First we should understand any scripture by studying the context and related Bible passages. All verses must be interpreted in the context of the verses that come before and after them, the whole passage, the chapter, the book and even the whole Bible. If we look at just one or a few verses, we can get an incomplete view or even a totally wrong view of the Bible's teachings.
All the things in the Old Testament were a shadow or pattern of things to come...Much of the Old Testament is symbolic to point to what would be fulfilled. The truth is that God has always used these symbolic foreshadows in order to reveal the foreordination of His plan. Reading the old testament with new testament glasses is very very important key to understand old testament scriptures.
Eisegesis means reading one's own ideas into interpretation of the Bible. We all have our own beliefs, world view and biases, and letting them influence our interpretation of the Bible is an ever-present danger! Sometimes we think we understand a passage and unintentionally read our own meaning into it without going through the steps required for proper exegesis. Emotionally charged topics like abortion, sex, salvation and church doctrine pose a great temptation to prove a point by quoting a verse out of context or quoting selected verses while ignoring other relevant passages. But we must let God speak to us through the Bible and not try to make it say what we would like to hear.
It's important to know if the passage is using literary techniques like allegory, hyperbole, metaphor or parable to make its point....Here Ezekiel 23:20 is Hyperbole which is deliberate exaggeration to express the eagerness of the people of the Jews after idolatry. Hyperbole is very common in the Bible.....Example includes "Rivers of water run down from my eyes, Because men do not keep Your law." (Psalms 119:136). It is also a simile which uses "like" to give us a mental picture of something by comparing it to something else. "As the deer pants for water, so I long for you, O God." (Psalms 42:1) is also an example of similes.
God created us and the animals and our biological make-up comes from all-mighty God. In Ezekiel 23:20, The stress on the lustful character of the search for a partner and the switching back and forth are not presented as they would be today, as insight into the way basically healthy human desires are corrupted by a passion for excitation apart from commitment. Instead the focus throughout is on the rebuke of israel's desire to secure her political existence by appropriate political activity rather than seeing in her religion a relationship of such an exclusive and absolute sort that any attempt at self-achieved security could only be inherently an utter betrayal of her heritage.
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