When most of us hear “parable,” we think of Jesus’ stories—the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Sower and the Seed. He used short, vivid scenes to reveal the kingdom to those with ears to hear and to hide it from the hard of heart (Matthew 13:10–15). But long before Jesus walked the roads of Galilee, God spoke through parables in the Old Testament. Those stories often came as a prophetic sting, exposing sin, calling for repentance, and warning of judgment, like Nathan’s tale to David about a stolen lamb that broke a king’s pride and opened the door to confession (2 Samuel 12:1–7).
Ezekiel tells one of the most bracing of these stories. In Ezekiel 23 he speaks of two sisters—Oholah and Oholibah—whose unfaithfulness pictures the spiritual adultery of Israel and Judah. The language is frank and painful because the betrayal was real. The northern kingdom had turned to Assyria for help and copied its gods; the southern kingdom watched that ruin and then ran after Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt in the same way, trusting foreign power and bowing to idols instead of trusting the Lord (Ezekiel 23:5–21; 2 Kings 17:7–12). The end of both houses came as the prophets had warned: Samaria fell to Assyria in 722 BC, and Jerusalem burned under Babylon in 586 BC (2 Kings 17:5–6; 2 Kings 25:8–11). Ezekiel’s parable shows how they got there and why.
Words: 2707 / Time to read: 14 minutes
Historical and Cultural Background
Ezekiel prophesied among exiles by the Kebar River after the first waves of deportation from Judah, a priest turned watchman who spoke God’s words to a people in shock (Ezekiel 1:1–3; Ezekiel 3:17). His audience knew the recent past. The Assyrian empire had swallowed the northern kingdom and scattered its people; Babylon had replaced Assyria, defeated Judah’s armies, carried off royal sons, and set up a puppet throne in Jerusalem (2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 24:10–17). Egypt still hovered to the southwest, promising help it could not deliver and drawing Judah into false hopes that sapped faith and invited disaster (Isaiah 30:1–3; Ezekiel 17:15). It was a world of pledges, tribute, and intrigue, and it pressed God’s people to choose between visible power and the unseen faithfulness of the Lord.
The names in Ezekiel’s parable are not random. Oholah means “her own tent,” and Ezekiel applies it to Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom that set up its own shrines and priests after the split from David’s house (Ezekiel 23:4; 1 Kings 12:28–33). That “own tent” points to worship on Israel’s terms, not God’s, and it became a door through which idolatry rushed in. Oholibah means “my tent is in her,” and Ezekiel uses it for Jerusalem, the city where the Lord had set his name and where the temple stood, a grace that should have guarded Judah’s heart but did not (Ezekiel 23:4; 1 Kings 8:10–13). The names themselves carry the lesson: one sister invented her worship; the other had God’s house and still wandered.
The older story sits behind the parable. Jeroboam made golden calves at Bethel and Dan, telling the people, “Here are your gods, Israel,” and he appointed priests who were not Levites, so that convenience replaced obedience and image replaced presence (1 Kings 12:28–31). The northern kings then traded altars with the nations and trusted treaties more than the covenant, a path that ended in siege and exile when the Assyrian king took Samaria after three years and deported many to distant cities (2 Kings 17:5–6). Judah watched that fall and should have learned, but her kings sent envoys to Assyria and Babylon and made deals with Egypt, even stripping gold from temple doors to buy time, a sign of divided trust that soon led to ruin (2 Kings 16:7–9; 2 Kings 18:13–16; 2 Kings 24:1–2). Ezekiel names those choices with shocking honesty because sin had been dressed up as strategy for too long (Ezekiel 23:12–21).
Biblical Narrative
Ezekiel begins with the simple picture that makes the point plain. “The word of the Lord came to me,” he says, and then he tells of two sisters who “belonged to one mother,” a way of saying that Israel and Judah shared the same calling and care (Ezekiel 23:1–4). He names them Oholah and Oholibah and identifies them openly: “Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem” (Ezekiel 23:4). The sisters were the Lord’s, yet they turned from him. In Ezekiel’s words, they “gave themselves” to other lovers, a hard image for a hard fact: they trusted the power and gods of other nations rather than the Lord who had married them in covenant love (Ezekiel 23:5–8; Jeremiah 2:2).
