The Dual Nature of Israel – Oholah and Oholibah (Ezekiel 23)
Written by Elinor Montgomery
August 13, 2003
O faithless and perverse generation! How long shall the Word be with you, and still you are without understanding? How is it you have missed the double camp of Israel? How is it you do not see the judgment that is to come on the two companies of Israel? You are a called out people, called to be a light to the world of the glory of the One and only True God. Yet, you bend toward the eagles, the princes of this world, while missing the two wings of a great eagle, the only wings that will lift you up and cause you to fly.
Will you ever understand the nature of Israel? Do you, who know the Word, still not know who the true Jew is? You mighty priesthood and prophets, delighting in your robes and your positions, what do you have to say of Mahanaim and the bride? Do you not see in her as it were the dance of the double camp (S. of S. 6:13)? Where is your sure word of prophecy? Is it found in the Word, or is it found in your crystal balls and palaces? Do you chase the people with conferences, each declaring words of one’s own imaginings? Do you really know the true Church of Jesus Christ, or do you wallow in your Christian religious traditions and the experiences that please the flesh, every bit as idolatrous as those traditions of Judaism? You, the younger sister, are you not more corrupt than the older one, whose harlotry you saw and judged, and then fell into it yourself? But then, do you understand the message of Oholah and Oholibah?
Do you yet understand the relationship, one to the other, between Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Manasseh and Ephraim, Leah and Rachel, Benjamin and the other brothers, Israel and Judah, Jerusalem and Samaria? What of Cain and Seth, of one lineage and the other? What of Adam to Jesus, the only begotten sons of God, and the son of Abraham to the son of David? Was the double camp not established from the beginning? Was Jesus’ legal lineage not one of a nation and a Kingdom? Were there not always two companies in the bosom of Abraham, and was Jesus not the point of meeting for them? Everyone must come to the foot of the cross, for it is the crossover point in history where man makes his choice for his position in heaven or his place in hell. He will either choose to be in the house of Israel, the portion of people God claims as His own, or he will choose to dwell among the Gentile nations of the world, those in harlotry with Satan, desiring their beastly covering more than the leaf covering of the fig tree that cleanses and heals.
The nation, Israel, birthed by bloodline and the believing nation, Israel, birthed of the Spirit and not of bloodline, were always in the bosom of Abraham together as one family. The pattern was given in the children of Abraham and Isaac among whom the blessing was crossed over from first son to second son. It was seen again as Jacob, who became Israel, took two wives who had two different families, with a crossover blessing going to the second one, the younger. Again, it was seen as Jacob, in his old age, crossed over the blessing of the sons of Joseph, the prototype of Jesus, from first son to second son. It played out as Israel itself became divided because of idolatry, and two nations came forth to form one, but Jerusalem was the capital of Judah, just as Samaria became the capital of the northern state of Israel. Jerusalem contained the site of the temple. Samaria became a place of mixed breeds, Jew and gentile blended together in blood and idol worship. Idolatry ravished both.
Are Oholah and Oholibah not within your understanding of these two branches of Israel? Do you not understand one is Samaria and the other Jerusalem; one is Benjamin, the other, the ten tribes; one is Judah, the other, Israel; one is Rachel, the other, Leah. But most importantly, one is the Jew, the believer, the other the Jew, the nation; one is the church, the other the state, sisters and Jews together in the same family from the same bosom of Abraham? The house of Israel is a name that can be claimed by both sisters. They are two women, the daughters of one mother going back to Sarah, who first birthed by divine intervention as the process of birthing began in Israel, with a crossover blessing going from first son to second. God called out first, a nation, then Jesus called out a church as the blessing crossed over from first son to second.
True sons of God must be born again of the Spirit. The nation always rejected the Spirit for her love of the world, hence, her harlotry caused her to be driven from the land and to have her first son inheritance cross over and go to another. Oholah is the nation Israel; Samaria is her name. She has her own tent over her. The Spirit of the Lord dwelt over Israel as the cloud by day and the fire by night. What sister could have been more blessed than she, to be chosen of God to live under her tent in covenant victory with Him? Yet, she played the harlot with Assyria, the ruling empire of her day. She loved Assyrian riches, Assyrian manpower and her kings of the world. Israel came out of Egypt, but she refused to allow God to take Egypt and its ways out of her. So, the Lord God turned her over to the object of her love, which treated her with contempt by killing her sons and daughters. This was the righteous judgment of God. As harlots, we will receive the object of our love in our lives, only to discover hatred will be returned, with death being the outcome of harlotry. Dreams will be shattered forever as immorality rules in our lives and nations.
