Bible Strands
Ezekiel 23:43
Then I said of her who had grown old in adulteries: ‘Now let them use her as a prostitute, for that is all she is!’
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks through Ezekiel regarding the personified Jerusalem (Oholibah) immediately after describing her idolatrous alliances and debauched gatherings. The declaration follows the account of drunkards and rabble who adorned her with bracelets and crowns.
The words — לַבּלָה (labbah) denotes a woman worn out or exhausted, while יזנוּ (yiznu) conveys that they will treat her as a prostitute. These terms anchor the metaphor in physical and moral depletion.
The thread — The pattern of inherited guilt and unrepentant wickedness echoes in Ezra 9:7, Psalms 106:6, and Jeremiah 13:23. These passages trace how repeated covenant failure hardens the heart until judgment becomes inevitable.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that persistent idolatry exhausts moral capacity and invites proportional reckoning. It calls the reader to abandon compromised alliances before divine response becomes fixed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them?
Cross-references
- Ezra 9:7 From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.
- Psalms 106:6 We have sinned like our fathers; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
- Jeremiah 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither are you able to do good—you who are accustomed to doing evil.
- Ezekiel 23:3 and they played in Egypt, prostituting themselves from their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin bosoms caressed.
- Daniel 9:16 O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.