Ezekiel 23:35-45

35 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Since you have forgotten me and turned your back on me, you must bear the consequences of your lewdness and prostitution.”

36 The LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then confront them with their detestable practices,

37 for they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols; they even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to me, as food for them.

38 They have also done this to me: At that same time they defiled my sanctuary and desecrated my Sabbaths.

39 On the very day they sacrificed their children to their idols, they entered my sanctuary and desecrated it. That is what they did in my house.

40 “They even sent messengers for men who came from far away, and when they arrived you bathed yourself for them, applied eye makeup and put on your jewelry.

41 You sat on an elegant couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed the incense and olive oil that belonged to me.

42 “The noise of a carefree crowd was around her; drunkards were brought from the desert along with men from the rabble, and they put bracelets on the wrists of the woman and her sister and beautiful crowns on their heads.

43 Then I said about the one worn out by adultery, ‘Now let them use her as a prostitute, for that is all she is.’

44 And they slept with her. As men sleep with a prostitute, so they slept with those lewd women, Oholah and Oholibah.

45 But righteous judges will sentence them to the punishment of women who commit adultery and shed blood, because they are adulterous and blood is on their hands.

Ezekiel 23:35-45 Meaning and Commentary

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 23:1-4, 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 23:5-8, and their punishment for them is declared, Eze 23:9,10 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 23:13-18 in imitation of the Egyptians, reviving former idolatries learnt of them, Eze 23:19-21, wherefore they are threatened, that the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Assyrians, should come against them, and spoil them, and carry them captive, Eze 23:22-35, and the prophet is bid to declare the abominable sin of them both, Eze 23:36-44, 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 23:45-49.

as the Targum; another prophecy, one upon the same subject, as in Eze 16:1,

\\saying\\; as follows:

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Cross References

• 1. S Deuteronomy 32:18; S Isaiah 17:10; Jeremiah 3:21
• 2. S 1 Kings 14:9; S 2 Chronicles 29:6
• 3. Ezekiel 16:52
• 4. S Ezekiel 16:2
• 5. Isaiah 58:1; S Ezekiel 22:2; Micah 3:8
• 6. S Ezekiel 16:36
• 7. S Leviticus 15:31
• 8. S Nehemiah 10:31
• 9. S 2 Kings 21:4
• 10. S Jeremiah 7:10; Ezekiel 22:8
• 11. S Isaiah 57:9
• 12. 2 Kings 9:30
• 13. S Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 16:13-19; Hosea 2:13
• 14. S Esther 1:6; S Proverbs 7:17; Amos 6:4
• 15. Isaiah 65:11; Ezekiel 41:22; Ezekiel 44:16; Malachi 1:7,12
• 16. Isaiah 57:9; S Isaiah 65:3; S Jeremiah 44:5
• 17. S Numbers 18:12
• 18. S Psalms 73:5
• 19. S 2 Chronicles 9:1
• 20. S Genesis 24:30
• 21. S Ezekiel 16:11-12
• 22. ver 3
• 23. S Ezekiel 22:3
• 24. S Leviticus 20:10; S Ezekiel 16:38; Hosea 2:2; Hosea 6:5