Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great abominations.”
He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. Then he said to me, “Son of man, dig now in the wall.” When I had dug in the wall, I saw a door.
He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they do here.”
So I went in and looked, and saw every form of creeping things, abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed around on the wall. Seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel stood before them. In the middle of them Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan stood, every man with his censer in his hand; and the smell of the cloud of incense went up.
Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, ‘Yahweh doesn’t see us. Yahweh has forsaken the land.’ ” He said also to me, “You will again see more of the great abominations which they do.”
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh’s house which was toward the north; and I saw the women sit there weeping for Tammuz. Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? You will again see yet greater abominations than these.”
He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east.
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 commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger. Behold, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18 Here one profanation of the temple, is shown to…
Here one profanation of the temple, is shown to the Prophet, namely, the idol erected at the entrance of the area near the altar. It may happen that the worship of God is but slightly vitiated, so that the corruption is scarcely apparent. But while the Prophet repeats that the idol was that of jealousy, lie points out the gross and shameful disgrace of that spectacle, so that they could not gloss over their impiety by any pretense, after they had so openly and confessedly revolted from the law of God. But when he is ordered to raise his eyes to the way of the north, this also avails for the confirmation of his teaching. For if the Prophet had turned his eyes that way of his own accord, his looking that way would have been of less moment, but when God directs his eyes by express command, the reproach which afterwards follows has more weight. This, therefore, is the reason why the Prophet did not cast his eyes of his own accord towards the idol, as he might have done, but was admonished by God to do so. Meanwhile it appears with what docility he obeyed God’s commands. He puts these two things together, that he was ordered to raise his eyes, and that he immediately did so We see here that he was so obedient to God’s command, that he did not delay but instantly obeyed it. He says, the idol was near the gate of the altar, which circumstance exaggerates the crime. If the idol had been erected in any remote corner it would have been an intolerable sacrilege, though the modesty of the Jews had been greater: but when they erected the idol before the altar they flew as it were in the very face of God. If an immodest woman runs after an adulterer, her husband is justly enraged; but if she brings him before her husband, and wantons with him before his eyes, and prostitutes herself to all crimes, then certainly such wanton lust cannot be endured. But such was the audacity of the people, that when the idol was erected before the gate of the altar it seemed like wishing to dethrone the Almighty, and to contaminate his altar by the sight of the idol. It follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17 That is, in the court where the people had…
That is, in the court where the people had made an altar to Baal.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv5–18 Eze 8:5 Then said he unto me, Son of…
Eze 8:5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
Ver. 5. The way toward the north.] Where was the greatest concourse of idolaters.
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At the gate of the altar.] Why so called, see 2Ki 16:14.
This image of jealousy in the entry.] Idolatry committed in God’s own temple was most abominable, as when an adulteress hath her gallants under her husband’s nose, Messalina-like.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv5–18 Then; when he had in vision brought me hither.
Then; when he had in vision brought me hither.
Lift up thine eyes; observe diligently and exactly every thing which thou mayst see northward first.
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The gate of the altar; so called, because Ahaz had removed it from the middle of the court, where by God’s command it was placed by Solomon; but now Ahaz setting it near this north gate, it gave name to the gate or possibly because of an altar erected there to some idol by Manasseh.
Image of jealousy: see Eze 8:3, &c.
