And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,
The chapter opens with a single line: God has spoken again. What follows is one of the most disturbing pictures in the Bible — two sisters who both betrayed the God who owned them. Why does God return to a charge He has already made, and why does He tell it in such shocking terms?
This new message defends God's right to act. After the opening line, God lays out His charge against Jerusalem:
In Ezekiel 23 Jehovah justifies Himself for judging Jerusalem by the sin and unfaithfulness of her way of life. Her unfaithfulness with the nations brought her early days back to mind. The same conduct showed the same nature. She has ended as she began, because at heart she was the same.
The message introduces two sisters from one family. Each is given a name, and each name sums up the worship of her city:
Here the holy city is compared with Samaria. They are two sisters with the same parent — the Jewish people — and sisters in idol worship too. Their evil is traced back to its earliest appearance. The idols that lured them in Egypt left them exposed at last to Assyria and to Babylon... Their names in this picture are Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister. The first name means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her." ... The worship of Samaria came out of self-will. At best it was an imitation, but really it was independence from Jehovah. In Jerusalem the service was ordered by Jehovah as His own appointment. Still, both of them were His, not one only.
So who is the mother of these two daughters?
So the two sisters (daughters) are Samaria (the ten tribes) and Jerusalem (standing for the two tribes). Clearly, the "mother", then, is Israel (the twelve tribes) out of whom the two kingdoms originated.
Ezekiel 16 has already used the same image. One writer explains why God returns to it, and why the picture He chooses is so ugly:
Once again we meet one of those apparent repetitions, and such repetition stresses the importance of what it says. God has taken up the closest relationships of human life to show us how full His love for people is. His heart delights to bring us near to Himself. So the sin that breaks through a love shown like this is all the greater. No wonder the foulest of human sins becomes a shadow of the sin pictured here. We shrink from these descriptions. See how strongly God would teach us by it to hate what is so much worse in His sight: the human picture is only a shadow of the greater sin!
This chapter and the one before it show two sides of one failure:
It has been well said that this chapter, compared with the one before it, speaks of political departure from God rather than spiritual departure. Yet that only shows more clearly how closely the two are tied together. Religion is bound to be the strongest bond that unites people... Since idolatry was set up everywhere among the nations scattered at Babel, God had to separate to Himself politically a people who were to be in true spiritual relationship with Himself. Where the nations ruled, their gods must rule. So to lose national independence threatened the loss of everything else.
Judah had advantages Israel never had. Those advantages made her guilt greater, not smaller:
In fact Judah became more offensive than Israel, and Jerusalem more guilty than Samaria. Israel had pleading and warning, promise and threat, but never one ray of goodness from her throne. Judah had some good kings, and channels of God's blessing in her government. Yet the prophets testify that Aholibah was worse than Aholah. God had His own among them. The righteous are marked out from the wicked, but Judah as a whole appears far more deeply sunk in idolatry and sin.
Both sisters sinned in the same way, so both met the same end:
In each case the ground of Jehovah's judgment is their forbidden intimacy with the nations. They were sisters in sin, and would be judged in the same way... They were to reap what they had sown.
- One mother. Samaria and Jerusalem are two daughters of one nation, Israel — related by birth and by the same course.
- Two tents. Aholah means "her own tent" — worship of self-will. Aholibah means "my tent is in her" — worship God Himself appointed. Both women belonged to Him.
- One love betrayed. God used marriage to picture how close He wants His people. That is why the picture of adultery cuts so deep.
- One pattern. Political alliances and idolatry were not two failures but one. Whoever ruled the nations, their gods ruled too.
- One harvest. Greater privilege made Jerusalem the guiltier sister. Both sisters reaped what they had sown.
Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother.
God hands Ezekiel a new parable while Jerusalem still stands and still feels safe: two sisters, born to one mother. Everything that follows — the names, the shame, the sentence — rests on that shared birth. So who are these sisters, and why does God start with their mother?
God opens with the title He uses for Ezekiel all through the book. One commentator sees in it both the fitness of the judge and the tenderness behind the sentence.
