Ezekiel 16:38, commentary and pictures

The verse judges Jerusalem, Judah and Israel as an adulterous wife is judged and as one that sheds blood is judged, giving them blood in fury and jealousy because they forsook their covenant Lord for rival attachments. In its allegory the Lord is the husband, the land or Jerusalem is the wife and the people are the children, who became His own but broke the covenant, turned from Him and relied on another. Their adultery was spiritual unfaithfulness in joining the surrounding nations and worshiping their gods, turning to worldly powers and practices, adopting Babylonian practices, allying with Assyria and Babylon, and rejecting God's precepts. The judgment came in withdrawal of gifts, contempt, wretchedness and final desolation through overthrow and exile under Babylon, visibly showing that God had departed from Israel and its kingdom had passed to Babylon. A harlot woman is the symbol of a corrupt, fallen, apostate church, for the church is lawfully united to God alone as His married wife and espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ alone, so any union with the world is fornication and adultery. The Jewish church once espoused to the Lord became a harlot by unlawful union with the kings of the earth, and Babylon the great harlot becomes a harlot in the same manner as a corrupt professedly religious body distinct from the kings yet ruling over them, so that God's rejection of an alienated church before its later destruction illustrates Babylon's fall.

Judgment on Unfaithful Israel

In the allegory the Lord is the husband, the land or Jerusalem is the wife, and the people are the children. The marriage language portrays the Lord's covenant relationship with His people, who became His but broke the covenant, turned from Him, and relied on another, and it does not describe the marriage of the Lamb at the end. The adultery pictures Israel and Judah's spiritual unfaithfulness in joining the surrounding nations and worshiping their gods, with idolatry and departure from God presented as adultery met by God's judging response. It pictures turning to worldly powers and practices, adopting Babylonian practices, allying with Assyria and with Babylon, and rejecting God's precepts, which made them like Babylon.

Jerusalem, Judah and Israel are judged as an adulterous wife is judged and as one that sheds blood is judged, with blood given to them in fury and jealousy because they forsook their covenant Lord for rival attachments. The same judgment for spiritual unfaithfulness and bloodshed was executed in overthrow and exile under Babylon. The historical judgment included withdrawal of gifts, contempt, wretchedness and final desolation, which visibly showed that God had departed from Israel and that its kingdom had passed to Babylon. The chapter both rebukes sin and shows God earnestly pleading with His people to turn back to Him. The judgment belongs to the breaking of the old covenant, while marriage under an everlasting covenant restores the wife Jerusalem to the Lord together with her sisters Samaria and Sodom, denoting the receiving of that Jerusalem which is to be His throne when the kingdom is the Lord's.

Corrupt Church and Babylon

A lewd and licentious woman, a harlot, is the symbol of a corrupt, fallen and apostate church, because a woman is the symbol of the church. The church is lawfully united to God alone as His married wife and espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ alone, so any union of God's church with the world is fornication and adultery and a breach of its exclusive bond with God. When the church, espoused to God alone, joins itself to the world, it becomes a harlot and is subject to judgment.

The Jewish church was once espoused to the Lord and became a harlot by unlawful union with the kings of the earth, seeking the friendship of the world and the support of earthly powers. In this Ezekiel 16 stands as an Old Testament prototype of the apostate church that turns from God. Babylon becomes the great harlot in the same manner, by the same unlawful union with the kings of the earth and seeking of the friendship of the world.

Therefore Babylon the harlot is not the earthly power of human government nor 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. She holds God's people within her before her overthrow. The fall of the Jewish church as a harlot illustrates Babylon's fall: God rejects a church that has become alienated from Him and joined to the world, with that rejection occurring before its later destruction, whose execution was deferred for a considerable time.

The American church's pursuit of wealth, pleasure, worldly honor, popularity, ease, and earthly concerns is even more flagrant unfaithfulness than Israel's, which was judged as an adulterous wife with blood given in fury and jealousy for forsaking its covenant Lord for rival attachments.