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.”
Ezekiel 23 tells a long parable about two sisters, Samaria and Jerusalem. This closing verse hands their own conduct back to them, and raises two questions. Why does the penalty take the shape of the sin? And how does such a judgment end in people knowing God?
The Sentence at the End of the Parable
Ezekiel 23 spends forty-eight verses on what the two sisters did. The last verses turn to what God will now do to them. One commentator points to the law behind the sentence — the punishment for an unfaithful wife:
William KellyTheir judgment, however, would not sleep. The adulterous woman had to be stoned until she died.
Same Conduct, Same End
The verse speaks to both sisters at once. Samaria had already fallen. One writer explains why Jerusalem's end matches hers:
J. N. DarbyIn Ezekiel 23 Jehovah justifies Himself for judging Jerusalem, because her way of life was wicked and unfaithful. Her adultery 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. Samaria's fate would be hers.
Reaping What Was Sown
Their punishment grows out of their own conduct:
W. T. P. WolstonIn Ezekiel 23 the sins of Samaria (Israel) and Jerusalem (Judah) are portrayed with great solemnity. In each case the ground of Jehovah's judgment is their sinful dealings with the nations, which He had forbidden. They were sisters in sin, and should be judged in the same way… They were to reap what they had sown.
Bearing the Penalty for the Idols
The second half of the verse ties the penalty to its source: their idolatry. One writer traces how a person reaches that point:
J Wilson SmithA long course of tampering with evil has not only blunted the conscience, but turned the evil into a pleasure. Every sense of what is due to God is dulled. So the idols assert their authority, and God is forsaken… A man's way is his reward. What he sows he reaps. The object of his worship gives form to his life and character to his future. Such is the nature of God's government.
The same rule appears earlier in Israel's story. The punishment is cut to the pattern of the sin:
William KellyIf the children of Israel would abandon Jehovah to serve idols, they are themselves given up by Jehovah to serve idolaters. It is so with us. If we sin, this measures and defines our chastisement; and so grace works repentance when we turn and cry to the Lord in our distress.
The Aim Behind the Severity
The verse does not end in ruin but in recognition. One writer looks at the whole closing scene, and at what God is after in it:
Numerical Bible NotesThe two sisters, alike in every way, are joined together in this charge. Men of merely human righteousness are called to pass on them the judgment they so well deserve. So God carries out His judgment, yet the human conscience everywhere agrees with it. God and man are united together against them. But God's purpose in it is still to get rid of the wickedness, by whatever severe measures it takes. That wickedness would otherwise never end. Yet it will at last make them recognise their covenant-God in the holiness that compels Him to afflict them in this way. The end for Israel and for the nations alike is always that they shall know that He is the Lord Jehovah.
What "You Shall Know" Means
The verse ends with knowing God. In some passages that knowledge comes from the blow itself, not from a changed heart:
J. N. DarbySo this knowledge of Jehovah comes by the judgment itself, not by any spiritual knowledge of Him that follows… It will be through judgment that all the nations shall know that Jehovah is God.
Summary
- Sown. The sisters' ruin was not random. Their sinful dealings with the nations were the ground of the judgment, and "they were to reap what they had sown."
- Shaped. The penalty takes the shape of the sin. What a person worships "gives form to his life and character to his future." Our sin itself "measures and defines our chastisement."
- Shared. Jerusalem's conduct matched Samaria's, and the same conduct showed the same nature. So Samaria's fate became hers.
- Sealed. God carries out the sentence, and the human conscience everywhere agrees. God and man are united in the verdict.
- Seen. The severity has a goal: to end the wickedness, and to bring them at last to recognise their covenant-God. In some passages, commentators note, that knowledge comes through the judgment itself, not through a changed heart.