Oholah’s story runs first. Ezekiel says she “lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians,” noting their uniforms, horses, and ranks—the look of power that dazzled the eyes of her leaders (Ezekiel 23:5–7). The prophet adds that Samaria did not start from innocence; “she had been unfaithful to me” from Egypt onward, so that compromise had a long history and a deep root (Ezekiel 23:8). The Lord handed her over to the very nation she craved, and the result was shame and loss: her sons and daughters were taken, her cities fell, and she became a warning to others who would follow the same path (Ezekiel 23:9–10). History records the same end: “In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites,” settling them in distant lands (2 Kings 17:6).
Oholibah’s story is even heavier because she saw what happened to her sister and then ran harder down the same road. Ezekiel says, “Her lust increased,” and he names Assyrians again, then adds the Babylonians whose portraits on walls caught the imagination of Jerusalem’s rulers, a picture of the human heart reaching for the next empire with a hunger that no deal could satisfy (Ezekiel 23:11–15). The Lord says, “I became disgusted with her” as he had with Samaria, not because he no longer loved Judah but because she would not return, even when warnings multiplied (Ezekiel 23:18). The Babylonians whom she courted became her judges; Egypt, the old source of false help, mocked and did not save; the cup of ruin that Samaria had drunk now passed to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 23:22–28; Ezekiel 23:31–34). The text’s plain words match the recorded end: the city fell, the temple burned, and the people went into exile because they “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” and would not listen (2 Kings 25:8–11; 2 Chronicles 36:15–19).
The parable closes with a courtroom scene. The Lord calls witnesses against the sisters and announces the sentence: they will bear the penalty of their idols and their bloodshed, and “then you will know that I am the Sovereign Lord” (Ezekiel 23:36–49). It is not random rage; it is holy judgment that fits the deeds and aims at a knowledge of God that Israel had treated lightly. The prophet’s ending is hard to hear, but it is meant to heal truthfully. Only by naming betrayal can the Lord’s people turn and live (Ezekiel 18:30–32).
Theological Significance
The parable teaches what the prophets repeat elsewhere: idolatry is not a small mistake; it is a breach of marriage. When the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, he said, “I am the Lord your God,” and he placed that love at the center of their life together, warning them to have no other gods and to bow before no image (Exodus 20:2–4). To trust an idol, whether carved from wood or formed as a policy, is to betray a covenant made in love. Hosea makes the point with his own marriage and God’s promise to allure and restore; Jeremiah calls Judah “faithless” and still says, “Return, for I am merciful” (Hosea 2:14–20; Jeremiah 3:12). Ezekiel’s parable stands in that line, naming adultery so that grace can be grace and not an empty word (Ezekiel 23:1–4; Ezekiel 36:22–24).
The story also shows that alliances without trust in God become a kind of worship. Judah sent envoys, paid tribute, and copied the ways of surrounding nations, thinking safety could be purchased if the right names were on the treaty and the right emblems on the walls (2 Kings 16:7–9; Isaiah 31:1). The Lord did not forbid wisdom or planning; he rebuked a heart that counted him out. “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,” Isaiah cried, “but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or seek help from the Lord” (Isaiah 31:1). Ezekiel takes the same pattern and throws bright paint on it so no one can miss it: what we trust most we finally worship, and what we worship will rule us (Ezekiel 23:14–16; Psalm 115:8).
From a dispensational view, the parable speaks first to Israel’s history and covenant. Ezekiel names Samaria and Jerusalem, and he ties their judgment to the terms God set for the nation he formed at Sinai and placed in the land (Ezekiel 23:4; Leviticus 26:14–17). The Church does not replace Israel; it is a people gathered from the nations in this present age through faith in Jesus the Messiah, while God’s promises to Israel remain and will be kept in the future he has named (Romans 11:1–2; Romans 11:25–29). Ezekiel himself carries that hope. After chapters of rebuke, he announces that God will gather Israel, give a new heart and a new spirit, and place his people in their own land to walk in his ways, so that the nations may know that the Lord sanctifies Israel (Ezekiel 36:24–28; Ezekiel 37:21–28). Judgment is real; restoration is real too because God keeps covenant.
Finally, the parable reveals God’s heart in judgment. He is not eager to punish. Through Ezekiel he says, “Why will you die, people of Israel? Repent and live!” and he swears that he takes no pleasure in the death of anyone but calls for turning and life (Ezekiel 18:30–32). Even when he hands his people over to the powers they pursued, his purpose is not spite; it is a severe mercy that ends false trust and makes room for a true return, the kind of mercy Jeremiah sounds when he says, “Return, faithless Israel… I will not be angry forever” (Jeremiah 3:12). The God who judges is the God who restores.
Spiritual Lessons and Application
Ezekiel’s parable speaks plainly to the temptations of our time. We are not Israel under the old covenant, yet our hearts are the same kind of hearts. We still feel the pull to seek safety in what we can see and count rather than in the Lord’s faithful care. When money looks like a shield against fear, when approval seems like a key to life, when power promises to fix what prayer seems too slow to touch, we face the same choice Judah faced: will we trust the Lord, or will we bind ourselves to a lesser savior and call it wisdom (Psalm 20:7; Matthew 6:33)? The line “what we trust most we worship” still holds true (Isaiah 31:1).
The parable also tells us how to return. Ezekiel’s audience could not fix their past, but they could hear the Lord’s plea: “Repent and live” (Ezekiel 18:32). Repentance is not a vague regret; it is a turn of the will and a cry of the heart. It sounds like Psalm 51—“Against you, you only, have I sinned”—and it leans on God’s promise to give a new heart and put a new spirit within those who come (Psalm 51:4; Ezekiel 36:26–27). In the present age, that promise meets us in Jesus, who calls the weary to himself and gives rest, and in the Spirit who writes God’s law on our hearts so that obedience becomes the fruit of love rather than the price of acceptance (Matthew 11:28–30; Romans 8:3–4).
Ezekiel’s language is strong because lesser words would not wake a sleepy people. There are moments when the Lord brings our hidden idols into the light with words that sting, and the sting is kindness. James says, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God?” and then adds, “But he gives us more grace,” urging us to humble ourselves and draw near (James 4:4–8). When the Spirit presses a finger on the heart and says, “This thing has taken my place,” the right answer is not defense; it is surrender and trust that God’s love aims to save, not to shame (Hebrews 12:5–6; 1 John 1:9).
Ezekiel’s parable also steadies our view of the nations and our own public hopes. Leaders come and go; alliances form and break; maps change; and the people of God can be tempted to tie their peace to the rise of one ruler or the fall of another. The prophets teach a better way. “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes,” the psalmist sings, not to despise good leadership but to set our deepest confidence where it belongs (Psalm 118:8–9). We work for the good of our cities, pray for those in authority, and seek justice and mercy where we live, but we refuse to treat any human plan as our savior (Jeremiah 29:7; 1 Timothy 2:1–2). That posture keeps the heart free to obey when obedience costs.
Finally, Ezekiel’s story teaches us to wait with hope for what God has promised. Israel’s failures were great, but God’s promise is greater. He swore to gather his people, to cleanse them, to set his sanctuary among them, and to be their God in the sight of the nations, and he will do it in his time (Ezekiel 36:24–28; Ezekiel 37:26–28). In the same promise-shaped way, the Church lives by the word of Jesus, who said he would build his church and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it, and by the word that he will come again to set all things right (Matthew 16:18; Revelation 22:12). Hope like that does not make us passive; it makes us steady, because the future rests on God’s faithfulness, not on our control (Lamentations 3:22–24).
Conclusion
Ezekiel 23 is not comfortable reading, but it is honest mercy. The prophet shows us two sisters whose names and choices lay bare the heart of a nation that traded covenant love for the thrill of foreign power and carved gods. Samaria fell first, and Judah followed, even with the temple in her midst and warnings in her ears (Ezekiel 23:4; 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 25:8–11). The parable does not flatter; it calls. It says that broken trust has real consequences and that the Lord’s holy name will not be mocked forever (Ezekiel 23:35; Ezekiel 23:49). Yet even here the larger voice of Scripture breaks through: the God who judges calls his people home.
So hear both notes—the sharp and the sweet. Tear up any treaty your heart has made with lesser saviors. Tell the Lord the truth about what you have trusted. Ask him for a new heart, and believe that he delights to give it. Then walk forward in simple obedience, trusting the God who says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you,” and “I will put my Spirit in you,” and who keeps every promise he makes (Ezekiel 36:25–27). The story that begins with betrayal can end in renewal, because the Lord is faithful.
“Return, faithless Israel… ‘I will frown on you no longer, for I am faithful,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will not be angry forever.’” (Jeremiah 3:12)
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