What Does the Bible Teach in Ezekiel's Story of Two Adulterous Sisters?

Ezekiel is a strange book. It uses some of the most bizarre imagery in all of Scripture — apart from Revelation — and the passage on the two adulterous sisters in Ezekiel 23 stands at no exception.

Oholah and Oholibah, two sisters separated by a couple of letters, represented the split kingdom of Israel and how each turned away from God. In Ezekiel 23, we meet two adulterous sisters, who came from the same mother. They pine after foreign lovers, but end up destroyed in the process after they prostitute themselves to nations like Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. Because they give over to the desires of the hearts, God give them over to their lovers, and they discover the true colors of those who had first offered protection.

This article will dive into each of the two sisters, why the Bible used this particular imagery, and what these two sisters mean for us Christians today.

Oholah (the Northern Kingdom)

You may have heard the term Samaria and associated it with Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman, or how the Israelites during Jesus’ time frowned upon any Jews interacting with Samaritans, but the history of Samaria goes deeper than New Testament times.

The Samaritans came from the union of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (ten tribes) and the Assyrians (Ezra 4:2-11), when the Assyrians invaded the Northern Kingdom. More on this in a moment.

Oholah represented the Northern Kingdom. When Israel split, the Northern Kingdom, led by Jeroboam, a servant of King Solomon, was among the evilest of the two kingdoms. This article from Got Questions explains that it did not have a single righteous king, many of which engaged in idolatry, paganism, and child sacrifice (2 Chronicles 28:3).

This kingdom, Oholah, prostitutes herself with the kingdom of Assyria after she “played the harlot” with Egypt in the former days of her youth. She worships their idols and gives herself over to them.

Similar to the passage found in Romans 1, God gives Oholah over to the desires of their hearts, and the Assyrians lay waste to the Northern kingdom. They strip her and kill many of her people. This took place when the Assyrians took the Northern Kingdom into captivity in 722 BC.

After those in the Northern Kingdom gave birth to sons from Assyrian husbands and wives, the Israelites who returned to Jerusalem scorned these people (later known as Samaritans). Jews later believed Samaritans were the worst of human beings (John 8:48) and explains why the disciples were so jarred when Jesus spent time with the Samaritans, preaching to them (John 4:6-26).

Oholibah (the Southern Kingdom)

Although the Southern Kingdom of Judah had a few good eggs (King Josiah, King Hezekiah, etc.), Oholibah turns out to be even more corrupt than her sister.

Not only does Oholibah lust after Egypt and Assyria, but she also lusts after the Babylonians (sometimes referred to as Chaldeans in Scripture).

Judah’s king, Jehoiakim (2 Chronicles 36:4), son of the good king Josiah was a bad egg. He reigned as a vassal to Babylon. In other words, he acknowledged the power of Babylon and subjected his people to them, forcing his people to pay a tribute.

In essence, Babylon said, “You either pay us, or we invade you.” Jehoiakim opts for the payments.

Instead of trusting in God, both kingdoms sought the wisdom and protection of other kingdoms such as Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. Through a hard-learned-lesson and several decades in captivity, they learned not to put their stock in other powers of this world.

In the same case with Oholibah, she puts her trust in the Chaldeans through the king of Jehoiakim. But when Jehoiakim ignores the prophet Jeremiah’s warnings—literally burning the scroll that contained them (Jeremiah 36:23-24), and he stops paying tribute to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar gets angry.

He invades Judah in three separate installments and takes most of the Israelites captive. According to Josephus Book X, Chapter 6, Jehoiakim is killed in battle and his body is thrown over a wall.

Judah goes into captivity, around 586 BC, and doesn’t return to the homeland until 539 BC.

What does this mean for us?

We may analyze these passages, once past the bizarre imagery, and wonder if this has anything to do with us in the here in now, since these events happened more than 2500 years ago.

What do two sisters, who represented two nations, have to do with Christians today?

We can actually pluck many spiritual insights from the 23 chapter of Ezekiel.

First: We cannot trust in the powers of the world.

Samaria and Jerusalem, the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel, placed their trust in foreign powers. They thought Egypt would come to their aid when the Assyrians invaded, and thought their tribute would be enough to appease the Babylonians. Both fail them, and they lose many lives and their homeland in the process.

In our case, we can often place our trust in worldly goods or what Satan tells us we need to make us happy. In the end, these idols will fail us or will turn against us, as was the case with Assyria and Babylon.

Second: Worship belongs to God alone.

Whatever we chase after, God will give us over to.

If that is in fact God, we will experience the magnitude of his love and grace.

However, if we choose to chase after sin and prostitute ourselves to it, God will let us see the full effects of what we have given ourselves over to. As with the case of Assyria and Babylon, sin will turn against us, lay waste to us, and destroy our lives.

Third: God sets the captives free.

The story doesn’t end with the two sisters forever in captivity. Later, after a handful of decades, God allows for Israel to return to their homeland.

He allows the same opportunity for us. Although we engage with sin and end up being taken captive by it, God allows a way for us to return to him, like the son in the prodigal son parable in Luke 15:11-32. He’ll embrace us with open arms and welcome us back into the family when we return to him.

Photo credit: Pexels/Joseph Redfield

Hope Bolinger is a literary agent at C.Y.L.E. and graduate of Taylor University's professional writing program. More than 450 of her works have been featured in various publications ranging from Writer's Digest to Keys for Kids. She has worked for various publishing companies, magazines, newspapers, and literary agencies and has edited the work of authors such as Jerry B. Jenkins and Michelle Medlock Adams. Her column "Hope's Hacks," tips and tricks to avoid writer's block, reaches 6,000+ readers weekly and is featured monthly on Cyle Young's blog, which receives 63,000+ monthly hits. Her modern-day Daniel, “Blaze,” (Illuminate YA) released in June, and the sequel “Den releases July 2020. Find out more about her here.