Ezekiel 16:25, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 16:25 rebukes Judah and Israel for breaking covenant with God by raising idol shrines at every crossroads and street and flaunting the beauty He gave them until it became loathsome, opening themselves to every passerby and multiplying unfaithfulness. Its lewd imagery portrays apostasy as adultery, in which His professed people turned trust and affection from Him to surrounding nations, foreign influences, and their gods. A woman stands for a church, so a pure woman stands for the true church and a licentious harlot stands for a corrupt, fallen, apostate church. Spiritual whoredom is therefore departure from God's law and worship into unlawful union with idolatrous religion and the world, since the church wedded to God alone becomes a harlot when she joins herself to the world. The Jewish church once espoused to the Lord thus became a harlot by seeking friendship with the world through union with earthly rulers, in the same manner as the Babylon of Revelation 17, establishing the pattern for Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, as a professedly Christian church united to the world.

Ezekiel's Rebuke of Israel

Ezekiel 16:25 stands within a strong parable that rebukes the apostasy of Judah and Israel. Their grave sins are portrayed through the figure of lewd women given to prostitution. Through that portrayal God earnestly pleads with His people to turn back to Him.

Jerusalem is shown as violating her covenant with the Lord. She built her high place at every head of the way, placing her high places at every crossroads and street. She used her beauty to attract passersby, then made that beauty abhorred and loathsome. She opened herself to everyone that passed by and multiplied her unfaithfulness.

The prostitution imagery means the chosen people broke God's covenant and turned their trust and affection to others. They abandoned God to join themselves to the surrounding nations, follow foreign influences, and worship their gods. Their idolatry and departure from God are represented as adultery, expressing rejection of faithfulness to God. That wanton betrayal was followed by the withdrawal of gifts and her desolation. Made public and widespread along every road in offering herself to passersby, the apostasy is shown in rejecting the gospel.

Harlot Means Apostate Church

In prophecy a woman stands for a church. A pure woman stands for the true church, while a lewd and licentious woman, a harlot, stands for a corrupt, fallen and apostate church. Ezekiel 16 presents that lewd woman as the symbol of such a corrupt church. The joining of city and woman into one figure is the chosen figure for a church, for the professed people of God.

Spiritual whoredom is apostasy. It is departure from God's law and worship and unlawful connection with idolatrous or false religious groups. The church belongs to God and is lawfully united to Him alone as wife is to husband, so when it turns from Him and joins itself to the world it becomes like a harlot. That backslidden union of the church with the world is what God calls fornication and adultery. A church's use of civil law for temporal matters is not that spiritual fornication.

The building of the high place at every head of the way and the opening to everyone passing by portrays unfaithfulness made public and widespread, with the unfaithful woman placing herself along every road and offering herself to passersby. Applied to the church, that offering of herself along every road describes religious unfaithfulness to God. It is apostasy expressed in rejecting the gospel and joining the world and its rulers, in unlawful friendship with the world.

Jewish Church and Babylon

The Jewish church was once espoused to the Lord, yet became a harlot through apostasy and unlawful friendship with the world. She sought the friendship of the world through unlawful union with the kings of the earth, in the same manner as the Babylon of Revelation 17. Ezekiel 16 shows that a harlot is the symbol of a corrupt church, and this verse is part of the proof of that religious unfaithfulness to God.

Jerusalem is pictured as a lewd woman playing the harlot with many lovers when the chosen people, the Jews, apostatized by joining themselves to the surrounding nations and worshiping their gods. The combined symbol of a city and a woman is the chosen representative of a church, or the professed people of God. This establishes the pattern for calling the false church Babylon the great, the mother of harlots: a church professedly allied to Christ but really united to the world, having the form of godliness but denying the power. Just as a pure woman is the symbol of the true church, so the harlot Babylon of prophecy is a corrupt, professedly religious body.

That Babylon is the universal worldly church made up of many corrupt religious bodies, not just one church. She is not human government as an abstraction, but a body distinct from yet unlawfully united with the kings of the earth. The people of God are found in her just before her overthrow. Her fall was her rejection by God, while her destruction came later and was delayed for a time.