Ezekiel 16:15-30--Jerusalem, the Unfaithful Bride (Part 1)

Ezekiel 16:15-30
Easy-to-Read Version

Jerusalem, the Unfaithful Bride
15 “But you began to trust in your beauty. You used the good name you had and became unfaithful to me. You acted like a prostitute with every man who passed by. You gave yourself to them all! 16 You took your beautiful clothes and used them to decorate your places for worship. And you acted like a prostitute there. You gave yourself to every man who came by! 17 Then you took your beautiful jewelry that I gave you, and you used the gold and silver to make statues of men, and you had sex with them too! 18 Then you took the beautiful cloth and made clothes for those statues. You took the perfume and incense I gave you and put it in front of those idols. 19 I gave you bread, honey, and oil, but you gave that food to your idols. You offered them as a sweet smell to please your false gods. You acted like a prostitute with those false gods!” This is what the Lord GOD said.

20 “You and I had children together, but you took our children. You killed them and gave them to those false gods! But that is only some of the evil things you did when you were unfaithful to me and went to those false gods. 21 You slaughtered my sons and then passed them through the fire to those false gods. 22 You left me and did all those terrible things. You never remembered what happened when you were young. You did not remember that you were naked and kicking in blood when I found you.

23 “After all these evil things, … it will be very bad for you!” The Lord GOD said all these things. 24 “After all those things, you made a mound for worshiping that false god. You built those places for worshiping false gods on every street corner. 25 You built your mounds at the head of every road. Then you degraded your beauty. You used it to catch every man who walked by. You raised your skirt so that they could see your legs, and you acted like a prostitute with those men. 26 Then you went to Egypt, your neighbor that is always ready for sex. With more and more sexual sin, you made me angry. 27 So I punished you! I took away part of your land. I let your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, do what they wanted to you. Even they were shocked at the evil things you did. 28 Then you went to have sex with Assyria. You could not get enough. You were never satisfied. 29 So you turned to Canaan, and then to Babylonia, and still you were not satisfied. 30 You are so weak. You let all those men cause you to sin. You acted just like a prostitute who wants to be the one in control.” This is what the Lord GOD said.

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I am going split up this longer passage into two or more parts because of its length.  That first part we'll look at today is verses 15 through 30 of chapter 16.  The LORD begins His indictment against Israel that though she was not only like a daughter to Him, but like a Bride that He had kept pure since she was young.  We may be disgusted by this picture, but I'm sure it was commonplace at that time for men to take in young virgins and raise them to be their wives.  We get no idea that the LORD is a polygynist here though.  He seems to have only one woman He loves and He loves to love her.  However, she is rebellious and has prostituted herself to other gods and other nations (other men).  All the beauty He once adorned her with is gone.

The valuable things that were given to her have been stolen by others or traded in payment for a moment of passion and pleasure.  They even used some of the precious metals to fashion other gods for themselves.  They good what was meant to be perfume for them and made it incense for their idols.  They even gave the good food that the LORD had given them to their idols.  Everything that the LORD gave to them they gave away to others and to their false gods.

They even sacrificed their children to their idols.  This angered the LORD greatly as He claimed these innocent children as His own.  The children of Israel did all kinds of evil things when they rebelled against the LORD and worshiped all their false gods.

The people faced the consequences of their evil actions, yet they did not forsake their false gods and return to the LORD.  They multiplied their sin by setting up idols on every street corner.  What they once did in secret in their houses or out in the groves and on the mountains in secret they now do openly in the cities for all to see.  They are proud of their sin and want others to see them and celebrate the sin that they commit.  They convince others to join them in their wickedness.  They continued to prostitute themselves, but now they didn't even do it for money, they did it just to have the companionship of another man because they had so perverted their knowledge of love--they no longer had any idea what true love looked like.  The LORD offered them true love and they didn't want it.

Therefore, the LORD had to punish them according to the rules of the covenant that they made in Sinai with Moses as the mediator of that covenant.  It was a covenant of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.  When they turned to idols and all kinds of sinful perversions, they put themselves under the curses of the Law and the LORD had to withhold His blessings from them in hopes that they might repent and return to Him.  They instead looked for relief from other pagan nations like Egypt who had formerly enslaved them.  The LORD sent them into Exile and destroyed most of the people that they turned to instead of turning back to Him.  These peoples wanted to make Israel and more and more sinful (actually, some of them were a bit disgusted with how sinful Israel had become because Israel was not ashamed to do things that they knew to be shameful).

The Israelites joined themselves with the Assyrians--a cruel people who invented crucifixion.  Egypt, Assyria, Canaan, and Babylon were all poor substitutes for the LORD.  The world will never be able to satisfy us no matter how much wealth, knowledge or power they have.  Each time they sold themselves to someone else they were led into deeper and deeper sin.  They thought they were in control of themselves and what happened to them, but their lives were out of controlled.  They were controlled by their false gods, their sins, and the evil nations they had joined themselves to.  The LORD's plan to set them free from their bondage was going to be painful, but was necessary.