Text -- Ezekiel 23:20-49 (NET)

23:20 She lusted after their genitals– as large as those of donkeys, and their seminal emission was as strong as that of stallions. 23:21 This is how you assessed the obscene conduct of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your nipples and squeezed your young breasts. 23:22 “Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, I am about to stir up against you the lovers with whom you were disgusted; I will bring them against you from every side: 23:23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, all of them governors and officials, officers and nobles, all of them riding on horses. 23:24 They will attack you with weapons, chariots, wagons, and with a huge army; they will array themselves against you on every side with large shields, small shields, and helmets. I will assign them the task of judgment; they will punish you according to their laws. 23:25 I will direct my jealous anger against you, and they will deal with you in rage. They will cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors will die by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and your survivors will be consumed by fire. 23:26 They will strip your clothes off you and take away your beautiful jewelry. 23:27 So I will put an end to your obscene conduct and your prostitution which you have practiced in the land of Egypt. You will not seek their help or remember Egypt anymore. 23:28 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, I am about to deliver you over to those whom you hate, to those with whom you were disgusted. 23:29 They will treat you with hatred, take away all you have labored for, and leave you naked and bare. Your nakedness will be exposed, just as when you engaged in prostitution and obscene conduct. 23:30 I will do these things to you because you engaged in prostitution with the nations, polluting yourself with their idols. 23:31 You have followed the ways of your sister, so I will place her cup of judgment in your hand. 23:32 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: “You will drink your sister’s deep and wide cup; you will be scorned and derided, for it holds a great deal. 23:33 You will be overcome by drunkenness and sorrow. The cup of your sister Samaria is a cup of horror and desolation. 23:34 You will drain it dry, gnaw its pieces, and tear out your breasts, for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord. 23:35 “Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you have forgotten me and completely disregarded me, you must bear now the punishment for your obscene conduct and prostitution.” 23:36 The Lord said to me: “Son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment on Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds! 23:37 For they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and their sons, whom they bore to me, they have passed through the fire as food to their idols. 23:38 Moreover, they have done this to me: In the very same day they desecrated my sanctuary and profaned my Sabbaths. 23:39 On the same day they slaughtered their sons for their idols, they came to my sanctuary to desecrate it. This is what they have done in the middle of my house. 23:40 “They even sent for men from far away; when the messenger arrived, those men set out. For them you bathed, painted your eyes, and decorated yourself with jewelry. 23:41 You sat on a magnificent couch, with a table arranged in front of it where you placed my incense and my olive oil. 23:42 The sound of a carefree crowd accompanied her, including all kinds of men; even Sabeans were brought from the desert. The sisters put bracelets on their wrists and beautiful crowns on their heads. 23:43 Then I said about the one worn out by adultery, ‘Now they will commit immoral acts with her.’ 23:44 They had sex with her as one does with a prostitute. In this way they had sex with Oholah and Oholibah, promiscuous women. 23:45 But upright men will punish them appropriately for their adultery and bloodshed, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands. 23:46 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Bring up an army against them and subject them to terror and plunder. 23:47 That army will pelt them with stones and slash them with their swords; they will kill their sons and daughters and burn their houses. 23:48 I will put an end to the obscene conduct in the land; all the women will learn a lesson from this and not engage in obscene conduct. 23:49 They will repay you for your obscene conduct, and you will be punished for idol worship. Then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord.”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Eze 23:20

The nations, that were confederate with the Egyptians.

Wesley: Eze 23:23

Pekod is the province between Tigris, and Lycus; in this was old Nineveh.

Wesley: Eze 23:23

Either Sia in Armenia, or the Sohia, among which were the Adiabeni, and this contained the middle part of the kingdom of Babylon.

Wesley: Eze 23:23

This bordered upon Media, the inhabitants were called Kohai, and dwelt about Arbela.

Wesley: Eze 23:23

All subjects of the Assyrian monarchy.

Wesley: Eze 23:24

Lest in their march the carriage wheels should break, a store of these were provided.

Wesley: Eze 23:24

A mighty confluence of people.

Wesley: Eze 23:24

Give them a power in right of conquest over their rebels, as well as mine, and I will give them a spirit of judgment to discern the greatness of this people's sins.

Wesley: Eze 23:24

Condemn, and execute sentence upon thee.

Wesley: Eze 23:24

To their will, power, wrath, and custom, against rebels; for these are their rules of judgment.

Wesley: Eze 23:25

As a jealous provoked husband, I will be as much against thee as they are.

Wesley: Eze 23:25

Either the people, who hid themselves in vaults and cellars, or what the Chaldeans cannot carry away, all this shall be devoured by fire.

Wesley: Eze 23:29

Deprive thee of the comfortable use of all thy labour, which they will exact of thee in captivity.

Wesley: Eze 23:32

Is large, and contains what will last many years, even 'till the seventy years be expired.

Wesley: Eze 23:34

Shalt stagger with sorrows, that shall intoxicate, and astonish.

Wesley: Eze 23:34

The dregs shalt thou drink, and multiply thine own sorrows.

Wesley: Eze 23:34

To suck out what remains.

Wesley: Eze 23:34

Revenging thyself upon thyself.

Wesley: Eze 23:35

The guilt, I will impute it, the punishment, I will not pardon it.

Wesley: Eze 23:38

When they had newly polluted themselves with idolatry and murder, they thrust into the temple.

Wesley: Eze 23:39

Nay, these things have been in my house.

Wesley: Eze 23:40

After the manner of harlots.

Wesley: Eze 23:41

Prepared to feast them.

Wesley: Eze 23:41

A magnificent bed, on which women sat to feast, when men leaned on their sides.

Wesley: Eze 23:41

Offered to their idols.

Wesley: Eze 23:42

A shout for joy, that there was a treaty of peace between the Jews, and the Chaldeans.

Wesley: Eze 23:45

Men that keep the law of their God.

Wesley: Eze 23:46

Against the Jews, the children of this Aholibah.

Wesley: Eze 23:47

The Babylonian army.

Wesley: Eze 23:48

Idolatry. And indeed we do not read of any after their return out of this captivity.

Wesley: Eze 23:49

The Babylonians.

Wesley: Eze 23:49

The guilt of worshipping idols; and you shall bear the punishment of idolaters.

JFB: Eze 23:20

That is, her paramours among them (the Egyptians); she doted upon their persons as her paramours (Eze 23:5, Eze 23:12, Eze 23:16).

JFB: Eze 23:20

The membrum virile (very large in the ass). Compare Lev 15:2, Margin; Eze 16:26.

JFB: Eze 23:20

The seminal issue. The horse was made by the Egyptians the hieroglyphic for a lustful person.

JFB: Eze 23:21

"didst repeat" [MAURER].

JFB: Eze 23:21

In suffering . . . to be bruised.

JFB: Eze 23:22

(Eze 23:17). Illicit love, soon or late, ends in open hatred (2Sa 13:15). The Babylonians, the objects formerly of their God-forgetting love, but now, with characteristic fickleness, objects of their hatred, shall be made by God the instruments of their punishment.

JFB: Eze 23:23

(Jer 50:21). Not a geographical name, but descriptive of Babylon. "Visitation," peculiarly the land of "judgment"; in a double sense: actively, the inflicter of judgment on Judah; passively, as about to be afterwards herself the object of judgment.

JFB: Eze 23:23

"rich . . . noble"; descriptive of Babylon in her prosperity, having all the world's wealth and dignity at her disposal. MAURER suggests that, as descriptive appellatives are subjoined to the proper name, "all the Assyrians" in the second hemistich of the verse (as the verse ought to be divided at "Koa"), so Pekod, Shoa, and Koa must be appellatives descriptive of "The Babylonians and . . . Chaldeans" in the first hemistich; "Pekod" meaning "prefects"; Shoa . . . Koa, "rich . . . princely."

JFB: Eze 23:23

Strong irony. Alluding to Eze 23:12, these "desirable young men" whom thou didst so "dote upon" for their manly vigor of appearance, shall by that very vigor be the better able to chastise thee.

JFB: Eze 23:24

Or, "with armaments"; so the Septuagint; "axes" [MAURER]; or, joining it with "wagons," translate, "with scythe-armed wagons," or "chariots" [GROTIUS].

JFB: Eze 23:24

The unusual height of these increased their formidable appearance (Eze 1:16-20).

JFB: Eze 23:24

Which awarded barbarously severe punishments (Jer 52:9; Jer 29:22).

JFB: Eze 23:25

Adulteresses were punished so among the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Oriental beauties wore ornaments in the ear and nose. How just the retribution, that the features most bejewelled should be mutilated! So, allegorically as to Judah, the spiritual adulteress.

JFB: Eze 23:26

Whereby she attracted her paramours (Eze 16:39).

JFB: Eze 23:27

The captivity has made the Jews ever since abhor idolatry, not only on their return from Babylon, but for the last nineteen centuries of their dispersion, as foretold (Hos 3:4).

JFB: Eze 23:28

(Eze 23:17-18; Eze 16:37).

JFB: Eze 23:29

That is, the fruits of thy labor.

JFB: Eze 23:29

As captive females are treated.

JFB: Eze 23:31

Of punishment (Psa 11:6; Psa 75:8; Jer 25:15, &c.). Thy guilt and that of Israel being alike, your punishment shall be alike.

JFB: Eze 23:34

So greedily shalt thou suck out every drop like one drinking to madness (the effect invariably ascribed to drinking God's cup of wrath, Jer 51:7; Hab 2:16) that thou shalt crunch the very shreds of it; that is, there shall be no evil left which thou shalt not taste.

JFB: Eze 23:34

Enraged against them as the ministers to thine adultery.

JFB: Eze 23:35

(Jer 2:32; Jer 13:25).

JFB: Eze 23:35

(1Ki 14:9; Neh 9:26).

JFB: Eze 23:35

That is, its penal consequences (Pro 1:31).

JFB: Eze 23:36-44

A summing up of the sins of the two sisters, especially those of Judah.

JFB: Eze 23:36-44

Wilt thou (not) judge (see on Eze 20:4)?

JFB: Eze 23:38

On the very day that they had burned their children to Molech in the valley of Gehenna, they shamelessly and hypocritically presented themselves as worshippers in Jehovah's temple (Jer 7:9-10).

JFB: Eze 23:40

Namely, by Judah (Eze 23:16; Isa 57:9).

JFB: Eze 23:40

(2Ki 9:30, Margin; Jer 4:30). Black paint was spread on the eyelids of beauties to make the white of the eye more attractive by the contrast, so Judah left no seductive art untried.

JFB: Eze 23:41

Divan. While men reclined at table, women sat, as it seemed indelicate for them to lie down (Amo 6:4) [GROTIUS].

JFB: Eze 23:41

That is, the idolatrous altar.

JFB: Eze 23:41

Which I had given thee, and which thou oughtest to have offered to Me (Eze 16:18-19; Hos 2:8; compare Pro 7:17).

JFB: Eze 23:42

Not content with the princely, handsome Assyrians, the sisters brought to themselves the rude robber hordes of Sabeans (Job 1:15). The Keri, or Margin, reads "drunkards."

JFB: Eze 23:42

Upon the hands of the sisters, that is, they allured Samaria and Judah to worship their gods.

JFB: Eze 23:43

Is it possible that paramours will desire any longer to commit whoredoms with so worn-out an old adulteress?

JFB: Eze 23:45

The Chaldeans; the executioners of God's righteous vengeance (Eze 16:38), not that they were "righteous" in themselves (Hab 1:3, Hab 1:12-13).

JFB: Eze 23:46

Properly, "a council of judges" passing sentence on a criminal [GROTIUS]. The "removal" and "spoiling" by the Chaldean army is the execution of the judicial sentence of God.

JFB: Eze 23:47

The legal penalty of the adulteress (Eze 16:40-41; Joh 8:5). Answering to the stones hurled by the Babylonians from engines in besieging Jerusalem.

JFB: Eze 23:47

Fulfilled (2Ch 36:17, 2Ch 36:19).

JFB: Eze 23:48

(Eze 23:27).

JFB: Eze 23:48

(Deu 13:11).

JFB: Eze 23:49

That is, the punishment of your idolatry.

JFB: Eze 23:49

That is, know it to your cost . . . by bitter suffering.

Clarke: Eze 23:20

She doted upon their paramours - פלגשיהם pillagsheyhem , their harlots or concubines. Anciently harlot meant in our language either the male or female prostitute

Clarke: Eze 23:20

Whose flesh is as the flesh of asses - See on Eze 16:25 (note).

Clarke: Eze 23:23

Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa - פקוד ושוע וקוע . These names have been thought to designate certain people bordering on the Chaldeans; but no geographer has ever been able to find them out

In our old translations these names were considered appellatives - rulers, mighty men, and tyrants. Others, following the literal import of the words, have translated, visiting, shouting and retreating. Others have applied them to the habits of the Chaldean soldiers. Pekod signifying the muster or review of armies; Shoa, the magnificence of their uniform and arms; and Koa, the marks or embroidery of the clothes of the captains and generals. Grotius thought that they might be names of contiguous nations: Pekod, the Bactrians; Shoa, a people of Armenia; and Boa, the Medes. I have nothing to add that would satisfy myself, or be edifying to my readers.

Clarke: Eze 23:25

Shall take away thy nose - A punishment frequent among the Persians and Chaldeans, as ancient authors tell. Adulteries were punished in this way; and to this Martial refers: -

Quis tibi persuasit nares abscindere moecho

"Who has counselled thee to cut off the adulterer’ s nose?

Women were thus treated in Egypt. See Calmet.

Clarke: Eze 23:26

They shall also strip thee - See on Eze 16:39 (note).

Clarke: Eze 23:32

Thou shalt drink of thy sister’ s cup - Thou shalt be ruined and desolated as Samaria was.

Clarke: Eze 23:34

Thou shalt - pluck off thine own breasts - Thou shalt tear them; a frequent action in extreme sorrow and desolation. Weeping, tearing the bosom, and beating the breasts

Tunc vero rupique sinus, et pectora planxi

Ovid’ s Ep. 5.

||&&$

Clarke: Eze 23:38

They have defiled my sanctuary - By placing idols there.

Clarke: Eze 23:40

Thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments - This is exactly the way in which a loose female in Bengal adorns herself to receive guests. She first bathes, then rubs black paint around her eyes, and then covers her body with ornaments. - Ward’ s Customs.

Clarke: Eze 23:41

And satest upon a stately bed - Hast raised a stately altar to thy idols; probably alluding to that which Ahaz ordered to be made, after the similitude of that which he saw at Damascus. The bed here is in allusion to the sofas on which the ancients were accustomed to recline at their meals; or to the couches on which they place Asiatic brides, with incense pots and sweetmeats on a table before them.

Clarke: Eze 23:42

And a voice of a multitude - This seems to be an account of an idolatrous festival, where a riotous multitude was assembled, and fellows of the baser sort, with bracelets on their arms and chapters on their heads, performed the religious rites.

Clarke: Eze 23:45

And the righteous men - אנשים צדיקים anashim tsaddikim . The Chaldeans, thus called because they are appointed by God to execute judgment on these criminals.

Clarke: Eze 23:47

Shall stone them with stones - As they did adulteresses under the law. See Lev 20:10; Deu 22:22, compared with Joh 8:3.

Clarke: Eze 23:48

Thus will I cause lewdness to cease - Idolatry; and from that time to the present day the Jews never relapsed into idolatry.

Clarke: Eze 23:49

Ye shall bear the sins of your idols - The punishment due to your adultery; your apostasy from God, and setting up idolatry in the land.

TSK: Eze 23:20

Eze 16:20,Eze 16:26; Eze 17:15; Jer 5:8

TSK: Eze 23:22

I will raise : Eze 23:9, Eze 23:28, Eze 16:37; Isa 10:5, Isa 10:6, Isa 39:3, Isa 39:4; Hab 1:6-10; Rev 17:16

from : Eze 23:17

and I : Jer 6:22, Jer 6:23, Jer 12:9-12

TSK: Eze 23:23

Babylonians : Eze 21:19-27; 2Ki 20:14-17, 2Ki 25:1-3

the Chaldeans : 2Ki 24:2; Job 1:17; Isa 23:13; Act 7:4

Pekod : Jer 50:21

the Assyrians : Gen 2:14, Gen 25:18; Ezr 6:22

desirable : Eze 23:6, Eze 23:12

TSK: Eze 23:24

with chariots : Eze 26:10; Jer 47:3; Nah 2:3, Nah 2:4, Nah 3:2, Nah 3:3

I will set : Eze 23:45, Eze 16:38, Eze 21:23; 2Sa 24:14; Jer 39:5, Jer 39:6

TSK: Eze 23:25

I will set : Eze 5:13, 8:1-18, Eze 16:38-42; Exo 34:14; Deu 29:20, Deu 32:21, Deu 32:22; Pro 6:34; Son 8:6; Zep 1:18

they shall take away : This refers to the severe vengeance which enraged husbands took on their faithless wives, and implies that God would employ the Chaldeans to destroy the princes and priests of Judah, for violating their covenants and treaties. Such punishments were anciently common; and such is the present practice in one of the South Sea Islands.

they shall take thy : Eze 23:47; Hos 2:4, Hos 2:5

thy residue : Eze 15:6, Eze 15:7, Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48, Eze 22:18-22; Rev 18:8

TSK: Eze 23:26

strip : Eze 23:29, Eze 16:16, Eze 16:37, Eze 16:39; Jer 13:22; Hos 2:3, Hos 2:9, Hos 2:10; Rev 17:16, Rev 18:14-17

fair jewels : Heb. instruments of thy decking, Isa 3:17-24; 1Pe 3:3, 1Pe 3:4

TSK: Eze 23:27

will I : Eze 16:41, Eze 22:15; Isa 27:9; Mic 5:10-14; Zec 13:2

and thy : Eze 23:3, Eze 23:19

so that : These severe judgments shall effectually deter you from idolatry, and make you abhor the least approaches to it. This often repeated prediction has received a most wonderful accomplishment. For neither the authority, frowns, examples, or favour of their conquerors or powerful neighbours, nor their own fears, hopes, interests, or predilection for the sensual worship of idols, could prevail with them to run into gross idolatry, either during the captivity, or ever afterwards, to the present day, a period of 2,414 years.

TSK: Eze 23:28

whom thou : Eze 23:17, Eze 23:22, Eze 16:37; Jer 21:7-10, Jer 24:8, Jer 34:20

TSK: Eze 23:29

deal : Eze 23:25, Eze 23:26, Eze 23:45-47, Eze 16:39; Deu 28:47-51; 2Sa 13:15

the nakedness : Eze 23:18, Eze 16:36, Eze 16:37

TSK: Eze 23:30

thou hast : Eze 23:12-21, Eze 6:9; Psa 106:35-38; Jer 2:18-20, Jer 16:11, Jer 16:12, Jer 22:8, Jer 22:9

because thou art : Eze 23:7, Eze 23:17

TSK: Eze 23:31

walked : Eze 23:13, Eze 16:47-51; Jer 3:8-11

her : 2Ki 21:13; Jer 7:14, Jer 7:15; Dan 9:12

TSK: Eze 23:32

drink : Psa 60:3; Isa 51:17; Jer 25:15-28, Jer 48:26; Mat 20:22, Mat 20:23; Rev 16:19; Rev 18:6

thou shalt be : Eze 22:4, Eze 22:5, Eze 25:6, Eze 26:2, Eze 35:15, Eze 36:3; Deu 28:37; 1Ki 9:7; Psa 79:3; Jer 25:9; Lam 2:15, Lam 2:16; Mic 7:8

TSK: Eze 23:33

filled : Jer 25:27; Hab 2:16

with the cup of astonishment : Isa 51:17, Isa 51:22

TSK: Eze 23:34

drink : Psa 75:8; Isa 51:17

and pluck : Eze 23:3, Eze 23:8; Rev 18:7

TSK: Eze 23:35

Because : Eze 22:12; Isa 17:10; Jer 2:32, Jer 3:21, Jer 13:25, Jer 23:27, Jer 32:33; Hos 8:14, Hos 13:6; Rom 1:28

and cast : 1Ki 14:9; Neh 9:26

therefore : Eze 23:45-49, Eze 7:4, Eze 44:10; Lev 24:15; Num 14:34, Num 18:22

TSK: Eze 23:36

wilt : Eze 20:4, Eze 22:2; Jer 1:10; 1Co 6:2, 1Co 6:3

judge : or, plead for, Jer 11:14, Jer 14:11

Aholah : Eze 23:4

declare : Eze 16:2; Isa 58:1; Hos 2:2; Mic 3:8-11; Matt. 23:13-35; Luk 11:39-52; Act 7:51-53

TSK: Eze 23:37

they have : Eze 23:5, Eze 16:32; Hos 1:2, Hos 3:1

and blood : Eze 23:39, Eze 23:45, Eze 16:36, Eze 16:38, Eze 22:2-4, Eze 24:6-9; 2Ki 24:4; Psa 106:37, Psa 106:38; Isa 1:15; Jer 7:6, Jer 7:9; Hos 4:2; Mic 3:10; Luk 13:34

have also : Eze 23:4, Eze 16:20,Eze 16:21, Eze 16:36, Eze 16:45, Eze 20:26, Eze 20:31; Lev 18:21, Lev 20:2-5; Deu 12:31; 2Ki 17:17, 2Ki 21:6; Jer 7:31, Jer 32:35

TSK: Eze 23:38

they have : Eze 7:20, Eze 8:5-16; 2Ki 21:4, 2Ki 21:7, 2Ki 23:11, 2Ki 23:12

and have : Eze 20:13, Eze 20:24, Eze 22:8; Neh 13:17, Neh 13:18; Jer 17:27

TSK: Eze 23:39

they came : Isa 3:9; Jer 7:8-11, Jer 11:15; Mic 3:11; Joh 18:28

thus : Eze 23:38, Eze 44:7; 2Ki 21:4; 2Ch 33:4-7; Jer 23:11

TSK: Eze 23:40

ye have : Eze 23:13; Isa 57:9

to come : Heb. coming, 2Ki 20:13-15

thou didst : Rth 3:3; Est 2:12

paintedst : Kachalt aineych rendered by the LXX εστιβιζου τους οφθαλμους σου; ""thou didst paint thine eyes with stibium,""and Vulgate circumlinisti stibio oculos tuos ""thou didst paint round thine eyes with stibium,""or lead ore; whence it is called in Arabic kochl and in Syriac kecholo and koochlȯ 2Ki 9:30; Jer 4:30

and deckedst : Eze 16:13-16; Pro 7:10; Isa 3:18-23

TSK: Eze 23:41

stately : Heb. honourable, Est 1:6; Pro 7:16, Pro 7:17; Isa 57:7; Amo 2:8, Amo 6:4

a table : Eze 44:16; Isa 65:11; Mal 1:7

whereupon : Eze 16:18, Eze 16:19; Pro 7:17; Jer 44:17; Hos 2:8, Hos 2:9

TSK: Eze 23:42

a voice : This seems to be an account of an idolatrous festival, perhaps that of Bacchus; in which a riotous and drunken multitude assembled, adorned with bracelets and chaplets, accompanied with music, songs, and dances. Exo 32:6, Exo 32:18, Exo 32:19; Hos 13:6; Amo 6:1-6

common sort : Heb. multitude of men

were brought : Job 1:15; Joe 3:8

Sabeans : or, drunkards

bracelets : Eze 16:11, Eze 16:12; Rev 12:3

TSK: Eze 23:43

old : Ezr 9:7; Psa 106:6; Jer 13:23; Dan 9:16

whoredoms with her : Heb. her whoredoms

TSK: Eze 23:44

so went : Eze 23:3, Eze 23:9-13

TSK: Eze 23:45

the righteous : The Chaldeans, so called, because appointed by God to execute his judgment on these criminals. Eze 23:36; Jer 5:14; Hos 6:5; Zec 1:6; Joh 8:3-7

after the manner of adulteresses : Eze 23:37-39, Eze 16:38-43; Lev 20:10, Lev 21:9; Deu 22:21-24; Joh 8:7

because : Eze 23:37

TSK: Eze 23:46

I will : Eze 23:22-26, Eze 16:40; Jer 25:9

to be removed and spoiled : Heb. for a removing and spoil, Jer 15:4, Jer 24:9, Jer 34:17

TSK: Eze 23:47

the company : Eze 23:25, Eze 23:29, Eze 9:6, Eze 16:41; Jer 33:4, Jer 33:5

dispatch them : or, single them out, Eze 24:6

shall slay : Eze 24:21; 2Ch 36:17-19

and burn : Deu 13:16; Jer 39:8, Jer 52:13

TSK: Eze 23:48

I cause : Eze 23:27, Eze 6:6, Eze 22:15, Eze 36:25; Mic 5:11-14; Zep 1:3

that : Eze 5:15, Eze 16:41; Deu 13:11; Isa 26:9; 1Co 10:6-11; 2Pe 2:6

TSK: Eze 23:49

they shall : Eze 7:4, Eze 7:9, Eze 9:10, Eze 11:21, Eze 16:43, Eze 22:31; Isa 59:18

ye shall bear : Eze 23:35

and ye shall know : Eze 6:7, Eze 20:38, Eze 20:42, Eze 20:44, Eze 25:5; Psa 9:16

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Eze 23:23

Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa - Possibly words expressive of rank, or names of small Chaldaean tribes, selected for their resemblance to expressive Hebrew words.

Barnes: Eze 23:24

With chariots ... - Better "with armor, horsemen, and chariot."

Barnes: Eze 23:25

Take away thy nose and thine ears - Alluding to the barbarous custom of mutilating prisoners in the east Dan 2:5. An Egyptian law prescribed this punishment for an adulteress.

Fire - A mode of capital punishment Jer 29:22; Dan. 3.

Barnes: Eze 23:37

Blood - One of the chief sins of Manasseh was that he shed innocent blood 2Ki 21:16; 2Ki 24:4.

Barnes: Eze 23:38

The same day - The day when they made their offerings. See Eze 23:39.

Barnes: Eze 23:39

Yahweh was placed as it were in the list of deities, not acknowledged as the One God. Idols and idol-temples were erected close to the House of God, and yet the temple-service went on Jer 32:34.

Barnes: Eze 23:40-41

The figure is that of a woman decked in all her beauty, sitting on a couch (not bed) at a banquet prepared for those whom she has invited. This further offence is not one of idolatry, but that of courting alliances with other powers which were not less readily made than broken.

