Two Sisters
1 Yahweh’s word came again to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. 3 They played the prostitute in Egypt. They played the prostitute in their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their youthful nipples were caressed there. 4 Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. 5 “Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors, 6 who were clothed with blue—governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. 7 She gave herself as a prostitute to them, all of them the choicest men of Assyria. She defiled herself with the idols of whomever she lusted after. 8 She hasn’t left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her. They caressed her youthful nipples and they poured out their prostitution on her. 9 “Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians on whom she doted. 10 These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her. 11 “Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lusting than she, and in her prostitution which was more depraved than the prostitution of her sister. 12 She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and rulers—her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. 13 I saw that she was defiled. They both went the same way. 14 “She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with red, 15 dressed with belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like princes, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. 16 As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them into Chaldea. 17 The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution. She was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them. 18 So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister. 19 Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. 20 She lusted after their lovers, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. 21 Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the caressing of your nipples by the Egyptians because of your youthful breasts. 22 “Therefore, Oholibah, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side: 23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, governors and rulers, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. 24 They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples. They will set themselves against you with buckler, shield, and helmet all around. I will commit the judgment to them, and they will judge you according to their judgments. 25 I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire. 26 They will also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels. 27 Thus I will make your lewdness to cease from you, and remove your prostitution from the land of Egypt, so that you will not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.’
The two kingdoms are given names and treated as one case history, and the younger sister had the older one's ruin in front of her the whole time.
The parable is set up as a family case. Two sisters, daughters of one mother, corrupted in Egypt before the story properly begins — which places the trouble before the exodus, as chapter 20 did. Then they are named: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. Both names are built on the word for a tent or tabernacle, and Jerusalem's carries a possessive that Samaria's does not. Even in the naming, the city with the sanctuary is marked as the one who had more.
The imagery is the harshest in the book, and it is the second chapter in eight to use it. That repetition is deliberate rather than gratuitous. Chapter 16 told the story as a marriage betrayed. This one tells it as a political history, and the lovers are named as empires: Assyria first, with its officers in blue, horsemen and desirable young men, and then Babylon, whose portraits on a wall are enough to send messengers after them. What is being described in the language of infidelity is a foreign policy — alliances sought, tribute paid, gods imported with the treaties.
Oholah's end is reported in a single verse and then used as evidence. She was given into the hands of the very lovers she had doted on, and they stripped her and killed her, and she became a byword among women. The northern kingdom's fall was recent history, thoroughly documented, and its cause was public knowledge.
That is what makes the verdict on the younger sister so severe. Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lusting than she, and in her prostitution which was more depraved than the prostitution of her sister. Not equally corrupt. More. She had the whole demonstration in front of her — the same policy, the same lovers, the same result — and went further along the same road. Judah's sin in this chapter is not ignorance and not weakness. It is the deliberate repetition of an experiment whose outcome had already been published.
settled What this mark means