Chapter Eight

The Vision of Idolatry in the Temple

Having predicted the destruction of the capital, the land, and the kingdom, the prophet now turns to the prediction of the fate of the temple. But the fate of the temple, this mysterious dwelling place of God on earth, could not be predicted so clearly, simply, and briefly as everything before; such a prediction required also an exceptional form of revelation—a vision. Thus, the prophecy of Ezekiel, ever increasing in inspiration, having passed from the silent mimicry of chapter IV and the calm speech of chapter V into animated discourse in chapter VI and into the touching-wrathful lament of the Lord over His land in chapter VII, in chapters VIII-XI reaches the vision, the highest degree of prophetic inspiration. In chapter VIII God leads the prophet through the entire temple and shows him the pagan cults being performed there, numbering 4-5. God wished to show the prophet in the temple all kinds of idolatry to which Israel had succumbed, although some of these cults were practiced not in the temple, but each in a room (shrine) of his own (v. 12); the temple was the place where Israel should have worshipped God, and Israel’s falling away from God could not be presented more powerfully and strikingly than through a series of gradually passing before the prophet’s eyes scenes of vile idolatry performed in the temple before God’s eyes. The description of these cults produces such an impression “that they were practiced in Judea then, and not earlier, for example, under Manasseh. That pagan deities were worshipped under Zedekiah, this, contrary to the silence of Jeremiah and Jer 44:18 of his book, is both understandable in itself and not in contradiction with the fact that they then hoped for the help of Jehovah: syncretistic views on religion prevailed among the masses; if we have only occasional indications of this (but very strong, for example, Jer 11:13; 2 Chr 26:4; 2 Sam 24:19 and others), it is only because this was understood as a matter of course. The idols placed by Manasseh in the temple and removed by Josiah could have been restored by the reactionary party” (Smend).

Ezekiel 8:1. In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, and the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. “In the sixth year (that is, of the exile of Jehoiachin and the prophet), in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month,” hence 413 days after the revelation in Ezek 3:16, if the fifth year of exile was ordinary, and 439 days if it was leap (a leap year of 13 months was every third year); in the second case the present revelation occurred while the prophet was lying in his symbolic posture; in the first shortly after; as stated in the explanation of chapter IV, the heavy lying of the prophet, combined with strict fasting, could have been good preparation for the present mysterious revelation, which also had a close connection with that lying: in the present vision the prophet is transported in spirit to that city, toward the drawing of which on brick his face was constantly turned and his right arm was bared (Ezek 4:7). “Sixth month”—August-September; Greek not “in the 6th” but “in the 5th month”—a shortening of the term, as well as of the lying days. “Sat” in the literal sense or in the sense of “was,” cf. Ezek 3:25. “Elders of Judah.” In Ezek 11:25 they are already called simply “the exiles”; in Ezek 14:1 general: “of Israel”; but possibly, if Judah lived in exile in the same place as Israel, the former was more interested in the fate of Jerusalem and the temple, to which the present vision was directed and which could have been the subject of visits and conversation with the elders. “The freedom granted to captives allowed them to settle in Babylon wherever they wished; and it was most natural that individual families and clans held together; therefore, it is very likely that the elders in 4 places of Ezekiel are heads of families” (Seeseman, Die Aeltesten in A. T. 1895, 53). The visit of the elders to the prophet in his house testifies to how much his influence had grown in a year of his ministry. “The antagonism in which the aristocracy deported with Jehoiachin stood to those left in Jerusalem (Ezek 11:15) drew her closer to the prophet, who predicted the destruction of the city, and in turn Ezekiel began to place far greater hopes in them than on the inhabitants of the capital; and captivity henceforth appears to the prophet as a means by which Jehovah will bring about the conversion of Israel; and Ezekiel with this first response of the exiles to his ministry connects great hopes (Ezek 11:15 and ff.; cf. Jer 24:3); on the other hand, with the removal of Jehoiachin, Jerusalem seems to have become even worse (Ezek 10:9 and ff.); from this comes the friendly tone which Ezekiel now never abandons toward the exiles; cf. Ezek 14:22 and ff. Ezek 20:30 and others” (Smend). “The hand of the Lord God fell upon me there.” As explained in Ezek 1:3, the expression means that the prophet came into ecstasy, rapture, but here the expression has a more physical meaning, as shown by verse 3.