Eze 23:40

That ye have sent - Better, "they (i. e., Israel and Judah) sent."

Barnes: Eze 23:42

A voice ... - Or, The voice of the tumult was stilled thereby. The tumultuous cries of the invading army were stilled by these gifts. Others render being at ease, "living carelessly."

Of the common sort - See the margin - a multitudinous crowd.

Sabeans - Better as in the margin. The Chaldaeans were noted for their intemperance and revellings.

The wilderness - The desert tract which the Chalaeans had to pass from the north of Mesopotamia to the holy land. This verse describes the temporary effects of the alliance of Israel and Judah with the Assyrians and Babylonians. All became quiet, the allies received gifts (incense and oil) from Israel and Judah, and these in turn brought riches to Palestine, "bracelets upon their"(i. e., Aholah’ s and Aholibah’ s) "hands,"and crowns "upon their heads."

Barnes: Eze 23:43

Will they now commit ... - Rather, Now shall there be committed her whoredom, even this; i. e., when Israel and Judah had courted these alliances God said in wrath, "This sin too shall be committed, and so (not "yet) they went in;"the alliances were made according to their desires, and then followed the consequent punishment.

Barnes: Eze 23:45-49

The judgment to be executed by the hands of their allies.

Eze 23:45

The righteous men - Or, righteous men. The allies are so called as the instruments of God’ s righteous judgments.

Eze 23:48

To cease - Because they are stricken and consumed. Compare marginal reference.

All women - i. e., all countries.

Poole: Eze 23:20

Doted: see Eze 23:5 .

Upon their paramours Egyptians, and the nations that were confederate with the Egyptians; looking on them as able to defend by their power, enrich by their trade, and make prosperous by their friendship.

Whose flesh & c.: in these terms the prophet expresseth the vehement desire of the Jews to Egyptian idolatry, compared to whoredom, and may, for aught I know, tax the lustful impudence of some of the Jewish women in their corporal uncleannesses with the Egyptians, who were it seems (by report of authors) naturally disposed for that vice, and fittest for unsatiable, lustful women: see Eze 16:26 .

Poole: Eze 23:21

Calledst to remembrance: see Eze 23:19 .

The lewdness of thy youth: Eze 23:3 .

The paps of thy youth the beauty and loveliness of them, when God had formed them, allured the Egyptians: this may be understood both politically, of the growing state of the Jewish commonwealth, or literally, of the beauty of their young women.

Poole: Eze 23:22

Thy lovers thy confederates.

From whom thy mind is alienated whom thou hast first loathed and forsaken, and thereby enraged them against thee.

Bring them against thee be not only an exciter to stir them up against thee, but I will be a guide and conducter of them.

On every side so no way left for thy escape.

Poole: Eze 23:23

The Babylonians and Chaldeans these are known.

Pekod & c.: some reckon these the titles of some of the great commanders in this army, which come against Jerusalem, but they are names of distinct countries or provinces under the Babylonish government; and so Pekod is the province between Tigris and Lycus rivers, in this was old Nineveh, and was the principal province of the kingdom; though some others think Pekod was Bactriana, now called Usbeck, and Corassan, fierce, thievish, and barbarous of old.

Shoa either Sia in Armenia, or the Sohai, among which were the Adiabeni; and this contained the middle part of the kingdom of Babylon, and was Assyria Mediana.

Koa bordered on Media; the inhabitants were called Kohai, and dwelt about Arbel, or Arbelis, or Arbela, and comprehended Ganyamela, where a fortress Ganga looks like this Koa, being easily changed from Koa to Ganga by change of the original letters q into "G," and e into "G"; a people too like enough to be cruel and barbarous by their very situation.

And all all these sons or subjects of the Assyrian monarchy, or confederates.

Desirable young men & c.: most of these are already explained Eze 23:6 , where they were objects of love, now they are objects of terror; so God turns the occasions of men’ s sins into occasions of greater terror and punishment.

Renowned Heb. called , or invited, first by the Jews to sin with them, Eze 23:16 , now called of God to punish their fellow sinners.

Poole: Eze 23:24

They mentioned before, Eze 23:23 ,

shall come against thee or upon thee, surprise thee with a speedy march, for they were swift in their course.

With chariots the Hebrew is of larger sense, and more properly speaks all kind of arms for the war, a thorough furniture; so the Chaldee paraphrase, with instruments of war, or arms.

Wagons Heb. chariots , and is oftener so rendered; for expedition, for ease of their commanders on their march, and for strength against the enemy in the battle.

Wheels whether distinct from all other, or whether prepared lest in their march the carriage wheels should break, and they be at a stand, therefore beforehand store of these were provided.

An assembly a mighty confluence of people, and a mixture, where the worst and cruellest are the most numerous.

Which shall set against thee buckler, and shield, and helmet yet for their own defence well armed, and with armature fitted to defeat the arrows and offensive weapons of their enemy, and to maintain a siege, such as they should weary Jerusalem with.

I will set judgment before them give them a power by their victory, and in right of conquest over their rebels, as well as mine; and I will give them a spirit of judgment to discern the greatness of this people’ s sins.

They shall judge thee plead with thee, convince, condemn, and execute sentence upon thee.

According to their judgments to their will, power, wrath, and custom against rebels, for these are their rules of judgment; all which appeared when the chief of all the people were condemned to slavery, the wise counsellors and valiant commanders sentenced to die, Zedekiah’ s children slain, his own eyes put out, and city and temple to be burnt.

Poole: Eze 23:25

I will set my jealousy against thee as a jealous provoked husband, I will be as much against thee as they are, their fury shall avenge my quarrel.

They shall deal furiously with thee their disposition naturally is to furious wrath, my jealousy shall enkindle it more.

They shall take away thy nose and thine ears as thou hast prostituted thy beauty like a harlot, so they shall use thee as such, and mar thy beauty, and brand thee for ever, as thou deservest, and that thou mayst be as loathsome in thy deformity as ever thou wast thought lovely in thy beauty. This punishment of adulteresses is known to have been used, and is yet in use.

Thy remnant shall fall by the sword or else, at last thy latter end shall be to fall by the sword, those that do not live under such reproach shall die by the sword of the enemy.

They shall take thy sons and thy daughters for captives and slaves for work, and somewhat a thousand times worse.

Thy residue either the people who did hide themselves in vaults and cellars, and came not out; or else what remains of that the Chaldeans cannot carry away; all this shall be devoured by fire, as when the city was burnt.

Poole: Eze 23:26

Strip thee out of thy clothes both as lewd, disgraced harlots and as captives are used: see Eze 16:39 .

Thy fair jewels all thy rich, beautiful ornaments: see Eze 16:17 . They shall be prey and plunder to the enemy.

Poole: Eze 23:27

By these destroying judgments, which shall make thee cease to be a people, I will put an end to the lewdness thou wouldst never have put end to, thou shalt never have opportunity, if thou hadst heart, to do the like.

Thy whoredom idolatries,

brought from the land of Egypt when thou camest out under my hand.

Thou shalt not lift up thine eyes with desire and affection toward them, as once, when thou dotedst on them;

nor remember Egypt any more with love, trust, imitation, and desire of commerce with her, but all thy remembrance of Egypt shall be with deep shame and loathing.

Poole: Eze 23:28

Deliver thee give thee up,

into the hand to the power and will,

of them whom thou hatest: those shall be the masters, and domineer over thee, whom of all men thou didst most desire might not. It is doubled for certainty of the thing, and to make deeper impression; they shall certainly lord it over thee, whom of all men thou dost most loathe.

Poole: Eze 23:29

Deal with thee use thee, and ever demean themselves toward thee,

hatefully in hatred; whatever drudgery hardship, base and vile employment, their spite and hatred can invent, they shall cast on thee.

Take away all thine labour spoil thee of all thou hadst got in Judea, as they did when they conquered and plundered; and deprive thee of all the right and comfortable use of all thy labour, which they will exact of thee in captivity, and make thee know a slave hath no right to any thing.

Naked both literally thou shalt not have clothes to cover thy nakedness; and figuratively, thou shalt be left in a most disgraced state, and the shame of all thy sins shall cover thee: all this, as this prophet usually doth, is doubled to affect the more.

Poole: Eze 23:30

This verse gives the same reason which hath been often given, why the Lord proceeds in this severity, because, as an obstinate, lewd, untractable adulteress abuseth the best husband, till none can forbear, so had the Jews dealt with God, and God will deal with them.

Poole: Eze 23:31

Thou O Jerusalem and Judah,

hast walked hast run into the same sinful enormities.

Thy sister Samaria and the ten tribes, both great idolatresses.

Her cup of judgments and sorrow, expressed frequently by a cup, Psa 75:8 Jer 25:15 : I will punish thee with punishments like hers, since thou hast made thyself in sins like her.

Poole: Eze 23:32

Thou shalt drink thou shalt not put it by, and shift it off.

Deep towards the dregs, where the bitterest poison of it lieth.

And large in great quantity; thy punishment shall be most grievous who must drink so deep of this cup of astonishment.

Thou shalt be laughed to scorn when sick as heart can hold, and needest pity and help to relieve, instead hereof thou shalt be derided and abused: these will be cruel mockings.

It the cup,

containeth much is large, and contains what will last many years, till the seventy years be expired; and of this cup thou shalt still drink, and be derided.

Poole: Eze 23:33

Thy afflictions shall be as great as thou canst hold, as a vessel filled with liquor. Thou shalt stagger with sorrows, that shall intoxicate and astonish. In the verse each part explains the other, sorrow explains drunkenness, astonishment explains sorrow, desolation explains astonishment, and the cup of Samaria, elsewhere called the line of Samaria, explains all: Samaria was made a heap, Mic 1:6 ; so shall Jerusalem be.

Poole: Eze 23:34

Thou shalt even drink it nothing shall divert the punishment.

And suck it out the dregs shalt thou drink, and multiply thine own sorrows.

Break the sherds either out of indignation, or to suck out what was imbibed.

Pluck off thine own breasts which tempted others, and undid thyself, for which cause thou now revengest thyself upon thyself.

Poole: Eze 23:35

Thou hast forgotten me Eze 22:12 , which is here explained by what follows; it was a wilful forgetting of God, and voluntary despising his law, ordinances, worship, favour, and presence; so God is cast behind a sinner’ s back.

Bear thou the guilt, I will impute it; the punishment, I will not pardon it; and the shame, for I will pour out contempt upon thee: bear both sorrow and reproach for thy sins.

Poole: Eze 23:36

Wilt thou judge excuse or plead for such adultresses. so Eze 22:2 .

Declare unto them plainly, fully tell them, what they have been, and what they must expect for all their abominations.

Poole: Eze 23:37

They have committed adultery: this seems to refer to corporal uncleannesses.

Blood is in their hands innocent blood of the murdered prophets and just men.

Committed adultery spiritual adultery, i.e. idolatry.

Caused their sons to pass through the fire most unheard of cruelty, and unnatural murders, under pretext of religion! thus Eze 16:20 .

To devour them they destroyed, took away the life of their sons in a barbarous manner.

Poole: Eze 23:38

This which is declared in the following words, it was some great injury or affront done to God.

Defiled my sanctuary my holy things, house, altar, sacrifices, and oblations; one part of the temple put for all parts of the holy things of God.

In the same day when they had newly polluted themselves with most horrid crimes, idolatry and murder, they thrust into the temple; whereas by the law, if they had been but unclean by touch of a dead body, they must have been cleansed by sacrifices before they ought to come into company with the Jews.

Profaned my sabbaths by offering sacrifices to idols, and doing that on those days which God, nature, and all civil nations abhor, only the devil is pleased with, who is a murderer from the beginning, and promotes such bloody cruelties.

Poole: Eze 23:39

Slain their children: see Eze 16:20 .

To profane it using my holy temple as if it were a common and unclean place.

Thus have they done in the midst of my house nay, these things have been done in my house, they have offered to their idols in the house where my name alone should be called upon.

Poole: Eze 23:40

Sent for men: see Eze 23:16 .

From far from Chaldea.

A messenger was sent an embassy from the king of Judah, with advice of his princes, no doubt.

They came: see Eze 23:17 .

Wash thyself after the manner of harlots, gottest all fine, clean, and delicate against thy paramours came; so idol temples built, altars beautified, sacrifices prepared, all to commend thyself to their alliance and help.

Paintedst thy eyes like a decayed harlot, madest up thy defects with paint.

Deckedst thyself with ornaments puttest on the rich clothing I gave thee, and with thy Husband’ s bounty allured adulterers to thy bed; so Eze 16:13,14 : thus was God abused and provoked.

Poole: Eze 23:41

Safest it is a table gesture, as appears, she was prepared to feast them.

Upon a stately bed a magnificent, rich bed, on which women sat to feast, when men leant on their sides, which would not have been a comely posture to a woman.

Table prepared table furnished with choicest provision, such as made for feasts, when solemn sacrifices were offered, or when vows were paid, as the harlot, Pro 7:14,15 .

Set mine incense: this assures us that idolatrous worship was acted by her in compliance with the Chaldeans, offered to their idols, and then feasted the idolaters, with what God had given her, when they confirmed their leagues, and swore by false gods.

Poole: Eze 23:42

A voice of a multitude a shout for joy, that there was a treaty of peace between the Jews and the Chaldeans, or songs of gladness for the peace made, and confirmed, not in God’ s name, but in the name of the idols.

Being at ease free now from the fears of any wars to disquiet them.

Was with her about the altar first, where the peace was sworn; about her bed next, where she feasted her new allies, that were great princes and nobles.

And with the men and to these worthy the name of men, or beside these great and famous ones. Et avec ces hommes , as the French version.

Were brought Sabeans messengers were sent to, or received, or entertained and caressed, from the roaring Sabeans, who lived on robberies, and spoiling the merchants; these were brought to Jerusalem from the wilderness, deserts of Arabia, a rude, barbarous, and idolatrous scum of men, described by their ill properties in geographers: of these were they that destroyed Job’ s servants: in the verse described by their ornaments, bracelets about necks and arms, and crowns on their heads, which some think they bestowed upon this harlot.

Poole: Eze 23:43

Then said I after the manner of man God seems to stand musing, or saying to himself, or it may be supposed that God speaks to the prophet, asking him.

Unto her or rather, of her, concerning her.

Old in adulteries such usually are out of request with adulterers; and now Samaria and Jerusalem had been long spiritual adulteresses, and one would think her lovers would be weary of her, if she were not weary of them.

Poole: Eze 23:44

This resolves the doubt of the former verse. In this metaphor the prophet expresseth the confederacy of the Jews, against God’ s express command, with the nations round about them. The Jews enter league with these robbers, and admit their idols, and so commit whoredom with them; and these Sabeans probably admit some of the Jews’ idols too, and so commit whoredom with her, expressed in the last words of the 43rd verse.

Poole: Eze 23:45

Righteous men men that kept the law of their God, for some such there were about Aholibah herself; or prophets, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and some few more: or else the Babylonians, who in the present controversy between Jerusalem and its king on the one part, and Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians on the other part, were comparatively the righteous men.

After the manner of adulteresses which was, to be put to death by stoning, Lev 20:10 ; and murder was punished with death.

Poole: Eze 23:46

A company the Babylonian army.

Upon them against the Jews, the children of this Aholibah.

Give them the inhabitants of Judea, the citizens of Jerusalem, with princes and royal family.

To be removed to be carried away captive into the land of Chaldea.

And spoiled by the rapine of the soldiers in their own land, and by the cruelty of their masters to whom they shall be slaves in a strange land: this is the plain sense of the verse, though possibly there may be an allusion to the solemn proceedings of a court of judicature couched in the proper import of many of the Hebrew words.

Poole: Eze 23:47

The company Heb. congregation , the Babylonian army.

Stone them the punishment of an adulteress; and this was in a manner done when the engines, which cast mighty stones into the besieged city, dashed out the brains of some, and when chimneys, or walls, or towers, beat down by those stones cast out of the engines, fell on others, and buried them alive.

Despatch them with their swords: some of them who escaped the stones fell under the sword of the Babylonian soldier.

Slay their sons either in fight, or when they break into the city, or light on them wandering on mountains, or hiding in dens and caves.

And their daughters either in sacking the city, when they regard no sex, or because they choose to die rather than yield to the lust of those vile ones.

Burn up their houses as the cities, and houses abroad in the country; so the Babylonish army destroyed what they could not carry away with them, as Eze 23:25 .

Poole: Eze 23:48

Cause lewdness to cease: see Eze 23:27 . Hereafter in this land such-like abominations shall never be committed more, as indeed we do not read of any such after their return out of this captivity.

That all women countries, kingdoms, and cities, may be warned by your examples of sorrows and destruction, to fear God, do justly, love mercy, and hate violence.

Poole: Eze 23:49

They the Babylonians, and their confederates.

Shall recompense as God’ s ministers of just vengeance, shall judge you worthy, and execute on you what you are worthy of, all that may make you desolate, a derision, and scorn.

Shall bear the sins of your idols the guilt of the sins you committed in worshipping of and relying upon idols; and you shall bar the punishment of idolaters, which by the law of God is death without mercy, Deu 13:6-10 .

Ye shall know that I am the Lord God by what you suffer you shall know that I am justly displeased with your sins, am true to my threats, and have made good my word: Deu 8:19 ,

If thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them & c.,

ye shall surely perish

Haydock: Eze 23:20

Asses. He means the Egyptians, (chap. xvi. 26.) in whom the kings of Juda trusted. (Calmet)

Haydock: Eze 23:22

About. The Philistines, Ammonites, &c., shall join the Chaldeans, (Haydock) and Egypt shall desert the Jews in their greatest need. (Calmet)

Haydock: Eze 23:23

Nobles. Protestants, "Pekod, and Shoah, and Roa:" (Haydock) which Junius takes to be the three great divisions of the empire. Others suppose they denote the dignities, though they occur not in Daniel. ---

Captains. Hebrew, "Phachat, and Saganim, (ver. 6, 12.) and Schalischim:" officers mentioned [in] Exodus xiv. 7., and 2 Kings xxiii. 8. ---

Renowned, called to the assemblies and councils of the princes, Numbers i. 16. (Calmet) ---

Horsemen. Protestants, "all of them riding upon horses." (Haydock)

Haydock: Eze 23:24

Judgments, at Reblatha, 4 Kings xxv. 6.

Haydock: Eze 23:25

Jealousy, the most violent of passions. (Calmet) ---

So the Chaldeans are styled, as Assur is the rod, Isaias x. 5. (Worthington) ---

Ears, the punishment of adulteresses: both king and priests suffer. (St. Jerome) ---

Thus the captives were probably treated. (Calmet) See Seneca, Ira. iii. 20. ---

Fire, by Ismahel, chap. xix. 14.

Haydock: Eze 23:26

Glory; vanity, or of the temple, chap. xvi. 17., and Osee ii. 4.

Haydock: Eze 23:31

Cup. Thou shalt be punished like Samaria, dreadfully, 4 Kings xvii. 4. (Calmet)

Haydock: Eze 23:34

Fragments, as drunkards sometimes bite (Haydock) the cup in their rage. ---

Rend. What had been the occasion of thy fall: (Calmet) pectori planxi. (Ovid, ep. 5.)

Haydock: Eze 23:36

Deeds. He is thus admonished to condemn them; (chap. xx. 4.) as times and places tended to aggravate their crimes, ver. 39. (Worthington)

Haydock: Eze 23:40

Paint, with antimony. (Septuagint) See 4 Kings ix. 3.

Haydock: Eze 23:41

Bed: it seems at table, Amos ii. 8., and Tobias ii. 3. ---

Ointment; using them for thyself, or presenting them to idols, Exodus xxx. 23, 33. (Calmet)

Haydock: Eze 23:42

And that. Protestants, "Sabeans (marginal note and Septuagint, drunkards) from," &c. Any were admitted (Haydock) to the priesthood and to her favours, even the most rustic and deformed, 3 Kings xii. 32.

Haydock: Eze 23:45

Just, compared with the Jews, whom they shall chastise. (Calmet)

Haydock: Eze 23:47

Stones, like adulteresses, chap. xvi. 38., and Leviticus xx. 10. (Haydock) ---

Let the walls be demolished. (Calmet)

Gill: Eze 23:20

For she doted upon their paramours,.... Or "concubines" ^z; the neighbouring nations and allies of the Egyptians, whose friendship the Jews courted, and whose idols they served: the Septuagint and Arabic versions wrongly read the Chaldeans:

whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses; by "flesh" is meant the "membrum virile", which in asses is very large, and therefore dedicated to Priapus by the Heathens; and vast is the profusion of seed in coitus by horses, to which the flesh and issue of the Egyptian paramours are compared; who were very libidinous, and therefore desirable to insatiable women; all which serves to express the eagerness of the people of the Jews after idolatry.

Gill: Eze 23:21

Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth,.... By committing the same; the same idolatries their fathers committed in Egypt they now committed, being in alliance with the same people: or,

thou causest to be visited the lewdness of thy youth ^a; by the Lord, who remembered their sins, and punished them for them:

in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth: committing spiritual fornication, that is, idolatry with them; signified by pressing and bruising the breasts and paps of virgins, by corporeal fornication with them.

Gill: Eze 23:22

Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord God,.... Or, ye two tribes of Benjamin and Judah, hear what the Lord says unto you:

behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee; the Chaldeans, whom they had formerly loved, and in whose alliance they were, and whose idols they worshipped:

from whom thy mind is alienated; having broke covenant with them, and cast off their yoke, and rebelled against them:

and I will bring them against thee on every side; to besiege and encompass Jerusalem on every side with their army, as they did, so that there was no escaping.

Gill: Eze 23:23

The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans,.... Both the inhabitants of the city of Babylon, called in the Hebrew text the children of Babylon, and all the inhabitants of the several parts of the country of Chaldean, of which Babylon was the metropolis:

Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa; the Vulgate Latin version, and so Jerom, take these words to be appellatives, and render them noblemen, tyrants, and princes; as some mentioned by Jarchi do, governors, princes, and rulers; and Kimchi ^b thinks they are the titles of the Babylonian princes spoken of in Jeremiah, as Nebuzaradan. Nebushasban, Rabsaris, Rabmag, &c. Jer 39:3, but with others they are the proper names of persons or places: and so the Targum calls them, Pekodaites, Shoaites, and Koaites; that is, the inhabitants of places so called; and certain it is that Pekod was a province of Babylon, Jer 50:21, which, according to Junius, lay between the two rivers Tigris and Lycus, and in which was the famous city of Nineveh; and, according to him, Shoa, or the Shoaites, lay between the rivers Lycus and Gorgus, among where were the Adiabeni, and the town called Siai by Ptolemy; and the Koaites were situated in the inward part of Assyria, by Arbelitis, where formerly was the fortified town of Koah, by historians called Gauga; and by Strabo Gaugamela. Grotius thinks that Pekod are the Bactriani; and that Shoa is Siai in Armenia with Ptolemy; and that Koa is Choana of Media, with the same Ptolemy; but, be they who they will, they were such people as were to come with the Chaldean army against the Jews:

and all the Assyrians with them: which were now one people with the Chaldeans and Babylonians, by whom formerly the ten tribes were carried captive:

all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses; persons of high rank and dignity, in chief offices at court or in the camp, all in the bloom and strength of youth; men of name and renown for their honour and valour; and all well mounted, a famous cavalry of them; and who before were lovely on these accounts, when they were their gallants and lovers, their confederates and allies, but now formidable and terrible being their enemies; see Eze 23:5.

Gill: Eze 23:24

And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels,.... With "chariots", in which were their princes and great men, their chief commanders, generals, and captains, and in which they fought, as was usual in those times; and with "wagons", to carry their provisions and warlike stores; and with "wheels", that is, either with chariots and wagons that ran upon wheels, or with wheels for them in case they should break down; the first of these words here, according to some Jewish interpreters, as Donesh in Jarchi, signifies warlike instruments in general; and the second word is used for chariots: and so the whole is paraphrased by the Targum,

"and they shall come against thee with instruments of war, with chariots and wheels;''

all which denotes how well prepared they should be, and with what swiftness they would come:

and with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler, and shield, and helmet, round about; a multitude of people, a vast army gathered out of all the provinces of Babylon, having bucklers and shields about their bodies, and helmets on their heads to protect and defend them; and these should surround the city of Jerusalem. So the Targum,

"an army of people, armed with shields and helmets, shall set themselves against thee round about:''

and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments; that is, I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall judge and condemn you; not according to my laws and yours, but according to their own laws, according to the customs and usages among them, according to the law of nations; they shall deal with you as rebels and covenant breakers, such Zedekiah was; he broke covenant with the king of Babylon, and rebelled against him: and this was fulfilled when he fell into his hands, and when he slew his children before his face, and then put out his eyes.

Gill: Eze 23:25

And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee,.... As a jealous husband, enraged against his adulterous wife, falls upon her in his fury, and uses her with great severity; so the Jews having committed spiritual fornication, that is, idolatry, and departed from the Lord, he threatens to stir up the fury of his jealousy, and punish them severely by the Chaldeans, as follows:

they shall take away thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; as gallants use their harlots when they leave them, or jealous husbands their adulterous wives, disfiguring them, that they may be marked and known what they are, and be despised by others; and as has been the custom in some countries, particularly with the Egyptians, to cut off the noses of adulterous persons; here it is to be understood figuratively: by the "nose", according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, is meant the king, who is higher than his people, as the nose is the highest part in a man's face; and by the "ears" the priest, who caused a noise to be heard when he entered into the temple with his bells; or rather because it was the priest's office to attend to the word of God, and teach it the people; in general, these denote everything that was excellent among the Jews, their city, temple, king, kingdom, princes, priests, and prophets, which should be demolished and removed; and by the remnant is meant the common people, that should come into the hands of the Chaldeans, and fall by their sword. So the Targum paraphrases it,

"thy princes and thy nobles shall go into captivity, and thy people shall be killed with the sword:''

they shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire; take and carry their sons and daughters captive, and burn with fire the city left by them. Thus the Targum,

"they shall carry thy sons and daughters captive, and the beauty of thy land shall be burnt with fire;''

that is, the city of Jerusalem, the temple, the king's palaces, the houses of the great men, and others in it, which were all burnt with fire when taken by the Chaldeans, Jer 52:13.

