‘whore’ metaphor

whoreThe Word of God:

  • “Yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods and bowed themselves unto them.” – Judges 2:17 – KJV
  • “Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them.” – Judges 2:17 – NIV
  • “Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them.” – Judges 2:17 – NASB
  • “Gideon made it into an ephod (a garment), and placed it in his city, Ophrah, and all Israel played the harlot with it there.” – Judges 8:27
  • “No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals (foreign gods).” – Judges 8:33 – NIV
  • “Israel again committed spiritual adultery with various Canaanite deities and appointed Baal-berith to be their god.” – Judges 8:33 – ISV
  • “Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god.” – Judges 8:33 – KJV
  • “Moreover, he made high places in the mountains of Judah and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot and led Judah astray.” – 2 Chronicles 21:11
  • “How the faithful city has become a whore.” – Isaiah 1:21
  • “They defiled themselves by their evil deeds, and their love of idols was adultery in the Lord’s sight.” –  Psalm 106:39
  • “My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them.” – Jeremiah 31:32 (the covenant made with Israel at Mount Sinai was in fact a marriage covenant between the husband, God, and the bride, Israel)
  • “For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth.” – Isaiah 54:4 – God considered them married to Himself
  • “You have committed adultery on the mountaintops by worshipping idols there, and so you have been unfaithful to me.” – Isaiah 57:7
  • “I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries.” – Jeremiah 3:8
  • “She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there.” – Jeremiah 3:8 – Israel was worshipping false, idol gods instead of the one true God
  • “Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.” – Jeremiah 3:9
  • “You also took the fine jewellery I gave you, the jewellery made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them.” – Ezekiel 16:17
  • “Then it came about after all your wickedness (‘Woe, woe to you!’ declares the Lord God), that you built yourself a shrine and made yourself a high place in every square.  You built yourself a high place at the top of every street and made your beauty abominable, and you spread your legs to every passer-by to multiply your harlotry.  You also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbours, and multiplied your harlotry to make Me angry.” – Ezekiel 16:23-26 – idol worship
  • “The land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord.” – Hosea 1:2
  • “They consult their wooden idols, and their diviner’s staff answers with an oracle.  The wind of prostitution blows them astray; they commit spiritual adultery against their God.  They sacrifice on the mountaintops, and burn offerings on the hills; they sacrifice under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is so pleasant.  As a result, your daughters have become cult prostitutes, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.” – Hosea 4:12-13
  • “On the tops of the mountains they sacrifice, and on the hills they make offerings … therefore your daughters play the whore and all your daughters-in-law commit adultery.” – Hosea 4:13
  • “They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.  They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves.” – Psalm 106:38-39

 

 

 

 

 

 

One story from the Bible would be about Jericho, the two spies and Rahab, ‘the harlot’.  The Israelites had just crossed the Jordan to begin their conquest of the Promised Land.  Joshua had sent two spies to the city of Jericho to gather intel.  Joshua 2:1 – “So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.”  Rahab was not a ‘literal’ whore, but a Canaanite woman who worshipped pagan gods, one of them being Baal, so metaphorically she was called a harlot/prostitute/whore.  That was why God was having the Israelites destroy them in the first place:

  • Deuteronomy 20:17 – “But you shall utterly destroy them, … the Canaanite people … as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God.”

Whore, harlot, prostitute, adulteress – all are metaphors for: Idolatry – Spiritual Adultery – the worshipping of false gods and/or idols, instead of the one true God.  Unfaithfulness to our Lord, God.

The First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” – Exodus 20:3

The Second Commandment: “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” – Exodus 20:4-5

click here for: The Ten Commandments

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  1. Anonymous

    Whoah this blog is wonderful. I love reading your articles.

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