Ezekiel 8:2. And I saw, and behold, a likeness [of a man], like fire, and from what appeared to be His loins and downward, fire; and from His loins and upward, something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming amber. “A likeness (of a man).” “Of a man” appears only in the LXX; although the mention later of the loins forces one to think of the image appearing to the prophet as human only, but the omission in the Hebrew of the word “man,” “person” distances the similarity of the seen image from the human and indicates its indescribability and mystery. The image appearing to the prophet is identical with the image sitting on the throne in the Chebar vision (see Ezek 1:26), because it is described identically. But the entire manifestation in the form in which the prophet saw it there was not repeated. About the human image itself it is not said whether he sat, stood, or went, without doubt because the prophet did not see it and probably could barely distinguish the image’s outlines, as in chapter I (verse 27). On the other hand, he clearly sees here the hand at the human figure (verse 3), in which in chapter I he saw nothing but unclear outlines. The character of the radiance from the human figure is described, though close to Ezek 1:27, but not entirely identical: the upper part of the figure there shines like fire and like “hasmal” (Church Slavonic “electrum”), here like “radiance” and like “hasmal” (Russian “gleaming amber,” and in Ezek 1:27 Russian the same word conveys: “incandescent metal”). The first definition “radiance” in Hebrew is expressed by the word zohar, found only in Dan 12:3, where, being compared with the radiance of stars, should have approximately the meaning which the Church Slavonic translation and some Greek codices ascribe to it: “dawn” (other Greek codices omit it; and in Daniel the Church Slavonic translates it “brightness of the firmament”). The Hebrew text leaves uncertain in what relation these two definitions (zohar and hasmal) stood to each other: were they two distinct radiations, as the Church Slavonic translation supposes, inserting “and” between them, or does the second more closely define the first (as the Vulgate supposes); in the first case, like the dawn, the robe of the One clothed (“clothed in light as in a garment”) could shine, and like hasmal—His face and body (in the cited place of Daniel the saints shine with the first light and with the light of stars). In any case, the upper part of the image was even brighter than the lower, fiery.

Ezekiel 8:3. He stretched out what appeared to be a hand and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north, where the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located. “Like a hand.” A trait distinguishing the present vision is the hand, which takes the prophet “like,” Church Slavonic more exactly “a likeness” (Hebrew tabnit, “structure,” “image”): the hand barely stood out; the familiar cautiousness from chapter I in describing the Divine image. “Took me by a lock of my head, and lifted me up between earth and heaven.” The prophet therefore felt both the physical touch on the crown and then a hovering in the air, although his body, apparently, did not leave its former place; this last is warned by the remark “by the Spirit” and in the following clause “in visions of God,” and the visitors of the prophet do not leave him during this “rapture” (Ezek 11:25). Nevertheless, the expression is too decisive to understand it only of spiritual transportation to Jerusalem and the temple; it recalls Ezek 3:12, where it speaks of physical displacement. Here, as well as in Ezek 37:1 and Ezek 40:1-2 it is understood, probably, some kind of half-bodily transportation, reminiscent perhaps of bilocation, but not so sharply physical as in Dan 14:36, where the agent is not God, but an angel. “Spirit,” evidently the same as in Ezek 2:2, identical, as we have seen, with the “spirit” Ezek 1:12, that is, the Holy Spirit; thus only more precisely is the agent of the miraculous transportation of the prophet designated (Luke 11:20 is more accurately designated in Matt 12:28); in the story of the transportation of the prophet Habakkuk by an angel to Babylon it is noted that the angel transported the prophet “by the power of his spirit.” “To Jerusalem to the entrance of the inner gates facing north,” that is, to the temple, though this is not stated—an incompleteness revealing the priest. The inner gates, otherwise upper (Ezek 9:2; Jer 20:2 and ff.), were the gates in the fence separating the outer court from the inner; in distinction from these gates, the gates of the outer court, through which one first entered the temple, were simply called “the gates of the house of the Lord.” There were probably three of each: east (main), north, and south, the latter intended only for kings (Ezek 43:8), leading from the palace to the temple. Of these three, the second are mentioned here, which in verse 5 are called “the gates of the altar”; they seem to be in Jer 26:10 also called “new.” The prophet was placed at the entrance to these gates, what kind of entrance—external (northern) or internal (southern), is not said; but from verse 5, it is evident that internal, because, looking from his place toward the north, he sees on the northern side of the gates an idol. Consequently, the prophet was placed between the gates and the altar, on the inner court, or the court of priests. From there he sees in the temple first of all the idol of jealousy, that is, as the prophet clarifies, “provoking to jealousy,” of course, the Lord, the sole possessor of Israel (hence the addition of the LXX; “drawing to himself”). God’s wrath toward Israel’s idolatry is often depicted as jealousy, the jealous, not allowing other objects of worship, love of God for Israel: Exod 20:5; Deut 32:16 and others. Therefore, any idol could be called the idol of jealousy. But such definiteness in indicating the place where the idol stood, such an unusual name for the idol, taken from the realm of marital relations, finally such a honorable and sacred place in the temple occupied by the idol—all this shows that a specific idol that stood sometime or then in the temple is meant. But from Sacred Scripture only one idol is known for certain to have been placed in the temple, that of Astarte under Manasseh (2 Sam 21:7; 2 Chr 33:7, where the idol is designated by the same word as here, “semel,” used only in Deut 4:16; Church Slavonic “pillar and image”); this idol answers to all the other data of the present indication: nearness to the altar (cf. Deut 16:21-22) and understandable jealousy (femininity of deity, sensuality of worship). Others understand Moloch, Baal, Adonis, Bel.

