Ezekiel23chapter 23

The two sisters are named for tents: Oholah, her tent, is Samaria and the northern kingdom; Oholibah, my tent is in her, is Jerusalem, where the sanctuary stood. The names carry the difference in guilt before the story starts.

Their sin is described as adultery, but the events behind it are treaties. Samaria courted Assyria — officers in blue, governors and commanders, handsome young men on horseback — and Assyrian palace reliefs show exactly those cavalrymen in exactly that finery. Judah's kings paid tribute to Assyria too; Ahaz travelled to meet Tiglath-pileser III in Damascus and had a copy of the altar he saw there installed in the Jerusalem temple.

Then Jerusalem sees Babylonians portrayed in vermilion on a wall — men with belts around their waists and flowing turbans on their heads — and sends messengers to them. Babylonian art really did use brightly painted and glazed brick reliefs, so this is a picture of falling for an image before you have met the man.

The reason a treaty counted as unfaithfulness is not obvious to modern readers. In that world a vassal treaty meant recognizing the overlord's gods as witnesses and often importing his worship. Political dependence and religious compromise arrived in the same delegation, which is why the prophets treat foreign alliances as a marriage betrayal rather than a policy disagreement.

The judgment is that the lovers turn on her. Assyria destroyed Samaria in 722 BC. Babylon besieged Jerusalem. In both cases the empire courted became the empire that came.