Ezekiel 23:31
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Because you have followed the path of your sister, I will put her cup into your hand.’
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
This long chapter (as before ch. 16 and 20) is a history of the apostasies of God's people from him and the aggravations of those apostasies under the similitude of corporal whoredom and adultery. Here the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the ten tribes and the two, with their capital cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, are considered distinctly. Here is, I. The apostasy of Israel and Samaria from God (Eze 23:1-8) and their ruin for it (Eze 23:9, Eze 23:10). II. The apostasy of Judah and Jerusalem from God (Eze 23:11-21) and sentence passed upon them, that they shall in like manner be destroyed for it (Eze 23:22-35). III. The joint wickedness of them both together (Eze 23:36-44) and the joint ruin of them both (Eze 23:45-49). And all that is written for warning against the sins of idolatry, and confidence in an arm of flesh, and sinful leagues and confederacies with wicked people (which are the sins here meant by committing whoredom), is that others may hear and fear, and not sin after the similitude of the transgressions of Israel and Judah.
Open source ↗23:31-34 your sister’s cup of terror: Jerusalem would have to drink from this bitter cup of judgment, as Samaria had. The pain of that judgment would cause her to beat (or tear at) her breast in anguish.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down.
You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.
This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from My hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink from it.
And I saw that she too had defiled herself; both of them had taken the same path.