Ezek 5:5

“(Version 5 and following) Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations, with the lands surrounding it; and it has despised my judgments, being more wicked than the nations, and my commandments more than the lands that surround it. For they have rejected my judgments and have not walked in my commandments. The Prophet also attests to Jerusalem being situated in the midst of the world, showing it to be the navel of the earth. And the Psalmist expressing the birth of the Lord: Truth, he says, has arisen from the earth (Ps. 48:12). And thereafter his passion: He has worked salvation in the midst of the earth (Ps. 74:12). For the plague called Asia is surrounded by the eastern parts. From the western parts, by that which is called Europe. From the south and the north, by Libya and Africa. From the north, by the Scythians, Armenia, Persia, and all the nations of the Pontus. Therefore, placed in the midst of nations, in order that the God who was known in Judea (Ps. 75) and his great name in Israel, all the nations surrounding her would follow her examples, she overcame even the nations themselves in her wickedness. Which Symmachus interpreted beautifully saying, 'These things, he says, Jerusalem, which I placed in the midst of nations, and the regions around her, changed my judgments for the impieties which she learned from the nations, and my statutes for the regions which are around her: for they rejected my laws, and did not walk in my judgments.' But what the Seventy have said, that my justifications are unjust from the nations, and my laws are not consistent with the regions around it, is clear even when I am silent.”

“Explanation of the symbols: Jerusalem--not the mere city, but the people of Israel generally, of which it was the center and representative. in . . . midst--Jerusalem is regarded in God's point of view as center of the whole earth, designed to radiate the true light over the nations in all directions. Compare Margin ("navel"), Eze 38:12; Psa 48:2; Jer 3:17. No center in the ancient heathen world could have been selected more fitted than Canaan to be a vantage ground, whence the people of God might have acted with success upon the heathenism of the world. It lay midway between the oldest and most civilized states, Egypt and Ethiopia on one side, and Babylon, Nineveh, and India on the other, and afterwards Persia, Greece, and Rome. The PhÅ“nician mariners were close by, through whom they might have transmitted the true religion to the remotest lands; and all around the Ishmaelites, the great inland traders in South Asia and North Africa. Israel was thus placed, not for its own selfish good, but to be the spiritual benefactor of the whole world. Compare Psa 67:1-7 throughout. Failing in this, and falling into idolatry, its guilt was far worse than that of the heathen; not that Israel literally went beyond the heathen in abominable idolatries. But "corruptio optimi pessima"; the perversion of that which in itself is the best is worse than the perversion of that which is less perfect: is in fact the worst of all kinds of perversion. Therefore their punishment was the severest. So the position of the Christian professing Church now, if it be not a light to the heathen world, its condemnation will be sorer than theirs (Mat 5:13; Mat 11:21-24; Heb 10:28-29).”