In the entry; in the very midst of the court, in the very passage to the temple, to affront the worship of God.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv7, 13 We have here a further discovery of the abominations…
We have here a further discovery of the abominations that were committed at Jerusalem, and within the confines of the temple, too. Now observe,
I. How this discovery is made. God, in vision, brought Ezekiel to the door of the court, the outer court, along the sides of which the priests' lodgings were. God could have introduced him at first into the chambers of imagery, but he brings him to them by degrees, partly to employ his own industry in searching out these mysteries of iniquity, and partly to make him sensible with what care and caution those idolaters concealed their idolatries. Before the priests' apartments they had run up a wall, to make them the more private, that they might not lie open to the observation of those who passed by - a shrews sign that they did something which they had reason to be ashamed of. He that doth evil hates the light. They were not willing that those who saw them in God's house should see them in their own, lest they should see them contradict themselves and undo in private what they did in public. But, behold, a hole in the wall, (Eze 8:7), a spy-hole, by which you might see that which would give cause to suspect them. When hypocrites screen themselves behind the wall of an external profession, and with it think to conceal their wickedness from the eye of the world and carry on their designs the more successfully, it is hard for them to manage it with so much art by that there is some hole or other left in the wall, something that betrays them, to those who look diligently, not to be what they pretend to be. The ass's ears in the fable appeared from under the lion's skin. This hole in the wall Ezekiel made wider, and behold a door, v. 8. This door he goes in by into the treasury, or some of the apartments of the priests, and sees the wicked abominations that they do there, v. 9. Note, Those that would discover the mystery of iniquity in others, or in themselves, must accomplish a diligent search; for Satan has his wiles, and depths, and devices, which we should not be ignorant of, and the heart is deceitful above all things; in the examining of it therefore we are concerned to be very strict.
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II. What the discovery is. It is a very melancholy one. 1. He sees a chamber set round with idolatrous pictures (Eze 8:10): All the idols of the house of Israel, which they had borrowed from the neighbouring nations, were portrayed upon the wall round about, even the vilest of them, the forms of creeping things, which they worshipped, and beasts, even abominable ones, which are poisonous and venomous; at least they were abominable when they were worshipped. This was a sort of panthenon, a collection of all the idols together which they paid their devotions to. Though the second commandment, in the letter of it, forbids only graven images, yet painted ones are as bad and as dangerous. 2. He sees this chamber filled with idolatrous worshippers (Eze 8:11): There were seventy men of the elders of Israel offering incense to these painted idols. here was a great number of idolaters strengthening one another's hands in this wickedness; though it was in a private chamber, and the meeting industriously concealed, yet here were seventy men engaged in it. I doubt these elders were many more than those in Babylon that sat before the prophet in his house, Eze 8:1. They were seventy men, the number of the great Sanhedrim, or chief council of the nation, and, we have reason to fear, the same men; for they were the ancients of the house of Israel, not only in age, but in office, who were bound, by the duty of their place, to restrain and punish idolatry and to destroy and abolish all superstitious images wherever they found them; yet these were those that did themselves worship them in private, so undermining that religion which in public they professed to own and promote only because by it they held their preferments. They had every man his censer in his hand; so fond were they of the idolatrous service that they would all be their own priests, and very prodigal they were of their perfumes in honour of these images, for a thick cloud of incense went up, that filled the room. O that the zeal of these idolaters might shame the worshippers of the true God out of their indifference to his service! The prophet took particular notice of one whom he knew, who stood in the midst of these idolaters, as chief among them, being perhaps president of the great council at this time or most forward in this wickedness. No wonder the people were corrupt when the elders were so. The sins of leaders are leading sins.
III. What the remark is that made upon it (Eze 8:12): "Son of man, hast thou seen this? Couldst thou have imagined that there was such wickedness committed?" It is here observed concerning it, 1. That it was done in the dark; for sinful works are works of darkness. They concealed it, lest they should lose their places, or at least their credit. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the world, which the day will declare, the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. 2. That this one idolatrous chapel was but a specimen of many the like. Here they met together, to worship their images in concert, but, it should seem, they had every man the chamber of his imagery besides, a room in his own house for this purpose, in which every man gratified his own fancy with such pictures as he liked best. Idolaters had their household gods, and their family worship of them in private, which is a shame to those who call themselves Christians and yet have no church in their house, no worship of God in their family. Had they chambers of imagery, and shall not we have chambers of devotion? 