Oholah: The Elder Sister Named for Samaria

A Name Spoken in the Years of Exile

Oholah is a woman named in the book of Ezekiel, and the whole of her appearance in Scripture fits into four verses of a single chapter. The dossier places her in the era of the exile, around 606 BC to 536 BC, an era placed on Ussher's chronology (1650). Her name is written in Hebrew as אׇהֳלָה. She is the elder of two sisters, and her sister is Oholibah. What makes her unusual among the persons of the Bible is that the text itself tells us what her name stands for: "As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah" (Ezekiel 23:4). She is a named woman in a prophetic word, and the word attached to her name is a city.

The Three Times She Is Named

There is no narrative scene for Oholah. No one meets her at a well, no one buries her, no birth is announced. Every one of her mentions is a passing note inside a prophetic speech, and honesty about the text requires saying so plainly rather than manufacturing drama the Bible does not supply.

The first mention introduces the two sisters together. "Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah. 'Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,'" (Ezekiel 23:4-5). Four things stand in that short compass. She is the elder. She belonged to Yahweh: "They became mine." She bore sons and daughters. And she turned from the one who owned her to the Assyrians her neighbors.

The second mention is a summons to judgment. "Yahweh said moreover to me: 'Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations'" (Ezekiel 23:36). The prophet is not asked to explain the sisters or excuse them. He is told to declare to them what they have done, and the word chosen for it is abominations.

The third mention is a single line of stark description. "They went in to her, as they go in to a prostitute. So they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, the lewd women" (Ezekiel 23:44). Whatever else the two sisters were, this is the last thing the text says of Oholah by name.

The Failure the Text Refuses to Soften

Scripture does not present Oholah as a woman with a mixed record. The only conduct attributed to her is betrayal. The sequence in Ezekiel 23:4-5 is deliberate and damning: she became his, she bore sons and daughters, and then she played the prostitute while she was still his. The offense is not that she had no one. The offense is that she had someone and doted on others.

The lovers are named. They are "the Assyrians her neighbors" (Ezekiel 23:5). Nearness is part of the indictment. These were not distant strangers she stumbled upon but the people beside her, the obvious and available attraction.

And the verdict is not left to the reader's judgment. Yahweh calls the prophet to judge her and to declare her abominations (Ezekiel 23:36), and the closing word about her is that men went in to her as they go in to a prostitute, and that she and her sister are "the lewd women" (Ezekiel 23:44). There is no softening in the text, and there should be none in our reading of it. A person can be given a name, a household, sons and daughters, and a relationship of belonging, and still spend all of it on someone else.

What We Do Not Know

A great deal. Scripture does not name her parents. Though Ezekiel 23:4 says the sisters bore sons and daughters, no child of hers is named. No tribe or people is given for her. And, as already said, no scene is told about her at all; every mention is a list, a genealogy or a passing note. We do not have her words, her age, her death, or any moment of her life described from the outside. The dossier lists no further passage anywhere in the Bible. Her whole footprint is Ezekiel 23.

Where the Text Leaves Her

That leaves us with a figure who exists in Scripture almost entirely as an accusation. It is a hard thing to read and a harder thing to be. The dossier carries no New Testament reference for Oholah, and so this article draws no line beyond the four verses that name her. The record ends where Ezekiel leaves it: the abominations declared (Ezekiel 23:36), the sisters called the lewd women (Ezekiel 23:44), and the memory of what she once was, "Oholah the elder" who became his and bore sons and daughters (Ezekiel 23:4), standing beside what she became. Read slowly, the sting is not in the harshness of the language but in the first line, in the two words "They became mine." Everything the chapter says against her is measured against that.