She doted on her paramours. Commonly the word is used of a concubine (Genesis 22:24; 8:31). Here it is used in scorn of the Egyptian princes whose favor Judah courted, reminding us of Homer's ἀχαιίδες οὐκετ ἀχαίοι, as indicating their political weakness. All that need be said of the comparison that follows is that here also Ezekiel follows in the footsteps of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 5:8). What is indicated is that Judah threw herself into the idolatrous ritual of Egypt with an almost orgiastic passion. The harlot nation returned, as it were, to her first love, and renewed the whoredoms of her youth.
The lovers from whom the mind of Judah was alienated were, as in Ezekiel 23:17, the Chaldeans. With these are joined Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa. The Authorized and Revised Versions, following the LXX. take these as proper names, and Ewald Smend, and Furst find in them those of Chaldean tribes. The Vulgate, followed by Luther, gives nobiles, tyrannosque, et principes, and Keil and Hengstenberg substantially adopt this rendering, giving "rulers, lords, and nobles." "Pekod" appears as a place in Jeremiah 50:20, but the ether names are unknown to history. On the whole, the balance seems in favor of the rendering in the text. With these are joined all the Assyrians, who, under Nebuchadnezzar, fought, of course, in his armies." Now she should see her desirable young men … riding upon horses (the prophet repeats with sarcasm the phrase of Jeremiah 50:12) in another guise than she had expected.