principles, motives, and examples before herself as well as before them and making her own life and practice agree with her instruction.

The same likeness appears on the negative side, where daughters follow their mothers in a wayward and sinful condition, as seen in the condition of African women.