Ezekiel 23:2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

There were two women, &c.— The Hebrews, derived from one source, born of Abraham and Sarah, made but one people, and continued united till the separation under Jeroboam. Then the ten tribes being separated from Judah and Benjamin, they formed as it were two people, governed by different kings. Aholah, the eldest of the two sisters, denotes the kingdom of Samaria, or the ten tribes; the word אהלה ahalah, signifies her tent or tabernacle: she is styled the elder, either on account of the greater number of tribes whereof this kingdom was composed, or because she was the first who forsook the Lord, and gave herself up to idolatry. אהליבה Aholibah, signifies my tent is in her; because of the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. This chapter is of the same design with the xvith, and should be compared with it. If a modern reader shall call the terms in it too coarse and indelicate, we can only refer to the time in which the author lived, and to the manners of his country, where perhaps descriptions of this kind did not carry those secondary ideas which they do with us; and it should be remembered that the prophet's intention is to raise the highest detestation possible of idolatry.