Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will raise
up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I
will bring them against thee on every side; the Babylonians, and all
the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with
them: all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great
lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses. And they shall
come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an
assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield
and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and
they shall judge thee according to their judgments. And I will set
my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee:
they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall
fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and
thy residue shall be devoured by the fire. They shall also strip
thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels. Thus will I
make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from
the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto
them, nor remember Egypt any more. For thus saith the Lord God;
Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest,
into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated: And they
shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour,
and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy
whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring
after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.
Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her
cup into thine hand. Thus saith the Lord God; Thou shalt drink of
thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and
had in derision; it containeth much. Thou shalt be filled with
drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation,
with the cup of thy sister Samaria. Thou shalt even drink it and
suck it out, and thou shalt break the shreds thereof, and pluck off
thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast forgotten me,
and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou thy lewdness and
thy whoredoms (verses 22-35).
And those with whom she had sinned were to be her chastisers. "Behold I
will raise up thy lovers against thee.... I will bring them against thee
on every side." Her well-deserved judgment would be, as it was, in the
hands of the Babylonians, all the Chaldeans, as well as the
Assyrians.... And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons and
wheels, with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler
and shield and helmet round about, and I will set judgment before them,
and they shall judge thee according to their judgment." A holy and
righteous God in His wrath moved these vile nations to heap upon this
disobedient and idolatrous people the worst punishments. "They shall
deal furiously with thee, they shall take away thy nose and thine ears,
and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; they shall take thy sons and
thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire." The
explorations in Assyria have brought to light wall-sculptures in which
such atrocities are depicted. God is righteous, and divine retribution
was thus manifested in Jerusalem's shameful history. And in our own
times we behold similar judgments in the earth meted out upon nations,
professedly Christian, who forgot God and rejected His holy Word.
Jerusalem had walked in the ways of her vile sister Samaria and had even
outdone her in wickedness. She was, therefore, to drink her cup,
"because thou hast forgotten me and cast me behind thy back, therefore
bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms." Jerusalem had seen all
what happened to the northern kingdom when Shalmaneser had carried them
away, yet she kept right on in her evil course and did not repent of her
idolatries, her vile immoralities and wickedness. And so it is to-day.
Nations reap what they have sown, and other nations, like our own, do
not take the warning. They continue in the downward course, rejecting
God's holy Word and are guilty of the same sins as the nations who drink
now the cup of divine displeasure. Ere long the judgments of God will
reach every nation for the evil they have done.