Ezekiel 16:39-41

“I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your eminent place, and break down your lofty places, and they will strip you of your clothes, and take your fair jewels, and they will leave you naked and bare. They will also bring up an assembly against you, and they will stone you with stones and thrust you through with their swords. And they will burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women, and I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will no more offer yourself for hire.”

Ezekiel quite happily intermixes his illustrations and connects them with the realities of its fulfilment. Firstly Israel as linked with Jerusalem will be handed over by her Husband to her lovers who will dismantle all her prostitute's equipment, remove her beautiful clothing and her jewellery, and leave her naked in her shame. She would lose everything that God had given her, through the activity of the very lovers that she had chased.

The picture then moves on to her being brought before the gathered assembly of judges (where she may have lost her fine clothing and jewellery but would not strictly be naked, but Ezekiel is piling on the humiliation) where she is sentenced to death by stoning, the penalty for adultery (Deuteronomy 22:21; Leviticus 20:10) and for encouraging others to idolatry (Deuteronomy 13:10), and also to be thrust through with the sword and burnt with fire, the penalty for a city which turns to idolatry (Deuteronomy 13:15).

‘And execute judgments on you in the sight of many women.' One purpose of stoning was a warning to women who saw in it the consequence of adultery and idolatry. Even so will the judgments Yahweh pours out on Israel and Jerusalem be a warning to all who see it, and especially to the exiles.

All these things would be literally fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem. The sufferings of the people of a besieged city that did not surrender was always dreadful in the extreme, the men were unmercifully slaughtered, the women raped and then often killed. No pity would be shown.

‘And I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will no more offer yourself for hire.' Israel's ability to behave in this way will cease because Jerusalem and the land of Israel will be no more.