Ver. 1. The word of the Lord.] See Ezekiel 18:1.
Ver. 2. There were two women.] This is the same in effect with Ezekiel 16, but there more plainly, here parabolically expressed. Sermo est eraditus et elegans, simul tamen spurcas et obscaenus, to set forth the hatefulness of idolatry, creature confidence, and adultery. The daughters of one mother,] scil., Synagogae, vel Sarce. Some think the prophet alludeth to Jacob’s two wives who were sisters. Lavat.
Ver. 3. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt.] See Ezekiel 20:8 Jos 24:14. They committed whoredoms in their youth.] Like the strumpet Quartilla in Petronius, who said, Iunonem ego meam iratam habeam, si unquam me meminerim virginem fuisse. There were their breasts pressed.] Violatam virginitatem mammarum laxitas consequitur. Petron. Satyricon.
Ver. 4. And the names of them were Aholah,] i.e., Her tent, not mine (so he calleth Samaria, or the ten tribes). What have I to do with it or her Compare 1 Kings 12:16,28,31. She is gone to her tent, and hath set her up tabernacles, where to worship her golden idols. The elder.] So called because more numerous and potent than the other two tribes. She was also first in the defection. And Aholibah.] That is, my tent is in her. So Jerusalem is called, because the temple and testimonies of God’s special presence were there, as King Abijah well pleadeth it. (2 Chronicles 13:10,11) Samaria is Aholah.] In figure she is; though some have held that these were the names of two notorious strumpets in Egypt.
Ver. 5. And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine.] Fornicata est sub me, under colour and covert of a marriage made with me. See what a fair gloss Jeroboam set upon his foul idolatry. (1 Kings 12:28) On the Assyrians, her neighbours.] So they were now become, by the conquest of Syria.
Ver. 6. Which were clothed with blue.] With rich and gorgeous attire. Vestis luxuriae nidus.
Ver. 7. Thus she committed her whoredoms with them.] Heb., She bestowed her whoredoms upon them; she was no niggard. A little entreaty served turn. Cuilibet sui copiam faciebat, such was her idol madness.
Ver. 8. Neither left she her idols brought from Egypt.] Witness her two golden calves brought therehence by Jeroboam, in imitation of Apis, a calf dedicated by the Egyptians to Serapis, their chief idol. “ Quis nescit, qualia demens Aegyptus portenta colat?’’—Juvenal. For in her youth.] See on Ezekiel 23:3. And poured their whoredoms upon her.] This kind of language and the like is here and elsewhere used, not to teach men to speak or do foul things, but the contrary. Of Petronius’s Satyricon it is said, Tolle obscaena, et tollis omni: and that he was impurissimus scriptor purissimae Latinitatis. Of our prophet it may as truly be said, Tolle sancta et tollis omnia. See on Ezekiel 23:2.
Ver. 9. Wherefore I have delivered her.] 2 Kings 17:23. “ Per quod quis peccat, per idem punitur et ipse. ”
Ver. 10. These discovered her nakedness,] i.e., They have shamefully punished her for a stinking strumpet. [as Ezekiel 23:26] And she became famous.] For her sins and punishments, much talked of. Heb., A name.
Ver. 11. And when her sister Aholibah saw this.] And yet would not be warned; which was a just both presage and desert of her utter destruction. She was more corrupt.] She was therefore the worse, because she should have been better.
Ver. 12. She doted.] Amantes amentes. Loving her lovers. See Ezekiel 23:5.
Ver. 13. Then I saw that she was defiled.] Whence it is that man’s nature is so prone to idolatry, and why that sin is compared to adultery, see Polanus upon this chapter, pp. 538-540.
Ver. 14. For when she saw men portrayed upon the wall.] So unbridled was her lust that she fell to doting upon those quos tantum per umbram et imaginem aspexerat, whose pictures only she had beheld. In some Popish churches there are to be seen wanton pictures, such as do rather kindle lust than quicken devotion. An eyewitness hath told us in print that in some places they will assemble various of the fairest courtezans, when they would draw a picture of the Virgin Mary, to draw the most modest beauty of a virgin out of the flagrancy of harlots. Spec. Eur.
