Ezekiel 16:35 - Meaning and Application

Adultery was made a capital crime by the law of Moses. Here, this well-known adulteress, now standing as the accused, has judgment passed on her after being found guilty in the verses before. The prophet, speaking as a judge in God’s name, calls out, “O harlot, hear the word of the Lord” (Ezekiel 16:35). Christ preached to sinners like that to lead them into God’s kingdom, but here the prophet speaks to cast her out. An apostate church, a church that turns away from God, is like a harlot. Jerusalem is called that when she becomes idolatrous, and the same picture is used of Rome in Revelation when it is marked for ruin (Revelation 17:1).

Those who refuse to hear the Lord’s commanding word and obey it will one day have to hear his condemning word. Then they will tremble at it. We should pay close attention while judgment is being announced. The charge is laid out plainly, with the added weight of the sins that made it worse. When God speaks in anger, he shows himself right when he judges, and sinners will have their sins set before them so clearly that they cannot answer back.

The first charge is idolatry. This broke the first two commandments, because she gave herself to false gods, here called her whoredoms with her lovers. She treated the idols as if they were her benefactors, and served the detestable idols she had chosen. This is the sin that provokes God to jealousy. The second charge is the murder of innocent children. She gave her children to those idols. It is not surprising when people who have cast off God also break the strongest ties of natural love.

These sins are made worse by the shame they brought on her. Her filth was exposed, and what was hidden in her heart was brought into the open. Her nakedness was laid bare, and she was left open to contempt. God is angry when his professing people disgrace themselves by their sins. Their great ingratitude also made the sin worse. They did not remember the days of their youth, or the kindness shown to them when they would otherwise have perished (Ezekiel 16:43). On top of that, they grieved and provoked God, who should have been pleased by their obedience. It is a striking thing that the great God speaks of the sins of his people as something that pains him. “Forty years long was I grieved with this generation.”

The sentence is now given in general. God says he will judge them as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged, because those sins were punished with death, and with a shameful death at that (Ezekiel 16:38). She shed blood, so blood will be given to her. She broke wedlock, so she will receive her punishment, not only as justice, but as the jealousy of an injured husband who will not spare in the day of vengeance (Proverbs 6:34-35). God repays their own way on their heads, and in every judgment we must see that sinners are receiving what their sin was already leading toward.

The criminal will also be put to public shame. Guilty people are not executed in secret, but before witnesses. Here, all those she loved and took pleasure in will come and watch, so they may take warning and avoid the same ruin. Those she hated will also be there, rejoicing over her fall. In both ways, Jerusalem’s fall will be bitter, a grief to her friends and a joy to her enemies. Even the nations she joined herself to in unlawful alliances, like Egypt and Assyria, will help bring about her ruin. As God can make even enemies live at peace with a person whose ways please him, so he can turn friends into foes when a person’s ways displease him.

Those who helped strip her of virtue will now see her stripped of her remaining honor, and may even help strip her further. They will come to look on the nakedness of the land. The same thought appears again: “I will execute judgments on you in the sight of many women” (Ezekiel 16:41). She will become a warning example, so others may see, fear, and stop sinning proudly.

She is also sentenced to death, because her sins deserve death as their due wage (Ezekiel 16:40). A company will be brought against her, and they will stone her and strike her with swords. This means a terrible death, with many deaths piled into one. When Jerusalem was later attacked, her walls broken down and her people killed by the sword, this sentence was carried out in its plain meaning.

Her property will also be destroyed. Her high places, the places she built for idol worship, will be torn down, and her houses will be burned (Ezekiel 16:39, Ezekiel 16:41). Those places, meant to honor idols and win favor with her neighbors, will become a disgrace. Even the things she trusted in will turn against her. It had long been said, even in some of Judah’s better times, that the high places were not removed. But now the Chaldeans, the Babylonian army, will break them down as they lay everything waste. If sin is not removed by a nation’s justice, God will remove it by his judgments.

In this way, both the sin and the sinners will be wiped out together, and both will come to an end. “You will stop acting like a prostitute,” and there will be no trace of idolatry left in the land, because the people themselves will be completely removed. They will give no more payment, because they will have nothing left to give. Some people will not leave their sins until their sins leave them.

When all the things used to honor their idols are taken away, they will no longer give such payment (Ezekiel 16:41). Then they will not commit that shameful sin of sacrificing their children, a crime worse than all their other sins, because their children will have been killed by the sword or taken into exile, so that none will be left to sacrifice (Ezekiel 16:43). Or this may mean the better behavior of those who survive the punishment. They will take the warning to heart and will no longer act so boldly in sin.

The Babylonian captivity made Israel stop idol worship for good. It effectively cured them of their pull toward idolatry. Then everything will be well when this is the result, the taking away of sin. Then, as verse 42 says, “my jealousy will depart.” God says, “I will be calm and no longer angry.” When we begin to fight against sin, God will be at peace with us, because he keeps afflicting us only until it has done its work.

When sin goes away, God’s jealousy soon goes away too, because he is never jealous unless we give him good reason. Still, some understand this as a warning of total destruction. God will make a full end, and the fire of his anger will burn as long as there is anything left to feed it. His fury will remain on them and will not be withdrawn. Compare this with the fate of unbelievers, “The wrath of God remains on them” (John 3:36). They will drink the last drops of the cup, and then God will be angry no more, because he is relieved of his enemies (Isaiah 1:24). He is satisfied when he has given them up, and then he is no longer angry, because there are no more people for his anger to strike.

They had wearied him while judgment and mercy seemed to be in conflict. But now he is calm, as he will be in the final destruction of sinners, where he will be glorified. Therefore he will be satisfied.