Context No. 2692 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Ezekiel 16:20-29: in context

20“‘“Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and you have sacrificed these to them to be devoured. Was your prostitution a small matter, 21that you have slain my children and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire to them? 22In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood. 23“‘“It has happened after all your wickedness—woe, woe to you!” says the Lord GOD— 24“that you have built for yourselves a vaulted place, and have made yourselves a lofty place in every street. 25You have built your lofty place at the head of every way, and have made your beauty an abomination, and have opened your feet to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your prostitution. 26You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger. 27See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your portion, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd way. 28You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren’t satisfied. 29You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren’t satisfied with this.

This is one of the hard chapters of Ezekiel, and it should be read slowly and soberly. Under the figure of an unfaithful spouse, God confronts Jerusalem with what she has actually done: even passing her own children through the fire, chasing after Egypt and Assyria and every neighbor with something to offer. The language is deliberately raw.

The prophet reaches for a painful metaphor not to shame for its own sake but to name a betrayal the people had taught themselves to call normal. Behind the harsh figure stands a God grieved by a covenant broken, not a God who enjoys the imagery. We hear the real charge underneath it: children sacrificed, worship traded away to whatever power seemed useful that year, faithlessness grown so routine it no longer registered as sin. We do not bless the metaphor's violence; we let it expose how ordinary unfaithfulness had become.

Where have I let a slow unfaithfulness grow so ordinary that I no longer feel it as betrayal?

Sources

Ezekiel 16:60: "Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant."
Hosea 2:19: "I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion."
Jeremiah 3:22: "Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding."