Ezekiel 16:31, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 16:31 portrays Jerusalem setting up shrines and worship sites throughout the city at crossroads and in streets. Unlike an ordinary prostitute she gave herself freely in unfaithfulness, scorning payment and showing a corruption not driven by gain. Its harlotry pictures spiritual apostasy, turning from God's law and worship to idolatry and false religious bodies and openly joining surrounding nations and Babylon. Any union of God's church with the world breaks its lawful marriage to Him as His wife and is counted adultery. A harlot woman is the symbol of a corrupt fallen apostate church, and as the Jewish church espoused to the Lord became such a harlot by unlawful union with the kings of the earth, so the great harlot of Revelation 17 is the entire corrupt church unlawfully united to the world and ruling over it.

Jerusalem's Brazen Idolatry

The eminent place built at the head of every way and the high place made in every street were shrines and worship sites set up throughout the city at crossroads and streets, marking widespread illicit worship. That public display pictured an open alliance with idolatry and abandonment of God, as God's people left Him to join surrounding nations and worship their gods and to follow Babylon and reject His precepts. Unlike an ordinary prostitute, Jerusalem scorned hire and gave herself freely in unfaithfulness, showing her corruption was not driven by the usual desire for gain.

The verse belongs to an allegory in which the Lord is the husband, Jerusalem or the land is the wife, and the people are her children. After receiving His gifts and beauty she violates the marriage bond, loses His favor, and suffers rejection and desolation. The chapter thus portrays the Lord's covenant relationship with His people: they became His but broke the covenant and relied on another. Its marriage imagery of union and unfaithfulness does not by itself identify the bride in the marriage of the Lamb at the end.

The chapter is a strong parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel and showing the wickedness of sin. It portrays their grave sins and backsliding and departures from God as adultery by lewd women. That figure exposes Israel's idolatry and attempt to mix righteousness with sin as spiritual unfaithfulness to God. At the same time God earnestly pleads with His people to turn to Him.

Spiritual Adultery Defined

Harlotry in the verse represents spiritual apostasy, the turning of God's people from His law and worship to idolatry and to false religious bodies. It pictures abandonment of Him to join the surrounding nations and worship their gods. It portrays Jerusalem as an adulterous woman openly turning from her husband to follow Babylon and reject His precepts. The conspicuous high places set at the head of every way and in every street picture that alliance as public, an open abandonment of God for union with idolatry.

Any union of God's church with the world is fornication and adultery, a breaking of the church's lawful marriage to God as His wife. When God's church leaves Him and joins itself to the world it is counted spiritually unfaithful. Israel's unfaithfulness stands as the pattern for an apostate church, which instead of seeking the Lord seeks the help of earthly powers and joins herself to the world. Yet Babylon's spiritual fornication is not a church's use of civil law for temporal matters.

Corrupt Church and Babylon

A woman is the symbol of a church, and a harlot, lewd, corrupt and licentious woman is the symbol of a corrupt, fallen and apostate church. The Jewish church, though espoused to the Lord, became like a harlot through apostasy in the same manner as Babylon, by seeking the friendship of the world through unlawful union with the kings of the earth. The great harlot of Revelation 17 must therefore be interpreted in the same manner as the woman of Revelation 12 who represents the true church, as symbolizing the entire corrupt church unlawfully united to the world.

She is not earthly civil power or an abstract evil, but a corrupt professedly religious body distinct from the kings of the earth though unlawfully united with them and ruling over them. By its very name Babylon is composed of many, the universal worldly church, not limited to a single ecclesiastical body. The Jewish church's fall as a harlot illustrates the fall of Babylon, for her fall was her rejection by God because of unfaithfulness and alienation from Him, not her destruction. That destruction was deferred for a considerable period, with rejection coming before later destruction.