Ezekiel 23

1-49 Ohalah and Oholibah

• God tells Ezekiel of two sisters, one Oholah (Samaria, or Israel) and the other one Oholibah (Jerusalem, or Judah), who prostituted themselves with Egypt.
• Oholah [Israel] lusted after the young handsome soldiers of Assyria, having learned her sinful habits in Egypt.
• Therefore I delivered her into their hands, and they uncovered her nakedness, capturing her children and killing her with the sword.
• Even though she saw what had happened to her sister, Oholibah (Judah) acted even worse, going after the Assyrian soldiers and then the Chaldeans.
• Even after I turned away in disgust, she prostituted herself to Babylon.
• Therefore I will give you into the hands of the Babylonians and Assyrians, who will maim you, strip you of your clothes and jewels, deal with you in hatred, as you will hate them.
• Your lewdness and whoring have brought this upon you.

[Song]: You shall drink your sister’s cup – deep and wide…a cup of horror and desolation…you shall drink it and drain it out, and gnaw its sherds [break the cup and suck the liquid out of the fragments of pottery] and tear out your breasts.

• Why? Because you have forgotten me.
• Declare unto them their abominable deeds:
  • They committed adultery with their idols
  • They offered up our children as food to their idols.
  • On the same day they defiled my sanctuary and profaned my sabbaths
  • They sent for men from far away, enticing a drunken multitude with wantonness
  • Used and abused, they still carried on with their adulteries
  • Their enemies will stone them and their children and burn their houses.
  • They shall be repaid for their lewdness and bear the penalty for their sinful idolatry.
  • And “you shall know that I am the Lord GOD (Hebrew: Adonai YHWH)

Note: This chapter is even more graphic than chapter 16, which speaks of Jerusalem as an unfaithful bride. The words used here indicate the utter disgust of God for the lewd and wanton behavior of his people.