3. That atheism was at the bottom of their idolatry. They worship images in the dark, the images of the gods of other nations, and they say, "Jehovah, the God of Israel, whom we should serve, seeth us not. Jehovah hath forsaken the earth, and we may worship what God we will; he regards us not." (1.) They think themselves out of God's sight: They say, The Lord seeth us not. They imagined, because the matter was carried on so closely that men could not discover it, nor did any of their neighbours suspect them to be idolaters, that therefore it was hidden from the eye of God; as if there were any darkness, or shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. Note, A practical disbelief of God's omniscience is at the bottom of our treacherous departures from him; but the church argues justly, as to this very sin of idolatry (Psa 44:20, Psa 44:21), If we have forgotten the name of our God, and stretched forth our hand to a strange god, will not God search this out? No doubt he will. (2.) They think themselves out of God's care: "The Lord has forsaken the earth, and looks not after the affairs of it; and then we may as well worship any other god as him." Or, "He has forsaken our land, and left it to be a prey to its enemies; and therefore it is time for us to look out for some other god, to whom to commit the protection of it. Our one God cannot, or will not, deliver us; and therefore let us have many." This was a blasphemous reflection upon God, as if he had forsaken them first, else they would not have forsaken him. Note, Those are ripe indeed for ruin who have arrived at such a pitch of impudence as to lay the blame of their sins upon God himself.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv5–18 Then said he unto me, son of man,.... That…
Then said he unto me, son of man,.... That is, the glorious Person described above in this vision, the glorious God of Israel, seen by the prophet in the temple, he spoke unto him, calling him son of man; a name by which he often goes in this prophecy:
lift up thine eyes now toward the north; of the mountain of the house without the court, as Jarchi interprets it:
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so I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north: being obedient to the heavenly vision:
and behold northward at the gate of the altar; at the northern gate of the inner court, where was the altar of burnt offering, brought by Ahaz; to the north of the altar he built in imitation of that at Damascus, Kg2 16:10; and here stood
this image of jealousy in the entry; or the image of this jealousy; the image before mentioned, which provoked the Lord to jealousy; this stood at the entry of the northern gate, which led into the inner court, and to the altar.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv5–18 Northward - Ahaz had removed it from the middle…
Northward - Ahaz had removed it from the middle of the court and set it near this north gate, to which it gave name. Entry - In the very passage to the temple, to affront the worship of God.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17 Verse 7. A hole in the wall.] This we…
Verse 7. A hole in the wall.] This we find was not large enough to see what was doing within; and the prophet is directed to dig, and make it larger, Eze 8:8; and when he had done so and entered, he says,-
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv7, 12, 14, 15, 17 Eze 8:7-11. And he brought me to the door…
Eze 8:7-11. And he brought me to the door of the court — This, Dr. Lightfoot understands of the east gate of the inner court, called the gate of Nicanor, over which was the council chamber, where the sanhedrim used to meet, and in some of the rooms near it they secretly practised idolatry, as God discovered to the prophet, Eze 8:11. Behold a hole in the wall — Through which I could look in, and see what abominations were committing there. Then he said, Dig now in the wall — This, and what follows, was done only by vision, during the prophet’s trance or ecstasy, while the elders sat before him. And when I had digged in the wall, behold a door — A private door, by which the elders entered into the chambers of their imagery, to perform idolatrous worship to the images. And he said unto me, Go in, &c. — To give me the fullest conviction, I not only looked through the hole, mentioned Eze 8:7, but went into the very room where these idolatries were committed. Behold the abominations that they do here — Hebrew, are doing here: even under the approach of judgments, and under the walls of my temple. So I went in, and behold every form of creeping things — It is probable that they imitated the Egyptians in this kind of idolatry; for the Egyptians used to worship several kinds of beasts and reptiles. According to Diodorus Siculus, 50. 1. p. 59, edit. Wess., (referred to by Secker,) “round the room in Thebes, where the body of King Osymanduas seemed to be buried, a multitude of chambers were built, which had elegant paintings of all the beasts sacred in Egypt.” It is not unlikely they imagined they evaded the law against setting up any image to worship, by having them only portrayed, or painted, on the wall; or, at least, that it was not so great an offence; for the Jewish people in general seem to have had little regard to any thing but the strict letter of the law, not regarding the spirit of it. However, as to objects for worship, pictures were prohibited, as well as carved images, as appears from Num 33:52. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients, &c. — Heads of the tribes or families, or, at least, principal men, (according to the number of the sanhedrim,) who ought to have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry. By this the prophet was given to see, that it was not the vulgar, or the poor and ignorant only that were guilty of idolatry, but the leading men of the nation, and those of the greatest knowledge, power, and influence, who were superior to, and had the direction of the common people; so that it was properly a national guilt, and, as such, loudly called for national punishment. And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah — Probably a prince of the people; the son of Shaphan — Mentioned 2Ki 22:9. Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah, and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 The door of the court - The seer is…
