Verse 4. - The occurrence of proper names is almost unique in the parables of the Bible, the Lazarus of Luke 16:20 being the only other instance. Their meaning is sufficiently clear. Aholah (but both names should begin with O rather than A) means "Her tent;" Aholibah, "My tent is in her." A parallel, which may have suggested the names, is found in the Aholibamah (equivalent to "My tent is in the high place") of Genesis 36:2, and another in the use of Ohel as a proper name in 1 Chronicles 3:20. The common element of the two names is the word that is commonly used for the sacred tent or tabernacle in the Pentateuch and elsewhere. The distinctive element of each points to the fact that the worship in Samaria was unauthorized. Her "tent" was hers, not Jehovah's. Of Jerusalem with its temple Jehovah could say, "My tent is in her," and this, as magnifying her privilege, also aggravated her guilt. Keil and others take the adjective here, as in Ezekiel 16:46, as meaning "greater" rather than "older." The former adjective is, of course, applicable to the greater power of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, and, even if we retain the renderings of the Authorized Version, is probably the explanation of Samaria being named as the elder of the two.

Verse 5. - The history of both the sisters passes from the time of the Exodus to that of their separate existence, and starts, in fact, from their first intercourse with the great monarchies of Asia. So far it is less a survey of their successive stages of degradation, like that of Ezekiel 16, than a retrospect of their political alliances. Aholah played the harlot. The lovers, as in Ezekiel 16:33, are the nations with which the kings of Israel were in alliance, and of these the Assyrians are named as pre-eminent. The word neighbors, which in its literal sense is hardly applicable, is probably to be taken of spiritual affinity, or may be taken as "come near" is in Genesis 20:4; Ezekiel 18:6; Leviticus 20:16. The Assyrians were those who, in that sense, came near to the harlot city. We have in 2 Kings 15:20 the fact that Menahem paid tribute to Pul. Hosea 5:13 and Hosea 7:11 speak generally of such alliances. The black obelisk of Shalmaneser records the fact that Jehu paid tribute to him ('Records of the Past,' 5:41). In the last-named case the tribute consisted chiefly of vessels of gold, bowls, goblets, etc.

Verse 6. - Clothed with blue. The same word as that used in the description of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:4; Exodus 26:31, et al.). It was probably some hue of the Tyrian purple kind which marked the official dress of the "captains" of the Assyrian armies. The words, with those that follow, bring before us the magnificent array of the Assyrian cavalry - a force in which Israel, throughout its history, was deficient (Judges 5:10; Zechariah 9:9; Isaiah 36:8.).

Verses 7-10. - The next two verses paint the consequence of the alliance first with Assyria and then with Egypt. She adopted the religion of Assyria, probably in the form of the worship of Ishtar (Ashtoreth) as the queen of heaven. Having done this, the kings of Israel sought to play off one kingdom against the other (see Hosea 7:11; 2 Kings 17:4). It was, in fact, the discovery of Hoshea's treachery in this matter that led Shalmaneser to besiege Samaria. The result of that siege is described in general terms in Ver. 10. She, the city of Samaria, was slain with the sword, tier sons and daughters were taken into exile. So she became famous (i.e. infamous, like the Latin famosus), literally, a name among women, so. among the neighboring nations.

Verses 11, 12. - The issue of the Assyrian alliance in the fall of Samaria might have served as a warning to the kings of Judah. But it did not. They also 'courted the alliance of the kings of Assyria, as in the case of Ahaz (2 Kings 16:7-10) and Tiglath-Pileser. Hezekiah followed in the same line, though he too trusted in Egypt, and afterwards rebelled. Manasseh too paid tribute, and made Jerusalem the scene of a confluent idolatry, which included that of Assyria. Even Josiah went forth against Pharaoh-Necho as the faithful vassal of either Assyria or Babylon. The splendor which had fascinated Samaria fascinated her also. Here clothed most gorgeously takes the place of "clothed in blue" in Ver. 6, describing, probably, the same fact.

Verse 14. - The sin of Judah went a stop further than that of Samaria. She courted the alliance of the Chaldeans. Probably the sojourn of Manasseh at Babylon (2 Chronicles 33:11) led him to see in that city a possible rival to Assyria. The embassy of Merodach-Baladan to Hezekiah (Isaiah 39.) implies, on the other hand, that Babylon was looking to Judah for support against Assyria. The prophet represents this political coquetting, so to speak, as another act of whoredom. Aholibah saw the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion (probably "red ochre:" colors seem to have been used largely both in Assyrian and Babylonian sculpture as in Egyptian, and Judah seems to have copied them, Jeremiah 22:14) and fell in love with them. As the passions of a Messalina might be roused by sensuous pictures of masculine beauty, so Judah was led on by what her envoys reported of the magnificence of the palaces, the strength of the armies, of the Chaldeans. The journey of Jonah to Nineveh, and those implied in Hosea 7:11, as well as the prophecy of Nahum, all indicate a more or less intimate knowledge of the Mesopotamian monarchies. The mission of Merodach-Baladan would be naturally followed by a return embassy from Judah. A later instance under Zedekiah meets us in Jeremiah 29:3.

