Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.
Ezekiel 23:9 belongs to searching moral instruction presenting the awful sins of Judah and Israel under the figure of a lewd woman. Samaria and Jerusalem mean Israel and Judah portrayed as backsliding harlots who ensnare souls and corrupt the nations, and the corrupt woman stands for a corrupt church. The lovers are the Assyrians upon whom she doted and whom she desired, into whose hand she is delivered for her unfaithfulness. Samaria and Jerusalem doted on the Assyrians and Babylonians and came with them into the bed of love, so that their lives became one with Babylon.
Historically the chapter is connected with Babylon's attack on Jerusalem and the removal of Israel's kingdom as part of the scattering brought on by the people's disobedience to God's commandments. Forsaking God and seeking help from foreign powers was rebellion. The doting and the delivering describe spiritual fornication as apostasy and unlawful religious ties.
That spiritual fornication is committed by those married to Christ by covenant sealed by His blood and solemn vow. For them becoming a friend and follower of the world is a wife departing from her husband and taking strangers instead of her husband after God was a husband to them. She listened to the siren of Babylon and Satan's voice to become his bride with sister Babylon.
That unfaithfulness showed itself in building an eminent place at the head of every way and a high place in every street and in casting off God's precepts, which is casting off God and making Judah like all the heathen. This fornication produces Babylon's wine cup of corrupted word and statutes that are not good and judgments by which they should not live, leaving Zion drunken but not with wine and Israel fallen. The same lesson applies to churches seeking union with civil power. The condemnation of unlawful religious ties does not forbid the lawful use of civil government for temporal matters.
As searching moral instruction, the verse is best read in private, though some passages around it are properly read anywhere.
Ezekiel 23:9 belongs to searching moral instruction presenting the awful sins of Judah and Israel under the figure of a lewd woman. Samaria and Jerusalem mean Israel and Judah portrayed as backsliding harlots who ensnare souls and corrupt the nations, and the corrupt woman stands for a corrupt church. The lovers are the Assyrians upon whom she doted and whom she desired, into whose hand she is delivered for her unfaithfulness. Samaria and Jerusalem doted on the Assyrians and Babylonians and came with them into the bed of love, so that their lives became one with Babylon.
Historically the chapter is connected with Babylon's attack on Jerusalem and the removal of Israel's kingdom as part of the scattering brought on by the people's disobedience to God's commandments. Forsaking God and seeking help from foreign powers was rebellion. The doting and the delivering describe spiritual fornication as apostasy and unlawful religious ties.
That spiritual fornication is committed by those married to Christ by covenant sealed by His blood and solemn vow. For them becoming a friend and follower of the world is a wife departing from her husband and taking strangers instead of her husband after God was a husband to them. She listened to the siren of Babylon and Satan's voice to become his bride with sister Babylon.
That unfaithfulness showed itself in building an eminent place at the head of every way and a high place in every street and in casting off God's precepts, which is casting off God and making Judah like all the heathen. This fornication produces Babylon's wine cup of corrupted word and statutes that are not good and judgments by which they should not live, leaving Zion drunken but not with wine and Israel fallen. The same lesson applies to churches seeking union with civil power. The condemnation of unlawful religious ties does not forbid the lawful use of civil government for temporal matters.
As searching moral instruction, the verse is best read in private, though some passages around it are properly read anywhere.