All through the book Ezekiel is the "son of man." Scripture gives that title to only one other prophet, Daniel, and only once. It is a Man who is to judge man... Ezekiel is only a faint shadow of such a One, in whose hands judgment is safe, and God's pity shines all through it. Yet God Himself gives him the title. It is the assurance of a Heart that appeals to man's heart, all the way through the long record of what provoked this judgment — a judgment inflicted only when even God's patience has reached its limit.
The two women are not real people. They stand for two cities, Samaria and Jerusalem — one people split into two kingdoms. Their names carry the difference between them.
The holy city is here compared with Samaria, as two sisters of a common parent — the Jewish people; sisters too in their idolatrous iniquity... Their symbolic names are given here: Aholah the elder, and Aholibah, her sister. The first means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her." Samaria's worship came out of self-will. At best it was an imitation, but in truth it was independence from Jehovah. In Jerusalem, though, Jehovah Himself ordered the service as His own appointment. Still, both were His, not only one.
Why does God start with the mother? One writer traces the family line back past Israel's history to something older and wider.
There is no need to ask who that mother was... The family line they show goes further back than that. Lust, however it shows itself, is the badge that marks out fallen man everywhere. As the apostle has shown us, one commandment reaches and judges the whole state of man: "You shall not covet." (Older translations read "You shall not lust.") The idols of the nations put these desires on display, and exist to satisfy them. They stand for an imagined freedom in people who have got away from God. They try to satisfy themselves apart from His way and will, with things that cannot do it.
The same nature in both sisters led to the same end. Before God judges Jerusalem, He gives His reason.
In Ezekiel 23 Jehovah justifies His judgment of Jerusalem by the sin and unfaithfulness of her ways. Her unfaithfulness with the nations calls to mind how she began. The same conduct showed the same nature. She has ended as she began, because at heart she was the same. Samaria's fate would be hers too.
You would expect the sister with God's own worship and some good kings to come off better. She did not.
In fact Judah became more offensive than Israel, and Jerusalem more guilty than Samaria. Israel had pleading and warning, promise and threat, but never one ray of goodness from the throne. Judah had some good kings, and the channels of God's blessing in her government. Yet the prophets testify that Aholibah was worse than Aholah.
If this was what the family was like, why did God ever take them up? The answer comes as another question.
All the children of Adam, in every generation, are just like these women. And if we look at their history and ask, How could God take up people like these? the answer lies in another question: Where could He find any better? Just as we see their common origin, so God takes us back to Egypt to see them from the very start of their life as a nation.
- One mother. Samaria and Jerusalem are two kingdoms from one people. They are sisters by birth and sisters in the same idolatry.
- One nature. One mother meant one heart. The same heart produced the same conduct, and Jerusalem "ended as she began."
- One claim. Both sisters were His. Even self-willed Samaria belonged to Him, and Jerusalem had the worship He appointed.
- One privilege wasted. The more favoured sister, with good kings and God's own worship, proved the more guilty of the two.
- One hope. God took up this family not because He found better material, but because there was none better to find.
And they committed whoredom in Egypt; they committed whoredom in their youth there were their breasts pressed, and there were handled the teats of their virginity.
Long before Sinai, before the land, before the kingdom split, both sisters of this chapter were already unfaithful in Egypt. Why would God take up a people whose corruption ran that deep?
The chapter opens with two women born of one mother. One writer sets aside the question of who that mother was, and points to something older and wider.
There is no need to question about that mother now, nor to speak of Amorite or Hittite. The heredity they show goes further back. Lust, however it shows itself, is the beggar's badge that marks out fallen man everywhere. As the apostle has shown us, one commandment reaches and judges the whole condition of man: "You shall not covet." The idols of the nations put these lusts on display, and exist to gratify them. They stand for an imaginary freedom. Souls who have got away from God try to satisfy themselves apart from His way and will, with things that cannot do it.
The two sisters are Samaria and Jerusalem. The verse is deliberately blunt about their youth, and that early shame had a long result.
