16:15 However, Jerusalem became self-centered and unfaithful to the Lord; she forgot Him when she became preoccupied with His blessings (cf. Deut. 6:10-12; 8). She went after every people that passed by rather than remaining faithful to Yahweh. Under King Solomon, Jerusalem became the greatest city of her day, but Solomon led the Jerusalemites into spiritual adultery by making alliances (covenants) with other nations and by establishing idolatry in the land (1 Kings. 11:1-13; cf. Deut. 17:14-20).
16:16-19 Jerusalem used the gifts that God had given her to make idols and to worship them rather than her Lord (2 Kings 23:7; Jer. 10:9). The people evidently even made phallic images out of God's gifts with which they engaged in sex (v. 17).
16:20-21 Jerusalem went so far as slaying her own children as sacrifices to idols disregarding the fact that they were also the Lord's children (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6; 23:10; 2 Chron. 28:3; Jer. 32:35; cf. Lev. 18:21; 20:1-5; Deut. 12:30-32).235
16:22 Furthermore, she forgot about her humble origins and that she owed her very existence to Yahweh.
"Many believers today tend to forget what Christ has done for them on the cross and all the blessings he has poured out on them (Eph 1:3)."236
16:23-25 On top of all this wickedness, Jerusalem multiplied shrines to idols everywhere. For this Yahweh pronounced a lament of horror on her (cf. 1 Sam. 4:8; Prov. 23:29; Isa. 3:9). She became a militant advocate of idolatry, not just a practitioner of it. She also made her beauty abominable by prostituting herself to every passerby. She pursued foreign alliances as well as foreign gods.
16:26-27 She committed adultery with her lustful neighbor, the Egyptians, and multiplied the instances of her harlotry thus angering the Lord further (2 Kings 17:4; 18:21; Isa. 30:7; 36:2). As punishment, the Lord diminished her support. He also gave her into the hands of the Philistines, pagan people who nonetheless were repulsed by her lewd behavior (2 Chron. 21:16-17; 28:16-19; Isa. 1:7-8).
16:28-29 She committed adultery with the distant Assyrians as well, but they did not satisfy her lust (2 Kings 15:19-20; 16:7-18). Neither did adultery with the merchant Chaldeans satiate her (2 Kings 20:12-19; Isa. 20:5-6; 30:1-5; 31:1).
"Jerusalem was a spiritual nymphomaniac."237
Political alliances normally involved the weaker party taking the gods of the stronger ally into its religious system. This is how much idolatry entered Jerusalem.
16:30-34 All her brazen adulteries had left Jerusalem with a sick heart; she could no longer feel true love. She was worse than a common prostitute in that she practiced adultery not because she needed money from her lovers but simply because it made her feel good. She took strangers to bed with her instead of her husband. She even gave gifts to her lovers to bribe them to come to her (paying tribute to make alliances) rather giving them what they wanted in payment for the bribes they would normally have offered her. Her adulteries were worse than those of common prostitutes in that she paid her lovers rather than receiving payment from them (Hos. 8:9).
"Ezekiel enumerated at least eight reasons for the exile: pride (v. 15a), spiritual prostitution (vv. 15b-19), materialistic idolatry (vv. 16-19), human sacrifices (vv. 20-21), forgetting God (v. 22), propagating her prostitution (vv. 23-25), trusting relations with pagan nations (vv. 26-29), and a weak will that cast off all moral restraints (vv. 30-34)."238
