The Harlot theme in the O. T. (part A)

The God of Abraham has a Way of fidelity for His people to walk in. When they neglect or abandon the Way which He has for them and make for themselves another way their actions are spoken of as harlotry or adultry. consider each of the passages below.

Exo 34:11-16 "Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (12) Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. (13) You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (14) (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), (15) lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, (16) and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

Lev 20:4-6 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, (5) 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 follow him in whoring after Molech. (6) "If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.

Num 15:38-40 "Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. (39) And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. (40) So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.

Deu 31:16 And the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise 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.

Jdg 2:16-17 Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. (17) Yet they did not listen to their judges, for 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.

Jdg 8:27, 33 And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family. (33) As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.