What is the issue in Ezekiel 23?

Question

verse 20:

"For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses."

What "issue" is regarding?

"...is this regarding..."

related question:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070112001125AAhNNud

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http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070112014711AAahkea

Answer 1

i'm pretty sure its referring to sperm.

Answer 2

Read the whole chapter, this is referring to an illustration of 2 cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, that turn their backs on God and behave as prostitutes. That verse (20) is describing some of the prostitute like acts that they commit, "issues" is a nice way of referring to organs of the horse=bestiality.

Answer 3

Issue refers here to some kind of fluid coming from the horse, presumably sexual fluid. Issue is also used in the Bible as a reference to menstrual blood, like the woman who was healed by Jesus who had "an issue of blood" for many years.

Answer 4

The story is prophetic of Jerusleaum and idolitry the issues of the horses was to show vile corruption and sin of idolatry. It is reasonable to assume these people of these lands were considered very vile and disgusting that she slept with which is to say she joined their idol worship.

Answer 5

Adulterous sisters used by The Lord to symbolize the religious and political corruption of Israel and Judah.

Answer 6

Here the word "issue" refers to progeny

Answer 7

The issue is about idolatry described as a sexual sin.

Answer 8

it is to do with lust and evil desires but relay you need it in context. in reality it is talking about the people deserting God for false Gods many of which used sex as a sign of sacrifice.

Answer 9

Ezekiel was almost certainly suffering from a delusional mental illness. That is one book of the bible that should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Answer 10

This verse is part of an allegory which describes the "adulterous affairs" of God's "wives" of the time, the two kingdoms that had formerly been united under Saul, then David, then Solomon. Jehovah is disgusted by their betrayal and their growing relationship with neighboring countries rather than with Almighty God.

Here is a better translation of that verse:
(Ezekiel 23:20) And she kept lusting in the style of concubines belonging to those whose fleshly member is as the fleshly member of male asses and whose genital organ is as the genital organ of male horses.

Here is a discussion of those verses from page 90-91 of "The Watchtower", 2/1/1973:

It was not until 997 B.C.E., however, that the symbolic Oholah and Oholibah took definite form. In that year ten tribes of Israel refused further allegiance to the royal house of David and set up their own kingdom. This revolt did not cancel the covenant the entire nation had entered into with Jehovah at Mount Sinai. Both of the new kingdoms were still in this covenant and were therefore still subject to Jehovah as to a spiritual Husband. (1 Ki. 11:29-39) But the ten-tribe kingdom, Oholah, refused wifelike subjection to Jehovah and became idolatrous. Oholah (meaning “Her Tent”) set up her own tent for carrying on religious worship. She forgot Jehovah, for the northern kingdom went over to the worship of the golden calf and later adopted Baal worship. Oholah also lost her trust in Jehovah as her Protector and played politics with pagan nations, especially Assyria
...
Forgetting Jehovah and her marriage-like covenant with him, Oholibah, the southern kingdom, also played politics with Assyria. This was notoriously so in the days of Judean king Ahaz. Contrary to the counsel of Jehovah by the prophet Isaiah, Ahaz called the Assyrian conqueror Tiglath-pileser to his aid against the allied kingdoms of Syria and Israel. (Isa. 7:1-20; 2 Ki. 16:5-10, 17, 18) King Hezekiah, successor to Ahaz, saw how disastrously Oholah’s courting the political favor of Assyria ended in the year 740 B.C.E., with the destruction of Samaria and its kingdom. Yet he, though delivered from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, entertained the friendly advances made by the Babylonians.—Isa. 37:36–39:7; 2 Ki. 19:35–20:18.

It was particularly toward the close of the seventh century B.C.E., when Jehoiakim and Zedekiah ruled as kings tributary to Babylon, that Oholibah “exercised her sensual desire more ruinously” than did her sister Oholah by courting the political favor of the Babylonian World Power. (Ezek. 23:11-16) This international intercourse kept up during the reigns of both kings until Oholibah tired of the domination of Babylon. So “her soul began to turn away disgusted” from the Babylonians by rebelling against the king of Babylon. (Ezek. 23:17) At that time Oholibah began “calling to mind the days of her youth, when she prostituted herself in the land of Egypt,” that is, she began looking southward to Egypt for military aid to support her rebellion.—Ezek. 23:19.

Oholibah’s course, like that of her sister, was bound to lead to calamity. Jehovah was disgusted with the kingdom of Judah. This meant that, as in the case of the northern kingdom, Jehovah would abandon the symbolic Oholibah into the hands of her passionate lovers. (Ezek. 23:18-23) So wicked was Oholibah that Jehovah could speak of her former lover, the Babylonians, as “righteous men,” that is, comparatively “righteous men.” They were also “righteous men” in the sense that they would execute Jehovah’s righteous judgment. (Ezek. 23:43-49) Through his prophet Ezekiel, Jehovah foretold what these lovers would do to Oholibah:

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/20010701/article_01.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/pr/index.htm?article=article_04.htm

Answer 11

interesting verse!