Ezekiel 23:1-49--Oholah and Oholibah

Ezekiel 23
English Standard Version

Oholah and Oholibah
23 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. 3 They played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled. 4 Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

5 “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors 6 clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. 7 She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8 She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her. 9 Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted. 10 These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed on her.

11 “Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister. 12 She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. 13 And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. 14 But she carried her whoring further. She saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, 15 wearing belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them having the appearance of officers, a likeness of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. 16 When she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoring lust. And after she was defiled by them, she turned from them in disgust. 18 When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. 19 Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. 21 Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.”

22 Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side: 23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. 24 And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples. They shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. 25 And I will direct my jealousy against you, that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire. 26 They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels. 27 Thus I will put an end to your lewdness and your whoring begun in the land of Egypt, so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.

28 “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust, 29 and they shall deal with you in hatred and take away all the fruit of your labor and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your whoring shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your whoring 30 have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. 31 You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. 32 Thus says the Lord GOD:

“You shall drink your sister's cup
    that is deep and large;
you shall be laughed at and held in derision,
    for it contains much;
33 you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation,
    the cup of your sister Samaria;
34 you shall drink it and drain it out,
    and gnaw its shards,
    and tear your breasts;

for I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD. 35 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”

36 The LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Declare to them their abominations. 37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. 38 Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths. 39 For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And behold, this is what they did in my house. 40 They even sent for men to come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and adorned yourself with ornaments. 41 You sat on a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil. 42 The sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and with men of the common sort, drunkards were brought from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on the hands of the women, and beautiful crowns on their heads.

43 “Then I said of her who was worn out by adultery, ‘Now they will continue to use her for a whore, even her!’ 44 For they have gone in to her, as men go in to a prostitute. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, lewd women! 45 But righteous men shall pass judgment on them with the sentence of adulteresses, and with the sentence of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands.”

46 For thus says the Lord GOD: “Bring up a vast host against them, and make them an object of terror and a plunder. 47 And the host shall stone them and cut them down with their swords. They shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses. 48 Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. 49 And they shall return your lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.”

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The LORD compares Samaria (and the northern kingdom of Israel) and Jerusalem (and the southern kingdom of Judah) to a pair of whoring sisters who went to Egypt (the place from which the LOR had set the children of Israel free from their enslavement and captivity and a picture of their old life of sin before the Passover redeemed them and made them a covenant people for His possession) to lose their virginity and let themselves be violated.  The story may have been true of these two sisters who were names, but the LORD is using their story as a metaphor for what has been going on with Israel and Judah.  They are not just literal family (born of the same father Israel), but they are two of a kind.  There is really no difference between them other than Samaria spiraled into idolatry and immorality faster and went off into exile first.  Jerusalem was right on her heels trying to imitate and emulate everything that Samaria did, and they too would be judged and sent into exile.  They did not learn from what had happened to their "big sister."

Samaria gave herself to the Assyrians and their gods when she was to belong to the LORD alone.  The LORD took her out of Egypt, but Egypt was never taken out of her.  She continued to act like the idolatrous, wicked, immoral people she was enslaved to (including those who practice all kinds of sorcery, witchcraft, and necromancy).  The LORD allowed the northern kingdom to be taken by the Assyrians, and they took everything of value that she had and then killed most of those who remained.

Jerusalem saw all this, and instead of repenting, they became even more corrupt.  Jerusalem also chased after the gods of the Assyrians, even putting an idol to one of their gods up in the Temple in the place of the Altar of the LORD.  Yet, it was not enough for her to whore after the Assyrians like her sister, she also whored after the Chaldeans and Babylonians.  Soon, the Chaldeans and Babylonians would do with her what the Assyrians had done to the northern kingdom.  The Bible will more closely follow the story of the Babylonian captivity because the Messiah was to come from the tribe of Judah, which was part of the southern kingdom (the tribe from which the kingdom got its name).   Jerusalem longed for their days of slavery and captivity in Egypt when they were not a people.  They may have been slaves and mistreated, but their food and shelter were provided for.  They could be as wicked and degenerate as they wanted and no one would blink an eye, because they were acting just like their masters.  They lived in a place of great prosperity, even though they were slaves and they were allowed to prosper in the midst of their sin.  Then they received the Law and there were blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.  In their minds it was better to be ignorant of the LORD and His Law and to do what was right in their own eyes.

The LORD will cause all the nations that Jerusalem whored after to turn against her and attack her.  One by one, they will all try to take what they can and kill or take captive all they can find.  They will try to cause those they take captive to lose their identity and be made in their likeness, worshipping their gods and learning their law and culture, never to be children of the covenant again.  They want them to forget the LORD and the promises He made, and they want the Israelites to cease being the LORD's ambassadors and the agents by which He executes His will here on earth.  Jerusalem will drink from the same cup of wrath and judgment that her sister Samaria did.

The LORD calls on Ezekiel to judge Israel and Judah to read the indictment and to call them out for their abominations, such as child sacrifice.  There is no way that the other nations would see them other as objects for their pleasure and gratification and that the children of Israel could be disposed of when they no longer brought pleasure to them.  For this reason, the LORD would have to judge and destroy these other nations.  There was no way for Israel to be seen as anything other than a harlot by them, and the LORD desired her to be His Bride once more.  The people of Israel wanted to be like all the other nations?  They have done that and much more, and they would be treated very much like any of the other nations that rand headlong into this kind of debauchery.  However, the LORD would save a remnant, not because they deserved it, but for the sake of His Name and His covenant promises that He made to them which did not depend on them or their goodness, but relied only on Him and His goodness.  Thank the LORD that His willingness to keep His covenant with us is not reliant on our goodness, but on His goodness alone.