Ezekiel 23:29, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 23:29 portrays Samaria and Jerusalem, that is Israel and Judah, under the figure of a lewd and adulterous woman to expose their awful sins, giving searching moral instruction. Whoredom in the passage means spiritual apostasy, forsaking God and abandoning the covenant, the law and testimony, and the worship of Jehovah. That apostasy took the form of rebellion such as seeking help in Egypt and pursuing foreign nations and their ways in unlawful connection with idolatrous or false religious groups. A corrupt woman in the verse is a symbol of a corrupt church.

The verse announces shameful exposure and judgment through the Babylonians, connecting unfaithfulness with the Babylonians and the shameful discovery of lewd conduct. It belongs to the showing of the king of Babylon coming against Jerusalem as part of God's scattering of Israel for disobedience. That scattering began with the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and may not have been completed until its later destruction by the Romans. The chapter also speaks of the removal of the wicked prince's diadem and the overturning of the kingdom until the rightful ruler comes.

Because of its explicit imagery the chapter is best read in private, though some passages in it are fit to be read anywhere. Professed Christian churches today that seek union with the civil power are guilty of the same spiritual fornication as Israel in forsaking God. This is because God has furnished a plenitude of blessings in Jesus Christ, demands all from His church, and will not divide His glory with another. The verse does not describe a church's use of civil laws to manage its temporal affairs.