Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Ezekiel 23:22 - 23:49
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Lord's Punishment upon the two Kingdoms
v. 22. Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord God, the sovereign Ruler of the universe, Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, the very allies upon whose constancy Jerusalem thought she could depend, from whom thy mind is alienated, as she turned from Assyria to Egypt, and I will bring them against thee on every side, in manifest enmity, with a desire to wreak their vengeance upon the fickle wanton:
v. 23. the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, at that time representing the world empire, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, words signifying leadership or supremacy, and probably standing for the leaders of the three branches of military forces in the Chaldean army, 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. The latter is said in bitter irony, for the same most desirable allies upon whom Judah had doted in foolish passion now became the instruments of God's wrath to chastise her.
v. 24. And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, scythe-armed battle-chariots, the size of whose wheels made them doubly formidable, and with an assembly of people, troops of the various provinces and countries under the Babylonian dominion, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about, using all the weapons of war to gain their ends; and I will set judgment before them, appointing them to carry out His sentence of punishment, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments, which, in agreement with their heathenish ideas, were barbarously severe.
v. 25. And I will set My jealousy against thee, which in this case took on the nature of a zeal for destruction, and they shall deal furiously with thee, with unbridled wrath; they shall take away thy nose and thine ears, an allusion to the Oriental custom of mutilating adulteresses, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword, the destruction of Judah thus being consummated; they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue, with reference to rich dresses and costly jewels by means of which lewd women seek to attract, shall be devoured by the fire.
v. 26. They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, instruments of luxury and lewdness as they were, and take away thy fair jewels, the gaudy ornaments with which the spiritual adulteress bedecked herself.
v. 27. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, so that the Jews would learn to abhor idolatry, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt, which had persisted through all these centuries, so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, namely, in reverence and adoration, nor remember Egypt any more.
v. 28. For thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou, after her recent transfer of affection, hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated;
v. 29. and they shall deal with thee hatefully, with the hatred of those who feel themselves spurned, and shall take away all thy labor, all that she had worked so hard to accumulate, and shall leave thee naked and bare, stripped of all her possessions; and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, laid bare before the eyes of the whole world, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms, so that men would speak of her spiritual adultery with loathing.
v. 30. I will do these things unto thee because thou last gone a-whoring after the heathen, becoming partaker of their idolatrous wickedness, and because thou art polluted with their idols.
v. 31. Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister, following the wicked example of Samaria; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand, namely, the cup of her punishment.
v. 32. Thus saith the Lord God, Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large, in full draughts; thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision, an object of mockery and contempt on every hand; it containeth much, for God is not lax and lenient in His punishment upon idolaters.
v. 33. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, her intoxication being caused by the Lord and followed by extreme misery, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria, rather, "a cup of wasting and desolation is the cup of thy sister Samaria. "
v. 34. Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, so that she would feel the full effect of its bitterness, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, gnawing them in a sort of passion to feel the fullness of God's anger, and pluck off thine own breasts, willfully mutilating them as the instruments of lewdness; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
v. 35. therefore, thus saith the Lord God, in once more summarizing His sentence upon Judah, Because thou hast forgotten Me, the Lord and Master of her youth, and cast Me behind thy back, in the height of contempt, therefore, in just retribution, bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms, namely, in their guilt and damnableness.
v. 36. The Lord said moreover unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge, namely, in pronouncing judgment upon, Aholah and Aholibah? Yea, declare unto them their abominations, setting forth the individual acts of wickedness with which they are charged,
v. 37. that they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, the blood of unlawful sacrifices; and with their idols have they committed adultery, for the spiritual adultery of idol-worship was often connected with physical adultery and immorality of the worst kind, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto Me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them, in the hideous and repulsive Molech cult.
v. 38. Moreover, this they have done unto Me: they have defiled My Sanctuary in the same day, in the very day that they committed such shocking abominations, and have profaned My Sabbaths. Cf.Ezekiel 20:13.
v. 39. For when they had slain their children to their idols, sacrificing them to Molech, the abomination of the Moabites, then they came the same day, while the guilt of their wickedness was still on their hands, into My Sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of Mine house, without the slightest regard for the sanctity of the Lord's Temple.
v. 40. And furthermore, another point to be urged against the Jews in their apostasy, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent, the Jews going to much trouble in carrying out their purpose; and, lo, they came, for whom thou, like a lewd woman, didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes, staining the eyelashes to make the glance of the eye more brilliant, for that is the object of women of this type, who barter their soul by such means, and deckedst thyself with ornaments, all to make herself more attractive to men,
v. 41. and satest upon a stately bed, on an elaborately cushioned couch, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set Mine incense and Mine oil, gifts of the Lord and properly made as sacrifices to Him alone.
v. 42. And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her, a loose and boisterous crowd taking advantage of the invitation of Jerusalem; and with the men of the common sort, the members of the mobs surging through the streets, were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, drunken revelers, which put bracelets upon their hands and beautiful crowns upon their heads, both of the lewd women being thus bedecked by their wicked lovers.
v. 43. Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, well versed in adulteries, worn out by adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her and she with them? Was their sense of shame so far gone as to cause them to desecrate the very city of God's holiness?
v. 44. Yet they went in unto her; as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot, so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women. In spite of all the warnings of God they became guilty of gross idolatry, calmly ignoring the very sense of decency and shame.
v. 45. And the righteous men, in this case the Chaldeans, as the executioners of God's sentence of judgment, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses and after the manner of women that shed blood, such as are guilty of murder, because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands, they have been found guilty of the most flagrant crimes.
v. 46. For thus saith the Lord God, I will bring up a company upon them, a council of judges to pass sentence upon the criminals, and will give them to be removed and spoiled, to be exiled and plundered.
v. 47. And the company shall stone them with stones, the usual mode of execution in the case of adulteresses, and dispatch them with their swords, as though removing them out of their misery; they shall slay their Sons and their daughters, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, and burn up their houses with fire.
v. 48. Thus will I cause lewdness, every form of idolatry, to cease out of the land, that all women, in this case all nations, may be taught not to do after your lewdness.
v. 49. And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, paving them back in the proper coin, as they had deserved, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols, those committed with them, by means of them; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. The very horror of the description makes the sin of Judah stand out all the more strongly, the effect intended by the Lord being that of making all men look upon similar transgressions with shuddering revulsion.