Ezekiel 16:17, commentary and pictures

God had taken Jerusalem into covenant as a husband takes a wife and had given her gold and silver, and she took those gifts and fashioned them into images of men with which to commit unfaithfulness against him. The chapter sets forth that unfaithfulness under the figure of a lewd woman in order to rebuke the apostasy of Judah and Israel and to show the wickedness of sin while pleading with the people to turn back. To turn from the Lord who is husband to idols, to the world, and to Babylon by joining to surrounding nations and to false religious bodies is spiritual adultery, and the church is faithful while devoted to God alone but becomes adulterous when it seeks help from worldly powers instead of the Lord. In prophecy a woman means a church, and a harlot or lewd woman means a corrupt, fallen, apostate church, which is Babylon as a corrupt professedly religious body unlawfully united with the kings of the earth. As the Jewish church underwent a moral fall by alienation from God and union with the world before her destruction came, so Babylon's fall is a moral fall that precedes her destruction and leaves opportunity for God's people to be called out of her.

Words and Historical Setting

Ezekiel 16:17 stands within the first twenty chapters of Ezekiel, given among the captives in Babylonia by the river Chebar while Jeremiah was prophesying in Jerusalem. The word rendered images means figures made by human hands, specifically images of men fashioned from the gold and silver God had given Jerusalem, and the turning of those gifts to such use was spiritual unfaithfulness.

The verse belongs to the account of the Lord's covenant with His people, in which they became His but broke the covenant and relied on another, using what He had given them in idolatrous unfaithfulness. In the figure the Lord is the husband, Jerusalem or the land is the wife, and the people are her children. Ezekiel 16:15-43 portrays Jerusalem as the Lord's wife abusing the gifts He gave her and breaking the marriage covenant through unfaithfulness, with the gifts and tokens of affection followed by withdrawal of gifts, rejection, misery, and desolation. The chapter is a strong parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel and showing the wickedness of sin, presenting Judah's awful sins under the figure of a lewd woman, while God earnestly pleads with His people to turn back to Him.

Adultery as Apostasy

Apostate Jerusalem is pictured as an unfaithful woman, for God's chosen people turned away from Him, joined themselves to the surrounding nations and worshiped their gods, so that the city's unfaithfulness is the people's spiritual apostasy. Israel's idolatry and departures from God are set forth as adultery, in that turning from the Lord who is Israel's husband to worship idols is spiritual unfaithfulness. That abandonment came by turning from His precepts and joining herself to the world and to Babylon, which is the church's spiritual fornication against its covenant with God.

Spiritual whoredom is apostasy by turning from God's law and worship to idolatry and to unlawful ties with false religious groups. It is committed through an unlawful bond with the world, by seeking the friendship of the world through unlawful connection with the kings of the earth, even as the Jewish church espoused to the Lord became a harlot in the same manner as Babylon. The wife espoused to the Lord became unfaithful by turning from Him, and her prostitution is that unlawful bond with the world. Such whoredom does not describe a church's use of civil laws to manage temporal affairs.

The church is faithful when devoted to God alone, but becomes adulterous when it turns from Him and joins itself to the world. The taking of the gold and silver God had given her and the making of images of men from them is that spiritual unfaithfulness, and the union of God's church with the world is fornication and adultery. Instead of seeking the Lord she turns to worldly powers for help, and her history illustrates the church's departure from Christ and union with the world.

Babylon's Corrupt Church

In prophecy a woman means a church, and Ezekiel 16 shows this use of the symbol. A lewd woman represents a corrupt or apostate church. A corrupt, licentious woman portrays a corrupt, fallen, apostate church.

That harlot imagery shows that a harlot is the symbol of a corrupt church. The harlot in Ezekiel 16 means a church corrupted by unlawful union and unfaithfulness. That symbolism is applied to Babylon as the worldly, corrupt church, not merely one ecclesiastical body. The great harlot Babylon is a corrupt professedly religious body distinct from the kings of the earth though unlawfully united with them, and not the earthly power of human government as an abstraction.

Ezekiel 16 portrays the Jewish church as a harlot. Her fall was her moral fall and her rejection by God, when she became alienated from him and joined herself to the world. Her fall was not her destruction, for her destruction was deferred for a considerable period and came later. That fall illustrates the fall of Babylon, showing that Babylon's fall is a moral fall that precedes her destruction and leaves opportunity for God's people to be called out of her.