The prophet traces the evil back to its earliest appearance. The idols that lured them in Egypt exposed them at last to Assyria and to Babylon. In Egypt they showed their lewdness, and their old age matched the sins of their youth. Their symbolic names here are Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. The first means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her."
The names sharpen the charge. Samaria's worship was her own; God's own house stood in Jerusalem — yet the same writer points out that both sisters alike were His.
Egypt was not only slavery. It was an education God intended them to take one way, and they took another.
All the children of Adam, in every generation, are like these women. And if we ask, as we look at their history, how could God take up such as these? The answer is found in another question: where could He find any better? As we see their common origin, so we go back to Egypt to see them from the very start of their course as a nation. This unrestrained will of their own marks them from the beginning. God had appointed Egypt as a school for them, which should have done them good. No land could show more clearly how foolish and degrading the idolatry of the nations is. God also made them feel the schoolmaster's rod in what they suffered at Egyptian hands. On one side stood God's clear purpose in all this; on the other, the natural perverseness of the human heart. Israel had little reason to take up with Egypt. They had the revelation of the true God, and promises of blessing that might well have won their hearts to obedience.
Israel's dealings with Egypt and Assyria look like foreign policy, not religion. One writer explains why that distinction does not hold.
Others have truly said that this chapter, compared with the one before it, speaks of political rather than spiritual departure from God. Yet that only shows how close the two are. Religion is by nature the strongest bond that unites people. So when men no longer recognised the one true God, supreme over all, each nation came to have its own gods. The glory or decline of those gods became the glory or decline of the nation.
This is not only ancient history. The same pull works now, and one writer names what makes it strong.
In a worldly course, the world in fact outdoes the people of God. Their own things fail them the moment they seek the world. The world outside has full room for all the energy, ambition, luxury and self-enjoyment that the words here speak of. Those words mean youth, vigour, and the keen pursuit of what a man counts as riches and as all he can hope to be. Alas, how much these things attract the people of God themselves!
Because both sisters shared the same beginning, they came to the same end.
Ezekiel 23 sets out the sins of Samaria (Israel) and Jerusalem (Judah) with great solemnity. In each case the forbidden dealings with the nations are the ground of the Lord's judgment. They were sisters in sin, and would be judged alike… They were to reap what they had sown.
- Root. One mother, one inherited appetite. Idols exist to feed that lust and to promise a freedom that is not real.
- Youth. The unfaithfulness began in Egypt, and their old age matched the sins of their youth.
- School. Egypt was meant to teach them how degrading idolatry is; they treated it as a model instead of a warning.
- Reach. This chapter presses the political side of the same fall. Nations and their gods rose and fell together, so no alliance was ever only political.
- Result. God judged the sisters alike. They reaped what they had sown — and the same worldly energy still pulls at His people.
And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister; and they were mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.
Ezekiel 23 tells a parable of two sisters born to one mother. Verse 4 is the key to the whole chapter: it names the sisters, says which cities they stand for, and records God's claim on both.
Older translations spell the names Aholah and Aholibah. The ESV spells them Oholah and Oholibah. The names are not decoration. Each one sums up a way of worship.
Their symbolic names here are Aholah the elder, and Aholibah, her sister. The first means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her." The reader will not fail to notice how fitting these names are. The worship of Samaria was of self-will, at best an imitation, but really independence of the LORD. But in Jerusalem the divine service was ordered by the LORD as His own appointment.
The second name pointed to something Samaria did not have.
Chapter 23 calls Samaria and Jerusalem two sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, in their ungodly relation with Assyria and Chaldea… The second name marks a fact: the true sanctuary was in Judah.
The verse names the sisters but not the mother. One writer works out who she must be.
Verse 4 gives the names of the sisters… So the two sisters (daughters) are Samaria (the ten tribes) and Jerusalem (standing for the two tribes). Clearly the "mother," then, is Israel (the twelve tribes) out of whom the two kingdoms came.
The verse does more than name the sisters. It says both belonged to God — even the kingdom Jeroboam seized.
