Ezekiel 23
-Two women, who are metaphorical, and daughters of the same
woman (Israel), have played the harlot in Egypt with foreign gods abasing the
ways of the one-true LORD God (Ezekiel 23:1-3). With explicit language God
downloads a graphic representation of how awful these whores have treated Him,
their Jealous and Eternal Lover. Their names are Oholah, who represents Samaria
and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Oholibah, who represents Jerusalem and
the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Oholah played the harlot with not only Egypt,
but was enthralled with the Assyrians, who eventually conquered her and defamed
her forever. Oholibah played the whore with not only Egypt, but also with
Assyria and Babylon as she multiplied her sins far beyond that of her embarrassed
and judged sister. Oholibah did not learn from observation, but exceeded the
sin in her midst with profane things and corrupt practices. From sexual
immorality, to pagan worship rituals, to prostituting herself, to flagrant
opulence she became an adulteress deserving of God’s full and sincere discipline
(Ezekiel 23:4-21).
-His wrath would be poured out from those she had previously
loved, Assyria and Babylon, with precession and ruthlessness in evil conquest.
Her (Judah’s) lewdness will be exposed, and she will be stripped of all her
beauty, which she had possessed. She will be given into the hand of those whom
she hates, the ones that alienated her with reckless abandon and vile scorn.
Her property will be taken, and she will be left naked and bare before the
nations of the world. Her harlotries are the reason; she has defiled herself
with idols to the point of hypocrisy (sacrificing their own children in
paganistic ritual and then going unconcerned to the House of God, Ezekiel
23:39). Derision, drunkenness, sorrow, horror, plunder, terror, stonings,
slayings, desolation, and burnings are the descriptive terms God uses to
portray the aftermath of this forgetting of the LORD and His ways in His land.
Judah will bear the punishment and penalty of the Almighty, and she will have
blood on her hands. God will vindicate His just cause and make lewdness and
unfaithfulness cease from the land, which will reveal His glory make all KNOW
that He alone is the LORD God (Ezekiel 23:22-49).
-*Application* God’s cause will not fail. We reap exactly
what we sow (Galatians 6:7-9). Therefore, sow in the Holy Spirit.
Verses to Memorize:
Ezekiel 23:30, 35
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