Gill: Eze 23:26

They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes,.... As such who are taken captives are usually served:

and take away, thy fair jewels; their ornaments of every kind: or "the vessels of thy glory" ^c; Kimchi observes this may be meant either of the garments of the priests, and the vessels of the sanctuary; or of whole spoil of the city in general, whether in the temple, or in other houses.

Gill: Eze 23:27

Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee,.... That is, their idolatry; for, after this captivity, the Jews never were guilty of idolatry any more:

and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt; the idolatry which they learned there, and brought from thence; so the Targum,

"the worship of thine idols, which was with thee when thou wast in the land of Egypt:''

so that thou shall not lift up thine eyes unto them; to the idols of Egypt, to pray unto them, and worship them:

nor remember Egypt any more; with any delight and pleasure, and so as to desire an alliance with them, and help from them, or to join with them in their idolatries: so the Targum,

"and the idols of the Egyptians thou shalt remember no more.''

Gill: Eze 23:28

For thus saith the Lord God, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest,.... The Chaldeans and Babylonians, before loved by her, and doted upon, but now hated and rebelled against; and to fall into such hands must be a sore judgment; and this the Lord threatens to bring upon the Jews for their sins; and he having said it, it might be depended upon it would be performed; and, for the greater certainty of it, it is repeated in different words:

into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated; See Gill on Eze 23:17.

Gill: Eze 23:29

And they shall deal with thee hatefully,.... The Chaldeans should hate the Jews as much as before they loved them, when they came into the bed of love to them, Eze 23:17 and as much as the Jews hated them; which they showed by their severe and rigorous usage of them, putting some to the sword, carrying the rest captive, and employing them in hard service and labour; and, which is still worse, and an aggravation of all this:

and shall take away all thy labour; whatever they got by labour, that they should not enjoy, but should be taken away from them:

and shall leave thee naked and bare: stripped of all the necessaries and conveniences of life:

and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms; it shall then be manifest to all that thou hast been guilty of idolatry, and hast departed from the Lord thy God, which has caused him to bring these judgments upon thee for thy sins. The Targum paraphrases the latter part of the clause thus,

"the sins of thy wicked counsels, and thy pride.''

It seems to be a heap of words, to express the grossness of their idolatries, which now should be exposed.

Gill: Eze 23:30

And I will do these things unto thee,.... What the Chaldeans did God is said to do, because he suffered them to do these things, as a punishment for their sins; yea, it was according to his will, and by his orders. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it, "they have done these things unto thee"; that is, the Chaldeans. The Targum is,

"thy sins are the cause of these things unto thee;''

that is, their idolatry and other iniquities. Hence the Syriac version is very particular,

"for thy whoredoms these things shall be done unto thee;''

and the Arabic version,

"thy whoredom hath done (or is the cause of) these things unto thee,''

as follows:

because thou hast gone a whoring after the Heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols; imitated them in their idolatries; worshipped the same dunghill gods as they did, as the word signifies; with which it was no wonder they should be polluted, and become abominable unto God.

Gill: Eze 23:31

Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister,.... Samaria, or the ten tribes of Israel; followed them in their idolatrous practices, were guilty of the same:

therefore will I give her cup into thine hand; the cup of her vengeance, as the Targum; inflict the same punishment on the two tribes as on the ten, and suffer them to be carried captive as they had been.

Gill: Eze 23:32

Thus saith the Lord God, thou shall drink of thy sister's cup deep and large,.... That is, partake of the same punishment, which was very great, signified by a deep and large cup, which holds much:

thou shall be laughed to scorn, and had in derision; by the nations round about, who, instead of pitying them under their troubles, will rejoice at them; just as drunken men are laughed at, when intoxicated and reeling about:

it containeth much; the cup of wrath and vengeance; as much as will last severity years drinking. The Targum connects this with the preceding clause,

"and thou shalt be for derision and for laughter, because of the greatness of the tribulation that shall come upon thee.''

Gill: Eze 23:33

Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow,.... Sorrow is the effect of drunkenness; these two generally go together; when a man is filled with the one, he is with the other; this expresses the greatness of the sorrow and distress of the Jews in captivity:

with the cup of astonishment and desolation; their punishment would be so great, and their condition be so desolate, that it should astonish them, and bereave them of their senses; and they should be like mad men, as their actions in the following verse show:

with the cup of thy sister Samaria; the same punishment as inflicted on the ten tribes.

Gill: Eze 23:34

Thou shalt even drink it, and suck it out,.... The very dregs of it, that which lies at the bottom, which is the most nauseous and the most pernicious; not through love to it, but through force, shall be obliged to it; see Psa 75:8,

and thou shall break the sherds thereof; and suck them, so that not a drop of the liquor shall be lost; even what has penetrated into the earthen vessel, which this cup is supposed to be; and therefore it shall be broken to pieces, and these pieces sucked, that all may be got out; suggesting that there will be no abatement of the punishment, it shall be endured to the utmost: or it may be an allusion to drunkards, who, having drunk up their liquor, and become drunk, break their glasses, pots, and cups, and to which the next clause agrees:

and pluck off thine own breasts; as men in their drunken fits, being like mad men, tear their own flesh; and so the Targum paraphrases it,

"thou shall tear thy flesh;''

so the Jews, under punishment for sin, and pressed with the guilt of it, through indignation at themselves should tear their flesh, and particularly pluck off their breasts: the allusion is to fornication, to which idolatry is compared, in which those parts are particularly affected; see Eze 23:21, the Syriac version renders this and the former clause thus, "thou shall shave thine hair and cut off thy breasts"; Kimchi thinks by the "breasts" are meant the oral and written laws, which ceased in the time of the captivity; but without any foundation:

for I have spoken it, saith the Lord; and therefore it shall be done.

Gill: Eze 23:35

Therefore thus saith the Lord God, because thou hast forgotten me,.... His word, worship, and ordinances, and did not attend unto them, but worshipped strange gods: so the Targum,

"because thou hast left my worship:''

and cast me behind thy back; or, as the same paraphrase,

"hast cast the fear of me from before thine eyes;''

or out of thy sight, his laws and statutes; see Neh 9:26, as men cast behind their backs that which they have no value for and loath, and which they do not care to see, and choose to forget:

therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms; that is, the guilt of their sins, the punishment of their idolatries, and shame and confusion for them.

Gill: Eze 23:36

The Lord said moreover unto me, son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah?.... Plead the cause of Israel and Judah? say any thing in their defence, and in excuse of them? or intercede and pray for them, that threatened judgments may not come upon them? no, do nothing of this kind; if thou wilt do anything, do as follows:

yea, declare unto them their abominations; their abominable sins, their murders, adulteries, and idolatries; set them in a true light before them, in all their aggravated circumstances; that, if it can be, they may be brought to a true sight and sense of them, to repent of them, be ashamed of them, loath them, confess them, and forsake them.

Gill: Eze 23:37

That they have committed adultery,.... Either literally, adultery with their neighbours' wives, which was a prevailing sin with this people; or figuratively, spiritual adultery, that is, idolatry:

and blood is in their hands; the Targum is,

"they have shed the blood of innocents with their hands;''

the blood of prophets and righteous men, sent unto them; and the blood of their infants in sacrificing to idols, as after mentioned:

and with their idols have they committed adultery; by worshipping them, which is spiritual adultery; and this being so explicitly mentioned, it seems to be distinguished from corporeal adultery in the first clause, which may be only there designed; and so Kimchi thinks:

and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them; their children, who were the Lord's by national adoption, and who ought to have been trained up in the worship and service of God, were, in a most barbarous and unnatural manner, caused to pass through the fire, for or to the idols Molech and Baal; and that not merely by way of lustration and dedication, which was sometimes done by passing between two fires, but so as to be devoured and destroyed by the fire.

Gill: Eze 23:38

Moreover this they have done unto me,..... The following piece of wickedness, which was very provoking to the Lord:

they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day; as they caused their children to pass through the tire to their idols, by entering into the sanctuary when they had so done, and were thus defiled, and by offering sacrifices to their idols in it; or under pretence of serving the Lord, when they had just been guilty of murder and idolatry:

and have profaned my sabbaths; not only by doing their own worldly and civil business, but by slaying their infants on those days, and sacrificing them to idols.

Gill: Eze 23:39

For when they had slain their children to their idols,.... This explains more clearly what is before said, that by causing their children to pass through the fire was a slaying them; and that their passing through it "for them" was for their idols, and unto them; see Eze 23:37, and how when they had been guilty of such shocking wickedness,

then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; not that they came into the temple on purpose to profane it; but coming into it, being themselves defiled with the murder of their infants, and offering sacrifices to idols, or performing a hypocritical service to the Lord, this was in the event a profanation of the sanctuary:

and, lo, thus they have done in the midst of mine house; set up idols there, and worshipped them; as they did in the temple itself, in the times of Ahaz and Manasseh; see Jer 7:30.

Gill: Eze 23:40

And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far,.... From Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldea, to treat with them, and enter into alliances and confederacies with them, and to join them in their idolatrous practices; these Heathen nations did not send to the Jews, but the Jews to them; they did not court their friendship and alliance, but the Jews courted theirs:

unto whom a messenger was sent; to court their favour, and solicit a confederacy, and to desire that ambassadors might be sent to reside among them:

and, lo, they came; these Heathen courts listened to the proposal, and accordingly sent their plenipotentiaries and ambassadors to them, who came in their masters' name, and with their credentials; and for the reception of whom great preparations were made, as follows:

for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments; just as harlots do to make themselves agreeable to their lovers; who use washes and paint, as Jezebel did, and dress themselves in their best clothes, and adorn themselves in the best manner they can. Harlots had their particular attire, by which they were known, Pro 7:10 and they not only used bagnios or baths, but washes for their face, to make them look beautiful; and particularly painted their eyes, to make them look larger; for large eyes in women, in some nations, were reckoned very handsome, particularly among the Greeks: hence Juno, in Homer ^d, is called βοωπις the ox eyed, as some translate it; or rather the large eyed Juno: and the Grecian women, in order to make their eyes large, made use of a powder mixed with their washes, which shrunk their eyebrows, and caused their eyes to stand out, and look fuller and larger; and such was the paint which Pliny, ^e calls stibium, and says, it was by some named "platyophthalmon", because in the beautiful eyebrows of women it dilated the eyes; and it seems that painting with something of this nature was used by the Jewish women, in imitation of the Heathens, for the same purpose, especially by harlots; hence the phrase of rending the face, or rather the eyes, with paint, Jer 4:30, so the Moorish women now, as Dr. Shaw ^f relates, to add a gracefulness to their complexions, tinge their eye lids with "alkahol", the powder of lead ore; and this is performed by first dipping into this powder a small wooden bodkin, of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids, over the ball of the eye; and which is properly a rending the eyes indeed, as the prophet calls it, with powder of "pouk", or lead ore: so, for the gratifying these idolatrous ambassadors, idols were set up, altars built, and sacrifices prepared; and, in order to their public entry, and to show how acceptable they were, palaces were fitted up for them; and the streets through which they passed decorated, and all public marks of esteem and affection given them; to this the Targum seems to have respect, paraphrasing the words thus,

"and, lo, they came to the place thou hadst prepared; thou hast adorned the streets, and appointed palaces.''

Gill: Eze 23:41

And satest upon a stately bed,.... Or honourable ^g, a bed of state: either a throne, a royal seat under a canopy, on which the king of Judah sat to receive foreign ambassadors; or a stately bed at a feast, made for the entertainment of them; it being usual in the eastern nations to sit on beds at eating, to which the next clause agrees. The allusion is to a harlot sitting on a bed decked out by her to allure men to lie with her; see Pro 7:16,

and a table prepared before it; before the bed, furnished with the richest provisions to treat the ambassadors with; or this may design an altar built for them to offer on it sacrifices to their idols, according to the customs of their countries:

whereupon thou hast set mine incense and mine oil; which were the gifts of God to this people, and which they should have used in his service; but with these they treated the ministers of Heathen princes; scenting the room where they were entertained with incense, and anointing their heads and feet with oil, for their pleasure and refreshment; or they offered these on the altars of the idols to them.

Gill: Eze 23:42

And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her,.... With Aholibah, with the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin: or, "in her", in Jerusalem; or "in it", or "about it" ^h; the bed, or table, or both: these were either the people of the many nations that came in great numbers with the ambassadors, as their retinue, and for the greater splendour of them; and who came, not to make war, but in a peaceable way, being invited to come; or these were a confluence of the Jewish people, who came from all parts to see the public entry of these ambassadors; who were quite easy with it, since they came as the ambassadors of their allies and friends, in whose alliance they thought themselves safe and happy; and therefore welcomed them with their loud huzzas:

and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness; or, "and with men because of a multitude of men" ⁱ; that is, with those men that came from several parts on this occasion, for the sake of a greater number, and of making a greater appearance, the Sabeans that dwelt in the desert of Arabia were fetched from thence; or their neighbours round about Moab and Ammon, that dwelt in the wilderness, were sent for, and brought to make the solemnity the greater; so Jarchi; and to this sense the Targum renders it,

"because of the multitude of men that came round about on every side from the wilderness,''

Some render it, "drunkards from the wilderness" ^k; a parcel of drunken fellows that lived in the wilderness, rustic, brutish, people; these were brought as fit persons to drink healths, and roar on this occasion:

which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads; that is, the Jews put these ornaments upon the hands and heads of these men of the common sort, and the Sabeans with them, and these poor country drunken fellows too, that they might make the better appearance when they met and huzzaed the ambassadors at their entry; or which Sabeans and other foreigners put these ornaments on Aholah and Aholibah, and enticed them to the worship of their idols, and taught them idolatry.

Gill: Eze 23:43

Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries,.... That had been an old adulterer or idolater; meaning either Aholah the ten tribes, who from Jeroboam's time had been guilty of idolatry; or Aholibah the two tribes, who had remained longer in their own country, and had been long given to idolatry; or both of them, as some think, the whole body of the people of Israel, who had been addicted to idolatry ever since they came out of Egypt, and so was like an old harlot indeed: now the Lord said "unto her", or "concerning her" ^l; in his own mind, after the manner of men. So the Targum,

"I said concerning the congregation of Israel, whose people are old in sins:''

will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them? will they commit adultery with such an old harlot? are they not weary of her? and will they not rather loath and despise her? as it is common when such prostitutes grow old; and what pleasure can she take, thus advanced in years, in such impurities? suggesting that alliances and confederacies between the Jews and the nations of the world could not be agreeable on either side, especially to the former; but so it was, and so were their idolatries likewise. The Targum is,

"now she will leave her idols, and return to thy worship; but she returned not.''

Gill: Eze 23:44

Yet they went in unto her,.... Made a league with one another, and joined in idolatrous worship:

as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot; with the same heat of lust, with the same greediness and eager desire as young men do when they go into a brothel house where a beautiful harlot lives:

so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah; the lewd women, the ten tribes of Israel, and the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which apostatized from God, and committed idolatry; with these the Sabeans before mentioned, and other nations, joined in idolatrous worship.

Gill: Eze 23:45

And the righteous men,.... Some understand this of the prophets, who were really righteous men; and foretold the righteous judgments of God that should come upon the idolatrous Jews, which was a judging them: others, of righteous men in general, who will one and all agree that persons guilty of such crimes ought to suffer the punishment adequate to them, and usually inflicted on such; but rather the Babylonians are here meant; who, though not righteous in themselves, or truly so, yet were so in comparison of the wicked Jews, who had a divine revelation, and knew better than to commit such idolatries; whereas these were Gentiles that knew not God, nor his will. So the Targum,

"and righteous men in respect (or comparison) of them;''

that is, of Israel and Judah; and they may be also called so, because they were the executioners of justice, the instruments of inflicting God's righteous judgments on the Jews; and, among other things, for their perfidy and treachery to them; so that they would appear just in the eyes of other nations for treating them as they did:

they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; that is, according to the law concerning such persons; and shall condemn them to suffer the punishment denounced on such, and shall execute it on them:

because they are adulteresses, the blood is in their hands; are guilty, not only of corporeal uncleanness, but of spiritual adultery; that is, idolatry; and of the murder of their prophets and righteous men, and even of their own children sacrificed to idols; than which nothing can be more unnatural and barbarous for women to do.

Gill: Eze 23:46

For thus saith the Lord God, I will bring up a company upon them,.... Or, "do thou bring up a company upon them" ^m, or "against them". The Targum represents it as spoken to the prophet, thus,

"prophesy that armies shall come up against them.''

Kimchi interprets it as we do, "I will bring up", &c. and so others ⁿ. By this "company" is to be understood the Chaldean army, whom God in his providence, and in righteous judgment, would bring up against the Jews; styled a "convocation" ^o, assembly or congregation, in allusion to the sanhedrim, or court of judicature, that took cognizance of such crimes, and judged and condemned for them:

and will give them to be removed and spoiled; or, "for a removing", and a "spoil" ^p; that is, he would give the Jews into the hands of the Chaldean army; their persons to be carried captive into other lands, and their substance to be spoiled and plundered.

Gill: Eze 23:47

And the company shall stone them with stones,.... Which was the punishment of adulterers and idolaters, Deu 13:10, this seems to refer to the Chaldean army casting out stones from their slings and engines into the city of Jerusalem, when they besieged it, by which they killed some, and beat down the houses, which fell upon others, and destroyed them. So the Targum,

"and the army shall stone them with the stones of a sling:''

and dispatch them with their swords; cut them in pieces with them, such as sallied out of the city upon them, or they found without, or by any means fell into their hands:

they shall slay their sons and their daughters; when they broke into the city, and took it; or when they found them making their escape, and hiding themselves in secret places:

and burn up their houses with fire; as they did; the temple, the king's palace, the houses of noblemen, and all the houses in Jerusalem; see Jer 52:13.

Gill: Eze 23:48

Thus will I cause to cease lewdness out of the land,.... There being no opportunity for it, nor any to commit it; what were not destroyed by famine, sword, and pestilence, during the siege, were carried captive; and, when they returned, were never more given to idolatry; see Eze 23:27,

that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness; that is, that all provinces, as the Targum, all kingdoms; states, churches, and people, hearing and reading the judgments of God on this people for their idolatry, may learn to shun it; it is even an instruction to us, at this distance, not to commit idolatry, as they did, 1Co 10:7. The church of Rome ought to observe this.

Gill: Eze 23:49

And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you,.... Or, "give your lewdness" ^q; the punishment of it; the just recompence of reward for their idolatry:

and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; the shame, and guilt, and punishment of their sins committed in worshipping idols:

and ye shall know that I am the Lord God; the only Lord God who is to be worshipped, and not idols; jealous of my honour and glory, and true to my word; who can and will accomplish all I have said; this the Jews knew and acknowledged when in captivity, and returned from it, as they will more fully when they shall be converted in the latter day.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Eze 23:20

¹ tn Heb “She lusted after their concubines (?) whose flesh was the flesh of donkeys.” The phrase “their concubines” is extremely problematic here. The pronoun is masculine plural, suggesting that the Egyptian men are in view, but how concubines would fit into the picture envisioned here is not clear. Some suggest that Ezekiel uses the term in an idiomatic sense of “paramour,” but this still fails to explain how the pronoun relates to the noun. It is more likely that the term refers here to the Egyptians’ genitals. The relative pronoun that follows introduces a more specific description of their genitals.

NET Notes: Eze 23:21

¹ tn Or “you took note of.” The Hebrew verb פָּקַד (paqad) in the Qal implies evaluating something and then acting in light of that judgment; here the prophet depicts Judah as approving of her youthful unfaithfulness and then magnifying it at the present time. Some translations assume the verb should be repointed as a Niphal, rendering “you missed” or by extension “you longed for,” but such an extension of the Niphal “to be missing” is otherwise unattested.

² tn Heb “when (they) did,” but the verb makes no sense here and is better emended to “when (they) fondled,” a verb used in vv. 3 and 8. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:43.

³ tn Heb “for the sake of,” but the expression is awkward and is better emended to read “to squeeze.” See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:43.

NET Notes: Eze 23:22

¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

NET Notes: Eze 23:23

¹ sn Pekod was the name of an Aramean tribe (known as Puqudu in Mesopotamian texts) that lived in the region of the Tigris River.

² sn Shoa was the name of a nomadic people (the Sutu) that lived in Mesopotamia.

³ sn Koa was the name of another Mesopotamian people group (the Qutu).

NET Notes: Eze 23:24

¹ tn Heb “come against.”

² tn This is the only occurrence of this term in the OT. The precise meaning is uncertain.

³ tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”

⁴ tn Heb “I will place before them judgment.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:25

¹ tn Heb “give.”

² tn Heb “they will remove.”

sn This method of punishment is attested among ancient Egyptian and Hittite civilizations. See W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia), 1:489.

³ tn Heb “fall.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:27

¹ tn Heb “I will cause your obscene conduct to cease from you and your harlotry from the land of Egypt.”

² tn Heb “lift your eyes to them.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:28

¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

² tn Heb “I am giving you into the hand of.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:29

¹ tn The Hebrew term means “labor,” but by extension it can also refer to that for which one works.

² tn Heb “The nakedness of your prostitution will be exposed, and your obscene conduct and your harlotry.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:30

¹ tn The infinitive absolute continues the sequence begun in v. 28: “Look here, I am about to deliver you.” See Joüon 2:430 §123.w.

NET Notes: Eze 23:31

¹ tn Heb “her cup.” A cup of intoxicating strong drink is used, here and elsewhere, as a metaphor for judgment because both leave one confused and reeling. (See Jer 25:15, 17, 28; Hab 2:16.) The cup of wrath is a theme also found in the NT (Mark 14:36).

NET Notes: Eze 23:32

¹ sn The image of a deep and wide cup suggests the degree of punishment; it will be extensive and leave the victim helpless.

NET Notes: Eze 23:33

¹ tn Heb “filled with.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:34

¹ tn Heb “You will drink it and drain (it).”

² tn D. I. Block compares this to the idiom of “licking the plate” (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:754, n. 137). The text is difficult as the word translated “gnaw” is rare. The noun is used of the shattered pieces of pottery and so could envision a broken cup. But the Piel verb form is used in only one other place (Num 24:8), where it is a denominative from the noun “bone” and seems to mean to “break (bones).” Why it would be collocated with “sherds” is not clear. For this reason some emend the phrase to read “consume its dregs” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:44) or emend the verb to read “swallow,” as if the intoxicated Oholibah breaks the cup and then eats the very sherds in an effort to get every last drop of the beverage that dampens them.

³ sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).

NET Notes: Eze 23:35

¹ tn Heb “and you cast me behind your back.” The expression pictures her rejection of the Lord (see 1 Kgs 14:9).

² tn The word “punishment” is not in the Hebrew text but is demanded by the context.

NET Notes: Eze 23:36

¹ tn Heb “will you judge.” Here the imperfect form of the verb is probably used with a desiderative nuance. Addressed to the prophet, “judge” means to warn of or pronounce God’s impending judgment. See 20:4; 22:2.

NET Notes: Eze 23:37

¹ sn The Lord speaks here in the role of the husband of the sisters.

² tn Heb “they have passed to them for food.” The verb is commonly taken to refer to passing children through fire, especially as an offering to the pagan god Molech. See Jer 32:35.

NET Notes: Eze 23:38

¹ tn Heb “in that day.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:40

¹ tn Heb “to whom a messenger was sent, and look, they came.” Foreign alliances are in view here.

² tn The Hebrew verb form is feminine singular, indicating that Oholibah (Judah) is specifically addressed here. This address continues through verse 42a (note “her”), but then both sisters are described in verse 42b, where the feminine pronouns are again plural.

NET Notes: Eze 23:42

¹ tn Heb “(was) in her.”

² tn Heb “and men from the multitude of mankind.”

³ tn An alternate reading is “drunkards.” Sheba is located in the area of modern day Yemen.

⁴ tn Heb “they”; the referents (the sisters) have been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

NET Notes: Eze 23:44

¹ tn Heb “and they came to her.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:45

¹ tn Heb “and upright men will judge them (with) the judgment of adulteresses and the judgment of those who shed blood.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:46

¹ tn Heb “assembly.”

² tn Heb “give them to.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:47

¹ tn The Hebrew text adds “with fire.”

NET Notes: Eze 23:49

¹ tn Heb “and the sins of your idols you will bear.” By extension it can mean the punishment for the sins.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:23

The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, ^{( h )} 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.

^{( h )} These were the names of certain princes and captains under Nebuchadnezzar.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:25

And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy ^{( i )} nose and thy ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy remnant shall be devoured by the fire.

^{( i )} They will destroy your princes and priests with the rest of your people.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:29

And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy ^{( k )} labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy harlotries ^{( l )} shall be uncovered, both thy lewdness and thy harlotries.

^{( k )} All your treasures and riches which you have gotten by labour.

^{( l )} All the world will see your shameful forsaking of God to serve idols.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:31

Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her ^{( m )} cup into thy hand.

^{( m )} I will execute the same judgments and vengeance against you and that with greater severity.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:33

Thou shalt be filled with ^{( n )} drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of horror and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.

^{( n )} Meaning that it's afflictions would be so great that they would cause them to lose their senses and reason.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:37

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 bore to me, to pass for them through [the fire], to ^{( o )} devour [them].

^{( o )} That is, to be sacrifices to their idols, read (Eze 16:20).

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:40

And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from ^{( p )} far, to whom a messenger [was] sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, didst paint thy eyes, and didst deck thyself with ornaments,

^{( p )} They sent into other countries to have such as would teach the service of their idols.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:41

And satest ^{( q )} upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, upon which thou hast set my incense and my oil.

^{( q )} He means the altar that was prepared for the idols.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:42

And a voice of a multitude being at ease [was] with her: and with the men of the common sort [were] brought ^{( r )} Sabeans from the wilderness, who put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.

^{( r )} Who would teach the manner of worshipping their gods.

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:45

And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of ^{( s )} adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they [are] adulteresses, and blood [is] in their hands.

^{( s )} That is worthy of death, (Eze 16:38).

Geneva Bible: Eze 23:48

Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all ^{( t )} women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.

^{( t )} Meaning, all other cities and countries.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Eze 23:1-49

1 The whoredoms of Aholah and Aholibah.

23 Aholibah is to be plagued by her lovers.

36 The prophet reproves the adulteries of them both;

45 and shews their judgments.

