Ezekiel 16:10
I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
The verse pictures the Lord clothing and adorning Jerusalem as His bride, giving her beauty as tokens of His affection and care for her before her unfaithfulness. The sandals are made not of badger skins but of durable leather from marine animals such as seals or dolphins, suited for protection from the weather. In that adorning He cleanses His people and clothes them with salvation and righteousness, so that all their loveliness comes from His grace. The clothed woman who is also a city stands for a church, here the chosen people of the Jews when they apostatized from Him to join the surrounding nations and worship their gods. Having been espoused to the Lord, she became a harlot by unlawful union with the kings of the earth through seeking the friendship of the world, and her fall by His rejection foreshadows the fall of Babylon, the universal corrupt church.
Context and Clothing
Ezekiel's messages were warnings and reproof given among the captives of Israel between 595 and 574, beginning and closing his work a little later than Jeremiah, spoken by one of the priestly family who had first been shown wonderful visions of God's glory and majesty so that having once seen God he would not fear men when sent to sinners among his own people. The badgers' skins are not the skins of badgers, but leather made from marine animals such as seals or dolphins, which could be cut into sandals and used for protection from the weather. The clothing and adorning of the bride belongs to the customs accompanying marriage.
The clothing and other gifts are tokens of affection in the Lord's marriage to Jerusalem, and the beauty they give her is admired in the following verses. They belong to the picture of the Lord's care for Jerusalem before her unfaithfulness, which stands in contrast with her later unfaithfulness. The verse shows God cleansing and adorning His people after they respond to His call, clothing them in salvation and righteousness and giving them the beauty of His grace, so that their loveliness comes from God.
The verse belongs to the account of the Lord's covenant with His people in which the Lord adorns and clothes them as His own, while the chapter also recounts that they broke the covenant and relied on another. It is part of the marriage imagery used for the Lord's relationship with His people, but it does not by itself identify the bride in the final marriage of the Lamb.
Apostate Church Symbol
The combined figure of a city and a woman stands for a church, the professed people of God, and in this chapter it stands for the chosen people, the Jews, when they apostatized from Him and joined themselves to the surrounding nations and worshiped their gods. A harlot is the sign of a corrupt church, and the Jewish church espoused to the Lord became a harlot in the same manner as Babylon, by unlawful union with the kings of the earth through seeking the friendship of the world. Just as the woman in Revelation 12 is the true church, the harlot in Revelation 17 with her daughters is the whole corrupt church, so that Babylon is not one ecclesiastical body but the universal worldly church. The clothed and adorned woman who becomes unfaithful proves that the harlot Babylon is not earthly civil government but an apostate religious body, distinct from the kings of the earth yet unlawfully united with them.
The image of a woman for a church establishes that the woman in Revelation 17 is an ecclesiastical body. The fall of the Jewish church as the harlot illustrates the fall of Babylon, and her fall was rejection by God and not destruction, for her destruction was deferred for a considerable period. Israel's history of turning from the Lord and seeking the support of earthly powers is the prototype of the apostate church's course, seen in Jerusalem and the Jewish church turning from God to foreign powers and their ways.
Unfaithfulness to God and union of His church with the world is adultery, for God calls such union fornication and adultery. Israel's idolatry, conformity to the world, and departure from God are spiritual adultery, an attempt to mix heaven with earth and righteousness with sin.