you shall drink it and drain it out, and gnaw its shards, and tear your breasts; for I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 23 tells the story of two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah. They stand for Samaria and Jerusalem, and both gave themselves to the nations around them instead of to God. By verse 34 the sentence has become a cup. God tells Jerusalem to empty her sister's cup, chew the broken pieces, and tear her own body.
The Cup as Figure
The cup is not a new image introduced here. It is picked up from the line before it and then pressed as far as it will go:
William KellyVerse 32 takes up the cup named in verse 31, and applies this picture in full to express the judicial dealings of Jehovah with Jerusalem.
Elsewhere in Scripture the same cup holds the opposite. It is a container for whatever God hands out:
Morrish Bible DictionaryIt is often used for what the cup contains, causing either joy or sorrow. For example: "I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD" (Psalm 116:13). "For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine... all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs" (Psalm 75:8)... and especially the cup which the Lord Jesus drank when bearing sin.
Why Her Cup Is Deeper
Jerusalem must drink her sister's cup, but not in the same measure. Her past counts against her:
The Bible TreasuryIn fact Judah became more offensive than Israel, Jerusalem more guilty than Samaria. Israel had entreaty and warning, promise and threat, but never one ray of goodness from the throne. Judah had some good kings and the channels of governmental blessing. Yet we have the testimony of the prophets that Oholibah was worse than Oholah.
The same writer traces Judah's deeper guilt to the gap between her outward loyalty and her heart: "They clung to the house of David, and outwardly to the temple and worship of Jehovah, yet in heart they were as rebellious as the Israelites. The hypocrisy of Judah was more hateful to God than Israel's open desertion of Him."
Drained, Not Sipped
The verse asks three things, and each goes past ordinary drinking:
William KellyThe dregs should be drained, the broken pieces should be ground with their teeth, and their guilty breasts torn.
The "shards" are the smashed cup itself — the broken pieces of what she has just emptied.
Madness and Self-Despair
Why gnaw the fragments of a cup already emptied? One commentator sees a soul still grasping after what is gone. In the last and most violent detail, he finds the one door left open:
F. W. GrantBut now the cup must be drained to its bitter dregs. The soul that has lost everything wrings it out in desperation, still not fully awake to what has happened. In madness it gnaws the very broken pieces of the cup, as pictured here, to get what is impossible. And the tearing off of the breasts is the self-despair under which, if anywhere, the true blessing lies.
The same writer adds that this severity aims at a cure, not at mere destruction: "The effect, as He puts it here, is to end the lewdness of Oholibah, and to make her turn with loathing from the things she once found attractive. You must come to yourself before you can come to God." Yet he is careful to say that this chapter does not go on to that recovery — "which ends with judgment."
The Cup Someone Else Drained
The verse ends with God staking His own word on it: He has spoken it. That leaves every reader facing a cup. One writer turns the question on the hearer:
W. T. P. WolstonHe looked at the cup, prayed to be spared it, but said, I will drink it. Our eternal salvation hung on His drinking that cup. If He did not bear that wrath and judgment, we must... Could you drain it?... You will drink, and drink, and drink it again as the eternal ages roll on, but you will never drain it. Thank God, my Saviour has drained it for me. He has drained it to the very dregs. He has filled another cup — the cup of salvation — to the brim with love, and has put that cup to my lips.
Summary
- Cup. The picture comes from verse 31 and here reaches its limit: God's judicial dealings with Jerusalem, in the same cup that elsewhere holds salvation.
- Deeper. Jerusalem drinks her sister's cup, but in a heavier measure. Judah had good kings, temple and throne, and still the prophets say Oholibah was worse than Oholah.
- Drained. She does not sip and set the cup down. She drains the dregs, grinds the broken pieces between her teeth, and tears her own body.
- Desperate. The gnawed fragments picture a soul chasing what is gone for good. The self-despair at the bottom is where, if anywhere, true blessing lies.
- Exchanged. Christ drained the cup of wrath and holds out another cup, the cup of salvation. One writer's question still stands: if you drink God's wrath yourself, could you ever drain it?