Oholah and Oholibah

{{short description|Pejorative personifications given by the prophet Ezekiel to Samaria and Jerusalem}}

File:Leningrad Codex Folio 288a.jpg containing Ezekiel 22:25–23:21, including the section on Oholah and Oholibah.]]

In the Hebrew Bible, Oholah ({{lang|hbo|אהלה}} ’Āholāh) and Oholibah ({{lang|hbo|אהליבה}} ’Āholîḇāh) (or Aholah and Aholibah in the King James Version and Young's Literal Translation) are pejorative personifications given by the prophet Ezekiel to the cities of Samaria in the Kingdom of Israel and Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judah, respectively. They appear in chapter 23 of the Book of Ezekiel.{{bibleverse|Ezekiel|23:4|KJV}} (KJV); {{bibleverse|Ezekiel|23:4|YLT}}

There is a pun in these names in the Hebrew. {{transliteration|hbo|Oholah}} means "her tent", and {{transliteration|hbo|Oholibah}} means "my tent is in her."{{cite book|author1=Adele Berlin|author2=Marc Zvi Brettler|title=The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yErYBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT2350|date=17 October 2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-939387-9|page=1072}}

The Hebrew prophets frequently compared the sin of idolatry to the sin of adultery, in a reappearing rhetorical figure.{{cite book|last1=Coogan|first1=Michael D.|title=A brief introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in its Context|date=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=9780195332728| oclc=243545942}}{{rp|317}} Ezekiel's rhetoric directed against these two allegorical figures depicts them as lusting after Egyptian men in explicitly sexual terms in Ezekiel 23:20–21:{{cite book|last1=Kim|first1=Won Whe|editor1-last=Park|editor1-first=Nam Cheol|editor2-last=Kim|editor2-first=Sae Woong|editor3-last=Moon|editor3-first=Du Geon|title=Penile Augmentation|date=2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-662-46752-7|pages=11–26|chapter=Chapter 2: History and Cultural Perspective}}{{rp|18}}

{{quote|And she doted upon concubinage with them, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus thou didst call to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, when they from Egypt bruised thy breasts for the bosom of thy youth.|Ezekiel 23:20–21{{bibleverse|Ezekiel|23:20–21|HE}}}}