Ezekiel 23:40 - Exposition

Ye have sent for men to come from far , etc. The words obviously refer to the embassies which had been sent from time to time by both Samaria and Jerusalem to Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. The imagery of the earlier stage of the harlot's progress is resumed, and we have a picture almost the counterpart of that in Proverbs 7:10-21 . She takes her bath, paints her eyelashes with kohol, the black pigment still used in the East, as Jezebel had done ( 2 Kings 9:30 ). She decks herself with jewels, and sits on a divan (a sofa-conch, rather than bed), and prepares a table for a banquet. And on that table are the incense and the oil, symbols alike of wealth and worship, which Jehovah claims as his, and which she offers to her lovers (comp. Ezekiel 16:13 , Ezekiel 16:19 ; Hosea 2:5 , Hosea 2:8 ).