Ezekiel 8:4. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision I had seen in the plain. In the temple the prophet finds the Glory of the Lord in the very form in which he saw it in the plain, that is, in the environs of Tel-Aviv (Ezek 3:23), which could be a sign either that the Glory of the Lord (God) was always present in the temple in the same manner as it had appeared at Tel-Aviv and on the Chebar, or that God now came to the temple in this special (astounding and terrifying) manner for some purpose, similar to and no less important than in those two instances of the revelation of God’s glory; such a purpose of the revelation of God’s glory here was the judgment of God upon Jerusalem, the execution of which is described in chapters VIII-XI, and the proclamation of which was the main purpose of Ezekiel’s call to prophecy. “There” not in the narrow sense of the place where Ezekiel stood in the temple at the northern inner gates, but in the broad sense—in the temple. In what exact point of the vast temple space the glory of the Lord stood, is told only in Ezek 10:3: it stood on the right, that is, the south side of the temple, and the prophet on the north. Glory is called not simply “of the Lord,” as everywhere before, but of “God (Elohim, not Jehovah, as in Ezek 2:1, apparently because the covenant is broken) of Israel,” in contradistinction to the foreign deity, whose idol was in the temple.

Ezekiel 8:5. Then He said to me, “Son of man, lift your eyes toward the north.” So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and behold, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, there was this idol of jealousy. “At the gate of the altar.” So these northern inner gates were called, perhaps because sacrificial animals, which were prescribed to be slaughtered on the northern side of the altar (Lev 1:4), had to be brought through these gates into the inner, priestly court; or perhaps through these gates was the ordinary passage (cf. Ezek 40:35) to the altar (if the eastern gates, as one can suppose from Ezek 46:1 and ff., were ordinarily kept closed, opening perhaps only for solemn processions, and the southern ones were the royal passage). Others explain the name “gates of the altar” by the fact that the altar of Solomon, displaced from its central place in the court by Ahaz, was placed there (2 Sam 16:14). “The idol of jealousy,” being “on the north side” of these gates at their entrance, should therefore have stood already on the outer court at the very northern gates to the inner court, perhaps because it was the busiest and most trafficked place in the temple (busier in any case than the priestly court). The LXX somewhat differently: “to the north of the eastern gates at the entrance” (theirs? or the usual passage to the temple? in the latter case the LXX topographical indication does not differ from the Hebrew).

Ezekiel 8:6. He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing? Great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, to drive Me far from My sanctuary? But you shall see yet greater abominations. “That they drive Me far from My sanctuary.” Unintended consequence is presented with some bitter irony as intentional. It explains to the prophet beforehand what he will see in Ezek 11:23. But the LXX understand the subject to be “the house of Israel”: “which are to drive away from My sanctuaries.” “You shall see yet greater abominations.” It is hard to understand why the idolatry described later (v. 7-12) was worse than the first, especially if the first was the immoral worship of Astarte; apparently because of the participants, from whom, as the best people in Israel, one would least expect such apostasy. Cf. below comment on verse 13. Perhaps the expression is simply a rhetorical turn.