MHCC: Eze 23:1-49

In this parable, Samaria and Israel bear the name Aholah, " her own tabernacle;" because the places of worship those kingdoms had, were of their own devising. Jerusalem and Judah bear the name of Aholibah, " my tabernacle is in her," because their temple was the place which God himself had chosen, to put his name there. The language and figures are according to those times. Will not such humbling representations of nature keep open perpetual repentance and sorrow in the soul, hiding pride from our eyes, and taking us from self-righteousness? Will it not also prompt the soul to look to God continually for grace, that by his Holy Spirit we may mortify the deeds of the body, and live in holy conversation and godliness?

Matthew Henry: Eze 23:11-21

The prophet Hosea, in his time, observed that the two tribes retained their integrity, in a great measure, when the ten tribes had apostatized (Hos 11:12, Ephraim indeed compasses me about with lies, but Judah yet rules with God and is faithful with the saints; and this was justly expected from them: Hos 4:15, Though thou Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend ); but this lasted not long. By some unhappy matches made between the house of David and the house of Ahab the worship of Baal had been brought into the kingdom of Judah, but had been by the reforming kings worked out again; and at the time of the captivity of the ten tribes, which was in the reign of Hezekiah, things were in a good posture: but it lasted not long. In the reign of Manasseh, soon after the kingdom of Judah had seen the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, they became more corrupt than Israel had been in their inordinate love of idols, Eze 23:11. Instead of being made better by the warning which that destruction gave them, they were made worse by it, as if they were displeased because the Lord had made that breach upon Israel, and for that reason became disaffected to him and to his service. Instead of being made to stand in awe of him as a jealous God, they therefore grew strange to him, and liked those gods better that would admit of partners with them. Note, Those may justly expect God's judgments upon themselves who do not take warning by his judgments upon others, who see in others what is the end of sin and yet continue to make a light matter of it. But it is bad indeed with those who are made worse by that which should make them better, and have their lusts irritated and exasperated by that which was designed to suppress and subdue them. Jerusalem grew worse in her whoredoms than her sister Samaria had been in her whoredoms. This was observed before (Eze 16:51), Neither has Samaria committed half of thy sins.

I. Jerusalem, that had been a faithful city, became a harlot, Isa 1:21. She also doted upon the Assyrians (Eze 23:12), joined in league with them, joined in worship with them, grew to be in love with their captains and rulers, and cried them up as finer and more accomplished gentlemen than any that ever the land of Israel produced. "See how richly, how neatly, they are dressed, clothed most gorgeously; how well they sit a horse; they are horsemen riding on horses; how charmingly they look, all of them desirable young men. "And thus they grew to affect every thing that was foreign and to despise their own nation; and even the religion of it was mean and homely, and not to be compared with the curiosity and gaiety of the heathen temples. Thus she increased her whoredoms; she fell in love, fell in league, with the Chaldeans. Hezekiah himself was faulty this way when he was proud of the court which the king of Babylon made to him and complimented his ambassadors with the sight of all his treasures, Isa 39:2. And the humour increased (Eze 23:14); she doted upon the pictures of the Babylonian captains (Eze 23:15, Eze 23:16), joined in alliance with that kingdom, invited them to come and settle in Jerusalem, that they might refine the genius of the Jewish nation and make it more polite; nay, they sent for patterns of their images, altars, and temples, and made use of them in their worship. Thus was she polluted with her whoredoms (Eze 23:17), and thereby she discovered her own whoredom (Eze 23:18), her own strong inclination to idolatry. And when she had had enough of the Chaldeans, and grew tired of them and disposed to break her league with them, as Jehoiakim and Zedekiah did, her mind being alienated from them, she courted the Egyptians, doted upon their paramours (Eze 23:20), would come into an alliance with them, and, to strengthen the alliance, would join with them in their idolatries and then depend upon them to be their protectors from all other nations; for so wise, so rich, so strong, was the Egyptian nation, and came to such perfection in idolatry, that there was no nation now which they could take such satisfaction in as in Egypt. Thus they called to remembrance the days of their youth (Eze 23:19), the lewdness of their youth, Eze 23:21. 1. They pleased themselves with the remembrance of it. When they began to set their affections upon Egypt, they encouraged themselves to put a confidence in that kingdom, because of the old acquaintance they had with it, as if they still retained the gust and relish of the leeks and onions they ate there, or rather of the idolatrous worship they learned there, and brought up with them thence. When they began an acquaintance with Egypt they remembered how merrily their fathers worshipped the golden calf, what music and dancing they had at that sport, which they learned in Egypt; and they hoped they should now have a fair pretence to come to that again. Thus she multiplied her whoredoms, repeated her former whoredoms, and encouraged herself to close with present temptations, by calling to remembrance the days of her youth. Note, Those who, instead of reflecting upon their former sins with sorrow and shame, reflect upon them with pleasure and pride, contract new guilt thereby, strengthen their own corruptions, and in effect bid defiance to repentance. This is returning with the dog to his vomit. 2. They called it God's remembrance, and provoked him to remember it against them. God had said indeed that he would reckon with them for the golden calf, that idol of Egypt (Exo 32:34); but such was his patience that he seemed to have forgotten it till they, by their league now with the Egyptians against the Chaldeans, did, as it were, put him in mind of it; and in the day when he visits he will now, as he has said, visit for that. It is very observable how this adulteress changes her lovers: she dotes first on the Assyrians; then she thought the Chaldeans finer and courted them; after a while her mind was alienated from them, and she thought the Egyptians more powerful (Eze 23:20) and she must contract an intimacy with them. This shows the folly, (1.) Of fleshly lusts; when they are indulged they grow humoursome and fickle, are soon surfeited but never satisfied; they must have variety, and what is loved one day is loathed the next. Unius adulterium matrimonium vocant - One adultery is called marriage, as Seneca observes. (2.) Of idolatry. Those who think one God too little will not think a hundred sufficient, but will still be for trying more, as finding all insufficient. (3.) Of seeking to creatures for help; we go from one to another, but are disappointed in them all, and can never rest till we have made the God of Israel our help.

II. The faithful God justly gives a bill of divorce to this now faithless city, that has become a harlot. His jealousy soon discovered her lewdness (Eze 23:13): I saw that she was defiled, that she was debauched, and saw which way her inclination was, that the two sisters both took one way, and that Jerusalem grew worse than Samaria. For, if we stretch out our hand to a strange god, will not God search this out? No doubt he will; and when he has found it can he be pleased with it? No (Eze 23:18): Then my mind was alienated from her, as it was from her sister. How could the pure and holy God any longer take delight in such a lewd generation? Note, Sin alienates God's mind from the sinner, and justly, for it is the alienation of the sinner's mind from God; but woe, and a thousand woes, to those from whom God's mind is alienated; for whom he turns from he will turn against.

Matthew Henry: Eze 23:22-35

Jerusalem stands indicted by the name of Aholibah, for that she, as a false traitor to her sovereign Lord the God of heaven, not having his fear before her eyes, but moved by the instigation of the devil, had revolted from her allegiance to him, had compassed and imagined to shake off his government, had kept up a correspondence had joined in confederacy with his enemies, and the pretenders to a deity, in contempt of his crown and dignity. To this indictment she has pleaded, Not guilty: I am not polluted; I have not gone after Baalim. But it is found against her by the notorious evidence of the fact, and she stands convicted of it, nor has any thing material to offer why judgment should not be given and execution awarded according to law. In these verses, therefore, we have the sentence.

I. Her old confederates must be her executioners; and those whom she had courted to be her leaders in sin are now to be employed as instruments of her punishment (Eze 23:22): " I will raise up thy lovers against thee, the Chaldeans, whom formerly thou didst so much admire and covet an acquaintance with, but from whom thy mind is since alienated and with whom thou hast perfidiously broken covenant."They are called thy lovers (Eze 23:22) and yet (Eze 23:28) those whom thou hatest. Note, It is common for sinful love soon to turn into hatred; as Amnon's to Tamar. Those of headstrong and unreasonable passions are often very hot against those persons and things that a little before they were as hot for. Fools run into extremes; nay, and wise men may see cause to change their sentiments. And therefore, as we should rejoice and weep as if we rejoiced not and wept not, so we should love and hate as if we loved not and hated not. Ita ama tanquam osurus - Love as one who may have cause to feel aversion.

II. The execution to be done upon her is very terrible.

1. Her enemies shall come against her on every side (Eze 23:22), those of the several nations that constituted the Chaldean army (Eze 23:23), all of them great lords and renowned, whose pomp, and grandeur, and splendid appearance made them look the more amiable when they came as friends to protect and patronise Jerusalem, but the more formidable when they came to chastise its treachery and aimed at no less than its ruin. (1.) They shall come with a great deal of military force (Eze 23:24), with chariots and wagons furnished with all necessary provisions for a camp, with arms and ammunition, bag and baggage, with a vast army, and well armed. (2.) They shall have justice on their side: " I will set judgment before them "(they shall have right with them as well as might; for the king of Babylon had just cause to make war upon the king of Judah, because he had broken his league with him), "and therefore they shall judge thee, not only according to God's judgments, as the instruments of his justice, to punish thee for the indignities done to him, but according to their judgments, according to the law of nations, to punish thee for thy perfidious dealings with them."(3.) They shall prosecute the war with a great deal of fury and resentment. It being a war of revenge, they shall deal with thee hatefully, Eze 23:29. This will make the execution the more severe that their swords will be dipped in poison. Thou hatest them, and they shall deal hatefully with thee; those that hate will be hated and will be hatefully dealt with. (4.) God himself will lead them on, and his anger shall be mingled with theirs (Eze 23:25): I will set my jealousy against thee; that shall kindle this fire, and then they shall deal furiously with thee. If men deal ever so hatefully, ever so furiously, with us, yet, if we have God on our side, we need not fear them; they can do us no real hurt. But if men deal furiously with us, and God set his jealousy against us too, what will become of us?

2. The particulars of the sentence here passed upon this notorious adulteress are, (1.) That all she has shall be seized on. The clothes and the fair jewels, with which she had endeavoured to recommend herself to her lovers, these she shall be stripped of, Eze 23:26. All those things that were the ornaments of their state shall be taken away: " They shall take away all thy labour, all that thou hast gotten by thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare, "Eze 23:29. Both city and country shall be impoverished and all the wealth of both swept away. (2.) That her children shall go into captivity. "They shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and make slaves of them (Eze 23:25); for they are children of whoredoms, unworthy the dignities and privileges of Israelites,"Hos 2:4. (3.) That she shall be stigmatized and deformed: "They shall take away thy nose and thy ears, shall mark thee for a harlot, and render thee for ever odious,"Eze 23:25. This intimates the many cruelties of the Chaldean soldiers towards the Jews that fell into their hands, whom, it is probable, they used barbarously. Some will have this to be understood figuratively; and by the nose they think is meant the kingly dignity, and by the ears that of the priesthood. (4.) That she shall be exposed to shame: Thy lewdness and thy whoredoms shall be discovered (Eze 23:29), as, when a malefactor is punished, all his crimes are ripped up, and repeated to his disgrace; what was secret then comes to light, and what was done long since is then called to mind. (5.) That she shall be quite cut off and ruined: "The remnant of thy people that have escaped the famine and pestilence shall fall by the sword; and the residue of thy houses that have not been battered down about thy ears shall be devoured by the fire, "Eze 23:25. And this shall be the end of Jerusalem.

III. Because she has trod in the steps of Samaria's sins, she must expect no other than Samaria's fate. It is common, in giving judgment, to have an eye to precedents; so has God in passing this sentence on Jerusalem (Eze 23:31, etc.): " Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister, notwithstanding the warning thou hast had given thee, by the fatal consequences of her wickedness; and therefore I will give her cup, her portion of miseries, into thy hand, the cup of the Lord's fury, which will be to thee a cup of trembling. "Now, 1. This cup is said to be deep and large, and to contain much (Eze 23:32), abundance of God's wrath and abundance of miseries, the fruits of that wrath. It is such a cup as that which we read of, Jer 25:15, Jer 25:16. The cup of divine vengeance holds a great deal, and so those will find into whose hand it shall be put. 2. They shall be made to drink the very dregs of this cup, as the wicked are said to do (Psa 75:8): " Thou shalt drink it and suck it out, not because it is pleasant, but because it is forced upon thee (Eze 23:34); thou shalt break the shreds thereof, and pluck off thy own breasts, for indignation at the extreme bitterness of this cup, being full of the fury of the Lord (Isa 51:20), as men in great anguish tear their hair, and throw every thing from them. Finding there is no remedy, but it must be drank (for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God ), thou shalt have no manner of patience in the drinking of it."3. They shall be intoxicated by it, made sick, and be at their wits' end, as men in drink are, staggering, and stumbling, and ready to fall (Eze 23:33): Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. Note, Drunkenness has sorrow attending it, to such a degree that the utmost confusion and astonishment are here represented by it. Who would think that that which is such a force upon nature, such a scandal to it, which deprives men of their reason, disorders them to the last degree, and is therefore expressive of the greatest misery, should yet be with many a beloved sin, that they should damn their own souls to distemper their own bodies? Who has woe and sorrow like them? Pro 23:29. 4. Being so intoxicated, they shall become, as drunkards deserve to be, a laughing-stock to all about them (Eze 23:32): Thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision, as acting ridiculously in every thing thou goest about. When God is about to ruin a people he makes their judges fools and pours contempt on their princes, Job 12:17, Job 12:21.

IV. In all this God will be justified, and by all this they will be reformed; and so the issue even of this will be God's glory and their good. 1. They have been bad, very bad, and that justifies God in all that is brought upon them (Eze 23:30): I will do these things unto thee because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and (Eze 23:35) because thou hast forgotten me and cast me behind thy back. Note, Forgetfulness of God, and a contempt of him, of his eye upon us and authority over us, are at the bottom of all our treacherous adulterous departures from him. Therefore men wander after idols, because they forget God, and their obligations to him; nor could they look with so much desire and delight upon the baits of sin if they did not first cast God behind their back, as not worthy to be regarded. And those who put such an affront upon God, how can they think but that it should turn upon themselves at last? Therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms; that is, thou shalt suffer the punishment of them, and thou alone must bear the blame. Men need no more to sink them than the weight of their own sins; and those who will not part with their lewdness and their whoredoms must bear them. 2. They shall be better, much better, and this fire, though consuming to many, shall be refining to a remnant (Eze 23:27): Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee. The judgments which were brought upon them by their sins parted between them and their sins, and taught them at length to say, What have we to do any more with idols? Observe, (1.) How inveterate the disease was: Thy whoredoms were brought from the land of Egypt. Their disposition to idolatry was early and innate, their practice of it was ancient, and had gained a sort of prescription by long usage. (2.) How complete the cure was notwithstanding: "Though it has taken root, yet it shall be made to cease, so that thou shalt not so much as lift up thy eyes to the idols again, nor remember Egypt with pleasure any more. "They shall avoid the occasions of this sin, for they shall not so much as look upon an idol, lest their hearts should unawares walk after their eyes. And they shall abandon all inclinations to it: "They shall not remember Egypt; they shall not retain any of that affection for idols which they had from the very infancy of their nation."They got it, through the corruption of nature, in their bondage in Egypt, and lost it, through the grace of God, in their captivity in Babylon, which this was the blessed fruit of, even the taking away of sin, of that sin; so that whereas, before the captivity, no nation (all things considered) was more impetuously bent upon idols and idolatry than they were, after that captivity no nation was more vehemently set against idols and idolatry than they were, insomuch that at this day the image-worship which is practised in the church of Rome confirms the Jews as much as any thing in their prejudices against the Christian religion.

Matthew Henry: Eze 23:36-49

After the ten tribes were carried into captivity, and that kingdom was made quite desolate, the remains of it by degrees incorporated with the kingdom of Judah, and gained a settlement (many of them) in Jerusalem; so that the two sisters had in effect become one again; and therefore, in these verses, the prophet takes those to task jointly who were thus conjoined: " Wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah together? Eze 23:36. Wilt thou go about to frame an excuse for them? Thou seest the matter is so bad as not to bear an excuse."Or, rather, "Thou shalt now be employed, in God's name, to judge them, Eze 20:4. The matter is rather worse than better since the union."

I. Let them be made to see the sins they are guilty of: Declare unto them openly and boldly their abominations. 1. They have been guilty of gross idolatry, here called adultery. With their idols they have committed adultery (Eze 23:37), have broken their marriage-covenant with God, have lusted after the gratifications of a carnal sensual mind in the worship of God. This is the first and worst of the abominations he is to charge them with. 2. They have committed the most barbarous murders, in sacrificing their children to Moloch, a sin so unnatural that they deserve to hear of it upon all occasions: Blood is in their hands, innocent blood, the blood of their own children, which they have caused to pass through the fire (Eze 23:37), not that they might be dedicated to the idols, but that they might be devoured, a sign that they loved their idols better than that which was dearest to them in the world. 3. They have profaned the sacred things with which God had dignified and distinguished them: This they have done unto me, this indignity, this injury, Eze 23:38. Every contempt put upon that which is holy reflects upon him who is the fountain of holiness, and from a relation to whom whatever is called holy has its denomination. God had set up his sanctuary among them, but they defiled it, by making it a house of merchandise, a den of thieves; nay, and much worse; there they set up their idols and worshipped them, and there they shed the blood of God's prophets. God had revealed to them his holy sabbaths, but they profaned them, by doing all manner of servile work therein, or perhaps by sports and recreations on that day, not only practised, but allowed and encouraged by authority. They defiled the sanctuary on the same day that they profaned the sabbath. To defile the sanctuary was bad enough on any day, but to do it on the sabbath day was an aggravation. We commonly say, The better day the better deed; but here, the better day the worse deed. God takes notice of the circumstances of sin which add to the guilt. He shows (Eze 23:39) what was their profanation both of the sanctuary and of the sabbath. They slew their children, and sacrificed them to their idols, to the great dishonour both of God and of human nature; and then came, on the same day, their hands imbrued with the blood of their children and their clothes stained with it, to attend in God's sanctuary, not to ask pardon for what they had done, but to present themselves before him, as other Israelites did, expecting acceptance with him, notwithstanding these villanies which they were guilty of; as if God either did not know their wickedness or did not hate it. Thus they profaned the sanctuary, as if that were a protection to the worst of malefactors; for thus they did in the midst of his house. Note, It is a profanation of God's solemn ordinances when those that are grossly and openly profane and vicious impudently and impenitently so intrude upon the services and privileges of them. Give not that which is holy unto dogs. Friend, how camest thou in hither? 4. They have courted foreign alliances, been proud of them, and reposed a confidence in them. This also is represented by the sin of adultery, for it was a departure from God, not only to whom alone they ought to pay their homage and not to idols, but in whom alone they ought to put their trust, and not in creatures. Israel was a peculiar people, must dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations; and they profane their crown, and lay their honour in the dust, when they covet to be like them or in league with them. But this they have now done; they have entered into strict alliances with the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, the most renowned and potent kingdoms at that time; but they scorned alliances with the petty kingdoms and states that lay near them, which yet might have been of more real service to them. Note, Affecting an acquaintance and correspondence with great people has often been a snare to good people. Let us see how Jerusalem courts her high allies, thinking thereby to make herself considerable. (1.) She privately requested that a public embassy might be sent to her (Eze 23:40): You sent a messenger for men to come from far. It seems, then, that the neighbours had no desire to come into a confederacy with Jerusalem, but she thrust herself upon them, and sent under-hand to desire them to court her: and, lo, they came. The wisest and best may be drawn unavoidably into company and conversation with profane and wicked people: but it is no sign either of wisdom or goodness to covet an intimacy with such and to court it. (2.) Great preparation was made for the reception of these foreign ministers, for their public entry and public audience, which is compared to the pains that an adulteress takes to make herself look handsome. Jezebel-like, thou paintedst thy face and deckedst thyself with ornaments, Eze 23:40. The king and princes made themselves new clothes, fitted up the rooms of state, beautified the furniture, and made it look fresh. Thou sattest upon a stately bed (Eze 23:41), a stately throne; a table was prepared, whereon thou has set my oil and my incense. This was either, [1.] A feast for the ambassadors, a noble treat, agreeable to the other preparations. There was incense to perfume the room and oil to anoint their heads. Or, [2.] An altar already furnished for the ambassadors' use in the worship of their idols, to let them know that the Israelites were not so strait-laced but that they could allow foreigners the free exercise of their religion among them, and furnish them with chapels, yea, and complimented them so far as to join with them in their devotions; though the law of their God was against it, yet they could easily dispense with themselves to oblige a friend. The oil and incense God calls his, not only because they were the gift of his providence, but because they should have been offered at his altar, which was an aggravation of their sin in serving idols and idolaters with them. See Hos 2:8. (3.) There was great joy at their coming, as if it were such a blessing as never happened to Jerusalem before (Eze 23:42): A voice of a multitude being at east was with her. The people were very easy, for they thought themselves very safe and happy now that they had such powerful allies; and therefore attended the ambassadors with loud huzzas and acclamations of joy. A great confluence of people there was to the court upon this occasion. The men of the common sort were there to grace the solemnity, and to increase the crowd; and with them were brought Sabeans from the wilderness. The margin reads it drunkards from the wilderness, that would drink healths to the prosperity of this grand alliance, and force them upon others, and be most noisy in shouting upon this occasion. Whoever they were, in honour of the ambassadors they put bracelets upon their hands and beautiful crowns upon their heads, which made the cavalcade appear very splendid. (4.) God by his prophets warned them against making these dangerous leagues with foreigners (Eze 23:43): " Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, that from the first was fond of leagues with the heathen, of matching with their families (Jdg 3:6), and afterwards of making alliances with their kingdoms, and, though often disappointed therein, would never be dissuaded from it (this was the adultery she was old in), I said, Will they now commit whoredoms with her and she with them? Surely experience and observation will by this time have convinced both them and her that an alliance between the nation of the Jews and a heathen nation can never be for the advantage of either."They are iron and clay, that will not mix, nor will God bless such an alliance, or smile upon it. But, it seems, her being old in these adulteries, instead of weaning her from them, as one would expect, does but make her the more impudent and insatiable in them; for, though she was thus admonished of the folly of it, yet they went in unto her, Eze 23:44. A bargain was soon clapped up, and a league made, first with this, and then with the other, foreign state. Samaria did so, Jerusalem did so, like lewd women. They could not rest satisfied in the embraces of God's laws and care, and the assurances of protection he gave them; they could not think his covenant with them security enough. But they must by treaties and leagues, politic ones (they thought) and well-concerted, throw themselves into the arms of foreign princes, and put their interests under their protection. Note, Those hearts go a whoring from God that take a complacency in the pomp of the world and put a confidence in its wealth, and in an arm of flesh, Jer 17:5.

II. Let them be made to foresee the judgments that are coming upon them for these sins (Eze 23:45): The righteous men, they shall judge them. Some make the instruments of their destruction to be the righteous men that shall judge them. The Assyrians that destroyed Samaria, the Chaldeans that destroyed Jerusalem, those were comparatively righteous, had a sense of justice between man and man and justly resented the treachery of the Jewish nation; however, they executed God's judgments, which, we are sure, are all righteous. Others understand it of the prophets, whose office it was, in God's name, to judge them and pass sentence upon them. Or we may take it as an appeal to all righteous men, to all that have a sense of equity; they shall all judge concerning these cities, and agree in their verdict, that forasmuch as they have been notoriously guilty of adultery and murder, and the guilt is national, therefore they ought to suffer the pains and penalties which by law are inflicted upon women in their personal capacity that shed blood and are adulteresses. Righteous men will say, "Why should bloody filthy cities escape any better than bloody filthy persons? Judge, I pray thee, "Isa 5:3. This judgment being given by the righteous men, the righteous God will award execution. See here, 1. What the execution will be, Eze 23:46, Eze 23:47. The same as before, Eze 23:23, etc. God will bring a company of enemies upon them, who shall be made to serve his holy purposes even when they are serving their own sinful appetites and passions. These enemies shall easily prevail, for God will give them into their hands to be removed and spoiled; this company shall stone them with stones as malefactors, shall single them out and dispatch them with their swords; and, as was sometimes done in severe executions (witness that of Achan), they shall slay their children and burn their houses. 2. What will be the effects of it. (1.) Thus they shall suffer for their sins: Their lewdness shall be recompensed upon them (Eze 23:49); and they shall bear the sins of their idols, Eze 23:35, Eze 23:49. Thus God will assert the honour of his broken law and injured government, and let the world know what a just and jealous God he is. (2.) Thus they shall be broken off from their sins: I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, Eze 23:27, Eze 23:48. The destruction of God's city, like the death of God's saints, shall do that for them which ordinances and providences before could not do; it shall quite take away their sin, so that Jerusalem shall rise out of its ashes a new lump, as gold comes out of the furnace purified from its dross. (3.) Thus other cities and nations will have fair warning given them to keep themselves from idols. That all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness. This is the end of the punishment of malefactors, that they may be made examples to others, who will see and fear. Smite the scorner and the simple will beware. The judgments of God upon some are designed to teach others, and happy are those who receive instruction from them not to tread in the steps of sinners, lest they be taken in their snares; those who would be taught this must know God is the Lord (Eze 23:49), that he is the governor of the world, a God that judges in the earth, and with whom there is no respect of persons.

