Worship With Us Sunday School10 AM Sunday Morning11 AM Sunday Evening4 PM Thursday Night7 PM
1377 S 20th St, Louisville, KY 40210 Contact
True Words Baptist Church — Revelation 21:5
BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 23

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 23 of 48•49 verses
Search Ezekiel
Aa  Reading settings
Text size
Reading width
Track chapter:
Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study
REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Ezekiel 23 Overview

Samaria and Jerusalem are portrayed as sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, who pursue political and spiritual adultery with Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and idols. Their graphic unfaithfulness leads to humiliating judgment by the very nations they desired, exposing covenant betrayal and bloodshed.

EzekielBook
23Chapter
49Verses
Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Ezekiel 23

Coming from

The LORD indicts Jerusalem as a “bloody city” filled with murder, idolatry, contempt for parents, oppression of strangers and vulnerable people, sexual corruption, bribery, extortion, profaned holy things, corrupt priests, princes, prophets, and people. No one is found to stand in the gap, so judgment is poured out.

In this chapter

Samaria and Jerusalem are portrayed as sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, who pursue political and spiritual adultery with Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and idols. Their graphic unfaithfulness leads to humiliating judgment by the very nations they desired, exposing covenant betrayal and bloodshed.

Leads into

On the very day Babylon begins the final siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel records the date and gives the parable of a boiling pot whose corroded filth cannot be cleansed. Then the LORD tells Ezekiel that his wife will die and commands him not to perform normal public mourning, making his loss a sign of the stunned reaction when the sanctuary is destroyed.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The two sisters represent the northern kingdom (Samaria) and southern kingdom (Jerusalem). Sexual imagery dramatizes both idolatry and dependence on foreign powers in ways meant to shock the audience about covenant treachery.

Jerusalem does not learn from Samaria’s earlier fall to Assyria. Instead she repeats and intensifies the pattern, so the chapter uses the northern kingdom’s history as a warning Judah ignored.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Sin can become more brazen when earlier judgments are ignored

Jerusalem sees Samaria’s consequences yet follows similar alliances and idolatry.

Misplaced political trust can become spiritual betrayal

Foreign alliances are described as adultery because Judah seeks security contrary to covenant loyalty.

The objects of sinful desire can become instruments of humiliation

The nations Jerusalem pursued are the nations through whom judgment comes.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

2 Kings 17

Samaria’s fall to Assyria provides the historical background to Aholah’s judgment.

2 Kings 20:12-18

Hezekiah’s reception of Babylonian envoys foreshadows Judah’s dangerous relationship with Babylon, later followed by conquest.

Hosea 4

Hosea similarly uses sexual-unfaithfulness language for Israel’s idolatry and covenant betrayal.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not eroticize or read the graphic language for entertainment.

Its purpose is moral revulsion at idolatry, political infidelity, and bloodshed.

Do not use the women in the allegory to stereotype actual women as more sexually unfaithful than men.

Aholah and Aholibah personify kingdoms; the target is national covenant betrayal, including male rulers and leaders.

Read Ezekiel 23 watching for…

Aholah as Samaria and Aholibah as Jerusalem

Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt as desired lovers/allies

Jerusalem failing to learn from Samaria

idolatry joined with bloodshed

judgment coming through former objects of desire

TWBC REVIEW STANDARD

Plain language. Scripture first. Fact distinguished from inference. No filler. No fake certainty. Designed to help you read the Bible itself.

Chapter outline4 sections
1-10Aholah pictures Samaria giving herself to Assyria and being destroyed by her lovers11-21Aholibah pictures Jerusalem becoming even more corrupt with Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt22-35Jerusalem’s former lovers are raised against her, and she must bear the result of forgetting God36-49Both sisters are charged with adultery, idolatry, bloodshed, and profaning God’s holy things
1

The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2

Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:

3

And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.

4

And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.

5

And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours,

6

Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.

7

Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.

8

Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.

9

Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.

10

These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.

11

And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.

12

She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.

13

Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way,

14

And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion,

15

Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity:

16

And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

17

And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.

18

So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister.

19

Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

20

For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

21

Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.

22

Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side;

23

The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them: all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.

24

And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.

25

And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.

26

They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels.

27

Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

28

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated:

29

And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.

30

I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.

31

Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand.

32

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.

33

Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.

34

Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

35

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.

36

The LORD said moreover unto me; Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations;

37

That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.

38

Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths.

39

For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.

40

And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments,

41

And satest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set mine incense and mine oil.

42

And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.

43

Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them?

44

Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.

45

And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

46

For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled.

47

And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

48

Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.

49

And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

STUDY THIS VERSE

Ezekiel 23:19

Back to verse ↑

Cross References

Cross-reference storage is active. This passage does not yet have curated references loaded.

Related TWBC Resources

The Scripture resource graph is active. Sermons, Bible Overviews, courses, questions, and studies can attach here without changing the Bible text.

My Note

Sign in to keep private notes and personal verse tags.

Sign in →