Ezekiel 16:19
My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 16 is a strong parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel under the figure of a wife espoused to the Lord and afterward unfaithful to Him, and this verse shows the food He had given and fed her with turned into an offering set before others for a sweet savour in violation of the marriage bond. In Scripture a city pictured as a woman represents a church or the professed people of God, and a lewd or harlot woman represents a corrupt or apostate church. God's church becomes such a harlot by unlawful union with the kings of the earth and seeking the friendship of the world, which is spiritual fornication in turning from His law and worship to idolatrous association and mixing heaven with earth. So the chapter stands as the prototype of the professed Christian church becoming the great harlot Babylon, a corrupt religious body unlawfully united with earthly powers yet distinct from them, whose fall was a moral fall and rejection by God long before her destruction.
Parable of Unfaithful Jerusalem
Ezekiel 16 is a strong parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel. It presents their sins under the figure of an unfaithful woman. It portrays the Jewish church as espoused to the Lord and later unfaithful to Him, like a harlot. Jerusalem as a lewd woman with many lovers pictures God's chosen people when they apostatized, joining themselves to the surrounding nations and worshiping their gods.
The setting is the Lord's covenant with His people and their breaking it by turning to another. In that setting the gifts from God in the verse are used by the unfaithful people in their service to others. The verse shows Jerusalem turning the food God had given and fed her with into an offering set before others for a sweet savour. Fine flour and oil and honey were among His gifts and tokens of affection. That misuse belongs to the violation of the marriage bond, followed by the withdrawal of His gifts and her desolation.
Harlot Church and Babylon
In Scripture a city pictured as a woman stands for a church, or the professed people of God, and Jerusalem shown as a lewd woman playing the harlot with many lovers pictures God's chosen people when they apostatized from Him and joined themselves to the surrounding nations and worshiped their gods. A lewd woman in such a portrayal represents a corrupt or apostate church, and this chapter belongs to that portrayal of unfaithfulness to God.
A woman is the symbol of the church and a harlot is the symbol of a corrupt church, so this chapter belongs to that portrayal of unfaithfulness to God. The Jewish church was espoused to the Lord and became a harlot in the same manner as the professed Christian church becomes the great harlot, by unlawful union with the kings of the earth and seeking the friendship of the world. Jerusalem as an unfaithful wife abandoning God and joining herself to Babylon explains the church's spiritual unfaithfulness when it follows the world and rejects God's precepts.
When God's church turns from Him and joins with the world it is counted as an unfaithful woman, and that union is called fornication and adultery against God, or spiritual fornication. Spiritual fornication figures apostasy in turning from God's law and worship to unlawful association with idolatrous or false religious groups, and does not refer to a church's use of civil laws for its temporal affairs. The chapter portrays Israel's backsliding and idolatry as adultery, showing the spiritual unfaithfulness of mixing heaven with earth and righteousness with sin. It is a prophetic portrait of Israel's unfaithfulness cited as a prototype of an apostate church that turns to earthly powers for help instead of seeking the Lord.
Ezekiel presents a woman as a symbol of a church, a figure also used for Babylon in Revelation 17, and Babylon shown as a harlot is therefore a corrupt religious body distinct from the kings of the earth though unlawfully united with them, rather than the whole world or a literal city. As the woman in Revelation 12 represents the true church and the harlot in Revelation 17 represents the entire corrupt church, Babylon is therefore not one ecclesiastical body alone but the universal worldly church composed of many. Her fall was a moral fall and her rejection by God, not her destruction, for her destruction was deferred for a considerable period after her fall, illustrating the moral fall of Babylon before Babylon's destruction.