Ezekiel 23:22 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 23:22
Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side;
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Lord
אֲדֹנָ֣י'a.do.Nai
H136
the Lord (used as a proper name of God only) · proper noun, a title
GOD
יְהוִה֒Yah.weh
H3069
YHWH · proper noun, a title
up
מֵעִ֤ירme.'Ir
H5782
to wake (literally or figuratively) · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular absolute
lovers
מְאַהֲבַ֙יִךְ֙me.'a.ha.Va.yikh
H157
to have affection for (sexually or otherwise) · verb, piel active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
mind
נַפְשֵׁ֖ךְnaf.Shekh
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
alienated
נָקְעָ֥הna.ke.'Ah
H5361
to feel aversion · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
bring
וַהֲבֵאתִ֥יםva.ha.ve.Tim
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
side
מִסָּבִֽיבmi.sa.Viv
H5439
(as noun) a circle · preposition + noun, common both genders singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 16:37 Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that th…
Revelation 17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her fle…
Isaiah 10:5-6 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
Isaiah 39:3-4 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah s…
Jeremiah 6:22-23 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth.
Jeremiah 12:9-12 Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to d…
Ezekiel 23:9 Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.
Ezekiel 23:28 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 23:22–end
Jerusalem stands indicted by the name of Aholibah, for that she, as a false traitor to her sovereign Lord the God of heaven, not having his fear before her eyes, but moved by the instigation of the devil, had revolted from her allegiance to him, had compassed and imagined to shake off his government, had kept up a correspondence had joined in confederacy with his enemies, and the pretenders to a deity, in contempt of his crown and dignity. To this indictment she has pleaded, Not guilty: I am not polluted; I have not gone after Baalim. But it is found against her by the notorious evidence of the fact, and she stands convicted of it, nor has any thing material to offer why judgment should not…
lovers . . . alienated-- (Eze 23:17). Illicit love, soon or late, ends in open hatred (Sa2 13:15). The Babylonians, the objects formerly of their God-forgetting love, but now, with characteristic fickleness, objects of their hatred, shall be made by God the instruments of their punishment.
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 23:20
She doted upon their paramours - פלגשיהם pillagsheyhem, their harlots or concubines. Anciently harlot meant in our language either the male or female prostitute.
Whose flesh is as the flesh of asses - See on Eze 16:25 (note).
John Gill on Ezekiel 23:22
Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord God,.... Or, ye two tribes of Benjamin and Judah, hear what the Lord says unto you:
behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee; the Chaldeans, whom they had formerly loved, and in whose alliance they were, and whose idols they worshipped:
from whom thy mind is alienated; having broke covenant with them, and cast off their yoke, and rebelled against them:
and I will bring them against thee on every side; to besiege and encompass Jerusalem on every side with their army, as they did, so that there was no escaping.
Keil & Delitzsch
The Church Fathers
(v. 22ff.) Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side: the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and with a host of peoples. They shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. And I will give them judgment, and they shall judge you with their judgments, and I will put my zeal in you, which they shall exercise against you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and what remains, they shall cut off with the sword. They shall take your sons and your daughters, and your last will be devoured by fire, and they shall strip you of your garments, and they shall take away the vessels of your glory. And they shall make your wickedness cease from you, and your prostitution from the land of Egypt. You shall not lift up your eyes to them, nor shall you remember Egypt anymore. LXX: Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will stir up your lovers against you, from whom your soul has turned away, and I will bring them against you from every side, the sons of Babylon and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses. And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples. They shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet; and I will commit the judgement to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgements. And I will execute judgment in fury and anger upon them; then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I lay My vengeance upon them. Because you remembered the flesh of the Egyptians and imitated the filthiness of the unclean nation, which venerates the images of all beasts, therefore I will bring against you your lovers, with whom you were satisfied, and you departed from their covenant, so that as great as your love once was, you…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Aholah And Aholibah — (my tabernacle) two symbolical names, are described as harlots, the former representing Samaria and the latter Judah. Ezek. 23.
Aholibah — My tent is in her, the name of an imaginary harlot, applied symbolically to Jerusalem, because she had abandoned the worship of the true God and given herself up to the idolatries of foreign nations.…
Assyria · The Jews condemned for following the idolatries of — The Jews condemned for following the idolatries of
Idolatry · .Licentiousness of — .Licentiousness of
War · 28:25-68;32:30; — 28:25-68;32:30;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Ezekiel 23:22-35
Punishment of the Harlot Jerusalem
Eze 23:22. Therefore, Oholibah, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy soul has torn itself away, and cause them to come upon thee from every side; Eze 23:23. The sons of Babel, and all the Chaldeans, rulers, lords, and nobles, all the sons of Assyria with them: chosen men of graceful deportment, governors and officers together, knights and counsellors, all riding upon horses. Eze 23:24. And they will come upon thee with weapons, chariots, and wheels, and with a host of peoples; target and shield and helmet will they direct against thee round about: and I commit to them the judgment, that they may judge thee a…
Jerusalem’s depravity made God’s judgment inevitable. The very nations that she courted as her lovers would abuse her. Babylon would bring its allies, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa. The names of these obscure tribes sound like Hebrew words meaning “Punishment,” “War cry,” and “Shriek.” Judah’s sins were greater than her sister’s, and her judgment would also be worse.
Rashi on Ezekiel 23:22
your lovers The Chaldeans, who pleased Hezekiah.
those with whom your soul has become disgusted Whom Zedekiah [in a change of heart] subsequently hated and against whom he rebelled.