Yet not one only but both were His. "They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters." Jeroboam's seizing of power did not destroy the LORD's claim. Instead it drew out the special ministry of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and of others in God's grace, in case they might be warned.
Verse 4 calls Oholah the elder. God's rod fell on her first, and her sister watched.
Oholibah's history now follows. In it we see once more the power of example. We see also how one evil develops out of another, and the progress made in a downward path. Once more Oholibah chooses the human school instead of the school of God. She learns nothing from His rod on her sister.
Judah had the sanctuary. The comparison still went against her.
In fact Judah became more offensive than Israel, Jerusalem more guilty than Samaria… yet we have the testimony of the prophets that Aholibah was worse than Aholah.
The chapter traces the trouble back past both kingdoms to Egypt. It began before there were two sisters at all.
If we ask, as we look at their history, How could God take up people like these? Another question answers it: Where could He find any better? As we see their common origin, so the chapter takes us back to Egypt, to see them from the very beginning of their course as a nation. And this unrestrained self-will marks them from the start… Egypt was the land of independence, a picture of the world in that way… Clearly, Oholah ("her own tent") took this as her motto and lived by it.
The chapter ends in judgment. Yet one writer sees a purpose in the severity.
Yet all this severity is on God's part not mere judgment. The effect, as He puts it here, is to make Oholibah's lewdness stop. The things that once attracted her she now turns from with loathing. A person must come to his senses before he can come to God, and this is the process through which God was now bringing Israel.
- Mother — One nation produced two kingdoms: Samaria for the ten tribes, Jerusalem for the two. Sisters, not strangers.
- Names — Oholah is "her own tent," worship of her own making; Oholibah is "my tent is in her," worship God Himself appointed. The name records the privilege.
- Claim — "They became mine." Rebellion did not cancel God's claim on either sister. He answered the breakaway kingdom by sending it prophets.
- Copy — The younger sister had a sanctuary and a warning example. She learned from neither, and became the guiltier of the two. Privilege raises the stakes; it does not lower them.
- Cure — The judgment is not the end of God's purpose. It aims to turn what she loved into what she loathes, and to bring her to her senses so she can come to God.
And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she lusted after her lovers, after the Assyrians [her] neighbours,
Oholah is Samaria, the northern kingdom. God pictures her as a wife who leaves her husband for foreign soldiers, and the charge turns on three words: "while she was mine."
The two women in this chapter stand for two kingdoms, and their names carry the argument:
The holy city is compared here with Samaria. They are two sisters of one parent, the Jewish people, and sisters also in their idolatrous wickedness. The idols that lured them in Egypt exposed them at last to Assyria and to Babylon. Their symbolic names are given here as Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. The first means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her." The worship of Samaria was self-will, at best an imitation, but really independence of the Lord. In Jerusalem the Lord arranged the divine service as His own appointment. Yet not one only but both were His. "They were mine, and they bore sons and daughters."
Samaria had set up a worship of her own making. God still called her His.
What made Assyria so hard to resist? One writer sees the whole offer of the world standing behind her:
Here we have first the history of Oholah. Under the strong figure of adultery we see how the world outside attracted her at once. Assyria was her main attraction. In a worldly course the world does outdo the people of God: the moment they seek the world, their own things fail them at the start. In the outside world there is full room for all the energy, ambition, luxury and self-enjoyment that the words here describe. They speak of youth and vigour, and of the keen pursuit of what man counts riches — what makes him all he can hope to be. How much these things attract, sadly, even the people of God!
The habit did not start with Assyria. God gave Israel Egypt as a school; they took it as a model instead:
God had appointed them a school in Egypt that should have done them good. No land could display the folly and degradation of heathen idolatry more fully. God also made them feel the schoolmaster's rod in what they suffered at Egypt's hands. On one side was God's meaning in all this; on the other, the natural perverseness of the human heart. Israel had little reason to take up with Egypt. They themselves had the revelation of the true God, and promises of blessing that might well have won their hearts to obedience. Yet they clearly took Egypt as their school in a completely different way from what God meant. Egypt was the land of independence, the picture of the world in that way… At the very start of their life as a separate kingdom, the calves that Jeroboam set up remind us of Egyptian worship. In fact he had been in Egypt, and he clearly brought them from there.
