Ezekiel is taken in vision to Jerusalem
8
📚And it came about in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders 📖 of Judah sitting in front of me, that the hand 📖 of the Lord God suddenly came on me there. 8:1 This begins a series of visions which is concluded at the end of chapter 11. This section records things Ezekiel saw and heard in vision as though he were in Jerusalem. The time was September 592 BC, about 14 months after the first visions he saw (Ezek 1:2).⚜
2 📚Then I looked, and saw a figure like the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his waist downward, fire; and from his waist upward, like the appearance of brightness, like the colour of amber.
8:2 The same figure that appeared on the throne in Ezek 1:26-27.⚜
3 📚And he stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by the hair of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looks toward the north, where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy 📖, was.
8:3 This was an experience similar to Paul’s recorded in 2 Cor 12:2. Possibly Ezekiel did not know whether he was in the body or out of it.⚜
Idolatry and wickedness in the temple
4 📚And, see, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the plain.
5 📚Then he said to me, “Son of man, now raise your eyes toward the north”. So I raised my eyes toward the north, and saw in the north, at the gate of the altar, this idol of jealousy at the entrance.
6 📚And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing? The great abominations that the house of Israel is committing here, to drive me far away 📖 from my sanctuary? But now turn, and you will see greater abominations 📖”.
7 📚And he brought me to the door of the courtyard; and when I looked I saw a hole in the wall. 8 📚Then he said to me, “Son of man, now dig in the wall”. And when I had dug in the wall, a door appeared.
9 📚And he said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they are doing here”. 10 📚So I went in and looked, and saw every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the wall.
8:10 Observe even in God’s special people Israel this strange and wicked tendency to forsake the true and living God, the Creator, and to worship animals. See Rom 1:21-23. The Jews in Ezekiel’s day even worshiped animals they regarded as unclean (Lev 11:26-27, 41-45).⚜
11 📚And before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, and among them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. And each man had his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense was rising up.
12 📚Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, each man in the room of his idol? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us. The LORD has forsaken the land.’ ”
13 📚He also said to me, “Turn yourself again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing”.
14 📚Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’s house which was toward the north, and there appeared women sitting, weeping for Tammuz.
8:14 Tammuz was the Babylonian god of fertility, connected with the cycles of nature. He was regarded as dying each year when vegetation died, and as coming to life when new vegetation sprang up. Each year women mourned the death of Tammuz. They were forsaking the God of Israel, Who gave them all they had, for one of the false gods of their conquerors, the cruel and ruthless Babylonians. This was very detestable to the true God.⚜
15 📚Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Turn yourself again, and you will see greater abominations than these”.
16 📚And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house, and about twenty-five men appeared at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshipping the sun toward the east.
8:15-16 The most detestable thing of all was false worship at the very altar of God by priests or Levites (no one else could approach the altar). They were facing the wrong way – not toward the Most Holy Place where God was, but toward the east. They had forsaken the God Who made the sun (Gen 1:16), and worshiped the sun He had made – a thing forbidden in God’s law on pain of death – Deut 17:2-5.⚜
17 📚Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they are committing here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have repeatedly provoked me to anger. And, see, they are putting the branch to their nose 📖. 18 📚Therefore I will also deal in fury. My eye will not spare, and I will not have pity. And though they cry out in my ears with a loud voice, I will still not listen to them”.