1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: 3 And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. 4 And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.
5 And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours, 6 Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. 7 Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself. 8 Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.
9 Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. 10 These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her. 11 And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. 12 She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.
13 Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way, 14 And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, 15 Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity: 16 And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.
17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them. 18 So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. 19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. 20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
21 Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth. 22 Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side; 23 The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them: all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses. 24 And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments. 25 And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire. 26 They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels. 27 Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more. 28 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated:
29 And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. 30 I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols. 31 Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand. 32 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister’s cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.
33 Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria. 34 Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. 35 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. 36 The LORD said moreover unto me; Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations;
37 That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them. 38 Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths. 39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house. 40 And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments,
41 And satest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set mine incense and mine oil. 42 And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads. 43 Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them? 44 Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.
45 And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands. 46 For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled. 47 And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire. 48 Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness. 49 And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 23:1-49 KJV)
Thomas Haweis’ Commentary
Verses 1-10: Israel and Judah, sister kingdoms, the daughters of one mother, sprung from the same original stock, are here considered under the character of two infamous women, Aholah, and Aholibah.
1. They were early debauched by idolatry; even in Egypt they began to transgress, and lost their virgin honour, Eze 23:3.
2. Though they were God’s espoused ones, and he was pleased to take them for his own, and to raise them up a numerous offspring; yet they treacherously departed from him, and played the harlot. Aholah, which is Samaria, signifies her tabernacle, she having first forsook God’s tabernacle, and set up her own worship at Dan and Bethel. She is called the elder, or greater, the kingdom of Israel consisting of ten tribes. Though she had revolted from the royal house of David, God still owned her for his; but her abominable idolatries soon made a fatal separation. She doted on her lovers, particularly on her Assyrian neighbours; contracted alliances with them; admired their idols, their worship, and military forces, which were so richly dressed, and placed on them the dependence she withdrew from God, Eze 23:7. Yet she persisted also in the worship of the gods of Egypt, the beginning of her apostasy, and served the calves in Bethel and Dan, as well as the newly introduced deities of the Assyrians. Note, (1.) They who have been a professing people, when they apostatize, sink under the most aggravated guilt. (2.) Whatever we dote upon, becomes our idol; and God will not with impunity suffer us to give the honour, love, and homage due to him, unto another.
3. For their apostasy Samaria and Israel were destroyed. God made those on whom they had doted, and whose idols they served, the instruments of his vengeance, Eze 23:9. They discovered her nakedness, stripped her of all her treasures, led her children captives, and utterly ruined the kingdom; executing God’s judgments upon her; so that she became famous among women. Her crimes and her dreadful end were the general subject or conversation in the neighbouring lands, and afforded an awful warning not to imitate her sins, lest the same plagues should follow. Note, (1.) Those whom we have made our tempters, God in righteous judgment often makes our tormentors. (2.) They who render themselves famous by wickedness, will by God’s vengeance be made monuments of wretchedness.
Verses 11-21: Far from taking warning by Samaria’s fate, Jerusalem not only copied but exceeded her abominations. She is called Aholibah, or my tabernacle is in her, God having chosen Zion for his peculiar abode, and this exceedingly aggravated the guilt of her apostasy.
1. She took the same way to defile herself her sister had done, doting upon the Assyrians: admiring the dress and military appearance of their captains and soldiers; courting their alliance; depending on them for protection; increasing her idols beyond what Samaria had done, Eze 23:14 falling in love with the very pictures of their deified heroes, who were portrayed in rich attire on the walls of their temples, Eze 23:14,15 and sending messengers to Chaldea to form a league, and adopt their idols and worship, Eze 23:16. And no sooner had she taken the Babylonians to her adulterous bed, and defiled herself with their idols, than she was alienated from them, as lust and loathing often succeed each other. She rebelled under Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, 2Ki 24:1,20 and cast off the alliance with Babylon, Eze 23:17 and calling to mind with pleasure the idolatries of the Egyptians, Eze 23:21 returned to play the harlot with them, doting on these paramours, as better suiting her insatiable lewdness, Eze 23:20 openly discovering her whoredoms and her nakedness, as a brazen prostitute hardened against shame. Note, (1.) Inordinate appetites indulged only grow more fickle and craving. (2.) Long habit of sin gives effrontery to the lewd, and they dare avow and boast of what others blush to name, and tremble but to think of.
2. God saw and abhorred such shameless idolatry, and his mind was alienated from her, as it was from her sister. He cast off Judah also from her relation to him, and left her, as a wife divorced, to all the miseries which must ensue when his protection was withdrawn. Note, They who provoke God to cast them from his favour, have only themselves to blame for the miseries which follow.
Verses 22-35: We have here,
1. Judgment pronounced on Jerusalem for her crimes. These lovers on whom she doted are appointed to be her destroyers: their armies, with a vast train of carriages, at God’s command, shall come up, besiege and destroy the cities, and lay waste the country, Eze 23:22-24. As a jealous husband, enraged with an adulterous wife, God will visit them in fury; the Chaldeans shall cut off their nose and ears, literally disfiguring them, to render them loathsome, or destroying their king, princes, and priests, represented by these; and slay all the remnant of the people, except those who, stripped of all their ornaments, even to their clothes, shall be driven, naked as slaves, into a miserable captivity, Eze 23:26 and the few houses in Jerusalem that have stood the siege unhurt, shall now be burnt with fire, Eze 23:25. Delivered into the hands of those they hated, and against whom they had rebelled, Eze 23:28 they may expect no favour or pity: they will deal hatefully with them: treat them with rigour and severity; plunder all their possessions; leave them naked and bare; and in the greatness of their punishment the greatness of their crimes will appear, Eze 23:29.
