23:1–4 Samaria only had an incidental part to play in Ezekiel 16, as one of the wicked sisters who would be redeemed alongside Jerusalem. Here she has a central part to play as Jerusalem’s older sister and model, living the same life on an earlier trajectory (which, of course, had already led to disaster for the northern kingdom by the time the prophet was writing, with Samaria’s destruction by the Assyrians in 722 BC). The linkage between the two sisters is underlined by their similar names: Oholah (Samaria) and Oholibah (Jerusalem). The meaning of the names, “her tent” and “my tent is in her,” may perhaps allude to the presence of the Lord’s tabernacle in Jerusalem rather than in Samaria, but what is more significant is the similarity of the girl’s names: they are a pair of identical twins, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.173

The similarities between the sisters were evident early on, as early as Israel’s time in Egypt, when both played the whore with the Egyptians. In historical terms, some among the people declared that they would rather remain in bondage to the Egyptians than die in the wilderness (Ex. 14:12). In contrast to the innocent infant girl adopted by the Lord in Ezekiel 16, Oholah and Oholibah were already notorious women before the Lord married them and had children by them, proving that the marriage had been properly consummated (Ezek. 23:4). Marriage to two sisters at the same time was forbidden in Leviticus 18:18, and the picture is anachronistic, since Israel was still united at this point, long before the division into northern and southern kingdoms. Nevertheless, the unfolding metaphor requires the use of this unconventional family portrait to make the Lord’s point. This marriage corresponds to the encounter at Mount Sinai, where the Lord entered into a covenant with Israel (Exodus 19–24). This would all be relatively familiar ancient history to Ezekiel’s audience, who would be well aware of Israel’s failings in the exodus and wilderness period (cf. Ps. 106:7–39).

23:5–10 Things get worse as the prophet sketches out a brief history of the northern kingdom under the figure of Oholah, which represents Samaria. Oholah lusted after the Assyrians, who are portrayed as highly attractive young men. They were not merely good-looking but powerful—warriors, governors, commanders, and charioteers,174 dressed in expensive clothing of purple (Ezek. 23:5–6). Whereas chapter 16 focused on the woman’s attractiveness, this chapter focuses on the charms of her lovers, which seduced her into seeking covenant relationships with Assyria, politico-religious alliances that reflected a refusal to trust in the Lord as Israel’s rock and refuge (cf. Isaiah 7). In terms of concrete protection, the Assyrians offered more than the Lord in the eyes of Oholah, and so she shifted her allegiance from her husband to her lovers. The historical background explains the analogy. From around 841–840 BC the northern kingdom of Israel sought an alliance with Assyria, in which Shalmaneser III received a substantial tribute from King Jehu.175 A century later (738 BC), Menahem sought to enter a relationship with Tiglath-piliser III. On both occasions climbing into bed with Assyria seemed the safest—perhaps the only possible—political option, but it was tantamount to a rejection of trust in the Lord in favor of Assyria’s idols, with which Israel now defiled herself (Ezek. 23:7). But in Ezekiel’s view this was not a new behavior; it was simply a return to her former way of life in Egypt (v. 8). Once again, she gave herself to whomever seemed most likely to deliver the security she craved.

It was a foolish and false hope. The very ones in whom Oholah trusted, the lovers with whom she prostituted herself, were the ones who abused her in the end. The Lord gave her over into the hands of her lovers, the Assyrians, and they destroyed her (vv. 9–10). The warrior power that first attracted her to them was used against her; far from Oholah’s gaining similar rich clothing to theirs, they stripped her naked. They seized her sons and daughters—the Lord’s sons and daughters—and killed her with the sword. As a result she became a proverbial example of bad conduct leading to a bad end among the women who watched her (v. 10). The northern kingdom was finally annexed by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V in 722 BC, and its population was deported and scattered widely throughout the Assyrian Empire.

