diff --git a/content/bible_journal/ezekiel_23:1-21.md b/content/bible_journal/ezekiel_23:1-21.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..606504b --- /dev/null +++ b/content/bible_journal/ezekiel_23:1-21.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ ++++ +title = "Ezekiel 23:1–21" +date = "2023-04-30" ++++ + +### [Read the passage.](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Ezekiel23.1-21) + +I have heard that in Rabbinical traditions, students of the Torah were not +allowed to study Ezekiel until they were eighteen years old, or possibly even +thirty. It would not surprise me if this chapter is part of the reason. There +is even more sexual imagery than we have yet seen in this book, and it is meant +to evoke disgust and horror. + +The allegory describing Israel as an unfaithful woman chapter 16 is expanded to +call Samaria and Jerusalem two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah. Each city was the +capital of its kingdom and thus stands in for its nation as a whole. The +infidelity, immorality, and prostitution of these two sisters should be +understood as idolatry and trusting in the security of foreign alliances +instead of trusting in the provision and protection of the Lord their God. But +also literal prostitution as well, on an individual level. Cult prostitution, +or religious sexual ceremonies, were also prevalent throughout the ancient +world. One could then call this whole chapter a double _entendre_, though it's +the sexual meaning that is obvious here and the political one that is "hidden". + +Oholah and Oholibah learned their immoral ways in Egypt, where the Israelites +certainly participated in the religious rites of the land they lived in, before +the Lord brought them out. Oholah did not give up these ways when she split +from her sister, and gave herself to the Assyrians, a powerful, attractive +neighbor. She thought her attentions and her bed would garner respect and +protection, but the opposite occurred. The Lord stirred up the Assyrians and +they captured her children and killed her. Thus the northern kingdom of Israel +fell and was no more. + +Oholibah saw all this happen, and knew the reaons for it, and leaned in harder +anyway. She lusted after the Assyrians too, and also the Babylonians, and when +she grew tired of them, turned her attention back to the Egyptians she had once +been enslaved to. Everything Oholah had done, Oholibah did worse. The Lord +turned away in disgust, and still the spiral downward in depravity continued. + +* * * + +Forgive us our unfaithfulness, when we seek our own pleasure over and against +Your commands, the commands that bring us life and happiness.