Ezekiel 23
The Allegory of Aholah and Aholibah 1–4
Aholah (Samaria) and Her Adultery with Assyria 5–10
Aholibah (Jerusalem) Follows Her Sister’s Sin 11–21
The Judgment of Aholibah by Her Lovers 22–35
Summary of Charges and Final Sentence 36–49
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Ezekiel 23
Verse 2
two women, the daughters of one mother — The two sisters are Samaria and Jerusalem (v.4), the two kingdoms of one people before the division. Jeremiah names the same pair: ‘backsliding Israel’ and ‘her treacherous sister Judah’ (Jer 3:7–8). Ezekiel calls Samaria Jerusalem’s ‘elder sister’ in 16:46.
Verse 3
they committed whoredoms in Egypt — The nation’s unfaithfulness is dated from Egypt, as in 20:8, ‘neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt’. ‘Whoredom’ (zanah) is Scripture’s figure for idolatry, the people being the LORD’s bride, whose early devotion Jeremiah recalls as ‘the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals’ (Jer 2:2).
Verse 4
Aholah… Aholibah — The names are built on ohel, a tent: Aholah is ‘her tent’, and Aholibah ‘my tent is in her’. The first suggests the sanctuary Samaria made for herself, and the second the dwelling the LORD kept in Jerusalem: ‘In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion’ (Ps 76:2). Both were his: ‘thou becamest mine’ (16:8).
Verse 5
Aholah played the harlot when she was mine — The ‘lovers’ are the Assyrians, whom Samaria courted for support: Menahem gave Pul ‘a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him’ (2 Kgs 15:19), and Hoshea ‘became his servant, and gave him presents’ (2 Kgs 17:3). Hosea records the same, ‘then went Ephraim to the Assyrian’ (Hos 5:13).
Verse 6
clothed with blue — Tekeleth, blue, is dyed cloth of rank, listed among Tyre’s merchandise as ‘blue clothes’ (27:24). The Assyrian officers are described by their dress, rank and horses: ‘captains and rulers’, ‘horsemen riding upon horses’. The same description is used of the Babylonians in v.23.
Verse 10
she became famous among women — ‘Famous’ is literally ‘a name’ (shem), a notoriety that lasts. The lovers become the instrument of judgment: ‘I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted’ (v.9). The fall is recorded in 2 Kgs 17:6, ‘the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria’.
Verse 11
more corrupt in her inordinate love than she — Jerusalem saw Samaria’s end and followed her. Jeremiah says the same: ‘her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also’ (Jer 3:8). Ezekiel 16:51 puts the comparison in words, ‘Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they’.
Verse 12
the Assyrians her neighbours — Judah too turned to Assyria. Ahaz sent to Tiglathpileser, ‘I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me’ (2 Kgs 16:7), and then copied an altar he saw at Damascus (2 Kgs 16:10–12). The Assyrian officers are again described by their rank, dress and horses, as in v.6.
Verse 14
men pourtrayed upon the wall — The attraction begins with a picture: ‘the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion’ (shashar, red pigment, as in Jer 22:14, ‘painted with vermilion’). What she saw led to what she did, for in v.16 she ‘sent messengers unto them into Chaldea’.
Verse 17
the Babylonians came to her — The alliance with Babylon, once made, did not hold: ‘her mind was alienated from them’ (yaqa’, to be torn loose). Zedekiah, who had sworn to Babylon (17:13), ‘rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt’ (17:15). Jerusalem turned from one partner to another.
Verse 19
calling to remembrance the days of her youth — Having left Babylon, she turns back to Egypt, her first partner (v.3). The law had closed that road to Israel’s kings: ‘Ye shall henceforth return no more that way’ (Deut 17:16), and Isaiah’s warning is, ‘Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help’ (Isa 31:1).
Verse 20
whose flesh is as the flesh of asses — Pilegesh, usually ‘concubine’, is rendered ‘paramours’. The comparison with asses and horses describes the Egyptians as men of animal appetite, as 16:26 does in calling them ‘the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh’. The language shows how degrading the alliance with Egypt was.
