Ezekiel 23:13-16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then When she neither took warning nor feared; I saw that she was defiled That her heart was already set on her idols; that they both Samaria and Jerusalem; took one way That Judah fell into the same idolatrous practices as Israel. And that she increased her whoredoms Added to the number of her idolatries; for when she saw men portrayed, &c. These were probably the pictures of those deified heroes, whom the Chaldeans worshipped as gods; such were Bel, Nebo, and Merodach, mentioned Isaiah 46:1; Jeremiah 50:2. Calmet, however, understands the words in a different sense, paraphrasing them thus: “Before she had seen the Assyrians, upon the bare relation concerning them, or upon the painting only which was made of them, her passion was inflamed toward them.” Girded with girdles upon their loins A girdle was a mark of dignity, and worn as such by princes and men in authority. In died attire upon their heads Houbigant reads, Having their heads bound with a died tiara, or turban. The Chaldeans, and afterward the Persians, wore a sort of turban upon their heads, died of different colours, and with different degrees of ornaments, according to their different qualities. As soon as she saw them, she doted upon them These images pleased her so much, that she sent to Babylon to learn the manner how their idols were to be worshipped: see Ezekiel 23:40-41; Ezekiel 16:17. This, Lowth thinks, relates to those times when a correspondence was maintained between the cities of Babylon and Jerusalem, after that Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Judea, and made it a tributary kingdom, in the beginning of the fourth year of Jehoiakim.