Day 245. Ezekiel 22-23

What is an idol exactly? Our lesson for today offers an answer to that question. From God's point of view an idol is any lover with whom we are unfaithful. It may be a deity of wood or stone or gold, and it may just as well be a person, or a political alliance, party or association upon which we depend; anything that consumes our attention to the point where it makes us forget the LORD is an idol. Money, security, status, or our bodies—an obsession, a powerful illusion or an overwhelming affection that excludes all else—all these qualify as idols. Having idols lies very close to the heart of what it means to be human, but God demands faithfulness.
And Jerusalem, "the bloody city," is unfaithful, condemned not only "because of the blood [it] has shed," but also because it is "defiled by the idols that [it] has made." Jerusalem has no one else to blame, its own idolatry has brought its day of reckoning near—its "appointed time . . . has come" (22:4). Everyone is to blame—injustice is everywhere, from high to low. The leadership of the country is improperly exercising its power. There is a loss of respect for authority, and as a result all the fundamental social relationships have broken down—In Jerusalem "father and mother are treated with contempt . . . ; the alien residing within [the city] suffers extortion; the widow and orphan are wronged [there]" (22:7). From that fundamental indifference to injustice come a host of vices from the profanation of Sabbaths and eating upon the mountains—taking part in pagan feasts—to sexual sins and perversions of all kinds. These
evils include economic exploitation through the taking of usurious interest and extortion (22:12). But they climax in idolatry, that gives birth to all the others—"you have forgotten me, says the LORD God."
But God will not be forgotten—ignored--he strikes his hands together—claps loudly--to get his people's attention (22:13). He challenges them—"Can your courage endure . . . when I shall deal with you?" To shock them back to awareness, the LORD is determined to "scatter [his people] among the nations, and disperse [them] through the countries" (22:15). He "will purge [their] filthiness out of [them]." And the theme of cleansing and flushing-out of impurities continues through the next section of our reading. Here the smelting of metal is used as an illustration of the way God will purify his people. The LORD addresses the prophet directly--"Mortal, the house of Israel has become dross to me" (22:18). Dross is the worthless residue left over from refining metals under intense heat. God, the refiner of nations, is determined "to gather the people into the midst of Jerusalem" like a crucible and then "blow upon [them] with the
fire of [his] wrath, so [they] will be melted" (22:21). Thus the dross will be separated from the pure metal.
But will there be any pure metal to be separated? There is no faithful leadership to be found in Judah. Its princes are avaricious; its priests--either out of ignorance or carelessness--"make no distinction between the holy and the common" (22:26); its officials are dishonest and violent; its prophets "smear whitewash on" everybody's misdeeds and speak deceptively in comforting words that God did not give them. And the people as a whole act unjustly to the marginalized and the vulnerable--they "oppress the poor and needy, and [extort] from the alien without redress" (22:29). Abraham bargained with God for the city of Sodom, and Moses pleaded with God on behalf of Israel in the wilderness, but when the LORD looks for one who will "repair the wall and stand in the breach before [him] on behalf of the land, so that [he] would not destroy it; [he can find] no one" (22:30). There is no one willing or able to bargain for the life of
Jerusalem.
The word of the LORD comes to Ezekiel in the form of another parable—this one of two sisters—Oholah, the elder, represents the city of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel—Oholibah, the younger, is Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah. The name "Oholah" means "her tent"; "Oholibah" means "my tent is in her"—this refers to the fact of Samaria had no place of worship--the proper place to worship the LORD was "in" Jerusalem. God's "tent" is in her.
But both sisters have been no better than they had to be—they are promiscuous and behave lewdly. The sisters both "played the whore in Egypt," and "from their youth" they allowed themselves to be seduced (23:3). Nevertheless, the LORD took them as his wives, and they "bore sons and daughters" (23:4)—the people of Israel and Judah.
Oholah, representing the northern kingdom of Israel, "lust[s] after . . . the Assyrians" (23:5) and takes them as her lovers. This is an allusion to the alliance between Israel and the Assyrian kings, which the parable interprets as act adultery against the LORD, Oholah's rightful husband. She puts political expediency—lust in the parable—ahead of faithfulness, and as a result she is raped, her children are seized, and she is murdered (23:10)—a reference to the destruction of the kingdom Israel by her Assyrian "lovers.'
Oholibah sees all this but does not take a lesson from her sister's fate. She first takes up with the Assyrians—from the LORD's point of view, when Judah makes treaties with these foreigners and their gods, she commits idolatry, putting political consideration before faith and trust. So Judah betrayed the LORD, her true husband. Then Oholibah sees "male figures carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans" (23:14), and sensing their mastery, she sends messengers to them inviting them to become her lovers. So Judah became the vassal of the Babylonians, until "she turned from them in disgust" (23:19)—a reference to her rebellion against her overlords. By now God has turned from her "in disgust, as [he] turned from her sister" 23:18), but by this time she has gone back to her first lover—Egypt—"and lusted after her paramours there" (23:20) and with Egypt she conspires against Babylon, courting destruction.
Each of these empires represents an idol with which Israel and Judah betray the LORD. The parable expresses this betrayal in explicitly sexual terms that even we find more than little shocking. But the point of the parable is to shock the people to an awareness of what the jealous God is about to do. He will use her jilted lovers to punish her—he will "commit [her] judgment to them, and they shall judge [her] according to their ordinances" (23:24). The details of her sufferings are recounted in the same detail that her adulteries are (23:23-30). But God says to Oholibah [Jerusalem]--"You have gone the way of your sister [Samaria]; therefore I will give her cup [of wrath] into your hand" (23:31) and you will drain it to the dregs. All this results from her idolatry—so the LORD says: "Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, therefore [you must] bear the consequences of your lewdness and whorings" (23:35).
The LORD draws up a laundry list of Oholah and Oholibah's offenses, and figuring large among them is child sacrifice—they have "slaughtered their children for their idols" (23:39). But these atrocities—dreadful as they are--all boil down to the idolatry they embraced in its many forms—some gross, others more subtle. But for their unfaithfulness Judah, like Samaria, must pay the ultimate price—"the assembly shall stone them and with their swords shall cut them down; they shall kill their sons and their daughters; and burn their houses" (23:47). Foreign armies that "come against [them] from the north" (23:24) will judge them and do what the Law of Moses commanded be done to women caught in adultery—and more. By their example the LORD "will put an end to lewdness in the land"—stop the worship of idols—"so that all women"—by extension all who see the punishment—"may take warning and not commit lewdness as [they]
have done" (23:48).