A picture of righteous retribution because of apostasy.
"Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out," etc. The scope and meaning of this paragraph is clearly and forcibly stated in the 'Speaker's Commentary:' "The punishment of Judah is represented by the same figure as her sin. She has been portrayed as an adulteress and a murderess. She is now represented as undergoing the punishment adjudged to an adulteress and murderess. The scene is a court of justice, before which the Lord himself appears to arraign the guilty woman. There are present those who are now her lovers, and those whom she has loved and deserted (the idolatrous nations with whom Judah has had guilty intercourse), to witness, to share, or to exult in, her disgrace. In proportion to her former honour shall be her present shame. As a woman suspected of infidelity to her husband had her head uncovered by way of disgrace, so this convicted adulteress shall be stripped bare, exposed to utter shame, shall be stoned and slain, and her house shall be made desolate. Only in her utter destruction shall the wrath of the Lord, the jealous God, cease." In our text—
I. THE SINS OF WHICH THE PEOPLE OF JERUSALEM WERE GUILTY ARE STATED. These have been set forth at length in the preceding paragraph, and we have considered them here. And, indeed, all the important points in the section now before us have come under our notice in earlier portions of the writings of Ezekiel, most of them more than once; a brief consideration of them will therefore be sufficient in this place. The sins of which the people are here convicted are these.
1. Sinful forgetfulness of their early history. "Thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth" (verse 43; cf. verse 22). They forgot the low estate in which the Lord found them in Egypt, and from which he had raised them into a condition of national life, prosperity, and power. This forgetfulness involved base ingratitude.
2. Shameful apostasy from God. "Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered," etc. The "filthiness" of the Authorized Version should be "brass." The word is used either "for metals of all kinds, or goods and chattels generally, or money in particular It is put instead of the 'whoredoms' of verse 15, because, according to verse 33, these were purchased by means of presents" (Schroder).
3. The idolatrous and cruel sacrifice of their own children. "The blood of thy children which thou didst give unto them" (verse 36; cf. verses 20, 21).
II. THE SENTENCE ON ACCOUNT OF THESE SINS IS PRONOUNCED.
1. The end of their prosperity and the destruction of their city. "I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place," etc. (verses 39, 41). There is unmistakable reference here to the siege of Jerusalem, and to the destruction, loss, and misery connected therewith. The people had abused their prosperity to the dishonour of God, and he would completely strip them of prosperity, deprive them of power, and leave them naked and bare as they were when the Lord first interposed for them (verse 7). "The unfaithful use of the gifts of God inevitably brings on their loss. God cannot be mocked."
2. Their violent death for their spiritual adultery and physical murder. "I will judge thee as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy They shall also bring up a company against thee," etc. (verses 38, 40). According to the Law of Moses, adultery was to be punished with death by stoning (Le Ezekiel 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:24; John 8:5); death was also the penalty of murder (Exodus 21:12). Such were the judgments of adulteresses and of murderers; and in the siege and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar such judgments were inflicted upon the guilty people of that city.
3. Their violent death in the presence of and inflicted by the nations with whom they had sinned. (Verses 37, 41). The "many women" of verse 41 are the neighbouring nations. These nations should behold the downfall and degradation, the shame and misery, of the apostate people; and the Chaldeans should be the instruments for accomplishing their overthrow, into whose hands they were given by the Lord. It is often so ordered, in the providence of God, that the companions of sinners in their sins become the weapons by which they am punished for those sins. "This is the curse of sin," says Schroder, "that those with whom we have sinned make common cause with our enemies for our punishment …. Friends may in certain circumstances be the most painful rods in God's hand."
III. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE SENTENCE IS INDICATED. "I will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God" (verse 43). The Revised Version is more correct: "I also will bring thy way upon thine head." Sinners "are dealt with not only as they deserved, but as they procured. It is the end which their sin, as a way, had a direct tendency to," which God will bring upon their head.
CONCLUSION. Our subject utters solemn warning against sin, especially on the part of those who have been much blessed by God; for the heinousness of sin is proportionate with the greatness of privilege, and the severity of punishment will correspond with the heinousness of sin.—W.J.