The same writer looks behind the splendour, at the god Assyria served. Names that once spoke of God had lost their meaning:
Cut off from the Name they speak of, there is really no purpose of God left. Asshur's god was Asshur. Man serves only himself — himself, sadly, the miserable object of his worship!
Samaria's calves were only the beginning. Kelly follows the line from that worship to its end:
The elder Oholah, or Samaria, soon showed the old evil was not removed. The worship of the calves led to worse and brought judgment at last, through those who were the last to lure her away from the Lord; and the Assyrian carried out judgment on Samaria.
The chapter reaches back to her early days for a reason:
In Ezekiel 23 the Lord shows why He is right to judge Jerusalem: her walk was wicked and unfaithful. Her unfaithfulness with the nations brought her early days to mind. The same conduct showed the same nature. She has ended as she began, because at heart she was the same. Samaria's lot would be hers.
The picture of adultery is not shut up in ancient history:
God has brought us, as believers, into such close and intimate relations with Himself. So if we play Him false and enter a guilty alliance with the world, only one sin among mankind compares with it: the very terrible sin of adultery. Let us never forget it.
- Mine. Samaria's worship was self-will and imitation. Yet God still says "they were mine," and that claim is what makes her wandering adultery.
- Attraction. Assyria offered youth, vigour and riches. The world will always outshine the people of God the moment they compete with it.
- Origin. The lust began in Egypt, the land of independence, which God meant as a school and Israel took as a pattern.
- Emptiness. Asshur's god was Asshur. Behind the splendour she chased stood only man worshipping himself.
- Verdict. She ended as she began, because at heart she was the same. The same charge of adultery stands against any believer who joins hands with the world.
clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them attractive young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
Ezekiel tells of two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, and this verse lists what Oholah could not take her eyes off: young Assyrian officials in fine robes, high in rank, riding horses. The chapter presses one question: what did the people of God see in the nations around them, and what did it cost?
Oholah stands for Samaria, the northern kingdom. Each sister's name says something about the way she worshipped.
Here the holy city is compared with Samaria, as two sisters born of one parent — the Jewish people. They were sisters in their sinful idol worship too. The evil is traced back to where it first appeared. The idols that charmed them in Egypt left them exposed at last to Assyria and to Babylon... Their meaningful names are given here as Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. The first name means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her." The reader will not miss how well these names fit. The worship of Samaria came out of self-will. At best it was an imitation, but it was really independence from the Lord.
The details of this verse are not decoration. Robes, rank, youth and horses are what the world had on show, and they had a pull.
We have first the history of Oholah. Under the strong picture of adultery, we see how the world outside attracted her at once. Assyria was her main attraction... On a worldly path, the world does outdo the people of God. The moment they go after the world, their own things fail them at the very start. Out in the world there is full room for all the energy, ambition, luxury and self-enjoyment that the words here speak of: youth, strength, and the eager chase after what man counts as riches, which makes him everything he can hope to be. Sadly, these things attract even the people of God themselves, and attract them greatly.
Behind the doting lies something older than Assyria. The pull she felt belongs to every fallen human being.
The family trait they show goes back further than that. Lust, however it shows itself, is the beggar's badge that marks out fallen man everywhere... The idols of the nations put these lusts on display, and they exist to gratify them. The idols stand for an imagined freedom. Souls have got away from God and try to satisfy themselves apart from His way and will, with things that cannot do it.
Assyria had a god of its own. The name of that god shows what Oholah was really admiring.
Cut off from the Name they speak of, no purpose of God is left. What should have been God's own footsteps becomes instead a mirror of man himself and of his lusts. Asshur's god shows this in a striking way. Asshur's god was Asshur. Man serves only himself — and himself, sadly, is the wretched object of his worship!
Her lovers did not stay lovers. Admiration and ruin run along one line, and God means them to.