Keil-Delitzsch: Eze 23:11-21

Whoredom of Judah

Eze 23:11. And her sister Oholibah saw it, and carried on her coquetry still more wantonly than she had done, and her whoredom more than the whoredom of her sister. Eze 23:12. She was inflamed with lust towards the sons of Asshur, governors and officers, standing near, clothed in perfect beauty, horsemen riding upon horses, choice men of good deportment. Eze 23:13. And I saw that she had defiled herself; they both went one way. Eze 23:14. And she carried her whoredom still further; she saw men engraved upon the wall, figures of Chaldeans engraved with red ochre, Eze 23:15. Girded about the hips with girdles, with overhanging caps upon their heads, all of them knights in appearance, resembling the sons of Babel, the land of whose birth is Chaldea: Eze 23:16. And she was inflamed with lust toward them, when her eyes saw them, and sent messengers to them to Chaldea. Eze 23:17. Then the sons of Babylon came to her to the bed of love, and defiled her with their whoredom; and when she had defiled herself with them, her soul tore itself away from them. Eze 23:18. And when she uncovered her whoredom, and uncovered her nakedness, my soul tore itself away from her, as my soul had torn itself away from her sister. Eze 23:19. And she increased her whoredom, so that she remembered the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. Eze 23:20. And she burned toward their paramours, who have members like asses and heat like horses. Eze 23:21. Thou lookest after the lewdness of thy youth, when they of Egypt handled thy bosom because of thy virgin breasts. - The train of thought in these verses is the following: - Judah went much further than Samaria. It not only indulged in sinful intercourse with Assyria, which led on to idolatry as the latter had done, but it also allowed itself to be led astray by the splendour of Chaldea, to form alliances with that imperial power, and to defile itself with her idolatry. And when it became tired of the Chaldeans, it formed impure connections with the Egyptians, as it had done once before during its sojourn in Egypt. The description of the Assyrians in Eze 23:12 coincides with that in Eze 23:5 and Eze 23:6, except that some of the predicates are placed in a different order, and לבשׁי is substituted for לבשׁי תכלת . The former expression, which occurs again in Eze 38:4, must really mean the same as תכלת ' לב . But it does not follow from this that מכלול signifies purple, as Hitzig maintains. The true meaning is perfection; and when used of the clothing, it signifies perfect beauty. The Septuagint rendering, εὺπάρυφα , with a beautiful border - more especially a variegated one - merely expresses the sense, but not the actual meaning of מכלול . The Chaldee rendering is לבשׁי גמר , perfecte induti . - There is great obscurity in the statement in Eze 23:14 as to the way in which Judah was seduced to cultivate intercourse with the Chaldeans. She saw men engraved or drawn upon the wall ( מחקּה , a participle Pual of חקק , engraved work, or sculpture). These figures were pictures of Chaldeans, engraved (drawn) with שׁשׁר , red ochre, a bright-red colour. חגורי , an adjective form חגור , wearing a girdle. טבוּלים , coloured cloth, from טבל , to colour; here, according to the context, variegated head-bands or turbans. סרוּח , the overhanging, used here of the cap. The reference is to the tiarae tinctae (Vulgate), the lofty turbans or caps, as they are to be seen upon the monuments of ancient Nineveh. שׁלישׁים , not chariot-warriors, but knights: " tristatae , the name of the second grade after the regal dignity"(Jerome. See the comm. on Exo 14:7 and 2Sa 23:8).

The description of these engravings answers perfectly to the sculptures upon the inner walls of the Assyrian palaces in the monuments of Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik (see Layard's Nineveh and its Remains , and Vaux, Nineveh and Persepolis ). The pictures of the Chaldeans are not mythological figures (Hävernick), but sculptures depicting war-scenes, triumphal processions of Chaldean rulers and warriors, with which the Assyrian palaces were adorned. We have not to look for these sculptures in Jerusalem or Palestine. This cannot be inferred from Eze 8:10, as Hävernick supposes; nor established by Hitzig's argument, that the woman must have been in circumstances to see such pictures. The intercourse between Palestine and Nineveh, which was carried on even in Jonah's time, was quite sufficient to render it possible for the pictures to be seen. When Israelites travelled to Nineveh, and saw the palaces there, they could easily make the people acquainted with the glory of Nineveh by the accounts they would give on their return. It is no reply to this, to state that the woman does not send ambassadors till afterwards (Eze 23:16), as Hitzig argues; for Judah sent ambassadors to Chaldea not to view the glories of Assyria, but to form alliances with the Chaldeans, or to sue for their favour. Such an embassy, for example, was sent to Babylon by Zedekiah (Jer 29:3); and there is no doubt that in v. 16 b Ezekiel has this in his mind. Others may have preceded this, concerning which the books of Kings and Chronicles are just as silent as they are concerning that of Zedekiah. The thought in these verses is therefore the following: - The acquaintance made by Israel (Judah) with the imperial splendour of the Chaldeans, as exhibited in the sculptures of their palaces, incited Judah to cultivate political and mercantile intercourse with this imperial power, which led to its becoming entangled in the heathen ways and idolatry of the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans themselves came and laid the foundation for an intercourse which led to the pollution of Judah with heathenism, and afterwards filled it with disgust, because it was brought thereby into dependence upon the Chaldeans. The consequence of all this was, that the Lord became tired of Judah (Eze 23:17, Eze 23:18). For instead of returning to the Lord, Judah turned to the other power of the world, namely, to Egypt; and in the time of Zedekiah renewed its ancient coquetry with that nation (Eze 23:19-21 compared with Eze 23:8). The form ותּעגּבה in Eze 23:20, which the Keri also gives in Eze 23:18, has taken ah as a feminine termination (not the cohortative ah ), like תּרגּה in Pro 1:20; Pro 8:1 (vid., Delitzsch, Comm. on Job , en loc.). פּלּגשׁים are scorta mascula (here (Kimchi) - a drastically sarcastic epithet applied to the sârisim , the eunuchs, or courtiers. The figurative epithet answers to the licentious character of the Egyptian idolatry. The sexual heat both of horses and asses is referred to by Aristotle, Hist. anim . vi. 22, and Columella, de re rust . vi. 27; and that of the horse has already been applied to the idolatry of the people by Jeremiah (vid., Jer 5:8). בּשׂר , as in Eze 16:26. פּקד (Eze 23:21), to look about for anything, i.e., to search for it; not to miss it, as Hävernick imagines.

Keil-Delitzsch: Eze 23:22-35

Punishment of the Harlot Jerusalem

Eze 23:22. Therefore, Oholibah, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy soul has torn itself away, and cause them to come upon thee from every side; Eze 23:23. The sons of Babel, and all the Chaldeans, rulers, lords, and nobles, all the sons of Assyria with them: chosen men of graceful deportment, governors and officers together, knights and counsellors, all riding upon horses. Eze 23:24. And they will come upon thee with weapons, chariots, and wheels, and with a host of peoples; target and shield and helmet will they direct against thee round about: and I commit to them the judgment, that they may judge thee according to their rights. Eze 23:25. And I direct my jealousy against thee, so that they shall deal with thee in wrath: nose and ears will they cut off from thee; and thy last one shall fall by the sword: they will take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy last one will be consumed by fire. Eze 23:26. They will strip off thy clothes from thee, and take thy splendid jewellery. Eze 23:27. I will abolish thy lewdness from thee, and thy whoredom from the land of Egypt: that thou mayest no more lift thine eyes to them, and no longer remember Egypt. Eze 23:28. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I give thee into the hand of those whom thou hatest, into the hand of those from whom thy soul has torn itself away: Eze 23:29. And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and take all thy gain, and leave thee naked and bare; that thy whorish shame may be uncovered, and thy lewdness and thy whoredom. Eze 23:30. This shall happen to thee, because thou goest whoring after the nations, and on account of thy defiling thyself with their idols. Eze 23:31. In the way of thy sister hast thou walked; therefore I give her cup into thy hand. Eze 23:32. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The cup of thy sister thou shalt drink, the deep and broad one; it will be for laughter and for derision, because it contains so much. Eze 23:33. Thou wilt become full of drunkenness and misery: a cup of desolation and devastation is the cup of thy sister Samaria. Eze 23:34. Thou wilt drink it up and drain it, and gnaw its fragments, and tear thy breasts (therewith); for I have spoken it, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 23:35. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou hast forgotten me, and hast cast me behind thy back, thou shalt also bear thy lewdness and thy whoredom. - As Jerusalem has given herself up to whoredom, like her sister Samaria, she shall also share her sister's fate. The paramours, of whom she has become tired, God will bring against her as enemies. The Chaldeans will come with all their might, and execute the judgment of destruction upon her. - For the purpose of depicting their great and powerful forces, Ezekiel enumerates in Eze 23:23 and Eze 23:24 the peoples and their military equipment: viz., the sons of Babel, i.e., the inhabitants of Babylonia, the Chaldeans - the ruling people of the empire at that time - and all the sons of Asshur, i.e., the inhabitants of the eastern portions of the empire, the former rulers of the world. There is some obscurity in the words פּקוד ושׁוע , which the older theologians have almost unanimously taken to be the names of different tribes in the Chaldean empire. Ewald also adopts this view, but it is certainly incorrect; for the words are in apposition to וכל־כּשׂדּים , as the omission of the copula ו before פּקוד is sufficient to show. This is confirmed by the fact that שׁוע is used, in Isa 32:5 and Job 34:19, in the sense of the man of high rank, distinguished for his prosperity, which is quite in harmony with the passage before us. Consequently פּקוד is not to be taken in the sense of visitation or punishment, after Jer 50:21; but the meaning is to be sought in the verb פּקד , to exercise supervision, or lead; and the abstract oversight is used for overseer, or ruler, as an equivalent to פּקיד . Lastly, according to Rabbins, the Vulgate, and others, קוע signifies princes, or nobles. The predicates in Eze 23:23 are repeated from Eze 23:6 and Eze 23:12, and קרוּאים alone is added. This is a word taken from the Pentateuch, where the heads of the tribes and families, as being members of the council of the whole congregation of Israel, are called קרוּאי or קרוּאי מועד , persons called or summoned to the meeting (Num 1:16; Num 16:2). As Michaelis has aptly observed, "he describes them sarcastically in the very same way in which he had previously described those upon whom she doted."

There is a difficulty in explaining the ἁπ. λεγ. . הצן - for which many MSS read חצן - as regards not only its meaning, but its position in the sentence. The fact that it is associated with רכב וגלגּל would seem to indicate that הצן is also either an implement of war or some kind of weapon. At the same time, the words cannot be the subject to וּבאוּ ; but as the expression וּבקהל עמּים , which follows, clearly shows, they simply contain a subordinate definition of the manner in which, or the things with which, the peoples mentioned in Eze 23:23, Eze 23:24 will come, while they are governed by the verb in the freest way. The attempts which Ewald and Hitzig have made to remove the difficulty, by means of conjectures, are forced and extremely improbable. נתתּי לפּניהם , I give up to them (not, I place before them); נתן , as in 1Ki 8:46, to deliver up, or give a thing into a person's hand or power. לפני is used in this sense in Gen 13:9 and Gen 24:51. - In Eze 23:25, Eze 23:26, the execution of the judgment is depicted in detail. The words, "they take away thy nose and ears,"are not to be interpreted, as the earlier expositors suppose, from the custom prevalent among the Egyptians and other nations of cutting off the nose of an adulteress; but depict, by one particular example, the mutilation of prisoners captured by their enemies. אחרית : not posterity, which by no means suits the last clause of the verse, and cannot be defended from the usage of the language (see the comm. on Amo 4:2); but the last, according to the figure employed in the first clause, the trunk; or, following the second clause, the last thing remaining in Jerusalem, after the taking away of the sons and daughters, i.e., after the slaying and the deportation of the inhabitants - viz. the empty houses. For Eze 23:26, compare Eze 16:39. - In Eze 23:27, "from the land of Egypt"is not equivalent to "dating from Egypt;"for according to the parallel ממּך , from thee, this definition does not belong to זנוּתך , "thy whoredom,"but to השׁבּתּי , "I cause thy whoredom to cease from Egypt"(Hitzig). - For Eze 23:28 , compare Eze 16:37; for Eze 23:28 , vid., Eze 23:17 above; and for Eze 23:29, see Eze 23:25 and Eze 23:26, and Eze 16:39. - Eze 23:31 looks back to Eze 23:13; and Eze 23:31 is still further expanded in Eze 23:32-34. Judah shall drink the cup of the wrathful judgment of God, as Samaria has done. For the figure of the cup, compare Isa 51:17 and Jer 25:15. This cup is described in Eze 23:32 as deep and wide, i.e., very capacious, so that whoever exhausts all its contents must be thoroughly intoxicated. תּהיה is the third person; but the subject is מרבּה , and not כּוס . The greatness or breadth of the cup will be a subject of laughter and ridicule. It is very arbitrary to supply "to thee," so as to read: will be for laughter and ridicule to thee, which does not even yield a suitable meaning, since it is not Judah but the nations who laugh at the cup. Others regard תּהיה as the second person, thou wilt become; but apart from the anomaly in the gender, as the masculine would stand for the feminine, Hitzig has adduced the forcible objection, that according to this view the words would not only anticipate the explanation give of the figure in the next verse, but would announce the consequences of the שׁכּרון ויגון mentioned there. Hitzig therefore proposes to erase the words from תּהיה to וּללעג as a gloss, and to alter מרבּה into מרבּה : which contains much, is very capacious. But there is not sufficient reason to warrant such critical violence as this. Although the form מרבּה is ἁπ λεγ. ., it is not to be rejected as a nomen subst .; and if we take מרבּה להכיל , the magnitude to hold, as the subject of the sentence, it contains a still further description of the cup, which does not anticipate what follows, even though the cup will be an object of laughter and ridicule, not so much for its size, as because of its being destined to be drunk completely empty. In Eze 23:33 the figure and the fact are combined - יגון , lamentation, misery, being added to שׁכּרון , drunkenness, and the cup being designated a cup of devastation. The figure of drinking is expanded in the boldest manner in Eze 23:34 into the gnawing of the fragments of the cup, and the tearing of the breasts with the fragments. - In Eze 23:35 the picture of the judgment is closed with a repetition of the description of the nation's guilt. For Eze 23:35 , compare Eze 16:52 and Eze 16:58.

Keil-Delitzsch: Eze 23:36-49

Another Summary of the Sins and Punishment of the Two Women

Eze 23:36. And Jehovah said to me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah, then show them their abominations; Eze 23:37. For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and they have committed adultery with their idols; and their sons also whom they bare to me they have caused to pass through to them to be devoured. Eze 23:38. Yea more, they have done this to me; they have defiled my sanctuary the same day, and have desecrated my Sabbaths. Eze 23:39. When they slaughtered their sons to their idols, they came into my sanctuary the same day to desecrate it; and, behold, they have acted thus in the midst of my house. Eze 23:40. Yea, they have even sent to men coming from afar; to them was a message sent, and, behold, they came, for whom thou didst bathe thyself, paint thine eyes, and put on ornaments, Eze 23:41. And didst seat thyself upon a splendid cushion, and a table was spread before them, thou didst lay thereon my incense and my oil. Eze 23:42. And the loud noise became still thereat, and to the men out of the multitude there were brought topers out of the desert, and they put armlets upon their hands, and glorious crowns upon their heads. Eze 23:43. Then I said to her who was debilitated for adultery, Now will her whoredom itself go whoring, Eze 23:44. And they will go in to her as they go in to a shore; so did they go in to Oholah and Oholibah, the lewd women. Eze 23:45. But righteous men, these shall judge them according to the judgment of adulteresses and according to the judgment of murderesses; for they are adulteresses, and there is blood in their hands. Eze 23:46. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, I will bring up against them an assembly, and deliver them up for maltreating and for booty. Eze 23:47. And the assembly shall stone them, and cut them in pieces with their swords; their sons and their daughters shall they kill, and burn their houses with fire. Eze 23:48. Thus will I eradicate lewdness from the land, that all women may take warning and not practise lewdness like you. Eze 23:49. And they shall bring your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols, and shall learn that I am the Lord Jehovah. - The introductory words ' התשׁפּוט point back not only to Eze 22:2, but also to Eze 20:4, and show that this section is really a summary of the contents of the whole group (Eze 20:23). The actual subject-matter of these verses is closely connected with Eze 23:16, more especially in the designation of the sins as adultery and bloodshed (compare Eze 23:37 and Eze 23:45 with Eze 16:38). נאף , to commit adultery with the idols, whereby the idols are placed on a par with Jehovah as the husband of Israel (compare Jer 3:8 and Jer 2:27). For the Moloch-worship in Eze 23:37 , compare Eze 16:20-21, and Eze 20:31. The desecration of the sanctuary ( Eze 23:38 ) is more minutely defined in Eze 23:39. בּיּום ההוּא in Eze 23:38, which has so offended the lxx and Hitzig that it is omitted by the former, while the latter proposes to strike it out as a gloss, is added for the purpose of designating the profanation of the sanctuary as contemporaneous with the Moloch-worship of Eze 23:37 , as is evident from Eze 23:39. For the fact itself, compare 2Ki 21:4-5, 2Ki 21:7. The desecration of the Sabbaths, as in Eze 20:13, Eze 20:16. For Eze 23:39 , compare Eze 16:21. The words are not to be understood as signifying that they sacrificed children to Moloch in the temple, but simply that immediately after they had sacrificed children to Moloch, they went into the temple of Jehovah, that there they might worship Jehovah also, and thus placed Jehovah upon a par with Moloch. This was a profanation ( חלּל ) of His sanctuary.

In Eze 23:40-44 the allusion is not to actual idolatry, but to the ungodly alliance into which Judah had entered with Chaldea. Judah sent ambassadors to Chaldea, and for the purpose of receiving the Chaldeans, adorned herself as a woman would do for the reception of her paramours. She seated herself upon a splendid divan, and in front of this there was a table spread, upon which stood the incense and the oil that she ought to have offered to Jehovah. This is the explanation which Kliefoth has correctly given of Eze 23:40 and Eze 23:41. The emphatic ואף כּי in Eze 23:40 is sufficient to show that the reference is to a new crime deserving of punishment. This cannot be idolatry, because the worship of Moloch has already been mentioned in Eze 23:38 and Eze 23:39 as the worst of all the idolatrous abominations. Moreover, sending for (or to) men who come from afar does not apply to idolatry in the literal sense of the word; for men to whom the harlot sent messengers to invite them to come to her could not be idols for which she sent to a distant land. The allusion is rather to Assyrians or Chaldeans, and, according to Eze 23:42, it is the former who are referred to here (compare Isa 39:3). There is no force in Hitzig's objection, namely, that the one woman sent to these, and that their being sent for and coming have already been disposed of in Eze 23:16. For the singulars in the last clause of Eze 23:40 show that even here only one woman is said to have sent for the men. Again, תּשׁלחנה might even be the third person singular, as this form does sometimes take the termination נה (vid., Ewald, §191 c , and Ges. §47, Anm. 3). At the same time, there is nothing in the fact that the sending to Chaldea has already been mentioned in Eze 23:16 to preclude another allusion to the same circumstance from a different point of view. The woman adorned herself that she might secure the favour of the men for whom she had sent. כּהל is the Arabic khl , to paint the eyes with stibium ( kohol ). For the fact itself, see the remarks on 2Ki 9:30. She then seated herself upon a cushion (not lay down upon a bed; for ישׁב does not mean to lie down), and in front of this there was a table, spread with different kinds of food, upon which she placed incense and oil. The suffix to עליה refers to שׁלחן , and is to be taken as a neuter, which suits the table as a thing, whilst שׁ֡œחן generally takes the termination ות in the plural. In Eze 23:41, Ewald and Hävernick detect a description of the lectisternia of the licentious worship of the Babylonian Mylitta. But neither the sitting ( ישׁב ) upon a cushion (divan), nor the position taken by the woman behind the table, harmonizes with this. As Hitzig has correctly observed, "if she has taken her seat upon a cushion, and has a table spread before her, she evidently intends to dine, and that with the men for whom she has adorned herself. The oil is meant for anointing at meal-time (Amo 6:6; Pro 21:17; cf. Psa 23:5), and the incense for burning.""My incense and my oil"are the incense and oil given to her by God, which she ought to have devoted to His service, but had squandered upon herself and her foreign friends (cf. Eze 16:18; Hos 2:10). The oil, as the produce of the land of Palestine, was the gift of Jehovah; and although incense was not a production of Palestine, yet as the money with which Judah purchased it, or the goods bartered for it, were the fists of God, Jehovah could also call it His incense.

Eze 23:42 is very obscure. Such renderings of the first clause as et vox multitudinis exultantis in ea (Vulg)., and "the voice of a careless multitude within her"(Hävernick), can hardly be sustained. In every other passage in which קול occurs, it does not signify the voice of a multitude, but a loud tumult; compare Isa 13:4; Isa 33:3; Dan 10:6, and 1Sa 4:14, where קול ההמון is used as synonymous with קול . Even in cases where המון is used for a multitude, it denotes a noisy, boisterous, tumultuous crowd. Consequently שׁלו cannot be taken as an adjective connected with המון , because a quiet tumult is a contradiction, and שׁלו does not mean either exultans or recklessly breaking loose (Hävernick), but simply living in quiet, peaceful and contented. שׁלו must therefore be the predicate to קול המון ; the sound of the tumult or the loud noise was (or became) quiet, still. בהּ , thereat (neuter, like בהּ , thereby, Gen 24:14). The words which follow, ' ואל אנשׁים וגו , are not to be taken with the preceding clause, as the connection would yield no sense. They belong to what follows. אנשׁים מרב אדם .swollof tah can only be the men who came from afar (Eze 23:40). In addition to these, there were brought, i.e., induced to come, topers from the desert. The Chetib סובאים is no doubt a participle of סבא , drinkers, topers; and the Hophal מוּבאים is chosen instead of the Kal בּאים , for the sake of the paronomasia, with סובאים . The former, therefore, can only be the Assyrians ( בּני אשּׁוּר , Eze 23:5 and Eze 23:7), the latter (the topers) the Chaldeans ( בּני בבל( sn , Eze 23:15). The epithet drinkers is a very appropriate one for the sons of Babylon; as Curtius (Eze 23:1) describes the Babylonians as maxime in vinum et quae ebrietatem sequuntur effusi . The phrase "from the desert"cannot indicate the home of these men, although ממּדבּר corresponds to ממּרחק in Eze 23:40, but simply the place from which they came to Judah, namely, from the desert of Syria and Arabia, which separated Palestine from Babylon. These peoples decorated the arms of the harlots with clasps, and their heads with splendid wreaths (crowns). The plural suffixes indicate that the words apply to both women, and this is confirmed by the fact that they are both named in Eze 23:44. The subject to ויּתּנוּ is not merely the סובאים , but also the אנשׁים ממּרחק eht osla in Eze 23:40. The thought is simply that Samaria and Judah had attained to wealth and earthly glory through their intercourse with these nations; the very gifts with which, according to Eze 16:11., Jehovah Himself had adorned His people. The meaning of the verse, therefore, when taken in its connection, appears to be the following: - When the Assyrians began to form alliances with Israel, quiet was the immediate result. The Chaldeans were afterwards added to these, so that through their adulterous intercourse with both these nations Israel and Judah acquired both wealth and glory. The sentence which God pronounced upon this conduct was, that Judah had sunk so deeply into adultery that it would be impossible for it ever to desist from the sin.

This is the way in which we understand Eze 23:43, connecting לבּלה with ואמר : "I said concerning her who was debilitated with whoredom." בּלה , feminine of בּלה fo enini , used up, worn out; see, for example, Jos 9:4-5, where it is applied to clothes; here it is transferred to persons decayed, debilitated, in which sense the verb occurs in Gen 18:12. נאפּים , which is co-ordinated with בּלה , does not indicate the means by which the strength has been exhausted, but is an accusative of direction or reference, debilitated with regard to adultery, so as no longer to be capable of practising it.

(Note: The proposal of Ewald to take לבּלה נאפּים as an independent clause, "adultery to the devil,"cannot be defended by the usage of the language; and that of Hitzig, "the withered hag practises adultery,"is an unnatural invention, inasmuch as ל , if taken as nota dativi , would give this meaning: the hag has (possesses) adultery as her property - and there is nothing to indicate that it should be taken as a question.)

In the next clause עתּ , תּזנוּתיה is the subject to יזנה , and the Chetib is correct, the Keri being erroneous, and the result of false exposition. If תזנותיה were the object to יזנה , so that the woman would be the subject, we should have the feminine תּזנה . But if, on the other hand, תזנותיה is the subject, there is no necessity for this, whether we regard the word as a plural, from תּזנוּתים , or take it as a singular, as Ewald (§259 a ) has done, inasmuch as in either case it is still an abstract, which might easily be preceded by the verb in the masculine form. והיא gives greater force, not only to the suffix, but also the noun - and that even she (her whoredom). The sin of whoredom is personified, or regarded as רוּח זנוּנים (Hos 4:12), as a propensity to whoredom, which continues in all its force after the capacity of the woman herself is gone. - Eze 23:44 contains the result of the foregoing description of the adulterous conduct of the two women, and this is followed in Eze 23:45. by an account of the attitude assumed by God, and the punishment of the sinful women. ויּבוא , with an indefinite subject, they ( man , one) went to her. אליה , the one woman, Oholibah. It is only in the apodosis that what has to be said is extended to both women. This is the only interpretation of Eze 23:44 which does justice both to the verb ויּבוא (imperfect with Vav consec . as the historical tense) and the perfect בּאוּ . The plural אשּׁת does not occur anywhere else. Hitzig would therefore alter it into the singular, as "unheard of,"and confine the attribute to Oholibah, who is the only one mentioned in the first clause of the verse, and also in Eze 23:43, Eze 23:40, and Eze 23:41. The judgment upon the two sisters is to be executed by righteous men (Eze 23:45). The Chaldeans are not designated as righteous in contrast to the Israelites, but as the instruments of the punitive righteousness of God in this particular instance, executing just judgment upon the sinners for adultery and bloodshed (vid., Eze 16:38). The infinitives העלה and נתון in Eze 23:46 stand for the third person future. For other points, compare the commentary on Eze 16:40 and Eze 16:41. The formula נתן לזעוה is derived from Deu 28:25, and has been explained in the exposition of that passage. וּברא is the inf. abs. Piel . For the meaning of the word, see the comm. on Eze 21:24. From this judgment all women, i.e., all nations, are to take warning to desist from idolatry. נוּסּרוּ is a mixed form, compounded of the Niphal and Hithpael , for התוסּרוּ , like נכּפּר in Deu 21:8 (see the comm. in loc .). - For Eze 23:49, vid., Eze 16:58. - The punishment is announced to both the women, Israel and Judah, as still in the future, although Oholah (Samaria) had been overtaken by the judgment a considerable time before. The explanation of this is to be found in the allegory itself, in which both kingdoms are represented as being sisters of one mother; and it may also be defended on the ground that the approaching destruction of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah affected the remnants of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which were still to be found in Palestine; whilst, on the other hand, the judgment was not restricted to the destruction of the two kingdoms, but also embraced the later judgments which fell upon the entire nation.

