The Covenant Harlots Text: Ezekiel 23:1-4
Introduction: God Does Not Mince Words
We live in a soft age. We prefer our religion to be polite, our sermons to be encouraging, and our God to be manageable. We like to imagine a God who is always affirming and never offensive, a divine therapist who would never use shocking or graphic language. And then we come to a passage like Ezekiel 23, and our modern sensibilities are shattered against the hard rock of divine revelation. God, speaking through His prophet, uses the language of the gutter. He speaks of harlotry, of lewdness, of sexual degradation, and He applies this language directly to His own covenant people.
This is not an accident. This is not God having a bad day. This is God using the most visceral, offensive imagery He can muster to wake up a people sunk in the stupor of their sin. Idolatry is not a minor theological error. It is not a slight miscalculation. It is spiritual adultery. It is covenantal treason. It is the bride of Yahweh running off to prostitute herself to every passing pagan deity, and God will not describe this vile betrayal in gentle or abstract terms. He calls it what it is. He wants us to be as horrified by our sin as He is.
The allegory of the two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, is one of the most extended and graphic metaphors in all of Scripture. It is a covenant lawsuit, a divine indictment delivered with the force of a battering ram. God is laying out His case against Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah. And the charge is simple: You have been unfaithful from the very beginning. You are covenant-breaking whores.
We cannot domesticate this text. We cannot clean it up for polite company. We must let it confront us in its raw power. For in this brutal depiction of Israel's sin, we see a mirror of our own hearts, and in this fierce jealousy of a betrayed husband, we see the holy passion of the God who will not share His glory with another.
The Text
The word of Yahweh came to me again, saying, "Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; and they played the harlot in Egypt. They played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed, and there their virgin bosom was handled. Their names were Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. And they became Mine, and they bore sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah and Jerusalem is Oholibah."
(Ezekiel 23:1-4)
A Shared and Shameful Heritage (v. 1-3)
The indictment begins by establishing the origin and shared identity of the two sisters.
"Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; and they played the harlot in Egypt. They played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed, and there their virgin bosom was handled." (Ezekiel 23:2-3)
God frames this as a family story, a tragedy involving two sisters from the same mother. This is crucial. Samaria (Israel) and Jerusalem (Judah) were not two distinct peoples from the start. They were one family, descended from Jacob, sharing one covenant heritage. Their sin is not the sin of ignorant outsiders; it is the treachery of insiders. They are sisters, which should imply a bond of loyalty, but here it only highlights their shared corruption.
And where does this corruption begin? It begins "in Egypt." God traces their spiritual harlotry back to its very source. Before the Exodus, before Sinai, before the covenant was formally given, while they were still a slave people, their hearts were already going astray. This is a devastating blow to any national pride. Israel was not chosen because they were righteous or pure. They were chosen out of a pit of idolatry. God did not find a beautiful virgin and make her His bride; He found a people already defiled, already giving themselves over to the false gods of their pagan overlords.
The language here is deliberately crude: "there their breasts were pressed, and there their virgin bosom was handled." This is not the language of romance; it is the language of cheap, illicit groping. It speaks of a willing defilement. Egypt, with its pantheon of animal-headed gods and its obsession with death, was Israel's first illicit lover. They were infatuated with the idolatry of their captors. This youthful fling in Egypt was not a one-time mistake; it established a pattern of spiritual promiscuity that would define their entire history. They developed a taste for foreign gods early on, and they never truly lost it.
Named, Claimed, and Fruitful (v. 4a)
In the midst of this shameful history, God inserts a staggering statement of His grace.
"Their names were Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. And they became Mine, and they bore sons and daughters." (Ezekiel 23:4a)
Despite their sordid past in Egypt, God intervened. "And they became Mine." This is the language of covenant marriage. God took these two defiled sisters and made them His own. This is pure, unmerited grace. He rescued them from the slave market of Egypt, washed them, and entered into a marriage covenant with them at Sinai. He claimed them. He gave them His name. He made them His treasured possession.
This is the heart of the covenant. It is not a contract between two equal parties. It is a sovereign act of rescue and adoption. God's claim on them is absolute. Their subsequent harlotry is not just a sin; it is adultery. It is a violation of a sacred marriage vow. You cannot cheat on someone you are not married to. The gravity of their sin is measured by the magnitude of the grace they received. God did not just save them; He married them.
And the marriage was fruitful. "And they bore sons and daughters." God blessed this union. He gave them children, land, victory, and prosperity. He filled their houses and their nation. These blessings were not a sign of their inherent goodness; they were a sign of His covenant faithfulness. He was a good husband. He provided for His bride. All the good in their history, every child born, every harvest gathered, was a gift from their divine husband. This makes their later unfaithfulness all the more heinous. They took the gifts of their husband and used them to pay their lovers.
The Names of the Guilty (v. 4b)
Finally, God drops the pretense of the allegory and names the guilty parties directly.
"And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah and Jerusalem is Oholibah." (Ezekiel 23:4b)
The masks are off. Oholah, the elder sister, is Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Her name means "Her Own Tent" or "Her Own Tabernacle." This is a name dripping with condemnation. After the kingdom split, Israel, under Jeroboam, rejected the central sanctuary in Jerusalem and set up "her own tents," her own rival worship centers at Dan and Bethel, complete with golden calves. She decided she would worship God on her own terms, in her own way, in her own tent. This is the essence of all false religion: self-willed worship.
Oholibah, the younger sister, is Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. Her name means "My Tent is in Her." This name points to her immense privilege. Jerusalem was the city where God had chosen to place His name. The Temple, the very dwelling place of God on earth, was in her midst. She had the priests, the sacrifices, the covenants, the very presence of God. Her sin was therefore even greater than her sister's. She was the wife who had the husband living in her own house, and yet she still went out into the streets to play the whore. Her privilege did not lead to piety; it led to a more profound apostasy.
Conclusion: The Faithful Husband
This is a brutal and ugly story. It is the story of our own hearts. Like Israel, we were born into a world enslaved to idolatry. We were defiled from our youth. Our natural inclination is to run after every false god that promises pleasure, security, or meaning. We are all, by nature, spiritual harlots.
But the story does not end there. The central point of this passage is not just the faithlessness of the bride, but the prior claim of the Husband. "They became Mine." This is the gospel. In our filth, Christ came and said of His church, "She is Mine." He did not wait for us to clean ourselves up. He bought us out of the slave market of sin with His own blood. He washed us with the water of the Word. He made a new and better covenant, not with two faithless sisters, but with one Bride, the Church, whom He is making holy and without blemish.
The warning of Oholah and Oholibah is a warning against trifling with the grace of God. It is a warning against thinking that we can maintain a covenant relationship with God while flirting with the idols of the world. God is a jealous God because He is a faithful husband. He will not tolerate rivals. He calls us to an exclusive and total loyalty, not because He is a cosmic tyrant, but because He is our true Husband, and our only life and joy is found in Him. He took us when we were nothing, and He has every right to demand everything.