Ezekiel 23:28 Komentář

This long chapter (as before ch. 16 and 20) is a history of the apostasies of God's people from him and the aggravations of those apostasies under the similitude of corporal whoredom and adultery. Here the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the ten tribes and the two, with their capital cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, are considered distinctly. Here is, I. The apostasy of Israel and Samaria from God (Eze 23:1-8) and their ruin for it (Eze 23:9, Eze 23:10). II. The apostasy of Judah and Jerusalem from God (Eze 23:11-21) and sentence passed upon them, that they shall in like manner be destroyed for it (Eze 23:22-35). III. The joint wickedness of them both together (Eze 23:36-44) and the joint ruin of them both (Eze 23:45-49). And all that is written for warning against the sins of idolatry, and confidence in an arm of flesh, and sinful leagues and confederacies with wicked people (which are the sins here meant by committing whoredom), is that others may hear and fear, and not sin after the similitude of the transgressions of Israel and Judah.

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, 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, and their punishment for them is declared, Eze 23:9 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 in imitation of the Egyptians, reviving former idolatries learnt of them, Eze 23:19, wherefore they are threatened, that the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Assyrians, should come against them, and spoil them, and carry them captive, Eze 23:22, and the prophet is bid to declare the abominable sin of them both, Eze 23:36, 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

For thus saith the Lord God, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest,.... The Chaldeans and Babylonians, before loved by her, and doted upon, but now hated and rebelled against; and to fall into such hands must be a sore judgment; and this the Lord threatens to bring upon the Jews for their sins; and he having said it, it might be depended upon it would be performed; and, for the greater certainty of it, it is repeated in different words: into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated; See Gill on Eze 23:17.

(Verse 28 and following) For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom your soul is sated. And they will deal with you in hatred, and they will take away all your labors, and they will leave you naked and full of shame, and the shame of your fornications will be revealed. Your wickedness and your fornications have done this to you, because you have prostituted yourself to the nations, among whom you have defiled yourself with their idols. You have walked in the way of your sister, and I will give her cup into your hand. Thus says the Lord God: You shall drink the deep and wide cup of your sister. You shall be a laughingstock and a mockery, a very large mock. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of mourning and sadness, the cup of your sister Samaria. And you will drink it and gulp it down to the dregs, and you will devour its fragments, and you will tear your breasts (or as the Septuagint translated: I will take away her feasts and new moons); for I have spoken, says the Lord God (Vulgate adds God). Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself also bear your wickedness and your adulteries. It is profitable for Jerusalem to have enmity against the Assyrians and the Chaldeans, and to not remember Egypt; but rather, to be delivered into their hands for punishment, those who hated her: to whom it is not given before, unless their souls are satisfied with them, so that after repenting of their old sins, then they may be cleansed with punishments, and may destroy all the works which she acquired by her harlotry: and may see her nakedness and shame; and may know that the Lord did not do all these things for her, but rather her adulteries, by which she committed adultery among the nations whom she enumerated above, so that she would worship their idols. In the streets, she says, you have walked with your sister Samaria: therefore you must drink the cup of her sins, which you have followed. However, there are many examples of the cup, which is often received for punishments and torments, among which is this: The cup in the hand of the Lord is full of mixed wine, and He poured from this into that: but its dregs were not emptied, all the sinners of the earth will drink from it (Psalm 75:8, 9). And in Isaiah it is called the cup of ruin and the goblet of fury (Isaiah 51:17). And God spoke to Jeremiah, saying: Take the cup of wine from my hand, and you shall drink to all the nations, to whom I will send you. And they shall drink, and vomit, and become mad (Jerem. XXV, 15). Just as certain purgatives are given, so that the harmful humor that is in the body may be expelled: so the Lord also gives the most bitter cup of torments, so that he may take away from sinners whatever is of gall and bitterness, and restore them to their former health. And the cup itself will be deep and wide. Deep, in the magnitude of punishment; wide, in the length of captivity. But when, he says, you have become drunk and been seized by pain, and you drink the cup even to the dregs, and you have drunk so much that you devour even the fragments of the cup itself: then you will be disgusted by your former fornication, and you will tear the breasts that were broken in Egypt, and those that were subdued and bruised by your lovers: whether I take away all your feasts and new moons, so that instead of celebration and joy, you will have eternal lamentation and sorrow. Since you have done these things, and have forgotten about me, and have cast me behind your body, or backwards, because of the sins of the body, or behind the genitals, which indicate the filthiness of shame: Therefore, you are the gate of your own wickedness and impiety, namely the punishments that you have deserved because of your impiety and wickedness. This can be understood significantly in regard to Jerusalem, which drinks the cup of her sister Samaria to the last drop, and has drunk the dregs of her torments to the very bottom.

The idolatries of Samaria and Jerusalem are represented in this chapter by the bad practices of two common harlots, for which God denounces severe judgments against them, vv. 1-49. See the sixteenth chapter, where the same metaphor is enlarged upon as here, it being the prophets view to exude the utmost detestation of the crime against which he inveighs.

ISRAEL'S AND JUDAH'S SIN AND PUNISHMENT ARE PARABOLICALLY PORTRAYED UNDER THE NAMES AHOLAH AND AHOLIBAH. (Eze. 23:1-49) two . . . of one mother--Israel and Judah, one nation by birth from the same ancestress, Sarah.

(Eze 23:17-18; Eze 16:37).