Ezekiel 23:22 - Meaning and Application

Jerusalem is brought in as Aholibah because she acted like a false traitor against her rightful Lord, the God of heaven. She did not live in God’s fear, but followed the devil’s prompting. She turned away from her loyalty to him, made plans against his rule, and made alliances with his enemies, the people who claimed to be gods, all in contempt of his honor and authority.

Yet when accused, she pleaded, “I am not polluted; I have not gone after Baalim.” But the evidence proved her guilty, and she had no real defense left. So the sentence is now announced. Her old allies will become her punishers. Those she once courted as partners in sin, the Chaldeans, will be raised up against her, though she later turned away from them and broke covenant with them.

They are called her lovers, and yet also those she hates. Sinful love often turns quickly into hatred, as in Amnon’s hatred for Tamar. Strong, uncontrolled passions can swing hard from one extreme to the other. People who are ruled by passion often become as hostile to what they once wanted as they were eager for it before. So we should hold earthly affections loosely, loving as people who may soon have reason to let go.

The Chaldean army will come against her from every side. They will include men from many nations, all of them great leaders and well known warriors. Their power and splendor once made them look attractive when they came as friends, but now they will be far more fearsome as enemies sent to punish treachery and bring ruin.

They will come with full military force, with chariots, wagons, weapons, supplies, and a large, well-armed army. God says, “I will set judgment before them,” meaning they will have justice on their side as well as strength. The king of Babylon had a rightful cause for war because Judah had broken its agreement with him. So they will judge Jerusalem both as God’s instruments and according to the law of nations, for her faithless dealings with them.

They will also prosecute the war with deep anger and revenge. Because this is a war of retaliation, they will deal hatefully with her. Sinful hatred breeds hated treatment in return. If you hate others, you should not be surprised when they hate you back.

God himself will lead them, and his jealousy will join their anger. His jealous anger will kindle the fire, and then they will rage against her. Human fury alone is terrible enough, but if God is also against us, what hope do we have? If people are fierce with us, yet God is on our side, they cannot truly harm us. But if God sets himself against us too, our ruin is sure.

The sentence is then spelled out in detail. Everything she has will be seized. The clothes and jewels she used to attract her lovers will be stripped away. All the goods she gained by her labor will be taken, and she will be left naked and bare. The city and the countryside will both be ruined, and all their wealth will be carried off.

Her children will go into captivity. Her sons and daughters will be taken and made slaves, because they are children of shame and unfaithfulness, unworthy of the privileges of Israel. She will also be marked and disgraced. Her nose and ears will be cut off, marking her as a prostitute and leaving her permanently despised. This points to the cruelty of the Chaldean soldiers, who likely treated the Jews with barbaric violence. Some take this as symbolic, with the nose meaning kingly dignity and the ears meaning the priesthood.

She will be exposed in public shame. Her lewdness and prostitution will be uncovered. When criminals are punished, their old crimes are brought out and repeated to deepen their disgrace. What was hidden will come to light, and what happened long ago will be remembered again. At last she will be completely destroyed. Those who survive famine and disease will fall by the sword, and the remaining houses that are not already ruined will be burned. This will be the end of Jerusalem.

Because she has followed Samaria’s sins, she must expect Samaria’s fate. When judges give a sentence, they often look to earlier cases, and God does the same here. Jerusalem has walked in her sister’s ways, even after seeing the deadly result of Samaria’s wickedness. So God will place Samaria’s cup, the cup of the Lord’s fury, into Jerusalem’s hand, and it will be a cup that makes her tremble.

This cup is deep and wide, full of God’s wrath and the misery that comes from it. It is like the cup described in (Jeremiah 25:15-16). The cup of divine judgment holds much, and those who must drink it will find how full it is. Jerusalem will drink it to the dregs, not because it is pleasant, but because she is forced to. She will bite and break the shards of the cup in her distress, and tear at herself in bitter outrage, because the Lord has spoken it and there will be no escape.

They will be made drunk by it, sick, and helpless, like drunkards who stagger, stumble, and are ready to fall (Ezekiel 23:33). “You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.” Drunkenness brings sorrow with it, and here it stands for complete confusion and horror. It is striking that something so violent against nature, something that shames a person and takes away reason, is still loved by many as a favorite sin. People ruin their souls to damage their own bodies. Who has woe and sorrow like this (Proverbs 23:29)?

Being drunk, they will also become a laughing-stock to everyone around them (Ezekiel 23:32). “You will be laughed at and mocked,” acting foolishly in everything you do. When God is about to ruin a people, he makes their judges foolish and brings contempt on their leaders (Job 12:17, Job 12:21).

In all this, God will be shown to be right, and through it they will be corrected. The end result will be God’s glory and their good. They had been very bad, and that fully justifies what God brings on them (Ezekiel 23:30). “I will do these things to you because you have gone after the nations like a prostitute,” and (Ezekiel 23:35) because “you have forgotten me and pushed me behind your back.” Forgetting God, and treating him with contempt, his eye on us and his authority over us, is the root of all false and unfaithful turning away from him. People chase after idols because they forget God and their duty to him. They could not look with such desire and pleasure at sin’s traps if they had not first pushed God behind them, as if he were not worth their attention. When people insult God so deeply, how can they avoid having it come back on them in the end? “You must also bear your lewdness and your prostitution,” that is, you will suffer for them, and you alone will bear the blame. People do not need anything more to bring them down than the weight of their own sins. Those who will not let go of their lewdness and prostitution must carry them.

They shall also become better, much better, and this fire, though it destroys many, will purify a remnant (Ezekiel 23:27). “I will put a stop to your lewdness.” The judgments brought on them because of their sins will separate them from those sins and teach them at last to say, “What do we have to do with idols anymore?” Notice how deep this disease had been: “Your prostitution came from the land of Egypt.” Their pull toward idolatry began early, was built into their habits, and had been long practiced. It had almost become something they thought they had a right to keep because it had been done so long.

Yet the cure would be complete. Though the sin had taken root, God would make it stop, so they would not even lift their eyes to the idols again, or remember Egypt with pleasure anymore. They would avoid every chance to fall into this sin. They would not even look at an idol, so their hearts would not be drawn after their eyes. They would also give up every inward liking for it. They would not remember Egypt; they would not keep any of the affection for idols that had marked their nation from the beginning. They picked up this sin through the corruption of human nature while they were slaves in Egypt, and by God’s grace they lost it in Babylon, where this discipline brought the blessed result of removing that sin. Before the captivity, no nation, all things considered, was more strongly drawn to idols than they were. After the captivity, no nation was more firmly against idols and idol worship than they were. So much so that even today the image worship found in the church of Rome strengthens the Jews in their bias against the Christian religion.