Page 121 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XXIII. 115

all fulness to express the judicial dealings of Jehovah
with Jerusalem.
“ Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Thou shalt drink of
thy sister’s cup, deep and large: thou shalt be laughed
to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.
Thou shalt he filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with
the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup
of thy sister Samaria. Thou shalt even drink it and
suck it out, and thou shalt break the shreds thereof
and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it,
saith the Lord Jehovah. Therefore thus saith the Lord
Jehovah, Behold thou hast forgotten me, and cast me
behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness
and whoredoms.” (Yer. 32—35.)
Thus the judgment of favoured Judah should even
exceed that of Samaria, as indeed her guilt was greater.
The dregs should be drained, the shreds should be
ground with their teeth, and their guilty breasts torn.
From verse 36 to the end there is a comparison which
closes the account of the two sisters. They were both
licentious, both bloody. They carried their idolatrous
adultery to such an extent as to burn their children to
Moloch, and on that day to pollute Jehovah’s sanctuary
and desecrate His sabbaths. “ Lo ! thus have they done
in the midst of mine house.” No means were untried
to entice those without to the dishonour of Jehovah,
iniquitously misapplying to them Jehovah’s incense
and Jehovah’s oil. And as Jerusalem had sought
strangers from afar, so she deigned to court the most
vulgar drunkards from the desert. Thoroughly pro­
fligate were those two women, Aholah and Aholibah.
Not God only, but righteous men should judge them