Verse 15. - Exceeding in dyed attire; better, with dyed turbans, or tiaras, such as are seen on the Assyrian monuments of Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Kouyunyik.

Verse 17. - The words paint the intimate alliance, the political prostitution, as it were, involved in the alliance with Babylon. Her mind was alienated from them. Interpreted by the history, the words point to the fact that Judah soon found out how hollow was the help gained by the alliance with Babylon, and turned, after Josiah's death, to Egypt as a counterpoise. As in the history of Amnon (2 Samuel 13:15), lust, when it had wrought its will, passed into loathing and disgust. Jehoiakim and Zedekiah were examples of what we may well call this distracted policy. But, as it was, this alienation did but increase her guilt. As things were, it would have been better, as Jeremiah all along counseled, to accept the rule of the Chaldeans. The mind of Jehovah was alienated from Jerusalem as hers had been from the Chaldeans.

Verse 19. - Yet she multiplied her whoredoms. The disappointment and failure, however, did not lead to repentance. Foreign alliances, and with them foreign idolatries, were courted more eagerly than ever, though in a different direction. The lovers were changed, but the harlotry went on.

Verse 20. - She doted on her paramours. Commonly the word is used of a concubine (Genesis 22:24; Judges 8:31). Here it is used in scorn of the Egyptian princes whose favor Judah courted, reminding us of Homer's Ἀχαιίδες οὐκετ Ἀχαίοι, as indicating their political weakness. All that need be said of the comparison that follows is that here also Ezekiel follows in the footsteps of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 5:8). What is indicated is that Judah threw herself into the idolatrous ritual of Egypt with an almost orgiastic passion. The harlot nation returned, as it were, to her first love, and renewed the whoredoms of her youth.

Verses 22, 23. - The lovers from whom the mind of Judah was alienated were, as in Ver. 17, the Chaldeans. With these are joined Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa. The Authorized and Revised Versions, following the LXX. take these as proper names, and Ewald Smend, and Furst find in them those of Chaldean tribes. The Vulgate, followed by Luther, gives nobiles, tyrannosque, et principes, and Keil and Hengstenberg substantially adopt this rendering, giving "rulers, lords, and nobles." "Pekod" appears as a place in Jeremiah I. 20 (compare Schrader's 'Cuneiform Inscriptions,' 2. pp. 32, 117,120, where Shoa and Koa are identified with Medo-Elamite tribes east of the Tigris), but the ether names are unknown to history. On the whole, the balance seems in favor of the rendering in the text. With these are joined all the Assyrians, who, under Nebuchadnezzar, fought, of course, in his armies." Now she should see her desirable young men... riding upon horses (the prophet repeats with sarcasm the phrase of Ver. 12) in another guise than she had expected.

Verse 24. - With chariots, wagons, and wheels, etc. The first word is only found here, and probably means" armor." So the Revised Version, with weapons, chariots, and wagons. They shall judge thee according to their judgments; sc. shall execute the judgment which God has assigned to them after their own manner, so their usual cruel treatment of barbarous nations.

Verse 25. - They shall take away thy nose and thine ears, etc. (For instances of this or like mutilation, in the case of prisoners of war, see the case of Zedekiah, Jeremiah 52:11; Herod., 3:69, 154.) Possibly it may have been known to Ezekiel as a punishment for the adulterer or adulteress in Egypt and other countries, and if so, he might have selected it as specially appropriate to his parable (Martial, 'Epigr.,' 2:83; 3:85). Thy residue shall be consumed with fire. The Hebrew word for "residue" (not that usually so translated) is the same as that previously translated "remnant." In the first clause it clearly points to the men of Jerusalem who are left after the capture. In the second its meaning is determined by the fact that it follows after the deportation of the sons and daughters. All that was left - in the parable, of the mutilated trunk of the adulteress, in the history, of the devastated city, sc. the empty houses - should be destroyed by fire.

Verse 27. - Thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt; i.e. the last political alliance between Judah and Egypt. This, together with the Egyptian cultus that accompanied it, should be made to cease. That would no longer be in the thoughts of the exiles; their hopes from that quarter were extinguished forever.

Verse 28. - Once again with incisive sarcasm the prophet reiterates the phrase of Ver. 17. The punishment should be all the more terrible as coming from those whom the adulteress had once loved with the love that had passed into loathing.

