The Foundling Who Became a Bride and Then a Whore

The word came to Ezekiel, and it was not a gentle thing. He was told to make Jerusalem know her abominations, and he did it by telling her a story about her own birth. She was born in the land of the Canaanite, he said. Her father was an Amorite, her mother a Hittite. No glorious ancestry, no chosen lineage—just pagan stock, abandoned at birth.

Ezekiel described the day she was born with a surgeon's cold eye. No one cut her navel cord. No one washed her clean. No one rubbed her with salt or wrapped her in cloths. No eye pitied her. She was thrown out into an open field, left to die, her own person abhorred on the day she came into the world. That is how Jerusalem began: a newborn weltering in her own blood, unwanted.

Then the Lord passed by. He saw her squirming in her blood, and He spoke to her. He said, 'Live.' He said it twice. He made her multiply like a plant in the field. She grew, her breasts formed, her hair grew long, but she was still naked and bare. The Lord passed by again, and this time her time had come—the time of love. He spread His skirt over her, covered her nakedness, swore an oath, entered into a covenant with her, and she became His.

He washed her, anointed her with oil, clothed her with embroidered work and fine linen and silk. He put bracelets on her hands, a chain on her neck, a ring in her nose, earrings in her ears, a beautiful crown on her head. She ate fine flour, honey, and oil. She became exceedingly beautiful, and her renown spread among the nations. The Lord says plainly: her beauty was perfect because of the majesty He had put upon her.

But she trusted in her beauty. She played the harlot because of her renown. She poured out her whoredoms on every passerby. She took the garments He gave her and made high places decked with colors, and played the harlot on them. She took His gold and silver and made images of men, and played the harlot with them. She took His embroidered garments and covered those images, set His oil and incense before them, fed them with His fine flour and honey and oil.

Worse still, she took the sons and daughters she had borne to the Lord and sacrificed them to those images, passing them through the fire. The Lord asks: 'Were your whoredoms a small matter, that you have slain My children and delivered them up?' She did not remember the days of her youth, when she was naked and bare, weltering in her blood.

The Lord catalogues her lovers: the Egyptians, great of flesh; the Assyrians, whom she could not satisfy; the Chaldeans, the land of traffic. She built vaulted places and lofty places at every street corner, opened her feet to every passerby. She was not like other harlots—they receive gifts, but she gave gifts to her lovers, bribed them to come to her. She was an adulterous wife who took strangers instead of her husband.

Because of all this, the Lord declares judgment. He will gather all her lovers against her, uncover her nakedness before them. They will strip her of her clothes and jewels, leave her naked and bare. They will throw down her vaulted places, break down her lofty places. They will bring a company against her, stone her, thrust her through with swords, burn her houses with fire. The Lord will cause her to cease from playing the harlot. Then His wrath will rest, His jealousy will depart, and He will be quiet and no more angry.

The Lord compares Jerusalem to her sisters: Samaria to the north, Sodom to the south. He says Jerusalem was more corrupt than both. Sodom's sin was pride, fullness of bread, prosperous ease, and neglect of the poor and needy. Samaria did not commit half of Jerusalem's sins. Jerusalem has justified her sisters by being worse than them. She must bear her own shame.

Yet the chapter does not end with judgment. The Lord says He will remember His covenant with her from the days of her youth, and He will establish an everlasting covenant. He will restore the captivity of Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Jerusalem will receive her sisters as daughters, not by her covenant but by His. She will remember her ways and be ashamed. She will never open her mouth again because of her shame, when the Lord has forgiven her all that she has done.