The door of the court - The seer is brought to another spot. In Ezekiel’s time there were various buildings on the space around the inner court which formed a court or courts, not improbably enclosed by a wall. The idolatries here were viewed as taking place in secret, and it is more in accordance with the temple arrangements to suppose that such chambers as would give room for those rites should belong to the outer than to the inner court. The seer is now outside the wall of the outer court, by the door which leads from it out of the temple-boundary. By breaking through the wall he enters into a chamber which stands in the outer court against the wall near the gate.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 14, 16, 17 About. This was the council chamber, Jeremias xxvi. 10.…
About. This was the council chamber, Jeremias xxvi. 10. They durst not publicly adore the Egyptian, &c., idols. (Calmet) --- They denied Providence, ver. 12. (Haydock) --- The wicked do not regard it, and hence fall into idolatry. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 gate of . . . altar--the principal avenue to…
gate of . . . altar--the principal avenue to the altar of burnt offering; as to the northern position, see Kg2 16:14. Ahaz had removed the brazen altar from the front of the Lord's house to the north of the altar which he had himself erected. The locality of the idol before God's own altar enhances the heinousness of the sin.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 EZEKIEL SEES IN VISION THE WICKEDNESS OF THE CITY,…
EZEKIEL SEES IN VISION THE WICKEDNESS OF THE CITY, AND HEARS THE SENTENCE OF JEHOVAH UPON IT, Eze_8:5-18.
5. Lift up thine eyes… toward the north — “The northern entrance was the most frequented, partly because the royal palace and buildings lay to the south and east, and the west was inclosed by the buildings of the temple itself.” — Davidson. It was the north gate which Ezekiel had entered (Eze_8:3) and he is now commanded to pause and look back to the gate through which he had just come and once more consider the heinousness of the abomination of placing within the sacred precincts that which Jehovah had expressly forbidden (Exo_20:2).
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The gate of the altar — This probably was a technical name for the northern gate. The altar was within the next court, but from this gate the view would perhaps be unimpeded. The law provided that the sacrifices should be slain on the north side of the altar (Lev_1:5; Lev_1:11), and probably it was through this gate that the victims were brought into the temple. (See Temple Plan, p. 209.)
In the entry — It was in the most prominent place and in full view. There was an “entry” connected with each court (Jer_38:14).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv5–18 5. gate of the altar] Is probably the northern…
5. gate of the altar] Is probably the northern inner gate. The northern entrance was the most frequented, partly because the royal palace and buildings lay to the south and east, and the west was closed by the buildings of the temple itself. In Lev_1:4 the sacrificial victims are commanded to be slaughtered on the north side of the altar.
in the entry] The image was situated on the north of the altar gate, and the words in or at the entry are to be taken somewhat generally. The words are wanting in LXX.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 (5) The way toward the north.—This shows that Ezekiel…
(5) The way toward the north.—This shows that Ezekiel in his vision was within the court of the priests, as otherwise he could not have looked toward the north to see the idol in the north gate. He had already seen this; but now his attention is directed to it particularly. It was not enough that he should see it; it was to be especially pointed out as a part of the reason for the Divine judgments. The expression, “Gate of the altar,” may find an additional explanation in the fact mentioned in 2Ki_16:14, that Ahaz removed the altar towards the north, and thus would have placed it very near this gate.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 That I should go far off, etc. The lesson…
That I should go far off, etc. The lesson taught was that already implied in the fact that the glorious vision and come to him from the north. (Eze_1:4) The temple was already as a God-deserted shrine. His return to it now was but the coming of the Judge and the Destroyer. We are reminded of the Metabainwmen enteuqen, ("Let us depart hence"), which was heard in the darkness of the night before the later destruction of Jerusalem (Josephus, "Bell. Jud:" 6:5:3) Bad begins, but worse remains behind. The prophet is led onward as through the successive stages of an inferno of idolatries.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 15 And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah.
