Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.
The two lewd women are Judah and Israel, set forth under the names Jerusalem and Samaria. Their lewdness was spiritual fornication, turning from God as their husband and from His precepts to the world by desiring foreign powers and forming ties with Babylon, and by forsaking Him to seek help in Egypt, which was rebellion. God rebukes that unfaithfulness in plain, unflattering words that deal directly with lewdness.
By judgment He will cause that lewdness to cease out of the land. The judgment was meant as a warning to others, so that all women may be taught not to follow that wicked example. This was historically fulfilled when the Babylonian captivity cured the Jews of idolatry, and they did not return to it afterward.
The portrayal of these awful sins gives searching moral instruction that includes predictions of the last days, and its plain treatment of lewdness makes the chapter suited to private reading, though some passages in it may be read anywhere. The chapter is paired with the lesson that only the pure in heart shall see God. A corrupt woman in the chapter is a symbol of a corrupt church. The same guilt belongs to professed Christian churches that seek union with the civil power. God has furnished fullness of blessing in Jesus Christ, so He demands all from His church and will not divide His glory with another. The verse reflects prophets brought to new hope in individual conversion to God who certainly kept the Sabbath and enforced its observance afterward, did not keep the first day of the week, and no longer observed the Sabbath merely as natural men but lived according to the Lord's life in Christ Jesus.
The two lewd women are Judah and Israel, set forth under the names Jerusalem and Samaria. Their lewdness was spiritual fornication, turning from God as their husband and from His precepts to the world by desiring foreign powers and forming ties with Babylon, and by forsaking Him to seek help in Egypt, which was rebellion. God rebukes that unfaithfulness in plain, unflattering words that deal directly with lewdness.
By judgment He will cause that lewdness to cease out of the land. The judgment was meant as a warning to others, so that all women may be taught not to follow that wicked example. This was historically fulfilled when the Babylonian captivity cured the Jews of idolatry, and they did not return to it afterward.
The portrayal of these awful sins gives searching moral instruction that includes predictions of the last days, and its plain treatment of lewdness makes the chapter suited to private reading, though some passages in it may be read anywhere. The chapter is paired with the lesson that only the pure in heart shall see God. A corrupt woman in the chapter is a symbol of a corrupt church. The same guilt belongs to professed Christian churches that seek union with the civil power. God has furnished fullness of blessing in Jesus Christ, so He demands all from His church and will not divide His glory with another. The verse reflects prophets brought to new hope in individual conversion to God who certainly kept the Sabbath and enforced its observance afterward, did not keep the first day of the week, and no longer observed the Sabbath merely as natural men but lived according to the Lord's life in Christ Jesus.