Ezekiel 23

Oholah 

This message is a word from the Lord and this word is for the body of Christ (Ezekiel 23:1). In Ezekiel 23 God is speaking to the prophet Ezekiel about his people who he is calling Oholah and Oholibah (Jerusalem and Samaria). God says in Ezekiel 23:4 that these two women, the people he has chosen, “they were mine” but they became prostitutes in Egypt (Ezekiel 23:3). Their prostitution was desiring to be like the Egyptians even when they were in bondage to them. God says that “Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was still mine”(Ezekiel 23:5). While God was still with her; and while she was still ritualistically serving God, she was also putting her trust in what the Egyptians valued. This word applied to Israel during this time and still apples to people today, Oholah are people who say they believe in God, but like Jerusalem (Oholah) they lust after the security, might and power of a kingdom (Assyria) and rulers that do not acknowledge God. They lust after their leadership, their governors, their military might, their commanders of armies and militarism. Oholah (Jerusalem) and people like her love and desire this kind of help, this kind of strength and their ways (Ezekiel 23:5-6). Oholah wanted to worship what Assyria said gave them power. God’s word says that because Oholah looked to that power for strength and to be just like them, he would deliver them to them, to be punished by them and stripped of their sense of security in them and their ways (Ezekiel 23:9-10). 

Oholibah

Oholibah, the other type of believer, a believer in idols who puts their faith in the power of governors and armies and their belief systems, desires to be like them; and God says that Oholibah invites them to rule her as one of their own and completely turns away from trusting or even appearing to trust in God. Oholibah falls in love with these rulers and their ways, but when they begin to use her like a prostitute, as is described, she becomes disgusted by them. God says through Ezekiel to Oholibah that the ones you loved more than me, enough to refuse to put your faith in me and to adopt their ways and ask them to rule you and guide you and protect you, “I will stir up your lovers against you” (Ezekiel 23:22) from every side and I will turn you over to them for punishment, and they will punish you according to their standards (Ezekiel 23:24). The large shields and the small shields that were your security and that you loved will not shield you but punish you.

God says that he will allow this because of his jealous anger. Ezekiel 23:25 – 27 says that God’s jealous anger is just and corrects the harm that the ones he loves bring on themselves for trusting in what cannot protect or shield them. God’s jealous anger, “puts a stop to the prostitution so that you will not look on those things with longing or remember your days of bondage to them anymore” (Ezekiel 23:27). Ezekiel 23:22 says that Oholibah didn’t love the kingdoms who were ruling her anymore, it says she hated them, but she did not return to God. God says to Ezekiel that he knows that Oholibah hates its rulers but because she has chosen them over me, “I am about to deliver you into the hands of those you hate, to those you turned away in disgust. They will deal with you in hatred and take away everything you have worked for. They will leave you stark naked and the shame of your prostitution will be exposed” (Ezekiel 23:28-29). God says to those like Oholibah “Because you have forgotten me and turned your back on me you must bear the consequences” (Ezekiel 23:35). People who do not return to God will drink from the cup of consequences “a cup large and deep” of scorn, derision, drunkenness and sorrow, a cup of ruin and desolation and you will drain it dry and chew on its pieces” (Ezekiel 23:32-34). 

The day of the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 5:20-22 advises people who fear God to “not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good and reject every kind of evil.” God asks his prophet Ezekiel, will you confront these people? The Oholahs and Oholibahs who are desirous of the security that governors and military might can offer, who want to look to them for salvation, justice, deliverance and security? God says this kind of idol worship is considered adultery in his eyes and that blood is on the hands of everyone who places their faith in these rulers and their ways for the physical and spiritual death that has happened to them and generations of children (Ezekiel 23:36 – 37). God asks Ezekiel will you confront these people who say that they believe in God but offer the lives of their children to their rulers and to their idols and then enter his sanctuary the same day (Ezekiel 23:39). God says these people offer the best of themselves to rulers they hate, who disgust them, they offer themselves, their faith, their love and the work of their hands to them, which God says, “belongs to me” (Ezekiel 23:40-41). God says Oholah people who say that they believe in God and Oholibah people who have turned away are bought by these oppressive idol worshipping rulers with material treasures and recognitions and to them God says, if you can be bought at such a cheap price, “let your oppressors use you as a prostitute, for that is all she is” (Ezekiel 23:43). 

God tells Ezekiel, his prophet to confront these people for the adultery that they have committed; and to tell them what they have done and warn them of coming consequences. God in his righteousness and love says that he will allow these rulers to terrorize and plunder his people and burn down their places of security so that he can “put to an end to faith in what cannot save. He tells Ezekiel I will allow it so that no one will ever desire to be like these rulers again or imitate their ways; I will allow it so that you will know that, I am the Sovereign Lord” (Ezekiel 23:46-49). 

“hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)” and “in everything do to others what you would have them do to you (counsel, correct and snatch from the flames) for this sums up the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).