The Lewdness of Sin

Ezekiel 23 introduces us to the parable of two sisters who played the whore and were handed over to what they desired. Oholah, who stands for Samaria, and Oholibah, who stands for Jerusalem, the respective capitals of the northern and southern kingdoms. 

The names have definitions. Oholah means "her tent," which commentators suggest refers to the many tent shrines scattered on "every hill" in the Northern tribes that sought after God and false gods according to their own imagination. Oholibah means, "My tent is in her" referring to the sacred tabernacle in which God dwelt that He chose to do in Jerusalem. 

These two nations committed spiritual adultery on the Lord, seeking the praise and prominence of the nations around them. 

The Northern tribes lusted after Assyria. 

Ezekiel 23:5–6 (ESV) “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors 6 clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.

There is a curious reference to Egypt which causes division among the interpreters. 

Ezekiel 23:8 (ESV) She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her.

Could Ezekiel be talking about Israel's original bondage in Egypt? If so, he means to say that what idols she adopted in slavery, she never really lost in the promised land. You can take the nation out of Egypt but not Egypt out of the nation. Indeed, the delights that bound our old life can follow us into the new. 

As a clear image of the pervasiveness of idolatry, the Lord recounts that Oholibah, Jerusalem, went further in idolatrous worship than her sister. 

Ezekiel 23:14–17 (ESV) But she carried her whoring further. She saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, 15 wearing belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them having the appearance of officers, a likeness of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. 16 When she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoring lust. And after she was defiled by them, she turned from them in disgust.

Ezekiel 23:19–20 (ESV) Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses.

Then the Lord restates this idolatrous heart was what followed them out of Egypt, having never been fully put away despite all that the Lord had given to them. 

Ezekiel 23:21 (ESV) Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.”

The lewdness of the Lord's description here is difficult to read. We tend to over-sterlize the Bible. It's filled with the raw and unfiltered nature of human sin and it's high cost. Idolatry makes the Lord's people a slave to be pitied. We are invited in this text to see sin from the outside as it defiles someone made for so much more. 

It's amazing how much sin we can tolerate in us but despise in others. Israel's rebellion is gut-wrenching to watch and yet it's a picture of our own waywardness. The Lord calls it what it is, lewd and self-debasing. In sin, we always lose. 

Israel and Judah both lost. They were handed over to the lusts of their flesh and were overcome by the nations they grew to hate though they had lusted over them in time's past. Why? Becasue they had forgotten the Lord. 

Ezekiel 23:35 (ESV) Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”

What was Israel's first sin? Was it Egypt? No. God graciously saved her from them. Was it Assyria or Babylon? No, those were merely the fruit. It was their forsaking of the Lord. They had His blessings and promises, but they did not seek His face. 

We were made to seek the Lord, everything else is defiling and destructive. Seek Him and find Him. He wants to know you intimately.