Ezekiel 23 explained: The Story of Two Unfaithful Sisters

Two sisters, two kingdoms (vv. 1-4)

The sisters are Samaria and Jerusalem, the capitals of the northern and southern kingdoms, pictured as the LORD's wives who were unfaithful as far back as Egypt. Their names likely mean "her tent" and "my tent is in her." Many read this as a contrast between the north's own shrines and the temple in Jerusalem, though scholars are not certain.

Samaria and Assyria (vv. 5-10)

Samaria's desire for the dashing Assyrian officers stands for northern Israel seeking alliances with powerful Assyria and taking up its gods. Assyria then turned on her and conquered Samaria around 722 BC, taking its people away, and the stripped and killed woman pictures that conquest (v. 10).

Jerusalem goes further (vv. 11-21)

Judah saw her sister's fate but went further: she courted Assyria, then Babylon after seeing its officers painted on walls, then Egypt once she turned against Babylon. The crude sexual language, especially in verse 20, is meant to shock, showing how degrading the prophet thought these alliances and the foreign worship tied to them were.

Jerusalem's coming punishment (vv. 22-35)

The LORD says the very powers Jerusalem courted will attack from every side, mutilating, killing, taking children away and stripping the city bare, a picture of Babylon's siege and destruction of Jerusalem around 586 BC. Jerusalem must drink her sister's cup, an image of receiving the same ruin Samaria suffered.

Children and the temple (vv. 36-42)

Here the charges drop the picture language: the people sacrificed their own children to idols and then came into the LORD's temple that same day (vv. 37 to 39). The banquet scene shows incense and oil that belonged to the LORD being laid out for foreign guests instead (vv. 40 to 41).

The sentence carried out (vv. 43-49)

The sisters are sentenced as women guilty of adultery and murder: a crowd stones them, kills their children and burns their homes, picturing both nations destroyed by invading armies. Verse 48 turns this into a warning to all women, which many modern readers find deeply troubling, while others stress that the image is about nations and is not a model for treating real women.

Key verse: Ezekiel 23:35

Where Christians differ

Christians differ over the chapter's sexual and violent imagery: some read it as a shocking but fitting picture of betrayal and its cost, while many recent scholars argue it reflects ancient attitudes toward women that should not be taken as God approving such violence.

Something to think about

Why might someone describe a nation's betrayal in such shocking, bodily language, and what does that kind of language do to you as a reader?