The first fourteen verses of Ezekiel chapter 16 tell an extremely lovely story! It is discussed in our previous lesson, in some detail. But … it’s the next nineteen verses that hold our attention now. Not a lovely story!

The Jewish Nation (technically Judah but called Israel occasionally as well), after being the recipient of all God’s lavish love and provision … TURNED against her Lord!

Forsook His tender care, rejected His Love … and rushed headlong into sin, idolatrous sin, adulterous sin!

Here are some facts …

The Beauty God gave her … she ungratefully claimed as her “own!” And used it to “lure” foreign lovers into her life! This refers to both false gods and goddesses … and the religious prostitution such debauchery included. “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.” God talking in Ezekiel 16:15, where “renown” is the good reputation God had bestowed upon His people. Look at that clause: “His it was!”

Furthermore, Judah took the precious clothes God had showered upon her and used them in idol worship! “And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon.” Verse 16, sin gone rampant!

Everything God had shared with Judah … she prostituted to idol worship! Look at the list, of God’s composing: “Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, and tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD.” Verses 17-19, God keeping “score.” Everything from jewelry to fancy coats to olive oil and incense! Even her food, fine flour and such! All offered in idol worship!

Maybe verses 20 and 21 are even worse. Child sacrifice! “Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?” Babies, burnt alive to a heathen fiend! And Israel did this, Why? To be just like the other nations around her! Peer pressure? Note God Almighty just called them (the slain little ones) “My children.”

How soon Judah “forgot” God and His Kindness! (God knows when we do not remember Him!) “And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou HAST NOT REMEMBERED the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.” Verse 22, go back and read yesterday’s lesson if you are not familiar with the story. God saved Judah’s life, rescued her!

Scripture continues, Ezekiel right now merely being the recorder: “And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord GOD;) that thou hast also built unto thee an eminent (high, lifted up) place, and hast made thee an high place in EVERY STREET. Thou hast built thy high place at EVERY HEAD OF THE WAY.” Idol worship in every street, verses 23-25. Pervasive heathenism!

A “word picture” now, perhaps graphic, but true. “Thou (Judah) hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.” God knows all our doings!

Then God “lists” her lovers, the nations from whom Judah has imported her numerous gods and goddesses and vile practices. In verse 26 the “Egyptians.” In verse 27, the “Philistines.” God suggests that the Judahites were so filthy that “the Philistines are ashamed of thy lewd way.”

Wow!

Then the “Assyrians,” verse 28. “Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.” She could not stop from sinning! Reminds me of 2nd Peter 2:14, “Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls.”

In verse 29, Israel infamously sinning “from Canaan to Chaldea!” Hundreds of miles!

In verse 30 God calls her “bossy, controlling, assertive!” Read it: “How weak is thine heart (includes the mind and will), saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious (domineering) whorish woman.”

Wow!

Then in verses 31-34 God notices that Judah (who has so flagrantly played the harlot) does not even expect money for her fornications! (Like a “normal” harlot would do!) No … Israel pays her lovers to be wicked with her! Verse 33 is representative: “They give gifts to all whores: but THOU givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and HIREST them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.” Plain, but it’s God’s Vocabulary.

So sad … such dirty acts from one whom God so loved and protected through her early years of (national) life. Jehovah God’s “wife” behaving in such a way! See if you can hear God’s “broken heart” in this verse, 32. “But (Judah conducts herself) as a WIFE that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband!”

But do not worry.

God will judge her for her sins. Remedially, at that!

That, in fact, is tomorrow’s lesson.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

I have through the years preached the first 14 verses of Ezekiel chapter 16, several times I recall. But today’s swath of that chapter, verses 15-34, never! So, I have learned this morning! (Well, I pre-studied it late last night after I had preached.) I speak merely for myself … this Ezekiel study is quite profitable in at least two ways. I am being challenged to live more godly … and I am simultaneously learning the Scriptures!

Let me hear from ya’ll occasionally, too!