Aholah and Aholibah

Now false teachers, prophets, and deceivers are aggregately represented in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, by a woman of vicious and profligate character. Thus, the Spirit in Ezekiel 22:25, in speaking of the leaders of the people in Jerusalem, says, “there is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof; like a roaring lion ravening the prey, they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things. Her priests have violated my holy law, and have profaned my holy things. Her prophets have daubed souls with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith Yahweh Elohim, when Yahweh hath not spoken.” These priests and prophets, who were princes in Jerusalem and Samaria, are represented in the next chapter by two lewd women, “the Daughters of One Mother,” Aholah the elder, and d her sister. “Thus were their names,” says the Spirit; “Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem, Aholibah.” Then follows the indictment against them, in which their apostacy from the Mosaic Law in its simplicity, in their blending it with the abominable customs and principles of heathenism, is likened to the intercourse of harlotry and adultery. The priests and prophets of Samaria were Aholah the harlot daughter of the comely and delicate woman, Zion under the law (Jer. 6:2); and the same class in Jerusalem were Aholibah, the younger harlot of the same mother, “more corrupt in her inordinate love than Aholah.”

Thomas, J. (1997). Eureka: An exposition of the Apocalypse (electronic ed.). West Beach, South Australia: Logos Publications.