Scripture Daily

Context No. 1344 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 23:40-49: in context

40“Furthermore you sisters have sent for men who come from far away, to whom a messenger was sent, and behold, they came; for whom you washed yourself, painted your eyes, decorated yourself with ornaments, 41and sat on a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon you set my incense and my oil. 42“The voice of a multitude being at ease was with her. With men of the common sort were brought drunkards from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on their hands, and beautiful crowns on their heads. 43Then I said of her who was old in adulteries, ‘Now they will play the prostitute with her, and she with them.’ 44They went in to her, as they go in to a prostitute. So they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, the lewd women. 45Righteous men will judge them with the judgment of adulteresses and with the judgment of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands. 46“For the Lord GOD says: ‘I will bring up a mob against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed. 47The company will stone them with stones and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire. 48“‘Thus I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to be lewd like you. 49They will recompense your lewdness on you, and you will bear the sins of your idols. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.’”

This is part of Ezekiel's harsh allegory of the two unfaithful sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, standing for Samaria and Jerusalem, whose idolatry is pictured as adultery. The passage describes the elaborate preparations for unfaithfulness: sending for lovers from far away, bathing, painting the eyes, putting on ornaments, sitting on a stately couch with a table spread. And then a detail that cuts especially deep: upon that table she set my incense and my oil, the very things God had given for his own worship, now laid out to honor the idols. God declares that righteous men will judge them, and that judgment will fall, so that all may learn not to follow their lewdness.

The detail worth dwelling on, amid a deliberately shocking passage, is that she set God's own incense and oil on the table before her idols. The incense and the oil were God's gifts, provided for his worship, and the horror of the charge is that these very gifts were taken and spent in the service of the very unfaithfulness that betrayed him. It is one thing to turn from God; it is another to take what he gave and use it against him, to lavish his own provisions on the idols that displace him. And that turns the passage into an uncomfortable mirror. The gifts God has given us, our time, our abilities, our resources, our bodies, our very breath, can be taken up and spent in the service of the things that draw us away from him. The talents he gave can be poured into ambitions that crowd him out; the wealth he provided can fund what dishonors him; the very energies meant for his worship can be lavished elsewhere. There is a particular grief in that, using God's own gifts to serve what betrays him, and this passage names it plainly. It asks each of us to look at what God has entrusted to us and to consider whether we are laying his incense and oil on his altar or on some other table, spending his gifts in his service or against it.

Am I taking the gifts God has given me, my time, abilities, resources, and energies, and spending them in his service, or laying his own incense and oil on another table, using what he gave to serve the things that draw me from him?

Sources