Verse 29. - All thy labor; sc. all the results of labor, all thy wealth.

Verses 31-33. - I will give her cup into thine hand. (For the image of the cup as the symbol of good or evil fortune, see Psalm 23:5; Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15; Matthew 20:22; Matthew 26:39.) The cup, in this case, was to be deep and large as that of Samaria. The adulteress was to be "drunk, but not with wine" (Isaiah 29:9). And that "cup," over and above the laughter and derision, would contain much of unknown calamities, the astonishment and desolation of Ver. 33.

Verse 34. - Thou shalt break the shards thereof. The picture of the desolate adulteress becomes yet more terrible. Like a forlorn and desperate castaway, she does shameful execution on herself; breaks her cup, and completes the work of mutilation in its most terrible form. That is the doom decreed for her, because she had forgotten her true husband and the love of her espousals. Revised Version gives gnaw the shards thereof, painting yet more vividly the despair of the outcast.

Verse 36. - As often, Ezekiel emphasizes by reiteration, begins yet a fresh discourse with the same words, wilt thou judge, as in Ezekiel 20:4 and Ezekiel 22:2, and enters on another summary of the sins of the two harlot sisters, in which Moloch-worship (Ver. 37) and sabbath-breaking (Ver. 38) were conspicuous elements. The nature of the guilt is emphasized (Vers. 38, 39) by the fact that the idolatrous ritual was performed on the very day in which the people sacrificed in the temple; that it found a local habitation even there (comp. Ezekiel 8:17; 2 Kings 21; Jeremiah 32:34).

Verse 40. - Ye have sent for men to come from far, etc. The words obviously refer to the embassies which had been sent from time to time by both Samaria and Jerusalem to Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. The imagery of the earlier stage of the harlot's progress is resumed, and we have a picture almost the counterpart of that in Proverbs 7:10-21. She takes her bath, paints her eyelashes with kohol, the black pigment still used in the East, as Jezebel had done (2 Kings 9:30). She decks herself with jewels, and sits on a divan (a sofa-conch, rather than bed), and prepares a table for a banquet. And on that table are the incense and the oil, symbols alike of wealth and worship, which Jehovah claims as his, and which she offers to her lovers (comp. Ezekiel 16:13, 19; Hosea 2:5, 8).

Verse 42. - A voice of a multitude, etc. The word for "multitude" is strictly tumult, and Keil and Currey render, The voice of tumult became still," sc. the threats of the alien powers whom Judah courted were for a time hushed by the tributes thus paid to them. With the men of the common sort; literally, as in the margin, of the multitude of men. Sabeans from the wilderness. The Revised Version, with Keil and almost all recent commentators, follows the margin, drunkards (LXX., οἰνώμενοι). "Sabeans" rests on a Jewish rendering of the text, but, as a people, the Sabeans, who dwelt south of Meroe, though named in Isaiah 45:14, were too remote to come within the horizon of the parable. What Ezekiel dwells on is the ever-growing degradation of the harlot city. Not only the officers of the Chaldeans, but the mixed multitude, the very drunkards from the wilderness of Babylon, were admitted to her embraces. Possibly the word may point to the false gods to whom libations of wine were offered, but I incline to refer it rather to those who got drunk at their idol-festivals even in Jerusalem. Drunkenness was one of the vices of the Babylonians, and the prophets, who admired the Rechabites and the Nazarites (Jeremiah 35; Amos 2:11), must have looked on Judah's participation in that sin as a measureless degradation. The bracelets and crowns symbolize the wealth and prestige which the Chaldean alliance was supposed to bring with it.

Verse 43. - The whole verse is obscure, and has been very differently rendered.

(1) The Authorized Version may be paraphrased, "Then said I to her that was worn out with her whoredoms, passed her prime and enfeebled, Will they (the foreign nations) commit whoredoms (enter into alliances) with her? sc. What is there to attract now? And yet the habit is inveterate. She has grown old in her vice, and cannot cease from it."

(2) The Revised Version takes it not as a question, but as a statement: Now said I of her that was old in adulteries, Now will they commit, etc. So, in the main, Keil. The text is probably corrupt, and resists conjectural emendation. In any case the general meaning is clear. The sin is of too long standing to be cured.

Verse 45. - The righteous men are in effect the ministers of God's wrath. The doom comes at last on both the sisters, who are murderers as well as adulteresses. They shall suffer the punishment of stoning which the Law commanded (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22, 24; John 8:5), and after that their bodies were to be hacked to pieces. The result of that judgment would be that all women should learn not to do after their lewdness, i.e. that idolatry should cease from being the sin of the cities of Israel.