Ezekiel 8:7. And He brought me to the entrance of the court; and when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall. Ezekiel 8:8. Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig through the wall”; and when I dug through the wall, there was an opening. Ezekiel 8:9. And He said to me, “Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here. “And he brought me.” Deliberate omission of the subject, as in Ezek 2:1 (see there) and here vv. 3, 5, 6. Cf. explanation Ezek 9:4. “To the entrance of the court,” that is, to the court in general, to the temple court, but either from the city, from the square, or from the inner court to the outer court at the inner north gate, through the opening only of which the prophet was led; in the first case the wall mentioned below was the outer wall of the temple, in the second case it was a partition of the inner court. In this wall the prophet saw an opening and, as appears from what follows, not an accidental and not a small hole or crack, but such a large recess that in it, somewhat enlarged, a man (bending down) could pass through and reach a hidden door in the further depth of the wall. The prophet might perhaps have been able to make his way through the opening even in its original form to the hidden door and enter the chamber, as apparently those found in the chamber had entered it, but God commanded the prophet to enlarge the recess in the wall by digging out part of the brick in it (“break through the wall”) to discover the hidden door and thus reveal the secret of the chamber’s visitors. The chamber to which this door led evidently was located in the temple wall, occupying perhaps only its thickness; and since the prophet stood near one of the temple gates, when he saw this he had in mind probably one of a whole series of chambers located in the massive structures of each of the temple gates and at least in the temple of Ezekiel’s time distinguished by considerable size (Ezek 40:44). The chamber by the very character of its construction—its secret passage—indicated its purpose—to serve for some mysterious religious gatherings, with which one had to carefully (from jealous guarding of the secret or from unavoidable shame at the obvious senselessness of the rites performed) hide from the uninitiated; that is, evidently it served for mysteries (Bertholet).

Ezekiel 8:10. And I went in, and I saw, and behold, every kind of crawling thing and unclean beast and every idol of the house of Israel, painted on the walls all around. All the walls of the chamber were completely covered with depictions of heathen deities, of which the prophet was struck first by their comparative abundance or by the unexpectedness of their appearance here—depictions of crawling things of various kinds, then beasts, not excluding unclean ones, and all kinds of other idols, already before known to the house of Israel. By the predominant position of beasts and in particular crawling things among these depictions, it is thought that Egyptian worship is here in view, in which crocodiles, serpents, beetles, as well as cats, jackals, bulls were revered, and whose influence on the Hebrews, beginning with the calves of Jeroboam, might have increased after the invasion of Necho, due to hopes for possible Egyptian aid against Babylon (cf. Ezek 17:15). Belzoni at the beginning of the nineteenth century discovered in the rocks on the banks of the Nile many underground chambers serving for the burial of the noble, the walls of which were uniformly adorned with depictions of, among other things, objects of worship; to complete the resemblance, Belzoni penetrated there through a recess in the wall which appeared to have no resemblance to a regular entrance; Ammianus Marcellinus also speaks of caves of this kind (XXII, 15. Troschen). If Egyptian worship is here in view, and in particular Egyptian mysteries (mysteries were directed mainly toward communion with the underworld), then before the prophet’s eyes now passes the picture of a second foreign worship after the Canaanite worship of Astarte (apparently in view in vv. 3-6) and a worship of entirely different character; accordingly in vv. 13-14 there is described the most characteristic of Assyro-Babylonian cults, and in v. 16 of Persian ones. But it is possible that Egyptian worship is not here in view: in the Old Testament nowhere are there clear traces of this cult’s influence; Ezek 23:14 speaks for Chaldean origin of all kinds of depictions on walls among the Hebrews; the influence of Babylon must have increased at that time on all aspects of life, especially among the aristocracy, who are participants in this cult; and in Babylon at that time the cult of demons was widespread, depicted in the form of scorpions, serpents, and the like.

