Ezra 6:13 - Meaning and Application

After the ten tribes were taken into captivity and their kingdom was left desolate, many of the remaining people gradually settled in Judah and Jerusalem. In that way, the two sisters had, in effect, become one again. So here the prophet addresses them together, because they are now joined in the same guilt and judgment. It is as if God says, “Will you judge Aholah and Aholibah together?” (Ezekiel 23:36), or, “Will you try to make excuses for them? Their case is too bad for that.”

God appoints the prophet to call out their sins plainly and boldly. He is to make them see the evils they are guilty of, not soften them. The first and worst charge is their gross idolatry, which Scripture speaks of as adultery. They have broken their covenant with God and chased after the empty pleasures of a fleshly, sinful mind in worship. They have also committed shocking murders by offering their children to Moloch, a pagan god. Their hands were stained with innocent blood, their own children, whom they made pass through the fire (Ezekiel 23:37).

They treated holy things with contempt, and in doing so they insulted God himself. Every insult to what is holy is an insult to the one who is perfectly holy. God had set his sanctuary among them, but they defiled it by turning it into a place for idols and bloodshed. They had also profaned his sabbaths, either by doing ordinary work on that day or by using it for sports and pleasure, with public approval. They defiled the sanctuary on the very day they profaned the sabbath, which made the sin even worse. God notices the details that increase guilt.

Ezekiel 23:39 shows how far their shamelessness went. They slaughtered their children and sacrificed them to idols, dishonoring both God and human nature. Then, on the same day, with blood still on their hands and clothes, they came into God’s sanctuary as if nothing were wrong. They did not come to confess their sin and seek mercy. They came as if God either did not know their wickedness or did not hate it. This was a terrible profanation of God’s house, because openly wicked people had the audacity to crowd into his worship.

This is still a warning about holy ordinances. When people who are openly corrupt and unrepentant force their way into God’s worship and privileges, they profane them. “Do not give what is holy to dogs” (Matthew 7:6). “Friend, how did you get in here?” also fits that rebuke. Sacred things are abused when the wicked pretend to share in them without repentance.

Another part of their guilt was that they sought foreign alliances, bragged about them, and trusted them. This too is like adultery, because it was a turning away from God, not only as the one they should worship, but also as the one they should trust. Israel was meant to be a people set apart, dwelling by itself and not counting itself among the nations. They lowered their honor when they longed to be like the nations around them or to make league with them. Yet now they had formed close ties with Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt, the most powerful kingdoms of that time. They ignored smaller nearby states, which might have helped them more in practical ways.

Pride in great human connections has often trapped good people. Jerusalem is pictured here as courting these high allies, as if that would make her important. She privately sent for them, asking that a public embassy be sent from afar (Ezekiel 23:40). It was not that these nations wanted her friendship first, but that she pressed herself on them and secretly invited them to court her. Wise and good people may be forced into some contact with worldly and wicked people, but it is no sign of wisdom or goodness to seek close friendship with them.

Great effort was made to welcome these foreign messengers. This is compared to an adulteress who dresses herself up to attract lovers. Like Jezebel, Ahab’s wicked queen, she painted her face and decked herself with ornaments (Ezekiel 23:40). The king and princes put on new clothes, and the rooms of state were fitted up and made attractive. She sat on a stately bed, or throne, and a table was prepared with God’s oil and incense (Ezekiel 23:41).

This may mean that a rich feast was prepared for the ambassadors, with incense to perfume the room and oil to anoint their heads. Or it may mean that an altar was already set up for them to use in idol worship. In that case, Israel was showing that they were willing to let foreigners worship as they pleased, and even to help them do it. They could set aside God’s law to please a friend. God calls the oil and incense his, not only because he provided them, but because they should have been offered at his altar. That made their use in idol worship even more sinful (Hosea 2:8).

There was also great joy at the arrival of these allies, as if Jerusalem had received some blessing never seen before (Ezekiel 23:42). The people felt secure and happy because they thought these powerful partners would protect them. So they welcomed the ambassadors with loud cheers and public rejoicing. A large crowd gathered at the court for the occasion.

The men of the common sort were there to give the ceremony more dignity and to swell the crowd. Along with them came Sabeans from the wilderness, and the margin says this may mean drunkards from the wilderness. They would toast the success of this great alliance, push drinks on others, and shout loudly in celebration.

Whoever they were, they honored the ambassadors by putting bracelets on their hands and beautiful crowns on their heads. That made the whole procession look very grand. But God, through his prophets, had already warned them against forming these dangerous alliances with foreign nations (Ezekiel 23:43).

He said to the woman who was old in adultery, meaning Israel, who from the beginning had loved partnerships with the nations and later kept making treaties with their kingdoms, even after repeated failures, “Will they still commit adultery with her, and she with them?” In other words, experience should have shown both sides that an alliance between the Jews and a pagan nation could not help either one. They are like iron and clay, which do not mix, and God would not bless such a union or look kindly on it.

But her long habit of these sins did not make her wiser, only bolder and more eager for them. Even after this warning, they still went in to her (Ezekiel 23:44). They quickly struck one deal after another, first with one foreign power and then with another. Samaria and Jerusalem acted like immoral women, unable to rest in God’s care and promises.

They did not think his covenant with them was security enough. So they turned to treaties and political alliances, which they thought were wise and well planned, and put themselves under the protection of foreign princes. This shows the heart that has turned from God, it takes pleasure in the show of the world and trusts in wealth and human strength instead of the Lord (Jeremiah 17:5).

God also warned them to expect judgment for these sins (Ezekiel 23:45). The righteous men will judge them. Some understand this to mean the very nations that destroy them, like the Assyrians who destroyed Samaria and the Chaldeans who destroyed Jerusalem. Though those nations were sinful too, they were still more just than the Jews in their dealings and were carrying out God’s righteous judgments.

Others think this refers to the prophets, whose duty was to declare God’s judgment against them. Or it may be an appeal to all upright people. Any fair-minded person would agree that these cities deserved punishment, since they were guilty of adultery and murder, and their guilt was national.

The sentence, then, is just. Why should bloody, filthy cities be treated better than bloody, filthy individuals? The righteous God will carry out the judgment that righteous men approve. The execution would be the same as before (Ezekiel 23:46, 47). God would bring armies against them and use those enemies to serve his holy purposes, even while the armies were following their own sinful desires.

Those enemies would easily overpower them, because God would hand them over to be plundered and destroyed. The invaders would stone them like criminals, single them out and kill them with swords, and, as in some severe punishments, they would also kill their children and burn their houses, as happened with Achan.

This punishment had several results. First, they would suffer for their sins, because their wantonness would be paid back to them, and they would bear the guilt of their idols (Ezekiel 23:35, 49). In this way God would defend the honor of his broken law and his wounded rule, and show the world that he is a just and jealous God.

Second, this judgment would break them away from their sin. “I will put an end to lewdness in the land” (Ezekiel 23:27, 48). The destruction of God’s city, like the death of God’s saints, would do what earlier warnings and providences had not done. It would strip away the sin so completely that Jerusalem would rise from its ashes like gold purified in a furnace from its dross.

Third, other cities and nations would get a clear warning to stay away from idols. “So all women may be taught not to do as you have done in your lewdness.” That is one purpose of punishing evil people, to make them examples to others. When the scorner is struck, the simple person will learn caution.

God’s judgments on some are meant to teach others. Happy are those who learn from them and do not follow sinners into their traps. To learn this, people must know that the Lord is God (Ezekiel 23:49), the ruler of the world, the God who judges on the earth, and the one who shows no favoritism.