Friday, July 1, 2016

Ezekiel 16

"You are the opposite of other women in your harlotry, because no one solicited you to be a harlot. In that you gave payment but no payment was given you, therefore you are the opposite.” v.34

Read chapter 16
Ezekiel is now speaking to Jerusalem as a whole.  He's not speaking to thin air in a certain direction but to the whole of the nation of Israel.  Jerusalem takes on the feminine article as most cities do referring to "her."  Jerusalem started off as a wicked city before it was the City of David, the capitol of Israel where the temple was.  The Lord reminds the city of where it came from, how it was redeemed and how they turned. "This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favor, and ashamed of her base conduct." (Matthew Henry's Commentary).
Jerusalem is described as worse then playing the harlot.  A harlot would earn money by selling her body for sex.  Yet Jerusalem is said to be the harlot that pays other men to have sex with her, not earning payment but paying for others to commit harlotry with her; she was a wife who so utterly abandoned her husband by searching for her own dishonor.  Now this wasn't just sex that it's speaking of but all adultery of abandoning God.  Israel had made covenants with other nations and amused and were entertained by their various idols and gave gifts to them.
There are times when peer pressure or temptation cause us to sin and there are times that we go looking for sin.  What are examples of each in your life (either past or present)?

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