Ezekiel 8:11. And seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel stood before them, and Jezaniah, the son of Shaphan, among them; and each had his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense was rising upward. The performers of the cult described are not the populace, but some of the elders, the number of which the prophet undoubtedly designates as symbolic and large—“seventy”—a number of comprehensive fullness and multitude, especially with regard to some kind of representation of power (70 judges under Moses, later 70 members of the Sanhedrin, to which, as a post-exile institution, of course, there can be no allusion here), cf. also Judg 1:7; 2 Sam 10:1. Without doubt, the meaning “nobles” for the word “elders” is here not only sufficient, but more appropriate than “heads of clans” (as in 1 v.); for there is no reason why only heads of clans and in the number exactly seventy should have gathered for idol worship together (as representatives of the whole nation?); here the speech is more likely about aristocrats; birth and position could have united these people (Ceesemann, op. cit. 49). Among the elders the prophet recognized even one by his face: Jezaniah, son of Shaphan, consequently a different person from Jezaniah Ezek 11:1 son of Azur. A name in which, which is significant for that time of apostasy (syncretism), the word Jehovah appears, meaning: “he whom God hears” (Slavonic: “Jezaniah”, but in chapter 11 already “Jehoiachin”, as also here Greek: Ιεχονιας). “If he was the son of the often-mentioned Shaphan, chancellor of Josiah (2 Sam 22:3 and following Jer 29:3), he did not resemble his noble father (cf. also Jer 39), and if Ezekiel had more examples of this kind, it was easier for him to come to the positions Ezek 18:20 and similar.” (Bertholet.) — The idol worship itself consisted of abundant incensing before the depictions, which in Egyptian worship played an important role and in mysteries in general served to bring initiates into ecstasy. “The thick cloud of incense” designates prayer, because incensing is as it were embodied prayer, cf. Rev 5:8.

Ezekiel 8:12. And he said to me: Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each in his carved chamber? For they say: “The Lord does not see us; the Lord has abandoned this land. “In darkness.” The chamber of idol worship could be dark: Egyptian idol worship loved dark sanctuaries (Plutarch, De Isocr. 20), as do all mysteries; but the expression may also point to the secrecy of the cult. “Each in his carved chamber.” By this remark, first of all, the reader is warned that the gathering of all idol worshippers in one chamber has only symbolic significance (of the commonness and widespread nature of the cult): in reality this idol worship was performed by each in his own chamber (from which, of course, the state of affairs does not improve, but rather worsens), and this chamber was carefully decorated (cf. Ezek 23:14) with idolatrous depictions. But the question arises: were these chambers of idol worship in each man’s own house or in the temple? It was possible for the prophet to be shown the real idol worship (as with others) in a temple chamber for symbolic purposes (Keil), and it was possible to be shown it there because it was actually performed in temple chambers. “We are in the inner court, where Ezekiel in general does not wish to admit the laity, as he does not wish to admit them even more to the possession of all kinds of temple chambers: in the future these are to belong only to priests (Ezek 40:44 and following). If we do not admit that each of the seventy had such a chamber in the temple, the expression might nevertheless mean that many laymen like Jezaniah had such; this is confirmed by Jer 36:10; the laymen could also perform in these chambers much that outraged the priests: 2 Sam 23:11” (Smend). The Slavonic: “each of them on his hidden bed” seems to speak not of incensing, but of some new rite, perhaps difficult to convey. “The words of the followers of this foreign cult deserve attention: people of their persuasion in the Old Testament rarely reveal themselves” (Bertholet.). The first phrase expresses doubt in God’s omniscience; the expression “the Lord has abandoned this land” could be relatively just; it probably became a customary phrase since 597 (cf. Ezek 9:9); for how could the Lord allow over ten thousand of the chosen people to be led into captivity? Perhaps the phrase also had to do with the disappearance of the Ark (cf. Jer 3:16 and Jer 12:7). Ezekiel in general preserved a whole series of such popular judgments: Ezek 11:3.

Ezekiel 8:13. And he said to me: Turn around, and you will see even greater abominations that they are committing. Weeping for Tammuz could be called a greater abomination than the previous cult, because those who performed it were women who were generally at that time outside of religion, which indicated the widespread nature of the cult. As in v. 6, the expression may simply be a rhetorical turn.

