44 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
44 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
+++
|
||
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.
|