Constable: Eze 4:1--24:27

II. Oracles of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem for sin chs. 4-24

This section of the book contains prophecies that Ezekiel delivered from the beginning of his ministry (in 593 B.C.) to the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.). All of these prophecies deal with the coming destruction of the city and related calamities.

"Here begin Ezekiel's prophecies directed toward others than himself."¹⁰³

Constable: Eze 20:1--23:49

D. Israel's defective leadership chs. 20-23

This section of the book is the final collection of prophecies that deal with the fall of Judah and Jerusalem. In these messages the prophet clarified further Yahweh's motivation in bringing this judgment.

Constable: Eze 23:1-49

4. The parable of the two sisters ch. 23

This chapter is the final climactic one in Ezekiel's collection of messages that condemn Israel's defective leadership (chs. 20-23).

Both chapters 16 and 23 describe Israel as a prostitute, but there are significant differences in these chapters. In chapter 16 Canaan is the mother of Israel who corrupted her daughter by teaching her spiritual adultery, namely, idolatry or trust in other gods. In chapter 23 Israel herself is responsible for pursuing mainly political adultery, trust in other nations, through alliances with foreign powers. In chapter 16 the beginnings of Israel's unfaithful career receive most attention whereas in chapter 23 the whole of Israel's unfaithful career is in view. Chapter 16 deals with Judah alone, but chapter 23 focuses on both Israel and Judah with emphasis on Judah.

"There the emphasis was on idolatries as breaking the marriage relation and the sacred covenant with God, here it is on the nation's worldly spirit and worldly alliances for safety and national security."³¹⁵

"Despite the distasteful theme and the indelicate language, the reader of these verses must appreciate that this is the language of unspeakable disgust and must try to recognize Ezekiel's passion for God's honour and his fury at the adulterous conduct of His covenant people. The feeling of nausea which a chapter like this arouses must be blamed not on the writer of the chapter nor even on its contents, but on the conduct which had to be described in such revolting terms."³¹⁶

"This chapter contains the most graphic language in the Bible in reference to sexual imagery. For that reason it requires extreme care in teaching and preaching."³¹⁷

Constable: Eze 23:11-21

Jerusalem's prostitution 23:11-21

23:11-13 Oholibah observed her sister's behavior and fate, but she did not learn from them. As many historians have observed, the one thing we learn from history is that most people do not learn from history. Oholibah became even more unfaithful than her sister. She too lusted after the Assyrians whom she viewed as attractive political allies (2 Kings 16:8; cf. Isa. 7:7-9). Both sisters followed the same pattern of behavior.

23:14-16 Oholibah saw pictures of the Babylonians that aroused her desire for alliance, and she lusted after them and wrote to them (2 Kings 23:32, 37; cf. Jer. 22:21). Much visual art in biblical times was painted and or carved on walls. The splendor that was Babylon deeply impressed the Israelites.

23:17-21 The Babylonians responded to her invitations and came to Judea where they polluted her by entering into treaties with her. After she became a vassal of Babylon, she became disgusted with the Babylonians and turned away to seek help from Egypt (cf. Jer. 2:18; 6:8; 37:5-7; Lam. 4:17). The Lord also became disgusted with her, as He had with her sister. Nevertheless she persisted in her immoral conduct that she had learned in Egypt. She lusted after the Egyptians that pursued her like donkeys and horses in heat (cf. Jer. 2:24; 5:8; 13:27). Donkeys and horses were proverbial for their strong sexual drive (cf. Jer. 2:24; 5:8; 13:27), and the Lord used these animals as a figure for the Egyptians' potency that attracted the Israelites.³²² Jerusalem returned to her old lover, namely, Egypt.

Constable: Eze 23:22-35

Jerusalem's judgment for prostitution 23:22-35

Four messages announce God's judgment on Jerusalem for her unfaithfulness (vv. 22-27, 28-31, 32-34, 35).

23:22-24 Because of her behavior the Lord promised to turn Oholibah's soldier-lovers against her, even the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and the tribal groups of the empire.³²³ Pekod, Shoa, and Koa were tribes that lived in eastern Babylonia and that were part of the empire (cf. Isa. 22:5; Jer. 50:21). They would all come against her from every direction, attack her from all sides, and try to destroy her using their own customary methods. Ezekiel painted a picture of the whole world coming against Israel. The Lord would allow this to happen to her.

23:25-27 The Lord would express His jealousy over her and deal with her in His wrath. Her enemies would cut off her nose and her ears. This was an ancient Near Eastern punishment for adulteresses, which was understandable since these women typically adorned themselves with nose and ear rings.³²⁴ This punishment would make them grotesque and unappealing to anyone else. Thus God would make Jerusalem unappealing to other nations.

These enemies would also kill many Israelites, deport others (2 Kings 24:10-16; 25:11; Dan. 1:1), and burn still others (2 Kings 25:18-21). They would strip the nation of her clothes and jewelry, perhaps a reference to her wealth, possessions, and temple treasures (cf. 2 Kings 25:13-17; 2 Chron. 36:18). The Lord would allow this to teach Oholibah to abhor the Egyptians as political partners.

23:28-29 The Lord also announced that He would turn Jerusalem over to those whom she had come to hate, namely, the Babylonians. They would hate her, rob her of her property, and leave her naked and ashamed (in 586 B.C.).

23:30-31 This punishment would come on her because she committed political adultery with the nations and had defiled herself with their idolatry (cf. Exod. 20:1-7; Deut. 17:14-20). She had behaved as her older sister, so the Lord would give the cup of His wrath to her to drink (cf. Isa. 51:7, 22; Jer. 25:15-17, 28; Hab. 2:16; Zech. 12:2; Matt. 20:22; 26:39; Rev. 14:10), the same cup Oholah had to drink.

"In using this imagery Ezekiel belongs to a long prophetic chain that was to culminate in Jesus, who absorbed in his own person the horror of God's judgment, accepting it from his hand not without a shudder (Mark 14:36)."³²⁵

23:32-34 The Lord also promised that Oholibah would indeed drink from the large cup of God's judgment from which Oholah had drunk.³²⁶ Drinking it would make her an object of scorn as well as drunk and sad. The cup would contain punishment in the form of horror and desolation, just like Samaria had experienced. Oholibah would drain the cup; she would endure all the punishment God had for her. She would even madly gnaw the fragments of the earthenware cup or shatter it to pieces. The same Hebrew verb means "to gnaw" (NASB, NRSV) and "to break" (AV, NIV, NKJV). She would also tear at her breasts probably in remorse over how she had used them to seduce her lovers. In other words, she would despise herself for her former behavior.³²⁷

23:35 Jerusalem would bear the Lord's punishment for her lewd and immoral behavior because she had abandoned Him. This short message identifies the root problem in Israel's apostasy: she had forsaken Yahweh.

"When a nation (or an individual) discards God, there is no other road to follow but that which leads to perversion and utter degradation."³²⁸

Constable: Eze 23:36-49

A summary judgment for Israel's unfaithfulness 23:36-49

This final message brings Oholah and Oholibah back together and passes judgment on all Israel. It is a summary oracle for the section that indicts Israel's leaders (chs. 20-23).

23:36-37 The Lord called Ezekiel to pass judgment on Oholah and Oholibah (cf. 20:4; 22:2). He should then announce their fate because they had committed adultery (cf. Exod. 22:20; 23:13; Deut. 4:15-24; 12:24-32) and had shed innocent blood in their unfaithfulness (cf. Exod. 20:13; Lev. 18:21; 20:1-5). Their spiritual adultery consisted of idolatry, and their bloodshed was the practice of child sacrifice in connection with idolatry. They had killed the Lord's own children.

23:38-39 They also made the temple unclean (cf. Exod. 20:24-26) and treated the Sabbath as any other day of the week (cf. Exod. 20:8-11; Lev. 19:3, 30). On the same days that they practiced child sacrifice they entered the temple to worship Yahweh. This amounted to treating Molech and Yahweh as though they were equal.

23:40-42 These daughters had sent to other nations and invited ambassadors to come to them to make treaties (cf. Deut. 17:14-20). They had made themselves as attractive as possible, like a prostitute does for her lover. They even used the things that they should have used only for the worship of Yahweh to entice desert lovers (e.g. the Arabians, Moabites, and Edomites). The whole atmosphere of the reception was like that of a drunken orgy. The same Hebrew word, saba'im, can mean "Sabeans" and "drunkards" (v. 42), and both meanings could have been intended. These foreign lovers gave the Israelites the wages of a prostitute including bracelets and crowns.

23:43-45 The Lord marveled that the nations would find Samaria and Jerusalem attractive partners since they had proved to be such unsatisfying lovers for so long. Yet they did. There is hardly anyone more pathetic and disgusting than an old whore. However, righteous people would pass judgment on the sisters as adulteresses who had blood on their hands. The enemies of Israel were righteous in judging her, not that they were right with God spiritually. They may have even been more righteous in their conduct than the Israelites.³²⁹

23:46-49 The Lord commanded a group of soldiers to attack these cities and to terrorize and plunder them. These invaders would stone the guilty (the punishment for adulterers and murderers in the Mosaic Law), slay them and their children with their swords, and burn their houses. Thus the Lord would cause such shameful unfaithfulness to cease from His land (cf. 22:15), and He would teach other nations not to do as these two "women" had done. Samaria and Jerusalem would bear their punishment for practicing idolatry, and they would learn that Yahweh is God.

"While most parables and messages concerning sin in the Old Testament seek to produce repentance, that is not so here. The message closed with a note of finality."³³⁰

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

The name Ezekiel means "(whom) God will strengthen" [GESENIUS]; or, "God will prevail" [ROSENMULLER]. His father was Buzi (Eze 1:3), a priest, and he probably exercised the priestly office himself at Jerusalem, previous to his captivity, as appears from the matured priestly character to be seen in his prophecies, a circumstance which much increased his influence with his captive fellow countrymen at Babylon. Tradition represents Sarera as the land of his nativity. His call to prophesy was in the fifth year from the date of his being carried away with Jehoiachin (see 2Ki 24:11-15) by Nebuchadnezzar, 599 B.C. The best portions of the people seem to have been among the first carried away (Eze 11:16; Jer 24:2-7-8, Jer 24:10). The ungodly were willing to do anything to remain in their native land; whereas the godly believed the prophets and obeyed the first summons to surrender, as the only path of safety. These latter, as adhering to the theocratic principle, were among the earliest to be removed by the Chaldeans, who believed that, if they were out of the way, the nation would fall to pieces of itself. They were despised by their brethren in the Holy Land not yet captives, as having no share in the temple sacrifices. Thus Ezekiel's sphere of labor was one happier and less impeded by his countrymen than that of Jeremiah at home. The vicinity of the river Chebar, which flows into the Euphrates near Circeslum, was the first scene of his prophecies (Eze 1:1). Tel-Abib there (now Thallaba) was his place of residence (Eze 3:15), whither the elders used to come to inquire as to God's messages through him. They were eager to return to Jerusalem, but he taught them that they must first return to their God. He continued to prophesy for at least twenty-two years, that is, to the twenty-seventh year of the captivity (Eze 29:17), and probably remained with the captives by the Chebar the rest of his life. A treatise, falsely attributed to EPIPHANIUS, states a tradition that he was killed at Babylon by a prince of his people whom he had reproved for idolatry.

He was contemporary with Jeremiah and Daniel. The former had prophesied for thirty-four years before Ezekiel, and continued to do so for six or seven years after him. The call of Ezekiel followed the very next year after the communication of Jeremiah's predictions to Babylon (Jer 51:59), and was divinely intended as a sequel to them. Daniel's predictions are mostly later than Ezekiel's but his piety and wisdom had become proverbial in the early part of Ezekiel's ministry (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:16; Eze 28:3). They much resemble one another, especially in the visions and grotesque images. It is a remarkable proof of genuineness that in Ezekiel no prophecies against Babylon occur among those directed against the enemies of the covenant-people. Probably he desired not to give needless offence to the government under which he lived. The effect of his labors is to be seen in the improved character of the people towards the close of the captivity, and their general cessation from idolatry and a return to the law. It was little more than thirty years after the close of his labors when the decree of the Jews' restoration was issued. His leading characteristic is realizing, determined energy; this admirably adapted him for opposing the "rebellious house" "of stubborn front and hard heart," and for maintaining the cause of God's Church among his countrymen in a foreign land, when the external framework had fallen to pieces. His style is plain and simple. His conceptions are definite, and the details even of the symbolical and enigmatical parts are given with lifelike minuteness. The obscurity lies in the substance, not in the form, of his communications. The priestly element predominates in his prophecies, arising from his previous training as a priest. He delights to linger about the temple and to find in its symbolical forms the imagery for conveying his instructions. This was divinely ordered to satisfy the spiritual want felt by the people in the absence of the outward temple and its sacrifices. In his images he is magnificent, though austere and somewhat harsh. He abounds in repetitions, not for ornament, but for force and weight. Poetical parallelism is not found except in a few portions, as in the seventh, twenty-first, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth through thirty-first chapters. His great aim was to stimulate the dormant minds of the Jews. For this end nothing was better suited than the use of mysterious symbols expressed in the plainest words. The superficial, volatile, and wilfully unbelieving would thereby be left to judicial blindness (Isa 6:10; Mat 13:11-13, &c.); whereas the better-disposed would be awakened to a deeper search into the things of God by the very obscurity of the symbols. Inattention to this divine purpose has led the modern Jews so to magnify this obscurity as to ordain that no one shall read this book till he has passed his thirtieth year.

RABBI HANANIAS is said to have satisfactorily solved the difficulties (Mischna) which were alleged against its canonicity. Ecclesiasticus 49:8 refers to it, and JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.5.1]. It is mentioned as part of the canon in MELITO'S catalogue [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26]; also in ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud. The oneness of tone throughout and the repetition of favorite expressions exclude the suspicion that separate portions are not genuine. The earlier portion, the first through the thirty-second chapters, which mainly treats of sin and judgment, is a key to interpret the latter portion, which is more hopeful and joyous, but remote in date. Thus a unity and an orderly progressive character are imparted to the whole. The destruction of Jerusalem is the central point. Previous to this he calls to repentance and warns against blind confidence in Egypt (Eze 17:15-17; compare Jer 37:7) or other human stay. After it he consoles the captives by promising them future deliverance and restoration. His prophecies against foreign nations stand between these two great divisions, and were uttered in the interval between the intimation that Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Jerusalem and the arrival of the news that he had taken it (Eze 33:21). HAVERNICK marks out nine sections:--(1) Ezekiel's call to prophesy (Eze. 1:1-3:15). (2) Symbolical predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem (Eze. 3:16-7:27). (3) A year and two months later a vision of the temple polluted by Tammuz or Adonis worship; God's consequent scattering of fire over the city and forsaking of the temple to reveal Himself to an inquiring people in exile; happier and purer times to follow (Eze. 8:1-11:25). (4) Exposure of the particular sins prevalent in the several classes--priests, prophets, and princes (Eze. 12:1-19:14). (5) A year later the warning of judgment for national guilt repeated with greater distinctness as the time drew nearer (Eze. 20:1-23:49). (6) Two years and five months later--the very day on which Ezekiel speaks--is announced as the day of the beginning of the siege; Jerusalem shall be overthrown (Eze. 24:1-27). (7) Predictions against foreign nations during the interval of his silence towards his own people; if judgment begins at the house of God, much more will it visit the ungodly world (Eze. 25:1-32:32). Some of these were uttered much later than others, but they all began to be given after the fall of Jerusalem. (8) In the twelfth year of the captivity, when the fugitives from Jerusalem (Eze 33:21) had appeared in Chaldea, he foretells better times and the re-establishment of Israel and the triumph of God's kingdom on earth over its enemies, Seir, the heathen, and Gog (Eze. 33:1-39:29). (9) After an interval of thirteen years the closing vision of the order and beauty of the restored kingdom (Eze. 40:1-48:35). The particularity of details as to the temple and its offerings rather discountenances the view of this vision being only symbolical, and not at all literal. The event alone can clear it up. At all events it has not yet been fulfilled; it must be future. Ezekiel was the only prophet (in the strict sense) among the Jews at Babylon. Daniel was rather a seer than a prophet, for the spirit of prophecy was given him to qualify him, not for a spiritual office, but for disclosing future events. His position in a heathen king's palace fitted him for revelations of the outward relations of God's kingdom to the kingdoms of the world, so that his book is ranked by the Jews among the Hagiographa or "Sacred Writings," not among the prophetical Scriptures. On the other hand, Ezekiel was distinctively a prophet, and one who had to do with the inward concerns of the divine kingdom. As a priest, when sent into exile, his service was but transferred from the visible temple at Jerusalem to the spiritual temple in Chaldea.

JFB: Ezekiel (Outline)

• EZEKIEL'S VISION BY THE CHEBAR. FOUR CHERUBIM AND WHEELS. (Eze. 1:1-28)
• EZEKIEL'S COMMISSION. (Eze 2:1-10)
• EZEKIEL EATS THE ROLL. IS COMMISSIONED TO GO TO THEM OF THE CAPTIVITY AND GOES TO TEL-ABIB BY THE CHEBAR: AGAIN BEHOLDS THE SHEKINAH GLORY: IS TOLD TO RETIRE TO HIS HOUSE, AND ONLY SPEAK WHEN GOD OPENS HIS MOUTH. (Eze. 3:1-27)
• SYMBOLICAL VISION OF THE SIEGE AND THE INIQUITY-BEARING. (Eze. 4:1-17)
• VISION OF CUTTING THE HAIRS, AND THE CALAMITIES FORESHADOWED THEREBY. (Eze. 5:1-17)
• CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT. (Eze 6:1-14)
• LAMENTATION OVER THE COMING RUIN OF ISRAEL; THE PENITENT REFORMATION OF A REMNANT; THE CHAIN SYMBOLIZING THE CAPTIVITY. (Eze. 7:1-27)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PRECEDING VISION: THE SEALING OF THE FAITHFUL. (Eze 9:1-11)
• VISION OF COALS OF FIRE SCATTERED OVER THE CITY: REPETITION OF THE VISION OF THE CHERUBIM. (Eze. 10:1-22) The throne of Jehovah appearing in the midst of the judgments implies that whatever intermediate agencies be employed, He controls them, and that the whole flows as a necessary consequence from His essential holiness (Eze 1:22, Eze 1:26).
• PROPHECY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CORRUPT "PRINCES OF THE PEOPLE;" PELATIAH DIES; PROMISE OF GRACE TO THE BELIEVING REMNANT; DEPARTURE OF THE GLORY OF GOD FROM THE CITY; EZEKIEL'S RETURN TO THE CAPTIVES. (Eze. 11:1-25)
• EZEKIEL'S TYPICAL MOVING TO EXILE: PROPHECY OF ZEDEKIAH'S CAPTIVITY AND PRIVATION OF SIGHT: THE JEWS' UNBELIEVING SURMISE AS TO THE DISTANCE OF THE EVENT REPROVED. (Eze. 12:1-28)
• DENUNCIATION OF FALSE PROPHETS AND PROPHETESSES; THEIR FALSE TEACHINGS, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT JUDGMENTS. (Eze. 13:1-23) As the twelfth chapter denounced the false expectations of the people, so this denounces the false leaders who fed those expectations. As an independent witness, Ezekiel confirms at the Chebar the testimony of Jeremiah (Jer 29:21, Jer 29:31) in his letter from Jerusalem to the captive exiles, against the false prophets; of these some were conscious knaves, others fanatical dupes of their own frauds; for example, Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah. Hananiah must have believed his own lie, else he would not have specified so circumstantial details (Jer 28:2-4). The conscious knaves gave only general assurances of peace (Jer 5:31; Jer 6:14; Jer 14:13). The language of Ezekiel has plain references to the similar language of Jeremiah (for example, Jer. 23:9-38); the bane of false prophecy, which had its stronghold in Jerusalem, having in some degree extended to the Chebar; this chapter, therefore, is primarily intended as a message to those still in the Jewish metropolis; and, secondarily, for the good of the exiles at the Chebar.
• HYPOCRITICAL INQUIRERS ARE ANSWERED ACCORDING TO THEIR HYPOCRISY. THE CALAMITIES COMING ON THE PEOPLE; BUT A REMNANT IS TO ESCAPE. (Eze. 14:1-23)
• THE WORTHLESSNESS OF THE VINE AS WOOD ESPECIALLY WHEN BURNT, IS THE IMAGE OF THE WORTHLESSNESS AND GUILT OF THE JEWS, WHO SHALL PASS FROM ONE FIRE TO ANOTHER. (Eze 15:1-8) What has the vine-wood to make it pre-eminent above other forest-wood? Nothing. Nay, the reverse. Other trees yield useful timber, but vine-wood is soft, brittle, crooked, and seldom large; not so much as a "pin" (the large wooden peg used inside houses in the East to hang household articles on, Isa 22:23-25) can be made of it. Its sole excellency is that it should bear fruit; when it does not bear fruit, it is not only not better, but inferior to other trees: so if God's people lose their distinctive excellency by not bearing fruits of righteousness, they are more unprofitable than the worldly (Deu 32:32), for they are the vine; the sole end of their being is to bear fruit to His glory (Psa 80:8-9; Isa 5:1, &c.; Jer 2:21; Hos 10:1; Mat 21:33). In all respects, except in their being planted by God, the Jews were inferior to other nations, as Egypt, Babylon, &c., for example, in antiquity, extent of territory, resources, military power, attainments in arts and sciences.
• DETAILED APPLICATION OF THE PARABOLICAL DELINEATION OF THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER TO JERUSALEM PERSONIFIED AS A DAUGHTER. (Eze. 16:1-63)
• PARABLE OF THE TWO GREAT EAGLES, AND THE CROPPING OF THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. JUDAH IS TO BE JUDGED FOR REVOLTING FROM BABYLON, WHICH HAD SET UP ZEDEKIAH INSTEAD OF JEHOIACHIN, TO EGYPT; GOD HIMSELF, AS THE RIVAL OF THE BABYLONIAN KING, IS TO PLANT THE GOSPEL CEDAR OF MESSIAH. (Eze. 17:1-24)
• THE PARABLE OF THE SOUR GRAPES REPROVED. (Eze. 18:1-32)
• ELEGY OVER THE FALL OF DAVID'S HOUSE. (Eze 19:1-14)
• REJECTION OF THE ELDERS' APPLICATION TO THE PROPHET: EXPOSURE OF ISRAEL'S PROTRACTED REBELLIONS, NOTWITHSTANDING GOD'S LONG-SUFFERING GOODNESS: YET WILL GOD RESTORE HIS PEOPLE AT LAST. (Eze. 20:1-49)
• PROPHECY AGAINST ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM, AND AGAINST AMMON. (Eze. 21:1-32)
• GOD'S JUDGMENT ON THE SINFULNESS OF JERUSALEM. (Eze. 22:1-31) See Eze 20:4; that is, "Wilt thou not judge?" &c. (compare Eze 23:36).
• ISRAEL'S AND JUDAH'S SIN AND PUNISHMENT ARE PARABOLICALLY PORTRAYED UNDER THE NAMES AHOLAH AND AHOLIBAH. (Eze. 23:1-49)
• VISION OF THE BOILING CALDRON, AND OF THE DEATH OF EZEKIEL'S WIFE. (Eze. 24:1-27) Ezekiel proves his divine mission by announcing the very day, ("this same day") of the beginning of the investment of the city by Nebuchadnezzar; "the ninth year," namely, of Jehoiachin's captivity, "the tenth day of the tenth month"; though he was three hundred miles away from Jerusalem among the captives at the Chebar (2Ki 25:1; Jer 39:1).
• APPROPRIATELY IN THE INTERVAL OF SILENCE AS TO THE JEWS IN THE EIGHT CHAPTERS, (TWENTY-FIFTH THROUGH THIRTY-SECOND) EZEKIEL DENOUNCES JUDGMENTS ON THE HEATHEN WORLD KINGDOMS. (Eze. 25:1-17) (Jer 49:1).
• THE JUDGMENT ON TYRE THROUGH NEBUCHADNEZZAR (TWENTY-SIXTH THROUGH TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTERS). (Eze. 26:1-21) The specification of the date, which had been omitted in the case of the four preceding objects of judgment, marks the greater weight attached to the fall of Tyre.
• TYRE'S FORMER GREATNESS, SUGGESTING A LAMENTATION OVER HER SAD DOWNFALL. (Eze. 27:1-36)
• PROPHETICAL DIRGE ON THE KING OF TYRE, AS THE CULMINATION AND EMBODIMENT OF THE SPIRIT OF CARNAL PRIDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF THE WHOLE STATE. THE FALL OF ZIDON, THE MOTHER CITY. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL IN CONTRAST WITH TYRE AND ZIDON. (Eze. 28:1-26)
• THE JUDGMENT ON EGYPT BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR; THOUGH ABOUT TO BE RESTORED AFTER FORTY YEARS, IT WAS STILL TO BE IN A STATE OF DEGRADATION. (Eze. 29:1-21)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECIES AGAINST EGYPT. (Eze. 30:1-26)
• THE OVERTHROW OF EGYPT ILLUSTRATED BY THAT OF ASSYRIA. (Eze. 31:1-18)
• TWO ELEGIES OVER PHARAOH, ONE DELIVERED ON THE FIRST DAY (Eze 32:1), THE OTHER ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF THE SAME MONTH, THE TWELFTH OF THE TWELFTH YEAR. (Eze. 32:1-32) The twelfth year from the carrying away of Jehoiachin; Jerusalem was by this time overthrown, and Amasis was beginning his revolt against Pharaoh-hophra.
• RENEWAL OF EZEKIEL'S COMMISSION, NOW THAT HE IS AGAIN TO ADDRESS HIS COUNTRYMEN, AND IN A NEW TONE. (Eze. 33:1-33)
• REPROOF OF THE FALSE SHEPHERDS; PROMISE OF THE TRUE AND GOOD SHEPHERD. (Eze. 34:1-31) Jer 23:1 and Zec 11:17 similarly make the removal of the false shepherds the preliminary to the interposition of Messiah the Good Shepherd in behalf of His people Israel. The "shepherds" are not prophets or priests, but rulers who sought in their government their own selfish ends, not the good of the people ruled. The term was appropriate, as David, the first king and the type of the true David (Eze 34:23-24), was taken from being a shepherd (2Sa 5:2; Psa 78:70-71); and the office, like that of a shepherd for his flock, is to guard and provide for his people. The choice of a shepherd for the first king was therefore designed to suggest this thought, just as Jesus' selection of fishermen for apostles was designed to remind them of their spiritual office of catching men (compare Isa 44:28; Jer 2:8; Jer 3:15; Jer 10:21; Jer 23:1-2).
• JUDGMENT ON EDOM. (Eze 35:1-15)
• ISRAEL AVENGED OF HER FOES, AND RESTORED, FIRST TO INWARD HOLINESS, THEN TO OUTWARD PROSPERITY. (Eze. 36:1-38)
• THE VISION OF DRY BONES REVIVIFIED, SYMBOLIZING ISRAEL'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. (Eze. 37:1-28)
• THE ASSAULT OF GOG, AND GOD'S JUDGMENT ON HIM. (Eze. 38:1-23)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY AGAINST GOG. (Eze. 39:1-29) Repeated from Eze 38:3, to impress the prophecy more on the mind.
• THE REMAINING CHAPTERS, THE FORTIETH THROUGH FORTY-EIGHTH, GIVE AN IDEAL PICTURE OF THE RESTORED JEWISH TEMPLE. (Eze. 40:1-49)
• THE CHAMBERS AND ORNAMENTS OF THE TEMPLE. (Eze. 41:1-26)
• CHAMBERS OF THE PRIESTS: MEASUREMENTS OF THE TEMPLE. (Eze. 42:1-20)
• JEHOVAH'S RETURN TO THE TEMPLE. (Eze. 43:1-27)
• ORDINANCES FOR THE PRINCE AND THE PRIESTS. (Eze. 44:1-31)
• ALLOTMENT OF THE LAND FOR THE SANCTUARY, THE CITY, AND THE PRINCE. (Eze. 45:1-25)
• CONTINUATION OF THE ORDINANCES FOR THE PRINCE AND FOR THE PEOPLE IN THEIR WORSHIP. (Eze. 46:1-24) The prince is to go through the east gate without (open on the Sabbath only, to mark its peculiar sanctity) to the entrance of the gate of the inner court; he is to go no further, but "stand by the post" (compare 1Ki 8:14, 1Ki 8:22, Solomon standing before the altar of the Lord in the presence of the congregation; also 2Ki 11:14; 2Ki 23:3, "by a pillar": the customary place), the court within belonging exclusively to the priests. There, as representative of the people, in a peculiarly near relation to God, he is to present his offerings to Jehovah, while at a greater distance, the people are to stand worshipping at the outer gate of the same entrance. The offerings on Sabbaths are larger than those of the Mosaic law, to imply that the worship of God is to be conducted by the prince and people in a more munificent spirit of self-sacrificing liberality than formerly.
• VISION OF THE TEMPLE WATERS. BORDERS AND DIVISION OF THE LAND. (Eze. 47:1-23)
• ALLOTMENT OF THE LAND TO SEVERAL TRIBES. (Eze. 48:1-35)