Ezekiel 8:14. And he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz, “The gates of the Lord’s house,” as in Ezek 11:1, can only mean the outer gates, in the outer wall, because 1) they led to the temple as a whole; 2) the inner gates are always designated with this or some other designation, for example “upper,” as in Ezek 9:2-3) at the outer gates of the temple the most suitable place for women; there exactly—at the outer wall of the temple—later a special court of women was set up. Thus the prophet continues moving from the inner parts of the temple to the outer, and in v. 16 returns back. “Women” in Hebrew with the article, consequently known, definite women, perhaps temple women, or even professional mourners; according to Bertholet, the article puts them in relation to the “men” mentioned earlier. “Sitting,” that is, on the ground as a sign of grief: cf. Job 2:8; Lam 2:10; Isa 3:25; Nehem 1:4; Ps 1:1; Matt 27:61; and now Jews perform mourning by sitting on the floor. “Weeping for Tammuz.” Tammuz, according to Jerome, “is the Hebrew and Syrian name for Adonis; according to popular legend in the month of June was killed and then came to life again the lover of Venus, the most beautiful youth, juvenis, from which the month also got its name; in honor of this an annual festival is celebrated at which women mourn him as dead and then sing his resurrection.” Therefore Jerome placed the name Adonis in the translation of the Vulgate. The cult of Adonis is undoubtedly of Eastern origin. Byblos, where the waters of the Adonis river turned red in summer from the melting of snows on Lebanon, was the chief place of veneration of Tammuz. In the mythological fragments of Akkad is mentioned the lover of Astarte, Duuzu or Dumuz, which name means “son of life” or “eternal child”; this is a chthonic (underworld) god; annually in June, which in his honor was called Luzu (hence the later Aramaic name of this month Tammuz), he descends to Hades and remains there until the next spring, and this disappearance is celebrated with a sacrificial libation and weeping (in Babylonian “bikitu,” cf. Hebrew “mebakot,” “weeping women”); in Hades Istarte weeps over him, and he with his shepherd’s flute exhausts the kingdom of the dead and brings the shades back to life. Perhaps this Babylonian myth was the original source for the Syrian and Greek. Ezekiel probably had in mind the Babylonian cult here. The Hebrew-Aramaic Tammuz from the root “mazaz” or “masas,” “to rot,” is a sound transformation of the Chaldean word; the name Adonis probably comes from the Semitic “adon,” “Lord”: “son of the Lord.” In the myth of this god and his cult, which had its correspondence also in the Egyptian cult of Osiris and Isis, in which, according to Pausanias (II, 20, 5), the weeping of women also played a large role, there is celebrated the action of the sun on vegetation, withering in winter and reviving in spring. The time of the vision of the prophet Ezekiel did not correspond to the time of the festivals in honor of Tammuz (August-June); but this of course could not prevent the prophet from being shown this festival in the vision; when reading the LXX date Ezek 8:1 the difference comes to only one month.

Ezekiel 8:15. And he said to me: Son of man, do you see? Turn around, and you will see even greater abominations. See vv. 6 and 13. The idol worship described in v. 16 could be called worse than all the previous ones, by the place of its performance, which was very sacred, because it was performed turning the back to the temple, and because those who performed it were, apparently, priests (see v. 16), but not by the object, because worship of the sun can by no means be considered worse than the worship of Astarte or animal worship, but rather superior to them. Thus, Ezekiel’s classified list of cults is arranged not by their essence and comparative value, but by external considerations; this is because by essence every heathen cult for him is something than which nothing worse can be: apostasy from Jehovah, like infidelity in marriage, cannot be greater or lesser.

