Aholah

Aholah (UPDV: Oholah) is the symbolic name Ezekiel gives to Samaria, the elder of two sisters in the extended figure of Ezekiel 23. She appears alongside her younger sister Oholibah, who stands for Jerusalem. The name carries the indictment built into the chapter: an imagined woman who personifies a city's idolatry and political adultery.

The Name and the Pairing

Ezekiel's vision opens by naming the two sisters and identifying which city each represents. They are introduced together, and the elder is set down first: "And the names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah" (Eze 23:4). Within this passage Oholah is, by definition, the elder sister and the figure of Samaria; across these verses she is not spoken of apart from the pairing.

Samaria's Pursuit of the Assyrians

Once named, Oholah is immediately given an action that fixes the figure. While she belonged to Yahweh, she turned away after foreign lovers, and the lovers are identified as Assyria: "And Oholah whored when she was mine; and she lusted after her lovers, on the nearby Assyrians" (Eze 23:5). The verse keeps both sides of the picture in view at once — covenant relation ("when she was mine") and the political-religious turning toward Assyria that Samaria's history embodied.

The Prophet Commissioned to Judge Both Sisters

Later in the chapter Yahweh charges the prophet to render verdict on the two sisters together. Oholah is not isolated from her sister at the point of judgment: "Yahweh said moreover to me: Son of Man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their disgusting behaviors" (Eze 23:36). The judgment scene mirrors the introduction — the elder sister is named first, and the indictment is paired.

Final Summary of the Figure

The chapter closes its summary of the figure with one last paired notice: "And they entered her, as they enter a whore: so they entered Oholah and Oholibah, the lewd women" (Eze 23:44). Within the surveyed witness Oholah's whole appearance is contained in this one chapter and in this one role — an imagined elder sister whose career personifies Samaria's idolatry and stands beside her sister Oholibah's parallel figure for Jerusalem.