TSK: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

The character of Ezekiel, as a Writer and Poet, is thus admirably drawn by the masterly hand of Bishop Lowth: " Ezekiel is much inferior to Jeremiah in elegance; in sublimity he is not even excelled by Isaiah; but his sublimity is of a totally different kind. He is deep, vehement, tragical; his sentiments are elevated, animated, full of fire and indignation; his imagery is crowded, magnificent, terrific; his language is grand, solemn, austere, rough, and at times unpolished; he abounds in repetitions, not for the sake of grace or elegance, but from vehemence and indignation. Whatever subject he treats of, that he sedulously puruses; from that he rarely departs, but cleaves, as it were, to it; whence the connexion is in general evident and well preserved. In other respects he may perhaps be exceeded by the other prophets; but, for that species of composition to which he seems adapted by natural gifts, the forcible, impetuous, grave, and grand, not one of the sacred writers is superior to him. His diction is sufficiently perspicuous; all his obscurity arises from the nature of his subjects. Visions (as for instance, among others, those of Hosea, Amos, and Zechariah), are necessarily dark and confused. The greater part of Ezekiel, particularly towards the middle of the book, is poetical, whether we regard the matter of the language." Abp. Newcombe judiciously observes, The Prophet is not to be considered merely as a poet, or as a framer of those august and astonishing visions, and of those admirable poetical representations, which he committed to writing; but as an instrument in the hands of God, who vouchsafed to reveal himself, through a long succession of ages, not only in divers parts constituting a magnificant and uniform whole, but also in different manners, as by voice, by dreams, by inspiration, and by plain or enigmatical vision. " Ezekiel is a great poet, full of originality; and, in my opinion, whoever censures him as if he were only an imitator of the old prophets, can never have felt his power. He must not, in general, be compared with Isaiah, and the rest of the old prophets. Those are great, Ezekiel is also great; those in their manner of poetry, Ezekiel in his." To justify this character the learned prelate descends to particulars, and gives apposite examples, not only of the clear, flowing, and nervous, but also of the sublime; and concludes his observations on his style, by stating it to be his deliberate opinion, that if his " style is the old age of Hebrew language and composition (as has been alleged), it is a firm and vigorous one, and should induce us to trace its youth and manhood with the most assiduous attention." As a Prophet, Ezekiel must ever be allowed to occupy a very high rank; and few of the prophets have left a more valuable treasure to the church of God than he has. It is true, he is in several places obscure; but this resulted either from the nature of his subjects, or the events predicted being still unfulfilled; and, when time has rolled away the mist of futurity, successive generations will then perceive with what heavenly wisdom this much neglected prophet has spoken. There is, however, a great proportion of his work which is free from every obscurity, and highly edifying. He has so accurately and minutely foretold the fate and condition of various nations and cities, that nothing can be more interesting than to trace the exact accomplishment of these prophecies in the accounts furnished by historians and travellers; while, under the elegant type of a new temple to be erected, a new worship to be introduced, and a new Jerusalem to be built, with new land to be allotted to the twelve tribes, may be discovered the vast extent and glory of the New Testament Church.

TSK: Ezekiel 23 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Eze 23:1, The whoredoms of Aholah and Aholibah; Eze 23:23, Aholibah is to be plagued by her lovers; Eze 23:36, The prophet reproves the adulteries of them both; Eze 23:45, and shews their judgments.

Poole: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL

THE ARGUMENT

EZEKIEL was by descent a priest, and by commission a prophet, and received it from heaven, as will appear from the first, second, and third chapters. He was, and had been, a captive in Babylon five years when first called to this office, and there he met with many things that were occasions of grief to himself, and occasion of this prophecy. For in Babylon there were many that did repine at their state, repented they had rendered themselves, called into question the truth and integrity of Jeremiah and himself, and were ready to do violence to him; and not only thus, but they continued so to sin, that the name of God was blasphemed because of them: and these things both grieved and weakened the hearts of the best, and hardened the worst. To redress these is Ezekiel both extraordinarily called, commissioned, qualified, and assisted in the prophetic office, in discharge of which he doth reprove and calm the discontented, that they might return to a right frame of patience and hope. He calls the profane and wicked to acknowledge God’ s just and equal, and their own unequal, ways. He directeth the honest-hearted, who inquire that they might do their duties. He encourages that handful of godly ones among them with many comfortable promises of good in their own land, and of more grace from heaven; and confirmeth what Jeremiah had preached, advised. and foretold in Jerusalem, exactly harmonizing with him, though the one at Babylon, the other at Jerusalem, destitute of all means of conferring with each other. In all these particulars he is sometimes very plain, sometimes speaks in riddles, in which kind he is more frequent than any other of the prophets, in them all deep and mysterious; to the quarrelling and froward these are dark, but to the humble and teachable more significant and clear. In his first three chapters he opens his commission. In the next one and twenty chapters he doth sharply preach against the sins of the Jews; which they dislike, and grow weary of, and violent against the preacher, who for some time is ordered to forbear, and leave them to that severe sermon which the king of Babylon’ s army should preach to them in the destruction of country, city, and temple, which should open the eyes of some, and wound the heart of all the Jews. So the prophet doth by order from the Lord preach against the heathen round about, through the 25th chapter and on to the end of the 32nd chapter; after which he is sent to preach repentance and pardon, with grace and favour, to Israel, to proclaim the Messiah’ s kingdom, and to assure them of the wonderful overthrow of their enemies, the rebuilding the city and temple in greatness beyond whatever it was, upon condition they become a reformed people, ashamed for former sins, loathe themselves, and love the Lord their God, and keep his ordinances; which they did not after their return, as is evident from the complaints, menaces, and reproofs which do every where sound in the mouths of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who lived after the joyful return from captivity, and saw the sinful deportment of these returned captives. Much of the prophet’ s discourses in the 33rd, 34th, 36th, and so on to the end, are typical and mysterious, and refer to the return, as to the emblem of our spiritual deliverance out of spiritual captivity.

Poole: Ezekiel 23 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 23

The whoredoms of Aholah and Ahollbah, Eze 23:1-21 . Aholibah shall be punished by her own lovers, Eze 23:22-35 . Their adulteries reproved, Eze 23:36-44 , and their judgments declared, Eze 23:45-49 .

MHCC: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

Ezekiel was one of the priests; he was carried captive to Chaldea with Jehoiachin. All his prophecies appear to have been delivered in that country, at some place north of Babylon. Their chief object appears to have been to comfort his brethren in captivity. He is directed to warn of the dreadful calamities coming upon Judea, particularly upon the false prophets, and the neighbouring nations. Also to announce the future restoration of Israel and Judah from their several dispersions, and their happy state in their latter days, under the Messiah. Much of Christ will be found in this book, especially in the conclusion.

MHCC: Ezekiel 23 (Chapter Introduction)

A history of the apostacy of God's people from him, and the aggravation thereof.

Matthew Henry: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel

When we entered upon the writings of the prophets, which speak of the things that should be hereafter, we seemed to have the same call that St. John had (Rev 4:1), Come up hither; but, when we enter upon the prophecy of this book, it is as if the voice said, Come up higher; as we go forward in time (for Ezekiel prophesied in the captivity, as Jeremiah prophesied just before it), so we soar upward in discoveries yet more sublime of the divine glory. These waters of the sanctuary still grow deeper; so far are they from being fordable that in some places they are scarcely fathomable; yet, deep as they are, out of them flow streams which make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. As to this prophecy now before us, we may enquire, I. Concerning the penman of it - it was Ezekiel; his name signifies, The strength of God, or one girt or strengthened of God. He girded up the loins of his mind to the service, and God put strength into him. Whom God calls to any service he will himself enable for it; if he give commission, he will give power to execute it. Ezekiel's name was answered when God said (and no doubt did as he said), I have made thy face strong against their faces. The learned Selden, in his book De Diis Syris, says that it was the opinion of some of the ancients that the prophet Ezekiel was the same with that Nazaratus Assyrius whom Pythagoras (as himself relates) had for his tutor for some time, and whose lectures he attended. It is agreed that they lived much about the same time; and we have reason to think that many of the Greek philosophers were acquainted with the sacred writings and borrowed some of the best of their notions from them. If we may give credit to the tradition of the Jews, he was put to death by the captives in Babylon, for his faithfulness and boldness in reproving them; it is stated that they dragged him upon the stones till his brains were dashed out. An Arabic historian says that he was put to death and was buried in the sepulchre of Shem the son of Noah. So Hottinger relates, Thesaur. Philol. lib. 2 cap. 1. II. Concerning the date of it - the place whence it is dated and the time when. The scene is laid in Babylon, when it was a house of bondage to the Israel of God; there the prophecies of this book were preached, there they were written, when the prophet himself, and the people to whom he prophesied, were captives there. Ezekiel and Daniel are the only writing prophets of the Old Testament who lived and prophesied any where but in the land of Israel, except we add Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh to prophesy. Ezekiel prophesied in the beginning of the captivity, Daniel in the latter end of it. It was an indication of God's good-will to them, and his gracious designs concerning them in their affliction, that he raised up prophets among them, both to convince them when, in the beginning of their troubles, they were secure and unhumbled, which was Ezekiel's business, and to comfort them when, in the latter end of their troubles, they were dejected and discouraged. If the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would not have used such apt and proper means to cure them. III. Concerning the matter and scope of it. 1. There is much in it that is very mysterious, dark, and hard to be understood, especially in the beginning and the latter end of it, which therefore the Jewish rabbin forbade the reading of to their young men, till they came to be thirty years of age, lest by the difficulties they met with there they should be prejudiced against the scriptures; but if we read these difficult parts of scripture with humility and reverence, and search them diligently, though we may not be able to untie all the knots we meet with, any more than we can solve all the phenomena in the book of nature, yet we may from them, as from the book of nature, gather a great deal for the confirming of our faith and the encouraging of our hope in the God we worship. 2. Though the visions here be intricate, such as an elephant may swim in, yet the sermons are mostly plain, such as a lamb may wade in; and the chief design of them is to show God's people their transgressions, that in their captivity they might be repenting and not repining. It should seem the prophet was constantly attended (for we read of their sitting before him as God's people sat to hear his words, Eze 33:31), and that he was occasionally consulted, for we read of the elders of Israel who came to enquire of the Lord by him, Eze 14:1, Eze 14:3. And as it was of great use to the oppressed captives themselves to have a prophet with them, so it was a testimony to their holy religion against their oppressors who ridiculed it and them. 3. Though the reproofs and the threatenings here are very sharp and bold, yet towards the close of the book very comfortable assurances are given of great mercy God had in store for them; and there, at length, we shall meet with something that has reference to gospel times, and which was to have its accomplishment in the kingdom of the Messiah, of whom indeed this prophet speaks less than almost any of the prophets. But by opening the terrors of the Lord he prepares Christ's way. By the law is the knowledge of sin, and so it becomes our school-master to bring us to Christ. The visions which were the prophet's credentials we have ch. 1-3, the reproofs and threatenings ch. 4-24 betwixt which and the comforts which we have in the latter part of the book we have messages sent to the nations that bordered upon the land of Israel, whose destruction is foretold (ch. 25-35), to make way for the restoration of God's Israel and the re-establishment of their city and temple, which are foretold ch. 36 to the end. Those who would apply the comforts to themselves must apply the convictions to themselves.

Matthew Henry: Ezekiel 23 (Chapter Introduction)

This long chapter (as before ch. 16 and 20) is a history of the apostasies of God's people from him and the aggravations of those apostasies under the similitude of corporal whoredom and adultery. Here the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the ten tribes and the two, with their capital cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, are considered distinctly. Here is, I. The apostasy of Israel and Samaria from God (Eze 23:1-8) and their ruin for it (Eze 23:9, Eze 23:10). II. The apostasy of Judah and Jerusalem from God (Eze 23:11-21) and sentence passed upon them, that they shall in like manner be destroyed for it (Eze 23:22-35). III. The joint wickedness of them both together (Eze 23:36-44) and the joint ruin of them both (Eze 23:45-49). And all that is written for warning against the sins of idolatry, and confidence in an arm of flesh, and sinful leagues and confederacies with wicked people (which are the sins here meant by committing whoredom), is that others may hear and fear, and not sin after the similitude of the transgressions of Israel and Judah.

Constable: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Writer

The title of this book comes from its writer, Ezekiel, the son of Buzi (1:3). "Ezekiel" means "God strengthens (or hardens)" or "God will strengthen (harden)" or "May God strengthen (harden)." The Lord strengthened Ezekiel in the face of cynicism and rejection by his fellow Jews. His name appears in only two verses (1:3; 24:24). His hometown is unknown, and no other biblical writer referred to him.

Ezekiel was a Judean priest of Yahweh as well as His prophet, as were Jeremiah (Jer. 1:1) and Zechariah (Zech. 1:1). These three men were the only writing prophet-priests, and they all ministered during or after the Babylonian exile. Like Jeremiah, there is no evidence that Ezekiel ever served as a priest in the Jerusalem temple. Ezekiel's priestly background may account in part for the interest in priestly things that his book reflects: the actions of the priests in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem temple, the glory of the Lord, and the future temple yet to be built. It probably also explains Ezekiel's familiarity with things connected with priestly ministry, such as cherubim. His wife died during the course of his ministry (24:2, 15-18), but there is no mention in the book that they had children. There are no records of Ezekiel's life outside this book, so we have no information about when, where, or how he died.¹

". . . he combined in a unique way the priest's sense of the holiness of God, the prophet's sense of the message that had been entrusted to him, and the pastor's sense of responsibility for his people."²

Until the second quarter of the twentieth century almost all biblical scholars viewed the entire book as the product of Ezekiel. In 1930, C. C. Torrey advanced the view that a fictitious pseudo-author wrote the book around 230 B.C.³ This view drew a few supporters, but by 1962 almost all scholars had abandoned it.⁴ Today almost all commentators view Ezekiel as the source of the prophecies in this book.

Date

The book records the date of the beginning of Ezekiel's ministry as 593 B.C. (1:2-3). The last dated prophecy came to the prophet in 571 B.C. (29:17). He began ministering when he was 30 years old (1:1), and he gave his last prophecy when he was about 52. All of Ezekiel's ministry transpired during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 B.C.).

"One of the most complete chronological systems in any book of the Old Testament is found in this prophecy, demonstrating that Ezekiel's ministry covered at least the span of 593 to 571 B.C."⁵

Historical Background

Since Ezekiel began ministering in 593 B.C. when he was 30 years old, he would have been born about 623 B.C and would have grown up in Judah during King Josiah's reforms (622-609 B.C.). The date of Jeremiah's birth was about 643 B.C., 20 years before Ezekiel's. Jeremiah began ministering in Judah about 627 B.C., so Ezekiel would have been familiar with him and his preaching.⁶ There are some indications in this book that he was, though Ezekiel never referred to Jeremiah.

"Both of them seemed to be taking a lone stand for the truth, one in Jerusalem and the other in Babylon: they both insisted that the future of Israel lay with the exiles and not with those left behind in Jerusalem; they both rejected the fatalism of those who quoted the proverb about the fathers eating sour grapes and the children's teeth being set on edge; they both inveighed against the shepherds of Israel who failed to care for the flock; they both emphasized the principle of individual retribution and the need for individual repentance; they both looked forward to a lengthy exile, followed by a restoration under godly leadership; they both spoke in terms of a new covenant which would be inwardly and personally appropriated; and they both spoke against the false prophets who prophesied peace when there was no peace."⁷

Daniel went into captivity in 605 B.C. and was only a teenager then, so his birthday may have been close to 620 B.C. Ezekiel, then, may have been only a few years older than Daniel. Daniel's ministry continued for about 70 years until about 536 B.C. (Dan. 10:1), much longer, apparently, than Ezekiel's.

Ezekiel went to Babylon as a captive during Nebuchadnezzar's second deportation of Jerusalemites in 597 B.C. along with King Jehoiachin, his household, his officials, and many of the leading men of Judah (2 Kings 24:12-17). Ten thousand captives went to Babylon with much confiscated treasure from the temple and the royal palaces. Nebuchadnezzar also took most of the craftsmen and smiths to Babylon, and only the poorest of the people remained in the land. The Babylonian king set Zedekiah up as his puppet in Jerusalem, but Jehoiachin remained the recognized king of Judah in Babylon.⁸

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Ezekiel ministered "in the midst" of the Jewish exiles who had settled at Tel-abib (or Tel Aviv) beside the Chebar (or Kebar) River (3:15).⁹ The Chebar River was the "grand canal" (Aram. naru kabaru) that began at the Euphrates River north of Babylon, bypassed the city to the east, proceeded through the site of Nippur, and rejoined the Euphrates south of Babylon near Uruk (biblical Erech). This site is where most of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia lived.¹⁰ Ezekiel evidently ministered from there entirely; there is no evidence that he ever visited Jerusalem after the Babylonians took him captive.

Life among the Jewish exiles was not a physically difficult existence, certainly not like living in a concentration camp. The exiles enjoyed considerable freedom and even traveled within Babylonia (cf. 33:21; Jer. 29). They were able to own their own homes, to pursue their own businesses and personal interests, and to organize their own communities. Babylon was infamous for its luxurious wealth and its excessive idolatry. Life became so comfortable in Babylon that after Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their homeland in 538 B.C. most of them chose to remain where they were.¹¹

Audience and Purpose

Ezekiel ministered to the Jews in exile. He probably wrote this book for the benefit of the exiles and the other Jewish communities of his day and beyond his day. In some of his visions (e.g. chs. 8 and 11) the Lord carried the prophet to Jerusalem in his spirit, but his messages were not exclusively for the Jews in Jerusalem.

"Ezekiel ministered to all twelve tribes and his purpose was twofold: (1) to remind them of the sins which had brought judgment and exile upon them; (2) to encourage and strengthen their faith by prophecies of future restoration and glory."¹²

The Jews were in exile because they had proved unfaithful to the Mosaic Covenant that their God had made with them. That covenant had warned the Israelites that if they proved unfaithful they could expect the divine discipline of their sovereign Lord who might even drive them from the land He had given them (Lev. 26; Deut. 28). The covenant also promised restoration to the land eventually. God would not cast His people off permanently no matter how far they departed from Him and His will.

". . . his aim is to convince the people of their utter unworthiness of any consideration from God, in order to shame them into true repentance."¹³

Ezekiel reminded the exiles of their covenant unfaithfulness and of the faithfulness, holiness, and glory of Yahweh, their God. The Lord would judge, cleanse, and ultimately bless His people so that they and all people might come to appreciate His uniqueness and greatness. The purpose of the Exile was to turn God's people away from their sins and back to their Sovereign. The discipline they experienced was an evidence of God's love. When it was over a glorious future lay in store for them. A righteous ruler would eventually lead them back to a radically renovated land where they would enjoy peace, prosperity, and renewed worship.

"Ezekiel, as a watchman for Israel, warned her of the judgment that was imminent and stressed the need for individual responsibility as well as national accountability before God. Each Israelite was personally to turn to the Lord. Likewise, the whole nation must ultimately return to him."¹⁴

The first part of Ezekiel's ministry consisted of predicting the fall of Jerusalem from Babylon (chs. 1-24). When it fell in 586 B.C., he then began predicting God's judgment on the Gentile nations (chs. 25-32) and the restoration of Israel (chs. 33-48).

"The author's purpose throughout the entire prophecy was to keep before the exiles the sins of the nation which were the grounds for her punishment, and to sustain and encourage the faithful remnant concerning future restoration and blessing (cf. 14:21-23)."¹⁵

Structure

There are two major structural peculiarities that set Ezekiel off as distinctive.

First, the book is a collection of prophecies arranged in almost consistent chronological order. No other prophetical book is as consistently chronological as Ezekiel, except Habakkuk, and Zechariah comes close.¹⁶ Furthermore, Ezekiel dated his oracles with unusual precision: usually by year, month, and day of the month.¹⁷ He may have done this to stress the certainty of the predictions so that when they came to pass there would be no question as to their authenticity. A chart of the prophecies and their dates follows.

Ezekiel's Dated Prophecies
Groups of Dated Messages	Passages	Ezekiel's CalendarMonth/Day/Year	Modern CalendarMonth/Day/Year
First	1:1-3:15	4/5/5	July 31, 593
Second	3:16-7:27	4/12/5	Aug. 7, 593
Third	8:1-19:14	6/5/6	Sept. 17, 592
Fourth	20:1-23:49	5/10/7	Aug. 14, 591
Fifth	24:1-25:17	10/10/9	Jan. 15, 588
Sixth	26:1-28:26	?/1/11	? 1, 587 or 586
Seventh	29:1-16	10/12/10	Jan. 5, 587
Eighth	29:17-30:19	1/1/27	Apr. 26, 571
Ninth	30:20-26	1/7/11	Apr. 29, 587
Tenth	31:1-18	3/1/11	June 21, 587
Eleventh	32:1-16	12/1/12	Mar. 3, 585
Twelfth	32:17-33:20	?/15/12	? (Mar.) 17, 585
Thirteenth	33:21-39:29	10/5/12	Jan. 9, 585
Fourteenth	40:1-48:35	1/10/25	Apr. 28 (or Oct. 22), 573

In the table above, the prophecies are in the order in which they appear in the text. For the most part, this is also the chronological order in which Ezekiel delivered them. However, you will note that the seventh and eighth groups of messages (beginning with 27:1 and 17) are not in chronological order. These messages are grouped topically with other prophecies against Egypt in chapters 29-32. Ezekiel's calendar, in the table, dates from the year of King Jehoiachin's (and Ezekiel's) exile (i.e., 598 B.C.; cf. 1:2). Scholars vary somewhat in their understanding of the modern equivalents of these dates. I have followed those of Dyer in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament.

A second structural characteristic of the book is that it is logically organized as well as chronologically organized. First we read the call and preparation of the prophet (chs. 1-3). Then come prophecies announcing God's judgment on Judah culminating in the fall of Jerusalem (chs. 4-24). Next we find prophecies against foreign nations that opposed Israel (chs. 25-32). A section of prophecies on the coming restoration of Israel concludes the book (chs. 33-48).

"Apart from these obvious major divisions, this book is one of the easiest in the entire canon to outline, thanks to the clear demarcation of individual oracles. The book consists of fifty literary units, forty-eight of which are introduced either by a date notice or the word-event (also called prophetic word) formula, The word of Yahweh came to me saying.'"¹⁸

Ezekiel saw God's glory departing from the temple in judgment (9:3; 10:4, 18-19; 11:22-25), and then he saw it returning to the temple for blessing (43:1-5). These major events tie the book together. Ezekiel initially received a commission to deliver messages of judgment (chs. 2-3), but later he received another commission to deliver messages of deliverance (ch. 33). These two commissions identify the two major parts of the book that had particular relevance to Israel.

Style

One stylistic characteristic is Ezekiel's autobiographical perspective. Almost all of his oracles (except 1:2-3; 24:24) appear in the first person giving the impression that they are memoirs of a true prophet of Yahweh. However, Ezekiel did not often share his personal struggles or reactions with the reader, as Jeremiah did (except 4:14; 9:8; 11:13; 20:49; 24:20; 37:3).