Ezekiel 8:16. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, about twenty-five men stood with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down toward the sun. “To the inner court.” Consequently, the prophet returns there where he was before, although perhaps not to that same place in the vast inner court, at least observes another part of it. “At the entrance of the temple.” “Temple” in Hebrew “hekal”—the building of the sanctuary. “Between the porch,” that is, the entrance portico of the temple (LXX transcribe the Hebrew “Elam”) “and the altar”—at the holiest place (Joel 2:17), which without doubt for this reason was chosen for idol worship—a circumstance that especially aggravated the sin. “About twenty-five men.” Judging by the place where these idol worshippers stood, which could be accessible only to priests, interpreters formerly thought these were priests: the prophet does not call them priests as if horrified at what they are doing; they could even be the heads of the twenty-four orders of priests (1 Chr 26:5 and following) under the leadership of the high priest, that is, as the seventy elders (v. 11) represent the idolatry of the whole people, so these twenty-five men represent that of the priestly order. Modern interpreters reject this supposition, mainly on the ground that the prophet does not call them priests, that the inner court was accessible at that time also to laymen (grounds, as we see, weak), that in Ezek 9:6 these persons are called elders, and on the ground of the approximate number of their number (in Greek even twenty). “Standing with their backs to the temple,” a position forced by the necessity to bow down to the sun and presumably unintentional, though expressing all the contempt of the idol worshippers toward Jehovah; in Hebrew “to turn one’s back” meant to completely and with contempt abandon someone (2 Chr 29:6; Isa 1:4; Jer 7:24). The idol worshippers literally did what the Lord complained through Jeremiah: “they turned their back to Me, not their face” (Jer 2:27; Jer 32:33). “Turning their faces to the east and bowing down toward the sun.” Consequently, the idol worshippers were bowing down precisely to the rising sun, as the Persians (Herodotus, Hist. IV, 15, 1; Tacitus, Hist. III, 24) and in part the Essenes (Josephus, De bello judaico 2:8, 4). Thus, here it is possible that the reference is to Persian sun worship, perhaps first introduced by Manasseh (2 Sam 23:11); before the time of Josiah horses were kept in the temple for this cult; the present passage (cf. Job 31:26 and following) shows that after its destruction by Josiah, this cult during the time of Ezekiel was restored (so strong was the turning back after that king). The sun in the person of the god “Shamash” (in Hebrew sun is “shemesh”) enjoyed special veneration also among the Assyro-Babylonians (as also in ancient Canaanite religions—see explanation to Ezek 6:4) and under Zedekiah, a vassal prince in relation to Babylon, his cult could have penetrated into Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 8:17. And he said to me: Son of man, have you seen? Is it too small a thing for the house of Judah to do the abominations which they do here? But they have also filled the land with violence, and have provoked Me repeatedly; and behold, they are putting branches to their nostrils. Not content with defiling the temple (“here”), the house of Judah (in vv. 6 and 11 “Israel,” perhaps because the cults of the Northern Kingdom are also in view) defiles the whole land with “violence,” literally “violence,” “injury” (“hamas”); what kind of violence, is explained in Ezek 9:9: “the land is full of blood and the city full of iniquity” (see there). “And behold, they are putting branches to their nostrils.” A very puzzling expression. According to the most accepted explanation, it provides proof of the sun worship cult, pointing, perhaps, to a feature in it that appeared recently and thus constituted a particularly outrageous new step in comparison with the times of Manasseh; namely, it is thought that this refers to the custom of Persian sun worshippers to hold during prayer a bundle of twigs from palm dates, pomegranates, and tamarisks, called “baresma,” either to protect the mouth from demons, or not to defile the sanctuary with their breath; for these same purposes, priests also covered their mouths during service with a special covering (Strabo XV, 733. Hyde, De relig. Pers. ed. 2, 350, etc.). Although the Hebrew word translated here as branch—“zemora”—properly means a grape vine branch (Slavonic: “vine”), but it is thought it could also be applied to other branches, not to mention that it is considered possible to regard it as corrupted or Aramaized baresma. True, such understanding does not accord with the context: the latter demands here not an indication of a new rite of worship, but an explanation of how Judah by her iniquity provokes the anger of God. Furthermore, could the prophet regard this custom, which in the sin of sun worship constitutes merely an incidental detail, so terrible that in comparison the sin of sun worship itself seemed less essential? Finally, it is scarcely probable that at that time the Persian cult penetrated Judea with such details, when in the book of Ezekiel the Persians appear to him barely known, harmless barbarians (Ezek 27:10; Ezek 38:5). But all other explanations of this expression are still more arbitrary, and some are indecent. Reading the word “branch” somewhat differently, one gets the meaning: “they bring a sickle to their nostrils,” apparently a proverb: they prepare ruin for themselves. According to the Talmudic explanation, “zemora” is crepitus ventris, and “to their nostrils” is one of the eighteen corrections of the scribes (“tikkun soferim”) instead of “to my nostril,” and (according to Kraetzschmar’s view) the reference is to sacrificial smoke from the high places, which is a stench to the Lord. In Bertholet’s view—with the same correction of the final word (“to my nostril”), “zemora,” “branch” has here an indecent meaning (Levy, Neuehebrach. Worterbuch I, 544), and the reference is to a dissolute cult, denounced also by Isaiah in Isa 57:8, performed in the houses and thus filling the land with defilement, in contrast to the previously mentioned cults which defiled only the temple. Both realisms would probably offend the ears of an ancient Hebrew and would scarcely be worthy of an inspired writer. Others see in the expression a proverb with a lost sense; but could the prophet have employed such a short-lived proverb?

Ezekiel 8:18. I will act in anger; my eye will not spare, nor will I show pity. Even if they cry out to me with a loud voice, I will not hear them. “Even if they cry out to My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.” A new thought in the repetitions of the former, which consist of the verse, and strengthening them. But the statement presents a literal (rationalists: “unpleasant”) coincidence with the beginning of the following chapter, which is why there is doubt about the authenticity of the expression; the statement is not found in the majority of Greek manuscripts.