23:1-49 A history of the apostacy of God's people from him, and the aggravation thereof. - In this parable, Samaria and Israel bear the name Aholah, her own tabernacle; because the places of worship those kingdoms had, were of their own devising. Jerusalem and Judah bear the name of Aholibah, my tabernacle is in her, because their temple was the place which God himself had chosen, to put his name there. The language and figures are according to those times. Will not such humbling representations of nature keep open perpetual repentance and sorrow in the soul, hiding pride from our eyes, and taking us from self-righteousness? Will it not also prompt the soul to look to God continually for grace, that by his Holy Spirit we may mortify the deeds of the body, and live in holy conversation and godliness?
Neither left she her idols brought from Egypt,.... Though the Israelites took in the gods of the Assyrians into their worship, they did not relinquish the golden calves set up at Dan and Bethel, in imitation of the Egyptian deities; the idolatrous worship of which they learned in Egypt, and brought from thence:
for in her youth they lay with her; the Egyptians enticed the Israelites to idolatry when among them, as soon as they began to be a people; See Gill on Ezekiel 23:3,
and they bruised the breasts of her virginity; who before retained the pure worship of God, and was like a chaste virgin:
and poured their whoredom upon her; expressive of the numerous acts of idolatry committed together by them.
for in her youth they lay with her; the Egyptians enticed the Israelites to idolatry when among them, as soon as they began to be a people; See Gill on Ezekiel 23:3,
and they bruised the breasts of her virginity; who before retained the pure worship of God, and was like a chaste virgin:
and poured their whoredom upon her; expressive of the numerous acts of idolatry committed together by them.