The Two Daughters.
“The word of Yahweh came again to me saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt. They committed whoredoms in their youth. There were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. And the names of them were Oholah, the eldest, and Oholibah her sister. And they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholoibah.”
The theme of two daughters occurs simply because it was a fact of history. God's people had divided into two nations after the death of Solomon. There is no need to seek any further antecedents to the idea. Israel was the mother, Samaria and Jerusalem, capital cities of north (Israel) and south (Judah) as representing the two nations that came from her, were the daughters.
Their nationhood had begun in Egypt, and it had been an unhappy beginning. The picture of Israel in Egypt was not a pleasant one. They had worshipped a selection of foreign gods, and that worship had led them into sexual perversion and evil living. They had allowed themselves to be manhandled by what was unworthy. They had fallen not only into slavery but into degradation and idolatry.
‘And they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters.' Their deliverance is mentioned in the briefest of terms, but it is full of glory none-the-less. ‘They became Yahweh's.' He delivered them and as it were entered into a marriage covenant with them at Sinai. And from then on they were clean from their degradation because they were His and He had provided for their cleansing. The result was that ‘they bore sons and daughters'. This may refer to the fact that they multiplied and grew, or it may have reference to those of other nations who joined with them in their intimacy with Yahweh e.g. Exodus 12:38), or in fact to both. Things had begun to look promising for a wonderful family life.
The names Oholah and Oholibah mean ‘her tent' and ‘my tent is in her'. Compare Esau's wife Oholibamah, ‘tent of the high place' (Genesis 36:2). Thus the tents are cultic. Samaria had established her own sanctuary, but Jerusalem's contained the true Tabernacle of Yahweh. Yet both could have been acceptable if the people had proved worthy. (God had demonstrated this by sending prophets to both). The way ahead had seemed rosy.