Two other features mark the oracles in Ezekiel. One is the "halving" of oracles in which the writer first propounded a theme and then pursued a different theme only to end with a coda that links elements from both parts.¹⁹ The second characteristic is the use of an earlier text or tradition, the interpretation of it in the light of current circumstances, and the application of it to new situations.²⁰

Another stylistic characteristic is the formulaic expressions Ezekiel used some of which are unique to him and others shared with other prophets. Ezekiel usually referred to Yahweh as adonay yhwh, "the Lord Yahweh" (217 times). This title emphasized Yahweh's authority as His people's divine master. The name by which Yahweh addressed the prophet (93 times) is consistently ben adam, "son of man;" He never used Ezekiel's personal name. This title, ben adam, appears only in Ezekiel and in Daniel 8:17, which Ezekiel 2:1 may have influenced. This title stresses the prophet's humanity and the distance between God and the human. Ezekiel's favorite title for the Israelites (in the former Northern Kingdom, in Jerusalem, or in exile) is bet yisra'el, "house (or family) of Israel" (83 times or 57 percent of its 146 uses in the Old Testament). This title expresses the solidarity of the Israelites.

Ezekiel almost always carefully distinguished whether he or Yahweh was speaking in contrast to some other prophets who sometimes leave the reader with a question about the speaker's identity. Other formulae of expression common in this book are "the word of the Lord came to me saying," "thus has the Lord Yahweh said," and "the declaration of the Lord Yahweh." "Set your face toward" is also common and means to face the person or persons addressed so they get the full impact of what is said. "The hand of the Lord came upon me" reflects God's control of His prophet as does "the Spirit of Yahweh fell upon me." "I am Yahweh" and "they will know that I am Yahweh" are also distinctive theological formulae.

"Much of Ezekiel's language is repetitive. This sometimes makes for tiresome reading, but it helps to highlight his recurrent themes."²¹

Genre

Ezekiel contains a combination of several types of literature. These include proverbs, visions, parables, symbolic acts, allegories, rhetorical questions, dreams, drama, funeral dirges, history, and apocalyptic revelations.

"The concentration of so many bizarre features in one individual is without precedent: his muteness; lying bound and naked; digging holes in the walls of houses; emotional paralysis in the face of his wife's death; spiritual' travels; images of strange creatures, of eyes, and of creeping things; hearing voices and the sounds of water; withdrawal symptoms, fascination with feces and blood; wild literary imagination; pornographic imagery; unreal if not surreal understanding of Israel's past; and the list goes on."²²

". . . Ezekiel is the great mystic among the inspired writers. Because of the difficulty in interpreting his figurative and visionary prophecies, he is the most neglected of all the prophets."²³

"For most Bible readers Ezekiel is almost a closed book. Their knowledge of him extends little further than his mysterious vision of God's chariot-throne [merkabah], with its wheels within wheels, and the vision of the valley of dry bones. Otherwise his book is as forbidding in its size as the prophet himself is in the complexity of his make-up."²⁴

Ezekiel was a most dramatic and forceful communicator of the messages that God gave him. He used more symbolism and allegory than any other Old Testament prophet.²⁵ Evidently God directed him to use such colorful methods to get the attention of his hearers, who were very discouraged and disinterested in what God had to say to them. Most of the book is prose, but some of it is poetry.

". . . not a colourful, descriptive prose, but a somber, prophetic prose with a cadence but no discernible metre."²⁶

"Visions figure more prominently in Ezekiel than in any other Old Testament prophet except Daniel. They are recounted in detail in chaps. 1-3; 8-11; 37; 40-48. These he received in what must have appeared to be a semiconscious state and then reported to his audience once the vision was over (11:25)."²⁷

"Dream-visions were common in Mesopotamia in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.²⁸ This literary form had two major parts: (1) the setting of the vision, declaring the time, recipient, place of reception, and general circumstances; and (2) the description of the vision just as it was seen by the recipient. Ezekiel used this common type of literature in his book and also developed (along with Daniel and Zechariah in the OT) apocalyptic literature in the dream-vision format. This may be defined as symbolic visionary prophetic literature, composed during oppressive conditions, consisting of visions whose events are recorded exactly as they were seen by the author and explained through a divine interpreter, and whose theological content is primarily eschatological.'²⁹ Twice Ezekiel used this genre, which would be well known to the exiles, to encourage them during their time of oppression. Both apocalyptic visions contained messages of restoration and blessing."³⁰

". . . the biblical books that could qualify as apocalyptic include Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation. Many other passages express apocalyptic eschatology, but these four books alone qualify in content and form as apocalyptic literature."³¹

"Whether one is preaching, teaching, writing, or counseling, getting a message across effectively involves communication in a way that will allow people to form mental images. Unless what we say is clear and vivid enough that people can somehow see' what we're saying, they are not as likely to remember it long enough for it to do any good."³²

Theology

Several theological concepts receive considerable attention in Ezekiel. Alexander identified five central ones: the nature of God, the purpose and nature of God's judgment, individual responsibility, the ethical, religious, and moral history of Israel, and the nature of Israel's restoration and future worship.³³ Cooper mentioned six significant theological themes: the holiness and transcendence of God, the sinfulness of humanity, the inevitability of judgment, individual responsibility, hope of restoration, and God's redemptive purpose.³⁴ Stuart listed seven major themes: the reliability of God's word, the glory of God, individual responsibility, Israel's long history of sin, the power of national leadership for good or bad, God's holiness and our responsibility for obedience, and God's transcendence.³⁵

God's glory is the theme that runs throughout this book, from the prophet's call when that glory first impressed him, to the demonstration of that glory in the eschatological future. References to God's glory keep popping up throughout the book (1:28; 3:12, 23; 8:4; 9:3; 10:4, 18-19; 11:22-23; 39:11, 21; 43:2-5; 44:4). God's glory is an aspect of His character, and His glorious character determines His conduct throughout history and this revelation. Without an appreciation of the glory of God's character the Israelites could not make sense of His dealings with them. Fifteen times God said He acted to keep His name glorious (20:9, 14, 22, 39, 44; 36:20-23; 39:7, 25; 43:7-8). Over 60 times the Lord said He had acted so the people would know that He was Yahweh.³⁶

". . . the phrase you will know that I am the Lord' or they will know that I am the Lord' or the like may well be the central theological theme of the book."³⁷

Ezekiel presented God as the God of Israel. By comparison, Isaiah pictured Him as the God of the entire world. Ezekiel had a great appreciation of the holiness (otherness) of God, as did Isaiah, but He did not use the title "Holy One of Israel" that is so common in Isaiah.

"The vision of the Lord riding upon His chariot-throne (1-3) typified this sense of otherness and majesty. It was unutterably splendid, mysteriously intricate, superhuman and supernatural, infinitely mobile but never earth-bound, all-seeing and all-knowing. This is how God revealed Himself to Ezekiel, not by propositions regarding His character but in personal encounter."³⁸

"The vision Ezekiel had at the time of his call never left him but influenced his thought continually."³⁹

Ezekiel stressed God's relationship to His covenants with Israel, which Ezekiel viewed positively. Yahweh for Ezekiel was a God who acts. The Spirit of God features more prominently in Ezekiel than in any other prophetic book. The prophet also emphasized the fact that God's will for Israel was blessing more than punishment.

Ezekiel viewed Israel as the people of God. He paid little attention to Israel's pre-Egyptian history. He divided Israel's history into seven eras, each of which is characterized by Yahweh's gracious acts on Israel's behalf and Israel's rejection of her covenant (ch. 20). God's relationship with Israel was pure grace from beginning to end. Yahweh sovereignly chose and redeemed Israel. Israel therefore needed to respond to such grace with devotion and obedience to her Lord. The well-being of the Israelites reflected on God's reputation in the world.

Ezekiel looked beyond the present condition of Israel to the time when she would experience restoration and prosperity in the Promised Land. God would bring His chosen people back in a new Exodus cleansed from their former sins and revitalized with a new heart and His Spirit under a new covenant. "David" would be God's agent of salvation and a symbol of unity for the nation. Israel would then enjoy unprecedented prosperity and security in her own land. God would establish residence among the Israelites and reorganize their worship.

"Ezekiel provides much of the evidence for the pronounced Jewish tone of the millennium and the sequence of eschatological events recognized especially by dispensationalist premillenarians."⁴⁰

There are few overt references to Messiah in Ezekiel. The major passages are 34:23-24 and 37:22-25. Minor references appear in 17:22 and 29:21.

"Fundamentally the theology of Ezekiel revolves around the bipolar themes of judgment and restoration. . . .

"Restoration will take two forms or will occur in two phases, however. It will come to pass in history under the beneficent policy of Cyrus the Persian, but that is only a type, a foretaste, of complete renewal and reconstitution that must await the eschaton."⁴¹

Text

The Hebrew text of Ezekiel has suffered more than most Old Testament books in the process of transmission. This is due to the large number of technical expressions, including dates and measurements, that occur only once in the Hebrew Bible. Unknown and difficult words resulted in many copyist errors. Consequently there are many interpretive difficulties in Ezekiel.

Message⁴²

Ezekiel began prophesying when he was 30 years old, and he had gone into captivity five years before that. Thus Ezekiel was familiar with Jeremiah's preaching and ministry. Ezekiel shows quite a bit of similarity to Jeremiah in his book. Ezekiel was a priest, as was Jeremiah. However, neither of them served as priests, Jeremiah evidently because he chose not to in view of the corruption in the priesthood, and Ezekiel because he went into captivity before he was old enough to serve. In captivity there was no temple, so Ezekiel could not minister as a priest there even if he had wanted to do so. Besides, God gave both men a calling to a prophetic ministry.

There are indications in the Book of Ezekiel that Jeremiah had an influence on Ezekiel. They both had the same outlook on the corruption of the Israelites, on the judgment of God, and on the hope that held out promise for a brighter day ahead. Ezekiel was equally as explicit as Jeremiah about the corruption of the people and the inevitability of coming judgment. But it is his vision of the future for which Ezekiel has become famous, and in this he surpassed his older contemporary. He was able to see through the Israelites in exile and so spoke to all Israel, and He was able to see through Israel and so spoke to all humanity.

We might say that Ezekiel saw the dirty glass in his window on the world, but he also saw through the glass far into the future. He saw the reasons for Israel's present misery, but he also saw the reason for her future restoration, namely the faithfulness of Israel's glorious God. Perhaps it is this long view that saved Ezekiel from becoming another weeping prophet like Jeremiah. He had a grip on the big picture that lay ahead of Israel and the nations like few other prophets. Daniel saw the future too, but he did not say as much about the present as Ezekiel did. Really Ezekiel gives us more revelation concerning the eschaton, the far distant future, than Daniel does. Daniel's concerns were mainly political; Ezekiel's were spiritual. Daniel talked about future kings and kingdoms, but Ezekiel spoke of a future covenant of peace and future worship.

The permanent value of the Book of Ezekiel is its revelation of the reason for hope. Whereas Jeremiah sometimes despaired and lost sight of his hope, Ezekiel never did. It is somewhat surprising that Ezekiel was so full of hope when he was in a worse situation than Jeremiah. For most of Jeremiah's ministry the exile was ahead, but Ezekiel spent his whole ministry in exile ministering among Israelites who were more thoroughly discouraged than Jeremiah's audiences. The exiles were an even harder audience to minister to than the Judahites who anticipated exile, as the Book of Ezekiel makes clear. Nonetheless Ezekiel remained hopeful. His perspective is the key to anyone remaining hopeful in the midst of very discouraging circumstances, even us.

The thing that filled his heart with hope was his understanding of the Lord. That understanding came to him from a vision of God. As soon as most Christians hear that some prophet had a vision of God, we say to ourselves, "Well that lets me out. Maybe if I could have a vision of God like Ezekiel did I could have the ministry he did and not lose hope." We fail to appreciate that we have a far greater "vision" of God in Scripture than any Old Testament prophet ever did. We need to get past the vision idea to the product of the vision. Ezekiel's vision of God's glory in chapter 1 just gave him a certain understanding of God, the same understanding of God that we can obtain by reading about Ezekiel's vision and the other revelations of God in the Bible.

Ezekiel's vision of God's glory was mysterious--full of strange images and symbols--but it was a manifestation. In this vision God allowed the prophet to see likenesses of Himself and His celestial throne room. A likeness reveals something else. A photographic likeness reveals the person in the picture. A likeness is a comparison, a parable if you will. A parable is a story placed alongside to explain something else. It is a word picture designed to interpret something. That is what Ezekiel's vision of God was and what his other visions were. He did not really see God. "No man has seen God at any time." He saw images of God that reveal what God is like. That is really what the whole Bible is: images of what God is like. Ezekiel's vision of God in chapter 1, which so many of the readers of this book never get past, was the reason for his hope that shines forth in the rest of the book.

Isaiah reveals the salvation of God; it is the Romans of the Old Testament. Jeremiah reveals the judgment of God, and Lamentations is its outcome. Ezekiel reveals the glory of God.

As the book opens, Ezekiel sees God in all His glory. Then, in a flashback, he sees the glory of God departing from the temple in Jerusalem when the city fell to Nebuchadnezzar (ch. 10). Then at the end of the book and at the end of his writing ministry, he saw in another vision the glory of God returning to the temple (ch. 43). The temple to which God returned was not the same temple from which His glory had departed. It was a future temple in a restored Promised Land where the Israelites had come to live in peace having repented of their sins and having experienced God's regathering from the ends of the earth.

These three visions of the glory of God provide the framework and rationale for the book as well as the hope of Israel and the world. God is the center of this unfolding drama. References to the glory of God frame the first major section of the book (chs. 1-3). It was out of this glorious revelation that God called Ezekiel to his ministry. The oracles of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem that follow (chs. 4-24) make sense because God is full of glory, as do the oracles of judgment on the nations (chs. 25-32). When Ezekiel received word that Jerusalem had fallen (ch. 32), he left the past behind and turned to the future. He began proclaiming future blessings for Israel, blessings assured by the character of Yahweh, a glorious God who would fulfill His covenant promises to His chosen people even though they had been unfaithful to Him. God allowed the prophet to see another vision of His glory returning to the temple in the future. All of chapters 40-48 deal with the setting and accompaniments of that return of God to His people. And the book closes with the Lord being there, among His people forever (48:35).

What is the glory of God? It is the expression, the outshining, of His person. When we say Ezekiel is a revelation of the glory of God we mean that it is an unveiling of God Himself in unusual clarity and relevance. The Book of Revelation is such an unveiling of Jesus Christ; it is the climax of biblical Christology. Ezekiel reveals very important characteristics of God. It does this at times by using pictures, dramas, and symbolic acts as well as straightforward explanations. It often does it in apocalyptic images, pictures of God at work doing things in the end times. Much of the imagery has its roots in Ezekiel's culture, both Israelite and ancient Near Eastern, particularly Babylonian.

The secret of Ezekiel's optimism about the future even though he lived in a situation that led most of the other Israelites to abandon their commitment to God, was his personal acquaintance with God Himself. This book reveals the very nature of God Himself to a degree no other book in the Bible does.

As we read this book and get to know what it reveals, we need to ask God to help us to understand Him better, above everything else, because understanding God is the very foundation for hope. Where there is hope there is joy, there is peace, there is love, there is faith, and there is ministry. In the times in which we live, a commitment to ministry by itself will not preserve us from all the pitfalls that surround us. Only ministry grounded in and growing out of our personal understanding and appreciation of the character of God will do that. That is the practical value of studying this intimidating book.

A phrase that marks this book and that occurs over 60 times in it is, "Then they will know that I am the Lord." This phrase almost becomes boring Ezekiel repeated it so often. God used the events of life to teach His people and all people that He is the only true God. In the future He will bring things to pass that will teach people that only He is God. We can learn that now as we gain God's viewpoint on life from this great book. Then we can help others make sense out of what is happening because we understand the One who is creating history.

Another key phrase is "Son of man." This was God's favorite title for Ezekiel. It should remind us every time we read it that Ezekiel was not, and we are not, God. This book presents God as different from anyone else, that is, He is holy. Whenever God spoke to Ezekiel using this title He was reminding the prophet of Yahweh's uniqueness. Hopefully our study of the book will also teach us and impress us with God's differentness. That is an aspect of His glory.

The knowledge of God is a perennial spring of joy and hope to the Christian and to the church. When we get to know Him we will be able to see sin, and we will hate it. We will also be able to proclaim judgment fearlessly. But most of all we will be able to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. The future is bright. We just need to be able to see through our dirty windows to the Morning Star rising in the East.

Constable: Ezekiel (Outline)

Outline

I. Ezekiel's calling and commission chs. 1-3

A. The vision of God's glory ch. 1

1. The setting of the vision 1:1-3

2. The vision proper 1:4-28

B. The Lord's charge to Ezekiel chs. 2-3

1. The recipients of Ezekiel's ministry 2:1-5

2. The encouragement in Ezekiel's ministry 2:6-7

3. The nature of Ezekiel's ministry 2:8-3:11

4. The conclusion of the vision 3:12-15

5. Ezekiel's role in Israel 3:16-21

6. Ezekiel's muteness 3:22-27

II. Oracles of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem for sin chs. 4-24

A. Ezekiel's initial warnings chs. 4-7

1. Dramatizations of the siege of Jerusalem chs. 4-5

2. The judgment coming on Judah chs. 6-7

B. The vision of the departure of Yahweh's glory chs. 8-11

1. The idolatry of the house of Israel ch. 8

2. The slaughter of the wicked Jerusalemites ch. 9

3. The departure of God's glory from the temple ch. 10

4. The condemnation of Jerusalem's leaders ch. 11

C. Yahweh's reply to the invalid hopes of the Israelites chs. 12-19

1. The dramatic tragedy of exile 12:1-20

2. The present judgment as evidence of divine faithfulness 12:21-28

3. The condemnation of contemporary false prophets ch. 13

4. The effect of false prophets on Israel's leaders 14:1-11

5. The need of personal righteousness for deliverance 14:12-23

6. The unprofitable vine of Jerusalem ch. 15

7. Jerusalem's history as a prostitute ch. 16

8. The riddle and parable of the two eagles ch. 17

9. The importance of individual righteousness ch. 18

10. A lament for the kings of Israel ch. 19

D. Israel's defective leadership chs. 20-23

1. The history of Israel's rebellion and Yahweh's grace 20:1-44

2. Judgment on Judah's contemporary leaders 20:45-21:32

3. The idolatrous rulers of Judah ch. 22

4. The parable of the two sisters ch. 23

E. The execution of Jerusalem's judgment ch. 24

1. The parable of the cooking pot 24:1-14

2. Signs to the exiles 24:15-27

III. Oracles against foreign nations chs. 25-32

A. Oracles against Judah's closest neighbors ch. 25

1. Judgment on Ammon 25:1-7

2. Judgment on Moab 25:8-11

3. Judgment on Edom 25:12-14

4. Judgment on Philistia 25:15-17

B. Judgment on Tyre 26:1-28:19

1. Judgment by Babylonia and other enemies ch. 26

2. A funeral dirge over Tyre ch. 27

3. A judgment speech against the ruler of Tyre 28:1-10

4. A funeral dirge for the king of Tyre 28:11-19

C. Judgment on Sidon 28:20-24

D. Israel's restoration from the nations 28:25-26

E. Judgment on Egypt chs. 29-32

1. An introductory prophecy of judgment on Egypt 29:1-16

2. The consummation of Egypt's judgment 29:17-21

3. The destruction of Egypt and her allies 30:1-19

4. Pharaoh's broken arms 30:20-26

5. Egypt's fall compared to Assyria's fall ch. 31

6. A funeral dirge for Egypt 32:1-16

7. A summary lament over Egypt 32:17-32

IV. Future blessings for Israel chs. 33-48

A. A warning to the exiles 33:1-20

1. An exhortation to heed the watchman 33:1-9

2. An exhortation to turn from evil 33:10-20

B. Restoration to the Promised Land 33:21-39:29

1. Israel and the Promised Land 33:21-33

2. False and true shepherds ch. 34

3. Preparation of the Promised Land 35:1-36:15

4. Restoration to the Promised Land 36:16-37:14

5. Reunification in the Promised Land 37:15-28

6. Future invasion of the Promised Land chs. 38-39

C. Ezekiel's vision of the return of God's glory chs. 40-48

1. The setting of the vision of the return of God's glory 40:1-4

2. The millennial temple 40:5-42:20

3. The return of God's glory to the temple 43:1-12

4. Temple ordinances 43:13-46:24

5. Topographical aspects of the Millennium chs. 47-48

Constable: Ezekiel

Ezekiel

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF EZECHIEL.

INTRODUCTION.

Ezechiel, whose name signifies the strength of God, was of the priestly race, and of the number of the captives that were carried away to Babylon with king Joachin. He was contemporary with Jeremias, and prophesied to the same effect in Babylon as Jeremias did in Jerusalem; and is said to have ended his days in like manner, by martyrdom. (Challoner) --- He strove to comfort the captives, who began to repine that they had listened too readily to Jeremias, exhorting them to submit to the king of Babylon. Some think that part of his prophecies is lost, as Josephus mentions two books: but the nine last chapters, regarding the new city and temple, might form the second division. The Jews hesitated whether to allow his works to be canonical, as they seemed to differ from Moses, and from the dimensions given of Solomon's temple. But the same God might surely suggest some improvements, and the morality of the prophet is most excellent. (Calmet) --- His style may be compared to that of Homer (Grotius) and Alcæus. Many have thought that (Calmet) Pythagoras was his disciple; (Eusebius, præp. xiii.) yet the latter seems to have lived after the prophet, who was led into captivity with Jechonias, the year of the world 3410, and prophesied for twenty years. He dates from this period, (Calmet) and from the renewal of the covenant under Josias, (chap. i. 1.; Haydock) when the captivity was first announced. (Worthington) --- The Jews allowed none to read the first and the nine (Haydock) last chapters, nor the beginning of Genesis, nor the Canticle of Canticles, before they were thirty years old; and they never attempted to explain the vision nor the building of the temple, supposing it to be above the power of man. (St. Jerome)

Gill: Ezekiel (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL

This book is rightly placed after Jeremiah; since Ezekiel was among the captives in Chaldea, when prophesied; whereas Jeremiah began to prophesy long before that captivity, and concerning it. The name of this prophet signifies, as it is commonly interpreted, "the strength of God", or "strengthened by God", as he was, and as he needed to be, having great work to do, and a perverse people to deal with; see Eze 3:8; but the learned Hillerus ^a chooses to render it, "God shall prevail"; with which compare Jer 20:7. There was a Levite of this name, of whom mention is made in 1Ch 24:16; whose name is there read "Jehezekel"; and this prophet was a priest, Eze 1:3; and both Clemens Alexandrinus ^b and Eusebius ^c cite a Jewish writer of tragedies, of the same name; which some have very wrongly thought to be the same with our prophet; but whether Ezekiel is not the same with Nazaratus or Zabratus, the master of Pythagoras, mentioned by Clemens as such, according to the opinion of some, is a matter of question; and which the learned Selden ^d seems to think probable. According to the judgment and opinion of Jerom ^e, his style is neither very eloquent, nor very rustic; but between both, and has a mixture of each. The visions he saw are very abstruse and difficult of interpretation, especially the vision of the living creatures and wheels; wherefore the Jews ^f forbad the reading of it, as well as the end of this prophecy, until persons were thirty years of age. The divine visions in this book, the whole subject matter of it, its agreement with the prophecy of Jeremiah, and the accomplishment of events predicted in it, prove the authority of it; and its divine authority has always been allowed, both by the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church. There were indeed some ancient Jewish Rabbins, who were perplexed about some things in it, and consulted about laying it aside, because of some words in it, which seemed to them to be contrary to the law of Moses; but R. Chananiah ben Goron, a very famous doctor in those times, withdrew to his chamber, and wrote a commentary, in order to remove those difficulties to satisfaction ^g. This book, in general, contains various visions the prophet saw; several threatenings against the people of the Jews; and prophecies against other nations; and an abundance of comfortable promises of the Messiah, and of blessings of grace by him; and of the state and condition of the Gospel church, and the worship of it. Josephus ^h says Ezekiel left two books written by him; one of which Athanasius ⁱ: or the author of the Synopsis under his name, thinks is lost; but the learned Huetius ^k is of opinion that the prophecy of Ezekiel, in the times of Josephus, was divided into two parts; the first containing the first thirty nine chapters, and the other the nine last chapters; which is not improbable. If the authorities of Epiphanius ^l, or the writer of the lives of the prophets that goes by his name, and of Isidorus ^m, are of any weight, Ezekiel was born in the land of Sarera; killed by the governor in Babylon; and buried by the people in the field of Maur or Mahurim, in the sepulchre of Shem and Arphaxad. The account R. Benjamin Tudelensis ⁿ gives is, that there is a synagogue of the Prophet Ezekiel by the river Euphrates; and over against the synagogue sixty towers, ; and between every tower a synagogue. In the court of the synagogue is a library; and behind it the grave of Ezekiel the son of Buzi the priest; and over it a large vault, of a beautiful building, erected by Jeconiah king of Judah, and thirty five thousand Jews, who came with him, when Evilmerodach brought him out of prison; and over the grave a lamp burns night and day. The Cippi Hebraici say ^o he was buried by, the river Hiddekel; and Menasseh ben Israel ^p affirms that he died in Babylon, and was buried there; and so Kimchi ^q says the tradition is.

Gill: Ezekiel 23 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 23

In this chapter the idolatries of Israel and Judah are represented under the metaphor of two harlots, and their lewdness. These harlots are described by their descent; by the place and time in which they committed their whoredoms; by their names, and which are explained, Eze 23:1, the idolatries of Israel, or the ten tribes, under the name of Aholah, which they committed with the Assyrians, and which they continued from the Egyptians, of whom they had learned them, are exposed, Eze 23:5, and their punishment for them is declared, Eze 23:9 then the idolatries of Judah, or the two tribes, under the name of Aholibah, are represented as greater than those of the ten tribes, Eze 23:11, which they committed with the Assyrians, Eze 23:12, with the Chaldeans and Babylonians, Eze 23:13 in imitation of the Egyptians, reviving former idolatries learnt of them, Eze 23:19, wherefore they are threatened, that the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Assyrians, should come against them, and spoil them, and carry them captive, Eze 23:22, and the prophet is bid to declare the abominable sin of them both, Eze 23:36, and to signify that they should be judged after the manner of adulteresses, should be stoned, and dispatched with swords, their sons and their daughters, and their houses burnt with fire; by which means their adulteries or idolatries should be made to cease, Eze 23:45