Ezekiel 23:25

A symbolic harlot representing Jerusalem, sister to Oholah, who symbolises Samaria. Jerusalem is said to exceed Samaria in her immorality. She was warned without success, and her downfall was predicted. The name means "my tent, or tabernacle, is in her."

The prophets dwell at length on Israel's conduct as a wife, and on Jehovah's jealousy on that account... Her unfaithfulness has been made plain. She has broken her vows. She has turned away from her Husband, the Holy One of Israel. He has poured out His burning jealousy on the faithless nation. He is a jealous God, and cannot bear the thought that the heart He claims as His own should be given to another.

Not content with Assyria, she desired the Chaldeans and their idolatrous worship. And the sons of Babylon defiled her; but if she was defiled by them, her mind was turned away from them. So it always is where the favour and the will of God are absent. Closeness in evil is quickly followed by mutual disgust. But sadly, there is worse. "My mind," says Jehovah, "was turned away from her, as my mind was turned away from her sister."... Those with whom she sinned would be the ones to punish her. They would deal in fury, punishing her without mercy and with every mark of shame. In the picture, the adulterous people lose their nose and their ears, and their sons and daughters are taken away. Fire and sword do the work of destruction.

How the things that once attracted men now face them on the day when God comes to deal with each one! They work their will without mercy, though they are only the instruments of God's judgment, as He declares. Cutting off the nose and ears was the punishment of an adulteress. We may remember how God Himself had adorned these very features in an earlier chapter (Ezek. 16). That chapter shows us, as this one does not, the blessing God had poured out on those brought into this special relationship with Himself. Now the ornaments are not only removed; there is no place left for them — only disfigurement instead. And with the jewels the clothes are taken away too.

Yet all this severity is not, on God's part, mere judgment. The effect, as He puts it here, is to make the lewdness of Oholibah stop, and to make what once attracted her something she turns from with loathing. A person must come to himself to come to God. This was the process God was now bringing Israel through. It is a terrible thing to face. You are left stripped and with nothing. Everything is gone that once, while you were wasting it, made you feel and look rich to others.

The heart can be drawn away from Christ and grow dissatisfied with the portion of grace. Then whatever drew it aside soon becomes nothing but a disappointment and a loathing... A common form of chastening is disappointment in the things once coveted, then obtained, and afterwards loathed. Disappointments like this are found among men, but with them it is simply the reaction of nature. With saints God uses these disappointments to wean them from the love of the world and draw them nearer to Himself.