Painting

Painting in scripture appears in two related forms — eye-paint applied around the eyes to enlarge their appearance, and figures portrayed on a wall. Both uses cluster in oracles of judgment, where the painted face or the painted image is bound up with apostasy, infidelity, or the foreign powers Israel is courting.

Painted Eyes

Jezebel's death-scene begins with the gesture: "And when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her eyes, and attired her head, and looked out at the window" (2Ki 9:30). The same act becomes the prophet's image of a fated city: "And you, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you dress yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you make yourself fair; [your] lovers despise you, they seek your soul" (Jer 4:30). Ezekiel uses the same image of Oholibah preparing for her foreign lovers: "And furthermore you⁺ have sent for men who come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent, and, see, they came; for whom you washed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments" (Eze 23:40).

Portraits on the Wall

The same chapter in Ezekiel describes painting of another kind — figures of the Chaldeans depicted on a wall, which become the trigger for Oholibah's pursuit of them: "And she increased her whoring; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion" (Eze 23:14).