Ezekiel 23:19

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. SHE MULTIPLIED HER WHOREDOMS, IN CALLING TO REMEMBRANCE THE DAYS OF HER YOUTH. Israel first "called" her lusts, practiced when in Egypt, "to her (fond) remembrance," and then actually returned to them. Mark the danger of suffering the memory to dwell on the pleasure felt in past sins....

EGYPT - The kings of Judah played alternately Egypt against Babylon, and Babylon against Egypt. Jehoahaz was displaced by Necho for Jehoiakim, who then turned to the Chaldaeans, and afterward rebelling sought aid from Egypt. So Zedekiah was continually meditating help from Egypt, against which Jeremiah and Ezekiel were continually protesting....

EXPOSITION After another pause, the prophet enters on another elaborate parallel, after the pattern of Ezekiel 16:1; but with a marked variation. There we have the history of one harlot, _s.c. _of Israel in its collective unity. There we have two sister harlots, the daughters of one mother, and they are Samaria and Jerusalem, as both belonging to Israel. For the purpose of the parable, they are represented as having had a separate existence, even during the period of the sojourn in Egypt. This was probably historically true, the line of cleavage caused by the claims of Ephraim to supremacy appearing again and again long before the revolt of the tea tribes under Jeroboam (Judges 8:1; Judges 12:1;...

YET SHE MULTIPLIED HER WHOREDOMS,.... Though the Lord frowned upon the Jews in the times of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, yet still they went on, and increased their alliances and idolatries with the Heathen nations: IN CALLING TO REMEMBRANCE THE DAYS OF HER YOUTH, WHEREIN SHE HAD PLAYED THE HARLOT IN THE LAND OF EGYPT; they called to mind with pleasure the idolatries of their fathers in Egypt, and committed the same themselves; they sent ambassadors to Egypt, in the times of Zedekiah, for help and assistance, and to enter into alliance with them, when they renewed among them the idolatries of that nation; see Ezekiel 17:15....

In Ezekiel 23:1 Samaria and Jerusalem are called two sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, in their ungodly relation with Assyria and Chaldea. Aholah means “her tent.” Aholibah, “my tent is in her.” The latter denotes the fact that the true sanctuary was in Judah. The sins and vileness of both are portrayed throughout this long chapter, as well as the deserved punishment....

EZEKIEL 23. FATAL ALLIANCE WITH FOREIGNERS. This is the third and last of the three great indictments (Ezekiel 16, 20) which draw their material from the past rather than (as Ezekiel 22) from the present. Its underlying imagery is the same as that of ch. 16, but it differs from that chapter in dealing with the northern and southern kingdoms separately (_cf. Ezekiel 16:46_) and in emphasizing political rather than religious entanglements, though of course foreign alliances did as a matter of fact involve the recognition of foreign gods, i_.e._ idolatry (Ezekiel 22:7). Samaria and Jerusalem, the capitals of Israel and Judah respectively, are described as sisters married to Yahweh (_cf._ Jacob with his two sister wives). Their names, Oholah and Oholibah, are significantly connected with t

CALLING TO REMEMBRANCE. Put by Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of the Cause), App-6, for the desiring of her former idolatries. HARLOT. Put for idolatress. IN. Some codices read "from", as in Ezekiel 23:8 and Ezekiel 23:27....

Judah being situated between the two great empires of Babylon and Egypt and coveted by both, was naturally a hotbed of intrigue by partizans on both sides. The influence of the Egyptian party was great even in the Assyrian age (Isaiah 30-31), and the imposing and pretentious power of the Nile valley continued to delude the politicians of Judah throughout the period of Chaldean supremacy (ch. 29 32; Jeremiah 2:18; Jeremiah 37:5 seq.; Lamentations 4:17)....

YET SHE MULTIPLIED, &C.— Instead of one calf they would have two; and so favourite a superstition were the calves of Dan and Beth-el, that they kept their ground against all those general reformations which divers of their better kings had made to purge the land from idolatry. See Div. Leg. vol. 3:...

C. Jerusalem's Prostitution 23:11-21 TRANSLATION (11) And her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became corrupt in her doting more than she, and in harlotries more than the harlotries of her sister. (12) She threw herself upon the Assyrians, governors and rulers, warriors, clothed handsomely, horsemen riding horses, all of them handsome young men. (13) And I saw that she was defiled; they both went the same way. (14) And she added to her harlotries; for she saw men depicted upon the wall, the images of Chaldeans depicted in red color, (15) girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans upon their heads, all of them with the appearance of captains, the likeness of the sons of Babylon, the Chaldeans, the land of their captivity. (16) And when she saw them she threw herself upon them, and sent messengers to them to Chaldea. (17) And the Babylonians came to her to the bed of love...