We are in chapter thirty-four of Exodus with our word for today. זָנָה commit fornication, be unfaithful, abandon someone to fornication, be a harlot, whore, prostitute. It is used 59 times in the Old Testament. Our word is used in a literal way that involves being unfaithful in immoral sexual activity. A good example of this is with Judah and Tamar. Genesis 38:15-16, 20-22, 24 Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law זָֽנְתָה֙ has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant לִזְנוּנִ֑ים by immorality.” Here are a couple more examples. Numbers 25:1 The people began לִזְנ֖וֹת to whore with the daughters of Moab. Leviticus 19:29 Do not profane your daughter לְהַזְנוֹתָ֑הּ by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall תִזְנֶ֣ה into prostitution and the land become full of depravity. Our word is used in a figurative way to describe being unfaithful without necessarily involving immoral sexual activity. In this sense God uses our word to describe his people passionately worshiping and sacrificing to false gods or idols. This word is used a lot to describe how heartbreaking and wrong unfaithfulness is to God. Here are a few examples. Leviticus 17:7 So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom זֹנִ֖ים they whore. Leviticus 20:5-6 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who הַזֹּנִ֣ים [literally our word prostitute here in the ESV translate follow. But it is all who prostitute in whoring] follow him לִזְנ֛וֹת in whoring after Molech. If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, לִזְנ֖וֹת whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. Deuteronomy 31:16 This people will rise וְזָנָ֣ה and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. Judges 2:17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for זָנ֗וּ they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. Jeremiah 3:8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went וַתִּ֥זֶן and played the whore. This is how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 34:13-16 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, וְזָנ֣וּ and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons וְהִזְנוּ֙ whore after their gods. We see how heartbroken God is over his people’s unfaithfulness in this passage. Ezekiel 6:8-9 Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken over their הַזּוֹנֶ֗ה whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols. And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations. Did you see how God describes how what his people have done have affected him? He is broken. Wow! God loves us so much that he allows himself to be hurt by those he loves. I’ll close with Jesus words over his people who rejected him and his father. Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.
