Commentary - Ezekiel 23:40-42

Bird's-eye view

In this portion of Ezekiel's prophecy, the Lord continues his searing indictment of Jerusalem, here personified as the harlot Oholibah. The previous verses have detailed her adulterous affairs with the Assyrians and Babylonians, a graphic metaphor for Israel's covenant unfaithfulness through political alliances and idolatry. Now, in verses 40 through 42, the prophet describes the brazen and deliberate nature of this spiritual prostitution. This is not a momentary lapse or a back-alley affair; this is a carefully prepared, public, and festive celebration of infidelity. Oholibah is not a reluctant sinner; she is an eager and gaudy adulteress, making herself up to be as attractive as possible to her pagan lovers. The passage serves as a covenant lawsuit, detailing the charges against God's people with unflinching language to show them the true ugliness of their sin before the sentence of judgment is executed.

The central point here is the utter degradation that comes with forsaking God. When a people covenanted to Jehovah decide they want to play the harlot with the nations, they do not simply add other lovers; they transform themselves into something grotesque. They take the gifts God gave them for His glory, the beauty, the resources, the very lives He sustained, and they deck themselves out for pagan worship and heathen politics. This passage is a stark reminder that idolatry is never a neutral exchange. It is a vile betrayal that corrupts the idolater from the inside out, turning a bride into a brazen prostitute, lounging on a couch of ease, ready for any and all comers.

Outline

Context In Ezekiel

Ezekiel 23 is a partner chapter to Ezekiel 16, both of which use the extended metaphor of marriage, adultery, and prostitution to describe the covenant relationship between God and Israel. In chapter 16, the focus is on Jerusalem as an abandoned infant whom God rescued, raised, and married, only to have her become a notorious prostitute. Chapter 23 introduces two sisters, Oholah (representing Samaria, the northern kingdom) and Oholibah (representing Jerusalem, the southern kingdom). The chapter details how Oholibah, despite seeing the judgment that fell upon her sister for her whoredoms, pursued the same path with even greater abandon.

These verses (40-42) come at the climax of the description of Oholibah's sin, just before the pronouncement of judgment (vv. 43-49). The language is intentionally shocking. The Lord, through Ezekiel, is rubbing His people's noses in the filth of their sin. They had grown comfortable with their syncretism and political games. They saw their alliances not as spiritual adultery but as savvy foreign policy. God pulls back the curtain to show them what it looks like from His perspective: a wife painting her eyes and putting on jewelry, not for her husband, but for a parade of worthless lovers.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 40 “Furthermore, they have even sent for men who come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came, for whom you bathed, painted your eyes, and decorated yourselves with ornaments;”

The sin here is not passive; it is aggressive. "They have even sent for men." This is not a case of being seduced or stumbling into temptation. This is calculated, premeditated adultery. Jerusalem did not just leave the door unlocked; she sent out engraved invitations. The messenger goes out to men "from afar," indicating the diplomatic efforts to secure alliances with distant powers like Babylon and Egypt. In the economy of the covenant, Israel was to be a nation set apart, holy to the Lord, dependent on Him alone for protection and provision. Instead, she looks to the brute strength and pagan allure of foreign empires. She trusts in horses and chariots rather than the living God.

And when the invitation is accepted ("behold, they came"), look at the preparation. This is the activity of a prostitute getting ready for a client. "For whom you bathed, painted your eyes, and decorated yourselves with ornaments." These are all actions that, in another context, could be for her husband. A wife is to be beautiful for her husband. But here, all the beautification, all the effort, is for the illicit lover. She takes the very things that should be consecrated to God and uses them to entice paganism. The painting of the eyes with kohl was a common cosmetic practice, but here it symbolizes a desire to see the world as the pagans see it, to find their ways attractive. The ornaments are the wealth and resources God had given her, now being used as baubles to attract the attention of those who hate her God.

v. 41 “and you sat on a splendid couch with a table arranged before it on which you had set My incense and My oil.”