2. God’s wrath evidently seen in their ruin will make their sufferings still more bitter. Though he employs the Chaldeans as instruments, he says, Eze 23:30 I will do these things unto thee; and most righteous will he appear in his judgments: their flagrant idolatries justify his severest strokes of vengeance, Eze 23:30. Since they walked in Samaria’s ways, they deserve to drink of her cup full of fury, a cup of drunkenness, sorrow, astonishment, and desolation, the very dregs of which they must suck out; and, madness and vexation at their wretched state, they shall pluck off their own breasts, as men in a fit of rage and despair, Eze 23:31-34. Because they have forgotten God, which is the source of all their wickedness, and cast him behind their backs, despising his authority, and rejecting his government, he will lay upon them the punishment of their idolatries and lewdness, Eze 23:35 and make these to cease from among them; so that the remnant who are brought through this fiery furnace, shall never return to idolatry again, Eze 23:27 as they never more did after the captivity. Note, (1.) They who share with the wicked in their sins, may expect to share with them in their plagues. (2.) The cup of drunkenness will ever prove a cup of sorrow. (3.) They who by lewdness have made themselves vile, justly deserve to have their whoredoms discovered, and to be made the derision of every beholder.
Verses 36-49: After the account given of the wickedness of Judah and Israel, God appeals to the prophet, whether he ought any longer to plead for them, or whether he ought not in God’s name to condemn them to the death they had deserved.
1. He must declare unto them their abominations; and they were exceeding sinful.
(1.) Gross idolatry, which is spiritual adultery, the breach of the covenant between God and them, Eze 23:37.
(2.) The most unnatural murders, even the sacrificing their own children to Moloch; so besotted were they, and mad upon their idols, Eze 23:37.
(3.) Horrid profanation of God’s sanctuary. With the blood of innocents fresh upon them, that very day, with unhallowed feet and polluted lips, they dared appear before God in his temple, as if designing to affront him, or as if they thought with hypocritical services to impose upon him; and this they did in the midst of his house, setting up their idols even there, or without shame daring to appear among the foremost worshippers.
(4.) They profaned the Sabbaths, not only by servile works, or taking their pleasures on that holy day, but by the worship of their idols, and the horrid sacrifices of their own children.
(5.) They courted the alliances of the heathen nations, the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans; received their ambassadors in great state and splendour, as a harlot attires and paints herself to meet her paramour; made them a noble entertainment; used the sacred incense to perfume the room, and the oil to anoint them, as a mark of peculiar honour; or perhaps, as some suspect, these were designed for the ambassador’s use, to be employed in their idol’s service, Eze 23:41. A great concourse of people also assembled to grace their public entrance; a multitude at ease, who flattered themselves such great alliances must needs conduce to the security of the state. And besides the Jewish populace, a number of Sabeans from the desert swelled the cavalcade; or of drunkards, as in the margin, to drink healths and huzza on this auspicious event; dressed up with bracelets on their hands, and crowns upon their heads, that they might make the most splendid appearances, Eze 23:42. God in vain admonished them of the folly, sin, and danger of such connections: they were grown old in adultery, and hardened against reproof. The alliance was concluded; they went in unto her as to a harlot: Samaria first, and Jerusalem afterwards, as lewd and abandoned women, gladly received them, and joined in their idolatries, Eze 23:44. Note, (1.) The affectation of being well with the great, hath been often a dangerous snare to men’s souls. (2.) They who desert God for human confidences, however smiling their undertakings at first may appear, will find in the issue a lie in their right hand.
2. He must denounce against them God’s wrath. The righteous men, they shall judge them; which some understand of the prophets of God, who foretold their doom, and passed sentence upon them; though others more probably apply it to the Babylonians, who were comparatively more righteous than they, and were appointed of God as the executioners of his righteous vengeance. Their crimes were capital, adulteries and murders manifold, and their punishment accordingly, Eze 23:45. A company at God’s command, the Chaldean army, shall come, and seize and spoil them, Eze 23:46. Some shall be stoned, slain with the engines that battered the city; others dispatched with the sword; their sons and daughters murdered in their presence; their city and every house burnt with fire, Eze 23:47. Thus, by the utter ruin of the kingdom, the worship of idols should be utterly destroyed, and never more be restored; and all who behold their ruin will be warned against their sins, Eze 23:48. With such wrath and destruction should their lewdness be recompensed, and the burden of their guilt and punishment be heavily laid on them; so that if they will not be taught any other way, by their sufferings at least they shall be made to know that God is the Lord, true to his threatenings, and almighty to accomplish them, Eze 23:49. Note, (1.) Others’ falls should be our warning. (2.) However sinners may flatter themselves, a day of recompense is near, when they will receive the wrath they have provoked.