23:11–16 Oholah’s destiny is to become a byword: a negative example of sin and failure followed by judgment that warns other women against following a similar path. The northern kingdom’s fate should have warned Judah against following a similar strategy. As the chapter unfolds, however, it becomes clear that Jerusalem has followed exactly the same pathway as Samaria, but with even greater intensity and passion. She too lusted after the Assyrians and became defiled exactly like her sister (v. 12 recapitulates v. 5). But she did not simply lust after one ethnic group, the Assyrians; she distributed her favors more widely, falling for the Babylonians as well.176 She saw images of men carved on the wall, exactly like the idolatrous images the prophet saw carved on a wall in 8:10. The Babylonians thus become her idols, as she is seduced by their attractiveness; they are dressed in vermilion,177 all of them with belted robes and flowing turbans—images of men of high rank. She is not merely seduced but a seducer, sending men to Babylon to summon her lovers to come to her (23:16).

Once more the historical background matches the metaphor. In 734 BC Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser of Assyria for assistance against Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus, overruling Isaiah’s strenuous objections (2 Kings 16:5–7; Isa. 7:1–2). In 714 BC Hezekiah sought favor from the Babylonian ruler, Merodoch-baladan, showing his envoys everything he had to offer as a cobelligerent against the Assyrians, again much to Isaiah’s disgust (2 Kings 20:12–19; Isaiah 39). When the Babylonians were crushed by Sennacherib, Hezekiah once again sent tribute to the Assyrians (2 Kings 18:13–16).178 But by 605 BC Babylon had defeated the Assyrians and the Egyptians and established itself as the dominant power in the region, which left Judah in a vassal relationship. These various political alliances may have seemed simple realpolitik to those around Ezekiel. For Ezekiel, however, these relationships constituted spiritual adultery against Judah’s husband and covenant head, the Lord himself.

23:17–21 Jerusalem’s dalliances with the Babylonians did not satisfy her, however. Having been defiled by them, she grew disgusted by her former lovers and turned once again toward her first lovers, the Egyptians (Ezek. 23:19). When Judah remembered the days of her youth, what she thought about was not the Lord’s deliverance of her from bondage in Egypt but the lustful embrace of those same Egyptians. The Egyptians had neither the beauty nor the strength that attracted her to the Assyrians and Babylonians. It is a measure of her final degradation that what draws her to the Egyptians is simply their crude bestiality: their sexual organs are like donkeys’, whose emissions (lit., “floods”) are like the emissions of horses (v. 20). Jerusalem’s pursuit of love, if it ever was such, is now exposed as the basest form of lust. Not surprisingly, the Lord was disgusted by Judah and her wanton behavior, just as he had earlier been disgusted by her sister, Israel (v. 18).

23:22–27 Given the story so far, the conclusion is entirely fitting: the wanton woman’s lovers will come against her from all sides. Indeed, the Lord himself will arouse179 a comprehensive array of her lovers against her in a combination of divine and human agency of judgment. The long list highlights both the extent of her wantonness and the completeness of her destruction. The Babylonians and Chaldeans are joined not only by her former lovers, the Assyrians, but also by men from Pekod, Shoa, and Koa. Pekod is known as an ally of Babylon from Jeremiah 50:21; the other two are otherwise unknown, but the three names together suggest a sinister wordplay, sounding like “punish,” “cry for help,” and “shriek.”180 The very things that attracted Oholibah to her lovers in the first place are now arrayed against her: their strength and military might are turned to assaulting the city with a diverse array of weaponry.181 Attacked on all sides by overwhelming numbers of fully equipped crack troops, Jerusalem’s doom is assured.

Jerusalem’s lovers will judge her according to their barbarous standards—but ultimately this judgment comes from the Lord (Ezek. 23:24) as an expression of his jealousy (v. 25). The Lord’s jealousy is not a negative and selfish emotion but rather an appropriate anger over the sharing of things that ought not be shared. A marriage relationship is meant to be exclusive, a lifelong commitment of one man and one woman. The account in Ezekiel oscillates between describing Jerusalem’s fate in terms that are suitable to her identity as a metaphorical woman and terms that can really apply only to an actual city. Either way, Jerusalem’s fate is to be even worse than her sister’s. She is to be not merely stripped but disfigured, with her nose and ears cut off (v. 25). Her children are not only taken from her but cut down by the sword and devoured by the fire (cf. the same images in 20:44–21:17). Only in this way can Jerusalem’s long history of lewd behavior be interrupted and her lifelong hankering for the land of Egypt rather than for her true husband, the Lord, be brought to an end. When this definitive judgment has been wreaked upon her, she will not remember Egypt any more, nor cast her eyes longingly in its direction (23:27).