Ver. 15. Girded with girdles.] Rich clothes are oft but fine covers of the foulest shame. If every silken suit did cover a sanctified soul, it would be brave.
Ver. 16. And as soon as she saw them with her eyes.] Here began the mischief. Ut vidi ut perii! Conciliatorem peccati oculum Talmudici nominant. “ Oculi sunt in amore duces. ” Many have died of the wound in the eye. And sent messengers unto them.] Being themselves, therefore, not long after, sent into captivity unto them, that they might have enough of them.
Ver. 17. Into the bed of love.] Or, Of breasts, which are the symbols of love and seats of delight, as naturalists note. See Proverbs 6:19 7:18. And her mind was alienated from them.] Heb., Loosed or disjointed, to dote another while upon the Egyptians. Etiam vota post usum fastidia sunt.
Ver. 18. Then my mind was alienated from her.] So Jeremiah 6:8; see there.
Ver. 19. In calling to mind the sins of her youth.] This was to recommit them, because she remembered them with delight. It argueth an unmortified frame when recalling former evil acts proveth a snare.
Ver. 20. Whose flesh is as the flesh of asses.] Qui sunt bene mentulati (honos sit nutibus) et qui semine abundant. Commodus the emperor, who had never a good property in him, was for this called the Ass, as Jerome noteth. And whose issue is as the issue of horses.] Fluxus equorum est fluxus eorum -that is, they are extremely libidinous and superstitious, so that there is no ho with them. Circumfluunt et exundant omni scelere et impietate copiosissime.
Ver. 21. Thus thou calledst to remembrance.] See Ezekiel 23:19.
Ver. 22. Therefore, O Aholibah.] Flagitium et flagellum sunt ut acus et filum. Sin and punishment are inseparable companions; they are tied together with chains of adamant.
Ver. 23. Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa.] The inhabitants of these several countries, subject to the Babylonians. See Jeremiah 50:21. Koa is by Strabo called Gaugamela.
Ver. 24. I will set judgment before them,] i.e., I will put thee into their hands to be punished. And they shall judge thee according to their judgment.] Without mixture of mercy; whereas I use in the midst of judgment to remember mercy.
Ver. 25. And they shall take away thy nose and thine ears.] He seemeth to allude to the custom of the Egyptians, which was to cut off the nose and the ears of the adulteress. John, a certain antipope, was served in like sort by the Romans. Paul II deserved to be so served; of whom it is recorded that he was so proud that he painted his face to please his concubine; and that he was once in a mind to have taken to himself the name of Formosus, but that he thought it was ominous because his predecessor of that name came to so ill an end. Rhodigin., lib. xxiv. cap. 45. Pet. Damian, lib. i. cap. 21. Jacob. Revius, De. Vit, Pont.
Ver. 26. They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes.] Wherein thou hast so much prided thyself. And take away thy fair jewels.] Instrumenta mundi tui; the instruments of thy decking. (Isaiah 3:18-24)
Ver. 27. Then will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee.] Thy prepensed wickedness. This benefit thou shalt reap and receive of thine enemies’ cruelty. Nor remember Egypt.] Without regret.
Ver. 28. I will deliver thee.] God hath a holy hand in all the evils that befall his people, by whomsoever.
Ver. 29. And they shall deal with thee hatefully.] As ill as the wit of malice can devise to do. All thy labour,] i.e., All that thou hast laboured for. Oh, lay up grace, quae nec eripi nec surripi potest. And the nakedness of thy whoredoms.] Nuditas tua scortationibus dedita. Piscator.
Ver. 30. Thou art polluted with their idols.] Whereby thou thoughtest to have purged away thy sins, as Papists also do; but it proveth otherwise.