The scene moves from preparation to the act itself. She sits on a "splendid couch," a bed of honor. This is not a picture of shame or regret, but of proud, luxurious rebellion. The couch represents a posture of ease and decadence, a complete rejection of the pilgrim mindset that ought to characterize God's people. She has settled down to feast with her lovers. The "table arranged before it" points to the idolatrous feasts and cultic meals that were part and parcel of sealing these pagan alliances. Worship and politics were not separate spheres.

But the deepest cut is this: "on which you had set My incense and My oil." The incense and oil were holy items, consecrated for the worship of Jehovah in the Temple. The incense represented the prayers of the saints ascending to God. The anointing oil was used to set apart priests and kings for holy service. And what has Jerusalem done? She has taken these sacred elements, things that belong exclusively to her Divine Husband, and has placed them on the table of her lovers. She is using the very vocabulary of true worship to engage in false worship. This is the height of profanity. It is taking the holy things of God and offering them up to demons, all for the sake of political security and cultural acceptance.

v. 42 “The sound of a multitude at ease was with her; and drunkards were brought from the wilderness with men of the common sort. And they put bracelets on the hands of the women and beautiful crowns on their heads.”

This is not a private affair. It is a party. The "sound of a multitude at ease" tells us this apostasy was popular, widespread, and celebrated. It was the spirit of the age. The people were comfortable in their sin, making a great noise about it. This is the sound of a nation reveling in its own destruction, oblivious to the judgment at the door. They are "at ease," which is another way of saying they are spiritually asleep, fat, and happy on the road to hell.

And who are the guests? "Drunkards were brought from the wilderness with men of the common sort." The specific mention of drunkards from the wilderness likely refers to the Sabeans or other nomadic peoples, known for their raiding and lack of refinement. The point is that Jerusalem is not even being selective in her prostitution. She will take anyone, from the great kings of Babylon to the drunken rabble from the desert. Her lust is indiscriminate. She has lost all sense of dignity and worth, consorting with the lowest of the low.

The scene concludes with the payment for this prostitution. "They put bracelets on the hands of the women and beautiful crowns on their heads." The lovers give her trinkets. She trades away her covenant birthright, her unique relationship with the God of the universe, for cheap jewelry. The bracelets and crowns are symbols of her enslavement, not her honor. They are the wages of a whore. She thinks she is being adorned, but she is actually being branded as property by her pagan masters. The "beautiful crown" is a grotesque parody of the crown of life that God promises to those who are faithful to Him. Jerusalem has traded the true crown for a tawdry imitation, and she wears it with pride.

Application

The language of Ezekiel is raw, and it is meant to be. We must not sanitize it. The modern church is often guilty of the same sins as Oholibah, though we use more sophisticated language. We make alliances with the world, thinking it to be shrewd pragmatism. We adopt the world's marketing techniques, its therapeutic language, its political ideologies, and we set them on the table right next to God's holy things. We take the oil and incense of true worship, the gospel of grace, and we mix it with the trinkets of self-help and social justice, hoping to make ourselves more attractive to the "men from afar", the cultured despisers of our God.

We paint our eyes to look appealing to the world, smoothing the hard edges of biblical truth. We sit on a splendid couch of ease, content with our creature comforts and unwilling to be a pilgrim people. And all the while, the sound of a multitude at ease fills our churches, a comfortable buzz of activity that has nothing to do with the fear of the Lord.

The only cure for this harlotry is the one Ezekiel points to later in his book: God must give us a new heart. He must tear out the stony heart of a whore and replace it with a heart of flesh that beats for Him alone (Ezek. 36:26). The story of Oholibah shows us the utter bankruptcy of our own efforts. She could not make herself faithful. She had to be judged, stripped bare, and put to shame. So also, our sin had to be judged. It was nailed to a cross and put to open shame in the person of Jesus Christ. He took the harlot's judgment so that He might have a pure and spotless bride. The gospel is the good news that God, in Christ, does not simply condemn the adulteress; He redeems her, cleanses her, and clothes her in the white robes of a righteous bride, all for His own glory.