Dancer Ouled Nail 1890
by Etienne Dinet 1861 – 192936 The LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds. 37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is upon their hands; with their idols they have committed adultery; and they have even offered up to them for food the sons whom they had borne to me. 38 Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my sabbaths. 39 For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And lo, this is what they did in my house. 40 They even sent for men to come from far, to whom a messenger was sent, and lo, they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments; 41 you sat upon a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil. 42 The sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and with men of the common sort drunkards were brought from the wilderness; and they put bracelets upon the hands of the women, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.
43 “Then I said, Do not men now commit adultery when they practice harlotry with her? 44 For they have gone in to her, as men go in to a harlot. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah to commit lewdness. 45 But righteous men shall pass judgment on them with the sentence of adulteresses, and with the sentence of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is upon their hands.”
46 For thus says the Lord GOD: “Bring up a host against them, and make them an object of terror and a spoil. 47 And the host shall stone them and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses. 48 Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. 49 And your lewdness shall be requited upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.” Ezekiel 23: 36-49
Son of Man
This is what the Lord calls Ezekiel though-out the book. It was also the favorite title that Messiah called Himself, and to many who are not all that familiar with the Bible this comes as a bit of a shock. They are often troubled the first time they see that Ezekiel is addressed as such, because they have come to believe that it is a title that only refers to the Messiah. But Ezekiel is always addressed as just a Son of Man, never The Son of Man, as Messiah used it. The point God is making, is that Ezekiel is the ordinary common man, who is in captivity, no longer living the victorious life, his wife even dies in chapter 24, he is a broken man with nothing, yet he receives direct communication from God.
Only one person other than Messiah,which is ever recorded as using this title for Messiah, Stephan as he was being stoned [Acts 7:56].
. . . will you judge Oholah and Oholibah?
Not really a question in the Hebrew, it is just the cleanest way to deal with the tense differences between Hebrew and English. In English all things are past present and future, but Hebrew tenses are completely different. There is complete action, incomplete action, and several intensities of causation’s.
Where in English we never put a “the” before a verb “the” only goes before a noun, in Hebrew it is common and sometimes required. “The Judgment” is a verb and it is continuos action, they are to be judged forever. Where “to tell” is in a causative tense, so Ezekiel is being caused to tell, of their “abominations”. So it is not a question of will he judge them, he has no choice. It is now his assigned duty.
The First-borns belong to the Lord. According to the Law the first-borns must be redeemed, [Ex. 13:11-16; Ex. 34:19-20; Num. 3:11-13; 18:15-17]. This was to remind the people that the first-born of Egypt died so they would be set free, and is also a type of Messiah who was first-born and died to set all men free.
Ezekiel is set the task of explaining to the Judean’s why they are out of God’s favor, sitting in Babylon. The people of God were committing the abomination of sacrificing these first-born to the pagan god Moloch. Scholars argue as to how these sacrifices were actually done. Some claim the children’s throats were slit and then they were thrown into the fire, others say they were thrown alive into the fire, and that great drums and trumpets were played to cover the screams. Many still keep a memory of this in the tradition of the yule log of christmas. See our sister blog’s The Pagan Origins of Christmas. To top off their abomination, after they had thrown their own children into the fire, they then turned and went up to the temple of God, as if God would accept any sacrifice from anyone who would kill their own child.
They got 70 years in Babylon for this abomination, how much more will we, who have a greater light, get for all our abortions, and the continued keeping of this same pagan festival, which we now have whitewashed and renamed Christmas. We hide from ourselves and others what is really behind it. Why are you dragging a Green Tree into your house? Why are you putting lights on it? What is Christian about this? It is not Jesus’ birthday. Where in the Bible is anything like this? We tell ourselves it all means nothing, yet we cannot do without any of it. We think nothing spiritual is going on here? We have to indulge ourselves and our family in gluttony and conspicuous consumption. Then we make ourselves feel better buy giving money to the nearest charity. We are compromised with the things of Satan, and we don’t even know it. Our spiritual leaders are not telling us the truth of this, because they make money off of the whole system, and us. They are not praying for us. They are preying on us. We were told to pick our spiritual leaders carefully. We were warned not to listen to just anybody.[Deut 13]
Just like the ancient people of God. We want to be liked and fit in. We want to have friends. We don’t want to stand out, or be thought of as weird. We want to be like everybody else. We never appreciate what God has done to set us free. He gave us TRUTH. But we keep going back and enslaving ourselves to the same pagan ideas they had. Like ancient Israel we want a king. Even though Messiah left us The Kingdom. We were to be a nation of priest-kings. But we keep submitting ourselves to some authority other than the Word of God. We keep putting our lights under a bushel.
Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Matt. 5:15
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Pet. 2:9
Men come from afar, for whom you deck yourselves out, and spread a feast. These men are called Sabeans in the KJV but drunkards in the RSV. The Hebrew word can mean either. Take your pick. Sabea was to the south of Israel in what is now Yemen.
. . . and they put bracelets upon the hands of the women, and beautiful crowns upon their heads. This seems a strange accusation. What is the big deal about bracelets or crowns? However in the Hebrew the words “hands” and “heads” are in the masculine but the pronouns attached are in the feminine. In other words folks, Ezekiel is calling these drunken or Sabean lovers, effeminate. They wear women’s style jewelry. This comes from the fact that all paganism, but in particular the fertility cults seek to emasculate the men. Changing the rightful place of leadership from the males to females. Paganism always tries to compromise the line between men and women. It always seeks to make the two sexes equal. It always prefers celibacy to marriage. But the celibacy is rarely real, it just leads to prostitution, orgies, adultery, and child molestation. The idea that one should deny ones nature in this way, is not taught in the Scriptures.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Gen. 2:18
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 1 Tim. 4:1-3
God whole heartedly allows sex in marriage. He created it. He encourages us though out the Scripture, and exclusively and explicitly in the Song of Solomon.
All our spiritual leaders are required to be married. Anyone not meeting this basic qualification, should be never be ordained but rather rejected.
Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, 1 Tim. 3:2
Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their children and their households well; 1 Tim. 3:12
But righteous men shall pass judgment on them
This does not mean that the Babylonians were righteous, they were not. But, their attack is an act of righteousness, as Judah had been so wicked and unfaithful to her God. Judah was living with the false idea that she was God’s chosen people and as such would suffer no ill, no matter what.
Just like them the Western World is now facing Islamic terrorism, Mexican drug cartels, and Union riots, and just like the people of Judah we think that they are too evil to be the hand of God. Yet here they are, and we are not repenting. Just like Judah we have mixed our faith with paganism. We have even moved our paganism into the churches. It is one thing to go to a Christmas party, and quite another to bring the green tree into OUR buildings and hearts [Jer 10].
The Abandoned
by Etienne Dinet 1861 – 1929Bring up a host against them, and make them an object of terror and a spoil
For 70 years the land was empty and barren. Caravans moving between Asia, Europe, and Africa passed by. No longer stopping to see the great temple, only stopping to note the empty destroyed towns and city, and refresh themselves at the neglected wells.
The church leaders these day have busied themselves with telling the people, that everything is OK, we are going to be Raptured. The evil people will have 7 years of Tribulation under and evil political Antichrist, with his One World Government. None of this is actually in the Bible. We are all looking for the wrong things.
We are completely in the mesmerizing control of the whore of Babylon.
Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; Rev. 18:4
Babylon is the corrupted church. It is far passed time to leave her and her abominations. She however is not to be left like Jerusalem was, but rather the way ancient Babylon was. No one lives there and no one has for over two millennia. Even though Saddam Hussein in his madness tried to have it rebuilt it is still empty.
. . . and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, “What city was like the great city?” Rev. 18:18
Once more they cried, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” Rev. 19:3
What ever this means, it is an indication that at the very least we will remember this corruption forever and like the Jews returning from literal Babylon, we will never mix our faith again, as we did in Mystery Babylon.
The Song of Songs 