Yet in the end, as we see in her history here, men's vices hatch the very crowds that prey on them... God would wake man up by this constant link between sin and its judgment. Man's pleasant vices are the whips that beat him.
This picture is not only for Israel. It reaches to Christ and those who belong to Him.
The apostle wrote to the Corinthians, "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." Here each person is more in view, but the principle is the same, and the picture of leaving Him is easy to understand. The world draws many away from simple devotion to Christ who would refuse an immoral life at once. For it looks fair enough, and it offers all sorts of attractions that suit our nature. And people often ask: What is the harm in this? Is there anything wrong with that?
- Named — Oholah means "her own tent." Samaria's worship was self-will: an imitation, and independence from the Lord.
- Doting — the robes, ranks, youth and horses stand for the world's energy, ambition, luxury and self-enjoyment. They outshine the things of God the moment His people look elsewhere.
- Hollow — Asshur's god was Asshur. She admired man worshipping himself, and idols only feed a lust that nothing can satisfy.
- Scourged — men's vices hatch the crowds that prey on them. Pleasant vices turn into whips, and God ties sin to its judgment to wake us up.
- Now — the world still looks fair enough and still suits our nature. That is why leaving Christ counts as adultery, not just bad taste.
And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, all of them the choice of the children of Asshur; and with all after whom she lusted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
Ezekiel 23 tells of two sisters — Samaria and Jerusalem — and verse 7 shows the elder one giving herself to Assyria's finest men and to the idols of everyone she desired. Why does God call this adultery, what made a foreign power so attractive to His own people, and what happens to those who fall in love with what they should have refused?
The names in this chapter are not decoration. One commentator explains what they mean and why God still calls both women His own.
Their symbolic names are Oholah, the elder, and Oholibah, her sister. The first means "her own tent." The second means "my tent is in her." The reader will not fail to notice how fitting these names are. Samaria's worship came from self-will. At best it was an imitation; really it was independence of the LORD. But in Jerusalem the LORD Himself arranged the service as His own appointment. Still, not one only but both were His. "They were mine, and they bore sons and daughters."
Verse 7 says she lavished her devotion on the choicest of Assyria. One commentator names what drew her, and what happens when God's people go after the world on its own ground.
We have first the history of Oholah; and, under the strong figure of adultery, we find how the world outside at once attracted her. Assyria was her main attraction… On a worldly path the world does outdo the people of God. The moment they go after the world, their own things fail them at the start. In the outside world there is full room for all the energy, ambition, luxury and self-enjoyment that the words here speak of: youth, vigour, the keen pursuit of what man counts riches, and what makes him all he can hope to be. Sadly, how much these things attract even the people of God themselves!
She did not only admire Assyria's men; she defiled herself with their idols. The same writer shows what such a god really is.
Assyria's god shows plainly what he is. Assyria's god was Assyria. Man serves only himself — himself, sadly, the miserable object of his worship!
The chapter keeps looking back at the sisters' earlier days. One commentator shows how God uses that past to justify His judgment.
In Ezekiel 23 the LORD shows that He is right to judge Jerusalem. He points to the wickedness and unfaithfulness of her walk. Her unfaithfulness with the nations brought her early course to mind. The same conduct showed the same nature. She has ended as she began, because at heart she was the same.
The Assyria she ran after became the force that preyed on her. A commentator draws out the rule.
Yet in the end, as her history here shows, men's vices hatch the very hordes that prey on them… God would wake man up by this constant link between sin and its judgment. Man's pleasant vices are the whips that scourge him.
The same pull works now. One commentator ties idol worship to friendship with the world, and to a warning from the apostle Paul.
Satan is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4), and those who worshipped idols really worshipped demons (1 Corinthians 10:20). So an alliance with the world has the same character as marriage with the daughter of a foreign god. The apostle Paul raises his voice against this besetting sin. He cries, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?"
- Owned. Both sisters belonged to God — "they were mine." That is what makes idolatry adultery, not just a mistake.
- Attracted. Assyria offered youth, wealth and vigour. On its own ground the world outdoes the people of God.
- Defiled. The idols came with the lovers. Assyria's god was Assyria, so man ends up worshipping himself.
