Ezekiel 23:18
So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister.
Ezekiel 23:18 belongs to the prophetic warnings given before Jerusalem's destruction, and to searching moral instruction continuing through Ezekiel 27. It presents the awful sins of Judah and Israel under the figure of a lewd woman. The chapter portrays Samaria and Jerusalem as adulterous women.
In symbolic prophecy a woman represents a church, an assemblage of people called out and united for a spiritual purpose either good or evil. A corrupt woman therefore means a corrupt church. Here backsliding Israel and Judah appear as harlots who have ensnared souls and corrupted the nations of earth.
The fornication, whoredom, and nakedness exposed in the verse mean spiritual unfaithfulness and apostasy. That unfaithfulness is forsaking God and seeking help and favor from Egypt and other foreign powers while adopting their ways. It is departing from God's law and worship to join idolatrous or false religious groups.
The discovery of whoredom and nakedness shows apostasy laid open. God's mind being alienated from her as from her sister shows His rejection of her because of that unfaithfulness. The judgment on the two sisters is parallel, the alienation from the one answering to the rejection of the other.
The Hebrew word translated mind, used twice in the verse, denotes the inner person and its feelings or affections. It is used for the inner person and its feelings in the statement that God's mind was alienated from the woman because of her unfaithfulness, just as it had been alienated from her sister.
The chapter foretells judgment by Babylon coming against Jerusalem. This coming of the king of Babylon against Jerusalem belongs to the scattering beginning with Babylon's conquest. In that overturning the diadem would be removed from Israel's profane, wicked prince until the rightful ruler came.
The same unfaithfulness occurs when churches forsake reliance on the blessings God provides in Jesus Christ and seek union with civil power instead. Forsaking God and seeking help from Egypt was rebellious, and seeking union with civil power is the same kind of unfaithfulness. Merely using civil laws to manage the church's temporal affairs is not this fornication.
The chapter calls readers to consider purity of heart. Because of its plain figure it is best read in private. Some passages in it can properly be read anywhere.