The unfaithful wife in Ezekiel 16 — applications and misapplications

Scripture often describes God as a husband to his chosen people: God is the husband of Israel, the bridegroom of the bride. God perfectly fulfills the obligations of a husband, but the nation of Israel frequently disrespected the good things God had given her.

When a wife trashes and desecrates the good things — physical, emotional and spiritual things — that her faithful husband is giving her, she is breaching the marital covenant. If she doesn’t properly value her husband’s faithful covenantal love, and disrespects or squanders the good material provisions he’s given her, she is dishonouring her husband and breaking faith with him.

In Ezekiel chapter 16, God accuses the Israelites of squandering and desecrating the good things he had given her.

Abraham… Isaac… Jacob and his descendants became the nation of Israel. Ezekiel 16 paints a moving picture of God taking the nation of Israel as his wife. He took her under his wing, pledged his faithfulness to her, spread the edge of his garment over her, covered her nakedness, and abundantly provided her with fine food, beautiful clothing and jewellery.

In other words, God as the husband of Israel lavishly provided the three things which a husband is obliged to provide for his wife — 1) food, 2) clothing and 3) lovingkindness in faithful conjugal intimacy. (I elucidated these three obligations in my post on Exodus 21:7-11.)

But Israel took those good things and bestowed them on her pagan lovers.

Passages like Ezekiel 16 have sometimes been unfairly co-opted to denigrate women. In order to prevent my female readers hearing it that way, I need to say this up-front:

In Ezekiel 16, God is severely rebuking his wife. But that doesn’t mean he’s pouring all his scorn on women, while men can escape the rebuke.

After all, Ezekiel’s most blistering rebuke is probably in chapter 8 where he denounces the men in priestly and civil leadership who were worshiping abominations in hidden chambers within the temple!

Why has it been so easy for people to use passages like Ezekiel 16 to denigrate women?

Using passages like Ezekiel to denigrate women has been easy, because there has been a confusion of categories in the husband-bridegroom ↔ wife-bride metaphor, and a consequent chain of false logic which goes like this: “Israel is God’s wife. Therefore, sinful Israel = sinful women. The sins of men are overlooked because men are not God’s wife!”

In this male-privileged schema, it is easy to hide, conceal, ignore or minimise the responsibility of male perpetrators of violence.

This confusion of categories has been going on for the entire duration of the church era.

We can even see traces of it in Matthew 19:10, where Jesus’ disciples objected to Him denouncing the male-privileging interpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1. One of those interpretations enabled men to divorce their wives at whim; the other insisted that a man must divorce his wife if she committed adultery or even attempted an adulterous liaison. And of course, the male religious leaders didn’t apply those privileges to women if the case was reversed.¹

The men who gained ascendancy in the Protestant Reformation, particularly Calvin and his followers, were blind to this problem. They were blind to the confusion of categories which privileged men and disadvantaged women. We can be glad that they rightly rejected many of Rome’s false doctrines. But they left intact the false theology that women are ‘less than’ men in the church, the family, and the world. (For an in-depth explanation read Anna Anderson’s articles: When Honoring our Fathers Means Demeaning our Sisters and The Missing Foundation of the Reformed Doctrine of Gender.)

Now let us turn to Ezekiel 16

I have condensed Ezekiel 16:1-3, 8-22 (HCSB). If you want to read the whole chapter, go here.

The word of the LORD came to me again: “Son of man, explain Jerusalem’s detestable practices to her. You are to say: This is what the Lord GOD says to Jerusalem:

(v 8) I spread the edge of My garment over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine. I clothed you in embroidered cloth, fine linen and silk. I adorned you with jewelry, gold and silver. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil.

But you were confident in your beauty and acted like a prostitute because of your fame. You lavished your sexual favors on everyone who passed by. Your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and you engaged in prostitution on them. You also took your beautiful jewelry made from the gold and silver I had given you, and you made male images so that you could engage in prostitution with them. Then you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set My oil and incense before them. You also set before them as a pleasing aroma the food I gave you — the fine flour, oil, and honey that I fed you.

You even took your sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them to these images as food. Wasn’t your prostitution enough? You slaughtered My children and gave them up when you passed them through the fire to the images.

Ezekiel is castigating the entire nation of Israel, but he focuses on Jerusalem as the hot spot of these sins. The Israelites who were doing these heinous things cannot be considered true Israelites.

Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants. … That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.  (Romans 9:6-8, HCSB)

For he is not a Jew who is a Jew outwardly. Neither is that thing circumcision which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is hid within, and the circumcision of the heart is the true circumcision, which is in the Spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.  (Romans 2:28-29, NMB. The marginal note in the NMB says either ‘spirit’ or ‘Spirit’ is plausible.)

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD;
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
men of Judah and residents of Jerusalem.
Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire
and burn with no one to extinguish it
because of your evil deeds. (Jeremiah 4:4 HSCB)

Ezekiel’s description of Jerusalem’s heinous sins parallels the heinous sins that are being perpetrated in many of today’s institutional churches.

Our Lord bounteously fulfills the obligations of a bridegroom towards his bride, but the church often disrespects the good things her bridegroom has given her. Many individuals who profess to follow our Lord are all too ready to tolerate and coddle those who disrespect the good things that our divine bridegroom has given us. This has resulted in most Christian organisations being infiltrated by evildoers who could best be described as human predators. (Read more on this here.)

People can masquerade as Christians while being extremely evil. In the ‘bright world’ these actors regularly attend church, lead churches, or teach in seminaries. In the ‘dark world’ they are raping their own children and trafficking their own and other people’s children to be raped and tortured. In the dark world, some of them ritually murder babies and children.

Stories from survivors of the ‘dark world’

Help[H]er — Safe to Hope podcast, Carya’s story: Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6

The Ugly Truth About The Girl Next Door, Kait’s story: Spotify  Apple Podcasts

1. There were two groups of religious leaders contesting with each other and trying to trap Jesus into taking a side in their debate. The Hillelites allowed men to divorce their wives for ‘any matter’. The Shammaites insisted that a man must divorce his wife if she committed or even attempted to commit adultery. For detailed argumentation on the Pharisees’ misinterpretations of Deuteronomy 24:1, see my book Not Under Bondage, and my posts When Jesus spoke about divorce and remarriage, he was pushing back against male-privileged interpretations of Deuteronomy 24 and Jesus did NOT say “Hardness of heart is grounds for divorce”. Deuteronomy 24 has been greatly misunderstood.