- Unchanged. Her past and her present tell the same story: she ended as she began, because at heart she was the same.
- Scourged. The lovers she chose became the hordes that preyed on her — man's pleasant vices are the whips that scourge him.
Neither left she her whoredoms [brought] from Egypt; for in her youth they had lain with her, and had handled the breasts of her virginity, and poured their fornication upon her.
Ezekiel 23 puts two sisters side by side: Oholah, who stands for Samaria, and Oholibah, who stands for Jerusalem. God charges both with unfaithfulness, pictured as a wife who sells herself. Verse 8 makes the sharpest point of the charge. Whatever Samaria later did with Assyria, she had never let go of what she began in Egypt.
God does not begin the charge with Samaria's political alliances. He goes back to the nation's earliest days. One writer traces where those first idols finally led.
The evil is traced back to its first appearance. The idols that lured them in Egypt exposed them in the end to Assyria and to Babylon. In Egypt they showed their lewdness, and their old age matched the sins of their youth.
The phrase "that she had begun in Egypt" is not poetic exaggeration. Israel left Egypt, but kept Egypt's gods. That runs all through their history.
Idolatry was their constant sin right up to the Babylonian captivity. Some of it was learnt in Jacob's family: his beloved Rachel had her images. It was learnt better in Egypt. The Israelites never stopped being idolaters until they were removed from the land... They had brought idols from Egypt and had kept them up to that time.
At the start God had told them what to do with those idols. They refused. One writer sets the command and the refusal together, from an older translation:
"Each of you, cast away the abominations of your eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am Jehovah your God. But they rebelled against Me and would not listen to Me. Not one of them cast away the abominations of his eyes, and they did not forsake the idols of Egypt."
Verse 8 sits between her love of Assyria in verse 7 and the handing over in verse 9. One writer explains why the old idols and the new lover fitted together so easily.
After Assyria, then, Oholah goes with her whole heart. She still carries her Egyptian idolatries with her, for evil, as we know, is tolerant of evil, while what is good is not.
Because nothing at the root had changed, nothing in the outcome could change. God is not punishing a sudden lapse; He is answering a settled nature.
In Ezekiel 23 Jehovah shows why He is right to judge Jerusalem: her whole way of life was wicked and unfaithful. Her unfaithfulness with the nations brought her early days to mind. The same conduct showed the same nature. She has ended as she began, because at heart she was the same. Samaria's lot was to be hers too.
Behind every idol in this chapter lies something the human heart wanted. And the desire described in verse 8 is not Israel's alone.
The family likeness they show goes back further than that. Lust, in whatever form it appears, is the beggar's badge that marks out fallen man everywhere... The idols of the nations put these lusts on show, and are meant to gratify them. They stand for an imagined freedom: souls that have got away from God, trying to satisfy themselves apart from His way and His will, with things that cannot do it. All the children of Adam, in every generation, are like these women. And if we ask how God could take up people like these, the answer lies in another question: where could He find any better?
The same writer brings the warning into the present:
In a worldly course, the world outdoes the people of God. The moment they seek the world, their own things fail them from the start. Out in the world there is plenty of room for all the energy, ambition, luxury and self-enjoyment that these words describe. They speak of youth, vigour, the keen pursuit of what people count as riches, and of what makes a man all he can hope to be. These things attract — and how much they attract the people of God themselves!
Verse 9 hands Samaria over to the very Assyrians she had wanted. That pattern is the moral logic of the whole chapter.
Men's vices hatch the hordes that prey on them... God would wake man up by this constant connection of sin with its judgment. Man's pleasant vices are the whips that scourge him.
- Root. The charge does not start with Assyria. It reaches back to the nation's first days in Egypt, and Samaria's old age matched the sins of her youth.
- Retained. Israel left Egypt but did not leave Egypt's gods. God had told them to throw the idols away, and they refused; they carried them along afterwards.
- Room. One evil made room for the next, because evil tolerates evil. The old Egyptian attachment never blocked the new Assyrian one.
