Ezekiel 16:60
Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.
The chapter sets forth the covenant as a marriage in which the Lord is the husband, Jerusalem is the wife, and the people are the children, a bond broken when she turned to another. Her harlotry is apostasy, idolatry and unlawful union with the world, its kings, nations and gods, the same unfaithfulness that makes an apostate church the counterpart of the pure woman who represents the true church. Nevertheless God remembers His covenant from the days of her youth and establishes an everlasting covenant, which is the new covenant, with the remnant even after grievous sin and cutting off, and it stands sure because He Himself establishes it. That everlasting covenant is a restored marriage in which Jerusalem is received again after whoredom, punishment and desolation, together with her sisters Samaria and Sodom, as the Jerusalem under the new covenant becoming what old Jerusalem was in type under the old.
Setting and Unfaithful Wife
Ezekiel 16:60 stands within the first twenty chapters of Ezekiel, given among the captives in Babylonia by the river Chebar while Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem. It belongs to a strong parable about the apostasy of Judah and Israel, in which God earnestly pleads with His people to turn back to Him.
The chapter presents the covenant relationship as a marriage in which the Lord is the husband, the land or Jerusalem is the wife, and the people are the children. The Lord made a covenant with His people so that they became His, but they broke it by relying on another. Joining the church to the world is therefore spiritual adultery against Him, because He describes His covenant relationship with His people as a marriage.
A harlot is the symbol of a corrupt church, just as a pure woman is the symbol of the true church. Ezekiel 16 is a biblical example of the image of a corrupt, licentious woman representing a corrupt, fallen, apostate church. A woman is thus a symbol of a church, a figure that supports understanding the woman of Revelation 17 as an ecclesiastical body.
In that chapter a lewd woman pictures a corrupt or apostate church, set over against a virtuous woman who pictures a pure church. The lewd-woman figure marks religious bodies that corrupt nations with false doctrine and spiritual unfaithfulness, identifying Babylon and her daughters as apostate churches including heathen systems and compromised portions of the Christian world.
The Jewish church was espoused to the Lord and became a harlot in the same manner as the Babylon of Revelation 17, by seeking the friendship of the world through unlawful connection with the kings of the earth. That unfaithfulness through apostasy is compared with the professed church's unlawful friendship with the world. Jerusalem, representing God's chosen people, is depicted as an unfaithful woman when the Jews apostatized from God, joined themselves to surrounding nations, and worshiped their gods, so that the city's harlotry represents religious unfaithfulness and alliance with other powers. Israel was bound to God by covenant like a wife to her husband, and turning from God to the world and Babylon is spiritual adultery in which Israel abandons the covenant relationship and follows another. God calls the union of His church with the world fornication and adultery.
The fall of the Jewish church portrayed as a harlot is rejection by God, with its destruction deferred for a considerable period. That fall serves as an example of a church's moral rejection by God, distinct from its later destruction. The chapter is an example of the people's unfaithfulness and does not identify that covenant as the marriage of the Lamb at the end.
Everlasting Covenant Remembered
Although God's professed people have sinned grievously and many are cut off, he remembers his covenant with them from the days of their youth and establishes an everlasting covenant with the remnant. The covenant is sure because God himself establishes it. That everlasting covenant is the new covenant.
The verse promises a marriage under an everlasting covenant by which the wife, Jerusalem, is restored to the Lord as her husband after her whoredom, punishment, contempt, and desolation. In the figure the Lord is the husband, the land or Jerusalem is the wife, and the people are the children. Her restoration takes place together with the restoration of her sisters Samaria and Sodom. It denotes receiving the Jerusalem that is to be his throne when the kingdom is the Lord's. The Jerusalem under the new covenant is what its type, old Jerusalem, was under the old covenant.
God remembers his covenant and keeps his promises. The same remembrance gives a rule for human promises, that people should remember what they promise. A pledge or badge can help them do so.