Ezekiel 23:17-20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the Babylonians came to her, &c. The metaphor of representing idolatry by the inordinate lust of adultery is still carried on. And her mind was alienated from them She quickly grew weary of these also, as lewd women are of their former gallants, and look out for new ones. She broke her league and covenant with them, as St. Jerome very well expresses the sense; meaning that covenant which Jehoiakim made with Nebuchadnezzar to be his tributary, and which was afterward renewed by Zedekiah. So she discovered, or, after she discovered, her whoredoms The sense being still continued with the foregoing verse. The meaning is, She was open and notorious in her lewd practices, and in the highest degree shameless. Then my mind was alienated from her As she, by her idolatries, had broken all the bonds of duty and allegiance whereby she was engaged to me, a sin often compared to a wife's disloyalty toward her husband, so I withdrew my love and affection from her, and resolved to give her a bill of divorce, as the Prophet Jeremiah expresses it, and not own her any more as mine, as I had cast off her sister Samaria. Yet she multiplied, &c. Though she was fond of new idolatries, she did not forget her old ones, even those which she had learned in Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours Upon the idols of Egypt, and the impure rites which accompanied their idolatrous worship. This may relate to the time when Zedekiah entered into a new confederacy with Egypt, which made the people fond of admitting the Egyptian idolatries. Whose flesh, &c. These expressions seem to be made use of, to signify the excess of the Egyptian idolatry. They may likewise metaphorically express the great power and riches of the Egyptians, which made the Jewish people fond of courting their friendship and alliance.