- Reason. The idols put lust on show. They stood for an imagined freedom: souls away from God, trying to satisfy themselves with things that cannot satisfy. The same pull still reaches the people of God.
- Result. She ended as she began, because at heart she was the same — and the lovers she chose became the rod that struck her. Pleasant vices turn into whips.
Therefore I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the children of Asshur, after whom she lusted.
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These discovered her nakedness, they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword; and she became a name among women; and they executed judgment upon her.
Ezekiel 23 tells the story of two sisters. They stand for two kingdoms: Samaria in the north and Jerusalem in the south. Both chased foreign nations and foreign gods. Verse 10 records what the elder sister got for it. The very people she courted stripped her and killed her. Her name became a warning to everyone watching.
Each sister has a name with a meaning. One writer explains both names, then traces the elder sister's idolatry from Egypt to the Assyrian sword:
The prophet continues to expose Israel's sin, especially Jerusalem's. He compares the holy city here with Samaria. They are two sisters of one parent, the Jewish people — sisters too in their idolatrous wickedness... The idols that seduced them in Egypt exposed them at last to Assyria and to Babylon... Here their symbolic names are Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister. The first means "her own tent," the second, "my tent is in her." The worship of Samaria was of self-will, at best an imitation, but really independence of Jehovah. But in Jerusalem, Jehovah Himself ordered the divine service as His own appointment. And yet not one only but both were His... The worship of the calves led to worse, and in the end brought judgment. It came through the very people who had last of all lured her away from Jehovah, and the Assyrian executed judgment on Samaria.
Verse 9 says God gave her into the hand of the Assyrians she had wanted. Verse 10 shows what those same hands did to her. Oholah, or Aholah, is the elder sister, Samaria. One writer asks where such destroyers come from:
So Oholah goes after Assyria with her whole heart. She still carries her Egyptian idolatries with her, for evil, as we know, tolerates evil, while good does not. Yet at last, as we find in her history here, men's vices hatch the hordes that prey on them... God would wake man up by this constant connection of sin with its judgment. Man's pleasant vices are the whips that scourge him.
Assyria had its own political reasons for the deportation. Scripture points to a deeper cause:
Hoshea, the murderer of Pekah, reigned nine years in Samaria while doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord... He did not take into account the judgments of God. Through all the prophets God had foretold that Assyria would subdue Israel... The Word does not give us these political motives. But a word in Chronicles shows us the divine motive: "So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile."
The verse speaks of sons and daughters seized and of the sword. History records the result, and it still stands:
There the Assyrian comes, but he comes now as an avenger; he comes as a scourge. He sweeps the land and carries the ten tribes away, never to return till Jesus returns. From that day the ten tribes disappeared from the land of Israel. Who took their place? A mere mass of pagans formed the kingdom of Samaria, and they took up the forms of Israel left behind them.
Jerusalem, the younger sister, watched all of this happen. One writer asks what difference it made to her:
Was Jerusalem warned? Did the sight of Aholah do Aholibah any good? On the contrary, "she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust." The younger and more favoured sister followed the elder and was even grosser in her idolatry.
The same trap catches us today. One writer shows what it costs and where safety lies:
Suppose there is failure. Suppose we fall into idolatry. Suppose we commit fornication with the world by giving in to its lures. If in any way at all we make friends with the world in the desert, we make wars for ourselves... God has to make a total change in our relations with the world. If we had not formed such friendships, we would not have had that trouble. But since our friends deceive us, we must become enemies. Having no relations at all with them is our proper and peaceful position.
- Lovers. Samaria set her heart on Assyria. Assyria then uncovered her, took her children, and killed her.
- Whips. Sin breeds its own punishment — "man's pleasant vices are the whips that scourge him."
- Hand. Behind Assyria's army stood God: He stirred up the Assyrian king and carried Israel away.
- Byword. The judgment left a name everyone knew. The ten tribes vanished from the land, and they will not return until Jesus returns.
- Warning. Jerusalem watched her sister's ruin and grew worse. The same lure still works. The safe place is no friendship with the world at all.