Ezekiel 16:59, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 16:59 belongs to a searching parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel, laying bare their grievous sins under the figure of a lewd woman while God pleads with His people to turn back. Jerusalem stands for God's chosen people, espoused and joined to the Lord by a marriage bond and covenant oath. Their unfaithfulness was turning from God to lean upon another, joining themselves to surrounding nations and their gods by seeking foreign alliances and earthly powers in idolatry and conformity to the world. God holds His people accountable for despising the oath in breaking the covenant, dealing with them as they have done, for such mingling of heaven with earth and righteousness with sin is spiritual adultery. The lewd woman therefore stands for a corrupt, fallen, apostate church, in contrast to the virtuous woman who stands for a pure church, and when God's church unites with the world she is counted a harlot, the same unlawful union later shown in the harlot Babylon of Revelation who with her daughters corrupts the nations with false doctrine.

Covenant Unfaithfulness Rebuked

Ezekiel 16 is a strong parable rebuking the apostasy of Judah and Israel, exposing their grave sins through the figure of a lewd woman. In that same chapter God earnestly pleads with His people to turn back to Him, making the verse part of a lesson about sin and covenant unfaithfulness. Jerusalem there represents God's chosen people, the Jewish church, espoused and joined to the Lord by a marriage bond and covenant oath. She became unfaithful by turning from Him and relying on another, like a harlot turning from her husband.

That unfaithfulness consisted in abandoning God and joining surrounding nations and their gods. It was turning from God to seek an unlawful union with the world, abandoning covenant with God for foreign allegiances and practices. Instead of seeking the Lord she turned to earthly powers for help, seeking foreign allegiances with idolatry and conformity to the world. Such friendship with the world is covenant unfaithfulness, the same kind of unfaithfulness later symbolized by the corrupt church unlawfully joined to the world.

The verse teaches that God holds His people accountable for despising the oath in breaking the covenant. He will deal with them as they have done. Their departures from God, including idolatry and conformity to the world, were spiritual adultery, the mixing of heaven with earth and righteousness with sin described under marital unfaithfulness. The church's union with the world is therefore adultery and covenant unfaithfulness for which God holds her accountable.

Harlot Symbolizes Apostate Church

In Ezekiel 16 the licentious woman stands for a corrupt, fallen, apostate church, set over against the virtuous woman who stands for a pure church. When God's church unites with the world instead of remaining faithful to Him, she is counted a harlot. Friendship with the world is the same covenant unfaithfulness as Israel's, which God calls fornication and adultery, and for which He holds the church accountable as for breaking covenant with Him.

This use of the harlot establishes the harlot as the symbol of a corrupt church and supports its use for Babylon in Revelation. Both present the same unlawful union of church with world, the Jewish church espoused to the Lord becoming unfaithful by turning from Him like a harlot. Religious Babylon so symbolized is not the wicked world or the civil powers and is not confined to one church, but includes her daughters of the same character, covering heathen systems of religion and portions of the so-called Christian world marked by mixture and confusion and by corrupting nations with false doctrines.

Israel in this chapter stands as a prototype of the apostate church, turning to earthly powers for help instead of seeking the Lord. Her unfaithfulness stands as a warning to churches that reject God's message and unite with the world. The fall of the harlot church so portrayed means its rejection by God, which occurs before its destruction. That destruction was deferred for a considerable time after the rejection.