Now, Oholibah, having had the opportunity to see the pattern of Israel and how her harlotry led to disaster, became far more corrupt than her sister. She saw the religions of the East and greatly desired to bring yoga, tai chi, and transcendental meditation into her midst. She loved the power of them more than she loved the power of God. She welcomed the flowing turbans in her midst in America, and charged the East nothing to enter. They didn’t even have to work as she opened her doors to Muslims, Sikhs and Buddhists alike, saying, “Come, eat at my table, which I worked to prepare.” They came into her bed in America and defiled her with their immorality. Israel, the believing nation, didn’t require of the strangers that they honor her God in her land, but rather she spoke through silence, saying, “Here is our beautiful land of liberty in God’s law,” and handed it on a platter to the East to be defiled.
Church leaders cry for ecumenicalism and recognition of all faiths for fear of offending the people of other gods. The offence of His name is in full bloom in America. “Whisper it and never speak it openly” is the message of church leaders and theological colleges today. “Let us have a little of the Word and a whole lot of the world’s immorality in our churches,” cry the flock. Let us disguise it under the systems name of Christianity, for is it all not good that comes out of our religious traditions? Did Jesus not speak of love for your neighbor? Did He not say to feed the poor?” And the twist of the lie of Satan is complete in the institutional churches as the spirit of Jezebel reigns supreme in the house of religion, and works of the hands of man complete the social gospel she so loves. The temple of Oholibah that was to be a vessel became a house of religion, like her sister’s temple before her, wicked and full of idolatry. She lusted for her paramours who would take the place of her Beloved in her life. She chose not to be a bride to Christ, but rather a harlot to the world, whose issue can never be anything more than that of a beast. She chose to produce more beasts for the world, while rejecting the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the fundamentalism, as she called it, of the Word. She preferred to have the United Nations press her bosom, instead of embracing the liberty of her own land in God’s law.
So, what will God do to the Church in America? First of all, her nakedness will be revealed to the world to see the corruption within. Then, these eastern religions and cultic people she endorses in her love for multiculturalism, will have the doors opened to them by the very Lord she chose to deny. By refusing to speak His name in the land He will allow her liberty, which she did not value, to be taken away. The spiritual armies of the east, will come against the second sister and take over her sons and daughters, and she will hand to them the lovely jewelry, clothes and beautiful homes that shall disappear before her very eyes. They will deal hatefully with the laws of America and the church, and take away all that her ancestors worked for. The cup of Israel, terrorism coming from the Palestinians, will become the cup of America, and lo and behold, it has already reached our shores for having walked away from God in this land. We shall rue the day we took God’s Word from our children, and prayer from the schoolroom. We shall come to hate the liberalism we brought into this land under the term ‘rights’, which replaced ‘ moral obedience’. The blood is on both nations of Israel, represented by the two sisters. How dreadfully they have profaned the Sabbath and defiled the temples.
“You, America and Israel, invited the East into your nations. Now I will see to it that you can’t get rid of them, under My judgment.” The Easterners went into the nations as men into harlots. Do we not see the turban, as the symbol of eastern religion that we dare not offend, destroying the Mounted Police Force’s uniform? It is nothing but a symbol of the church’s missing voice that allowed this to happen. Righteous men will judge these evil churches. God promises teaching will come to the land, and lewdness will be caused to cease. They will come to know the Lord reigns in the land, but, as in the case of David, justice will be exacted of them for their sins. The sons of the Eli priesthood of today, will suffer for the wickedness of the fathers, whose silence has brought this judgment upon them, as did the sons of David suffer for his evil doing.
O, foolish men of God, open your hearts and open your eyes! Gain understanding of the Word of God and learn the meaning of its prophecy. The parable of Oholah and Oholibah is not just a nice little story, but rather it prophesies of judgment and disaster for both the nation of Israel and the nation of believers. Repent and leave the idolatry of Christianity. Come out of her lest you go down with the great harlot, Babylon. The parable of the two sisters is for a rebellious house with two branches in her family, a house heavily into witchcraft. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry (1 Samuel 15:23).
When the church or nation rejects the Word of the Lord, then they shall be rejected from ruling and reigning with Jesus, the King, as His bride and co-ruler (see 1 Samuel 15:23). Christianity does and will continue more and more to reject the Word of truth, but the bride will feed on it. Separation from religion is the only way for the bride as she becomes without spot and wrinkle free. This is the time for the scrolls to be opened, and for new understanding, which the church has never known before.
(Proverbs 4:7) And in all your getting, get understanding.