What does Ezechiel Chapter 23 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Two sisters personify Samaria and Jerusalem. Ooliba exceeds the observed misconduct of Oolla. The cup and joint indictment precede judgment.

Chapter breakdown

Ezechiel 23 describes two sisters with a shared mother and youthful fornication in Egypt. Oolla is Samaria and Ooliba Jerusalem, both bearing sons and daughters to the Lord. The edition separately identifies fornication as idolatry, interprets the names as their own habitation and his habitation in her, and connects separation from or presence of his temple to the two kingdoms. It expressly interprets Assyrian lovers and the chapter's fornications spiritually as worship of strange gods. Oolla admires Assyrian rulers in blue and handsome horsemen while retaining Egyptian fornications. Delivered to Assyria, she has disgrace exposed, children taken away and is slain with the sword. Taking the children away must not be changed to slaughtering them at this point.

Ooliba sees her sister's fate but exceeds her, courting Assyrian princes and horsemen. Images of Chaldeans painted in colors, girdles and dyed turbans attract her eyes and she sends messengers to Chaldea. Babylonian lovers defile her until her soul is glutted; she exposes her disgrace, the Lord's soul is alienated and she recalls Egyptian youth, with the passage's explicit animal comparisons and renewed bodily imagery. Vermilion, wall engravings and an Euphrates crossing are not stated. The Lord gathers Babylonian, Chaldean and Assyrian lovers against her with chariot, wheel, breastplate, buckler and helmet. Their judgments cut off nose and ears, take children, kill with sword, burn the residue and strip garments and glorious instruments. Hated hands seize her labours and expose her nakedness; Egypt is no longer remembered. Pekod, Shoa and Koa are not names in this admitted edition.

Following her sister's way brings Samaria's deep and wide cup of derision, drunkenness and grief. She drinks the dregs, devours fragments and rends her breasts because she forgot the Lord. The joint indictment includes blood, idol worship and children offered to be devoured, with sanctuary pollution on the very day of sacrifice and profaned sabbaths. Messengers summon distant men; washing, painted eyes, ornaments, a fine bed and a table with the Lord's incense and ointment accompany a rejoicing multitude. People from the desert receive bracelets and crowns; they are not called drunken Sabeans. Just men judge adultery and bloodshed; a multitude stones and stabs, kills sons and daughters and burns houses. Wickedness is removed, all women learn not to imitate it and the sisters bear their idol sins and know the Lord. An impartial court, wooden idol material and a universal law that every political alliance inevitably destroys its participants are not added.

The story inside

Opening: Two sisters personify Samaria and Jerusalem. Development: Ooliba exceeds the observed misconduct of Oolla. Conclusion: The cup and joint indictment precede judgment.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Two sisters personify Samaria and Jerusalem.
2
Ooliba exceeds the observed misconduct of Oolla.
3
The cup and joint indictment precede judgment.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 93702–93717
23:2. Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother. 23:3. And they committed fornication in Egypt, in their youth they committed fornication: there were their breasts pressed down, and the teats of their virginity were bruised. Committed fornication.... That is, idolatry. 23:4. And their names were Oolla the elder, and Ooliba her younger sister: and I took them, and they bore sons and daughters. Now for their names, Samaria is Oolla, and Jerusalem is Ooliba. Oolla and Ooliba.... God calls the kingdom of Israel Oolla, which signifies their own habitation, because they separated themselves from his temple: and the kingdom of Juda, Ooliba, which signifies his habitation in her, because of his temple among them in Jerusalem.
Lines 93757–93770
23:14. And she increased her fornications: and when she had seen men painted on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans set forth in colours, 23:15. And girded with girdles about their reins, and with dyed turbans on their heads, the resemblance of all the captains, the likeness of the sons of Babylon, and of the land of the Chaldeans wherein they were born, 23:16. She doted upon them with the lust of her eyes, and she sent messengers to them into Chaldea. 23:17. And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them.
Lines 93824–93836
23:31. Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister and I will give her cup into thy hand. 23:32. Thus saith the Lord God: Thou shalt drink thy sister’s cup, deep and wide: thou shalt be had in derision and scorn, which containeth very much. 23:33. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness, and sorrow: with the cup of grief and sadness, with the cup of thy sister Samaria. 23:34. And thou shalt drink it, and shalt drink it up even to the dregs, and thou shalt devour the fragments thereof, thou shalt rend thy breasts: because I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.