Ezekiel 23:22-24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I will raise up thy lovers against thee, &c. I will execute my judgments upon thee, by those very Babylonians whose alliance and idolatries thou hast been so fond of, but since hast broken the league thou madest with them, contracting a new one with Egypt, and thereby hast provoked them to revenge thy perfidiousness. Pekod, and Koa, and Shoa, and all the Assyrians with them The inhabitants of the several provinces of the Babylonish monarchy; for most of the ancients understand these words as names of places. Pekod is mentioned as a province of Babylon, Jeremiah 50:21. St. Jerome, however, upon the place, understands these three words, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, in an appellative sense, to denote so many titles, or degrees of honour; as much as to say, governors, princes, and great men. In which sense the two former words, Pekod (or Pakud) and Shoa, are confessedly taken in Scripture. All of them desirable young men, &c. As their riches and bravery made them appear amiable in your eyes when you first courted their alliance, so they shall appear in the same splendid equipage when they come to invade your country and to besiege your city; but then their gallant appearance shall strike a terror and a consternation into you. And they shall come against thee with chariots, &c. Chariots are mentioned, both by sacred and profane writers, as of principal use in the ancient way of fighting. And I will set judgment before them, &c. I will deliver thee into their power, as the ministers of my justice, who shall make thy punishments bear a correspondence with thy guilt.