Aholah and Aholibah - Ezekiel 23

Ezekiel 23:4 "And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names, Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah."

My helps dictionary uses Aholibah as the nation Judah also. At this time of the captivity, most of the people of Judah were drawn into Jerusalem. Aholah means 'her own tent' while Aholibah means 'my tent in her'. The latter perhaps referring to Jerusalem being the tent within Judah but I'm not sure.

The comparison is two sisters Samaria (Israel after the division) and Judah. First Samaria was unfaithful to God then upon seeing the sins of Samaria, Judah followed as well with unfaithfulness.

It is a stinging story of how the two sisters followed after the sins of the nations which surrounding them instead of following the teachings they had received in the wilderness and after.

v22 "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: v23 The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa and all the Assyrians with them: all of them desirable young en, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses."

The sins of Israel did not start in Canaan, as we have learned, they started in Egypt. We can remember when Moses brought them out and the times were hard. They looked and longed for Egypt again. While Moses was on the mountain receiving the commandments, they built the calf. In all this, the Lord did not destroy them so that the heathen would not see their punishment. But still, they could not keep from looking back to Egypt.

The punishment, now, was for a purpose.

v27 "Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more."

The application for Christians is that we should do as Paul did 'forgetting those things which are behind'. It is not possible to hang onto the desire to be part of the world system and be totally devoted to the will of God.

Think about it. Can a person go in two directions at the same time?

I John 1:15 "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."