Verse 22
I will raise up thy lovers against thee — The partners she courted become her enemies, ‘from whom thy mind is alienated’ (v.17), and come ‘on every side’, the language of a siege. Habakkuk records the same raising up: ‘I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation’ (Hab 1:6), and Jeremiah calls Nebuchadrezzar ‘my servant’ (Jer 25:9).
Verse 23
Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa — Pekod is named again in Jer 50:21, ‘the inhabitants of Pekod’, and Shoa and Koa are named nowhere else in Scripture. They stand with the Babylonians, Chaldeans and Assyrians as peoples in one army. Of Judah’s last days it is written, ‘the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians’ and others (2 Kgs 24:2).
Verse 25
I will set my jealousy against thee — Qin’ah is the jealousy of a husband, and the LORD ‘whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God’ (Ex 34:14). The lovers deal with her ‘furiously’, and the verse closes with the siege’s marks, sword for the remnant and fire for the rest. Babylon ‘burnt the house of the LORD, and the king’s house’ (2 Kgs 25:9).
Verse 27
thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt — ‘Cease’ (shabat) is the verb of 16:41, ‘I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot’. The judgment ends the pull toward Egypt: she shall not ‘remember Egypt any more’. Zechariah has a matching promise, ‘I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered’ (Zech 13:2).
Verse 31
her cup into thine hand — Jerusalem gets the cup Samaria drank, as the LORD said, ‘I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria’ (2 Kgs 21:13). The cup is the LORD’s: ‘in the hand of the LORD there is a cup’ (Ps 75:8), and Jeremiah is told, ‘Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand’ (Jer 25:15).
Verse 34
break the sherds thereof — ‘Suck it out’ (mats) is to drain to the last drop, like the ‘dregs’ of Ps 75:8 and Isa 51:17, ‘thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out’. The sherds are the broken pieces of the cup, and the ‘breasts’ plucked off are those named in vv.3 and 21 as the places of the sin. The verse ends with the LORD’s seal, ‘for I have spoken it’.
Verse 36
wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? — The question is that of 20:4 and 22:2, put now to both sisters together, with the instruction to ‘declare unto them their abominations’. The figure gives way to plain charges in the verses that follow: adultery, blood, idols, the sanctuary and the sabbaths.
Verse 37
to pass for them through the fire, to devour them — The children are the LORD’s own, ‘their sons, whom they bare unto me’, as in v.4. Jeremiah names the rite, ‘to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech’ (Jer 32:35). ‘Adultery’ (na’aph) is the married woman’s offence, and it is joined here to ‘blood is in their hands’.
Verse 38
defiled my sanctuary in the same day — The next verse says how: ‘when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it’ (v.39). Manasseh had ‘built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name’ (2 Kgs 21:4). The sabbaths are named as in 20:24.
Verse 41
mine incense and mine oil — The banquet is laid with the LORD’s own gifts: ‘thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them’ (16:18), and ‘My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey’ (16:19). Isaiah has the same table, ‘ye are they that forsake the LORD… that prepare a table for that troop’ (Isa 65:11).
Verse 45
the righteous men, they shall judge them — The law set the penalty, ‘the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death’ (Lev 20:10). The ‘righteous men’ judge by that standard, as v.24 says of the invaders, ‘I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments’. The grounds are the two crimes of v.37: adultery and blood.
Verse 48
that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness — The judgment is also an example to others, as 5:15 says of Jerusalem, ‘a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations’. Peter uses the same function for Sodom, ‘making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly’ (2 Pet 2:6).
Verse 49
ye shall bear the sins of your idols — ‘Recompense’ is the verb nathan, to give, as in 7:4, ‘I will recompense thy ways upon thee’. The people receive the sins of their idols back, and the chapter ends with the recognition formula, ‘ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD’, the purpose stated throughout the book.