Ver. 31. Therefore will I give her cup into thine hand.] An allusion to the manner of feasts, whereat the symposiarch or governor gave every guest his cup fitly tempered. God is the great Modimperator.
Ver. 32. Thou shaIt drink of thy sister’s cup deep and large.] Yea, though it have eternity to the bottom.
Ver. 33. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.] That dry drunkenness, ut si catapotium bibas.
Ver. 34. And thou shalt break the sherds thereof,] i.e., Of the cup, which thou shalt cast away with utmost indignation: but thou hast thy bane. And pluck off thine own breast.] For a revenge of thy fornication therewith committed.
Ver. 35. Because thou hast forgotten me.] This was the source of all their sins, and cause of all their calamities. And cast me behind thy back.] As a harlot loatheth her husband. It is laid to David’s charge that in that foul fall of his he had “despised God’s commandment.” (2 Samuel 12:9)
Ver. 36. Wilt thou judge?] See Ezekiel 20:4 22:2.
Ver. 37. And blood is in their hands.] Adultery is the devil’s nest egg, and causeth many sins to be laid one to and upon another; as here, murder, idolatry, &c. To devour them.] Not only to purge and to dedicate them.
Ver. 38. They have defiled my sanctuary in the same day.] When they had done evil as they could, they exercised mine external worship that they might seem religious. So Isaiah 66:3.
Ver. 39. For when they had slain.] When their hands were full of blood, and even reeking hot therewith. This was detestable impudence. Then they came the same day into my sanctuary.] Citra conscientiam, as if they had done God good service. So Erasmus telleth of a fierce friar, Augustine of Antwerp, who openly in the pulpit there preaching to the people, wished that Luther were present, that he might bite out his throat with his teeth; so doing he would nothing doubt to resort to the altar with the same bloody teeth, and receive the body of Christ. Fiducia in federibus. Eras. Ep., lib. xvi. ad obtrect.
Ver. 40. Ye have sent for men.] Ye have trusted to foreign forces and carnal combinations. For whom thou didst wash thyself.] Omnino te comparas ut Thais impudentissima, ad pelliciendos et inescandos amatores; thou hast acted the whore to the life to inveigle thy paramours.
Ver. 41. And satest.] For entertainment sake. Whereupon thou hast set mine incense] So fighting against me, as it were, with mine own weapons, and abusing my best gifts to my greatest dishonour, contrary to Proverbs 3:9.
Ver. 42. And a voice of a multitude being at ease.] Or, Being jolly and jocund, as at brothel houses. And with the men of the common, sort.] Heb., To the men. The basest and most abject people also were taken into confederacy; even Arabians, Ethiopians, Tartars, so cheap didst thou make thyself, so fond wast thou of their fopperies.
Ver. 43. To her that was old in adulteries.] Inveteratae et detritae, withered and overworn. And she with them?] Is she—as Helen was παλαι γυνη —the same still, no changeling yet?
Ver. 44. Yet they went in unto her.] They committed idolatry without mean or measure, being woefully hardened and habituated therein.
Ver. 45. And the righteous men.] So the Chaldees are called, because less wicked than the Jews (as the Scythians were better than the Athenians, and now the Indians than the Spaniards), and because they executed the righteous sentence of God upon those flagitious Jews.
Ver. 46. I will bring up a company.] A numerous army, which shall make much havoc and slaughter.
Ver. 47. And the company shall stone them.] As by the law they did adulteresses.
Ver. 48. Thus will I cause lewdness to cease.] Thus, if it may be done no otherwise. Thus still, if men will not mend by fair means, they are taken away by death, that they may sin no more. That all women may be taught.] That all cities and states may hear, and fear, and do no more so. “ Exemplo alterius qui sapit, ille sapit. ”
Ver. 49. And ye shall bear the sins,] i.e., The punishment of your idolatry; neither shall ye have colour of cause to complain of my severity. And ye shall know that I am the Lord God.] This comes in ever and anon, velut versus intercalaris, and hath much weight in it to set on what is said before.