Ezekiel

Ezekiel 23:1-4

The word Ezekiel is given is an allegory of two sisters as if they were two wives of the Lord.  The two sisters represent Samaria and Jerusalem.  This analogy would have been severely offensive to the Jews at that time.  Israel was a united kingdom in Egypt where she was oppressed and enslaved – likened to sexual abuse of the two sisters.  Oholah means 'my tent' and Oholibah means 'my tent in her'.  The Lord said they were His and they bore sons and daughters. 

Ezekiel 23:5-10

The elder sister (Samaria) acted as a harlot even though she belonged to the Lord.  She lusted after the Assyrians as if they were her lover.  She was impressed with them, the purple of nobility impressed her.  She submitted to them by forming an alliance with them.  This alliance brought their ways into the land and ended up with worship of their idols.  She had never been faithful, even from her youth of abuse. 

Because of this, she was given to the Assyrians she lusted after.  They uncovering of her nakedness was likely the stripping the l and bare, like the rape of foreign soldiers.  Her children were taken into exile. 

Ezekiel 23:11-21

The younger sister saw the actions of the older sister but she did not learn from them.  In fact, she became even worse.  She lusted after the Assyrians just like her sister.  This was seen when Judah accepted Assyria as her overlord after the fall of Samaria.  She began to look very much like her fallen sister. 

But that wasn't enough.  She increased her harlotry, she took notice of the Chaldeans.  This is when Hezekiah brought the Babylonians in as he formed a partnership with them to stand against Assyria.  She uncovered her nakedness when she took the Babylonians into the temple and showed them all valuables there. 

It was still not enough for the younger sister.  She longed for the illicit lovers of her youth, those who oppressed and abused her.  She turned once again toward Egypt like a woman always searching for a better sexual partner.  The graphic images show the extent of offense against the Lord. 
 

Ezekiel 23:22-27

The Lord would use the ones by whom she was unfaithful to punish her unfaithfulness.  The Babylonians were the primary tool of judgment and with them the vassal states of so many conquered nations, including the Assyrians.  The Egyptians were used as an empty promise of deliverance from Babylon.  They would all be set against Judah in this divinely inspired judgment completed by their hands with their ways.

Removal of the nose and ears was punishment for adultery by the Mesopotamian laws of her lovers.  She would lose all that she held dear; her children, her lovers, her clothes and jewelry would all be stripped from her. 

Ezekiel 23:28-35

The younger sister is warned that she will end up as her sister.  She would be turned over in judgment to those she hated.  She would be left naked and bare, having lost everything she had worked for.  All her harlotry yielded nothing in the end.  There was no fruit from harlotry.

The cup of her older sister would be put in her hand.  It was a cup of the Lord's wrath, the judgment for her unfaithfulness.  The drunkenness and sorrow are a wordplay on devastation.  She will drink the cup because it is who she's become, she will willingly take every last drop.  She will break the cup and chew its shards to get the last drop from it and tear at her breast by the damage done. 

This is where he unfaithfulness had brought her.  Because she had forgotten the Lord; because she had cast him away. 

Ezekiel 23:36-49

Judah had failed to worship Yahweh properly and exclusively; just as Samaria had done.  This idolatry was done to the Lord.  Their worship of idols wasn't done apart from the Lord as if it could be separated in some way.  It constituted a complete and utter unfaithfulness.  There was no way to defend sacrificing their children in the fire or defiling the sanctuary with idols, as if one could ask what one has to do with the other. 

In addition, she brought envoys from other places and she was diligent to impress them and allure them to her.  She seemed to have no concern for the company she kept.  Would they come to her even when she was old in her harlotries?  Yes, they would come and she would entertain them, playing the harlot. 

Both sisters, unfaithful, were destroyed by their lovers.  Then everyone would know that He was Lord.

©2019 Doug Ford