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.