23:28–35 The consequence of Jerusalem’s evil behavior will be the cup of God’s wrath—the same cup that Samaria drank earlier (vv. 22–23). This motif of a cup filled with judgment that a guilty party is forced to drink is found elsewhere in the prophets as well (Isa. 51:17; Jer. 25:15–17). It has echoes of the test for a suspected adulteress in Numbers 5, but in this case there is no question about her guilt. It also contrasts with the overflowing cup of blessing that the Lord has prepared for the faithful at the end of their journey (Ps. 23:5). The poem itself is disjointed and confused, as if it were the slightly slurred speech of someone already overcome with too much alcohol.182 When Jerusalem has drunk the last drop of bitter judgment, she will be overcome with shame and will tear the parts of her body that first brought her into sin: her breasts (Ezek. 23:34).

23:36–45 Now the prophet once again acts as prosecuting attorney, judging Oholah and Oholibah (though the primary force of his judgment is clearly aimed at Jerusalem—Oholibah—since Samaria’s judgment is already complete). The city is guilty of adultery and bloodshed, as chapter 22 had made clear. In saying that these women committed adultery with their idols (20:37), Ezekiel further links Jerusalem’s activities here with the condemnation of the previous chapters: their political alliances made idols out of the Babylonians (cf. comment on 23:11–16 [at v. 14]), with whom they then committed adultery, but this simply added to the adulterous idolatry they committed with local foreign gods by raising altars to them throughout Judah and offering their children on them (cf. 20:31; 22:9). They profaned the Lord’s Sabbaths (22:8; 23:38), offering their children as sacrifices and then coming into the Lord’s house on the very same day, as if there were no difference between the pagan religions and the worship of the Lord (23:39).

In addition to these practices at home, the inhabitants of Judah even sent messengers to bring their lovers from afar and prepared themselves like a prostitute adorned for her paramours (v. 40). She spread out a table in the presence of her lovers,183 offering them the incense and oil the Lord had given her, serving them the agricultural bounty that rightfully belonged to the Lord (cf. 16:18). Nor is her sin a private matter: a drunken orgy is in progress all around her, including a rabble of commoners who love a good party. It was the Lord who adorned and jeweled Jerusalem in 16:11–12, but now it is the partying crowd that adorns her (23:42).

Yet all the drinking, carousing, and face painting cannot hide the reality that Jerusalem is a worn-out old whore, used by all but truly loved by none. Her main attraction is simply that she is cheap and readily available. But righteous men see through the face paint and the clothing and recognize her true nature. Here the prophet breaks into application, inviting his hearers directly to join him (and the Lord) in their evaluation of Jerusalem’s crimes and therefore “sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it” (9:4).

23:46–49 The conclusion shifts from the metaphor to the underlying reality. Because of Jerusalem’s many sins, detailed in the previous chapters as well as in this one, the Lord will bring a vast host from Babylon against her to wage a war of terror and destruction (v. 46). The ones in whom the people trusted will betray them. Their sons and daughters will be killed and their houses burned (v. 47). In this way the Lord will bring an end to their wanton spiritual idolatry. Unlike in chapter 16, there is no turn toward hope at the end of this chapter. The prophet concludes that Jerusalem’s fate will serve as a warning to all “women” (23:48). This cannot have in view ordinary women, as some commentators have erroneously thought,184 for such a bizarre story would hardly relate to the situation of any normal woman in any society, then or now. Nor is it a warning to all nations,185 since they are not in covenant relationship to the Lord, as Oholah and Oholibah are. Rather, Jerusalem’s fate is a warning to future generations of the covenant people. They should learn from Jerusalem’s adultery and destruction the lesson the generation prior to the exile was unable or unwilling to learn from the fall of Samaria: engaging in alliances with unbelievers is spiritual adultery that stirs the Lord’s jealousy, with disastrous consequences for all who follow that pathway (cf. 1 Cor. 10:19–22).