Eze_8:11
And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah.
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Evil secrets revealed
1. Persons may sometimes be found where we would little expect them to be. It may happen that the irreligious shall appear among the godly, seem to be actuated by the same spirit, and to the surprise of all who knew them, contribute to the advancement of a good cause: Is Saul also among the prophets? But how frequently is the case reversed, and those who make a good profession, of whom we thought well, and even hoped the things that accompany salvation, to our great surprise, are found in situations very inconsistent with what they professed, perhaps totally foreign to all that we had thought and hoped about them. The saint, on revisiting a place from which, like the prophet, he may have been absent for a time, may behold with grief some with whom he had formerly walked in sweet fellowship, gone off from their profession, and no longer the steady ornamental friends of the cause they had once solemnly espoused. But supposing the profession retained, how often may those who are engaged in it be found in situations, in places and occupations, in which their friends and religious acquaintances would little have expected to find them!
2. Persons may even go great lengths, and take a very active part in those things which were little to be expected from their former character or present reputation in the church. Jaazaniah was one of the ancients or elders of Israel. His former character at least appears to have been good, somewhat worthy of his name, which signifies one attentive to God, or whom God will hear,--a name probably given him by his religious parents as a son of their vows. By his station he was to preside over the administration of the law, and even to take care of the worship of God, as a member of the great council to which the Jews ever looked up with veneration. But, alas! how vain is it to trust in man! In the midst, of them stood Jaazaniah. He seems to have occupied some prominent place that struck at once the eye of the prophet; he was at any rate actively engaged, and had gone every length with his companions in sin; he stood in the midst of them, while every man had his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. Who knows, when once he has deviated from the right path, how far he may go? how far he may be left to go? nay, supposing his heart not imbued with grace, how totally, if not finally, he may be given up to apostasy, and all manner of vice?
3. Godly parentage and the advantages of a religious education Neatly aggravate the criminality of such conduct. The parentage of this man is particularly noticed, and, considering the person from whom he was descended, we may well believe he had the advantage of a religious education. His very parentage and religious education greatly aggravated his crime. How seldom do ungodly or apostate children reflect upon this! They despise the religion of their fathers; they forsake, without compunction, the law of their mother. The children of such parents will have to answer, not only for the obedience they would have owed to God, even in a heathen country, and of whomsoever descended, but for all these peculiar advantages; for the contempt too, or violation, of the most sacred obligations, strengthened by the influence which natural affection ought to have had; not merely for disrespect to parental authority, for dishonouring their parents, but for dishonouring them in the most beneficial discharge of their duty, and in the best character they can sustain.
4. The idea of secrecy is a great inducement and strong temptation to engage in unworthy, inconsistent, and wicked practices. The mysteries of Pagan superstition, and the scheme of an interior doctrine in the heathen philosophy, are both well known. The former, particularly, may he traced to very ancient times, when the priests began to secrete what they accounted the essentials of religion, the foundations of even civil order, and of all morality, and to impart them only to a few;--a grand device of the devil, for not only promoting idolatry, but every species of wickedness, without fear of detection. How often do persons persuade themselves that all is well, provided only they can be concealed while indulging themselves! Such conduct, however, must indicate a want of cordial regard to truth and righteousness for their own sake, a secret contempt for the laws of the church, and even of moral decorum; it must shew that the regularity otherwise displayed is only compelled by the fear of men.
5. Notwithstanding their apprehended secrecy, such persons are still under the eye of God. (Heb_4:13, in connection with Psa_139:1-12.)
6. God can easily detect and expose them to others, to their shame and confusion. Various are the ways of detection that God hath employed. Sometimes the habit of irregularity in profession, or of intemperance and profligacy in manners, fostered for a time by secrecy, at length gains the ascendency and breaks out, so that the person stands revealed in his true colours. Sometimes, though only associates be present, their very transactions, their riot and excess, shall make the discovery, and become the subject of talk. Sometimes these associates, not to be trusted, shall divulge the matter, particularly if they have to tell that a Jaazaniah, a son of Shaphan, was among them; and the deluded man finds himself betrayed and made a sport of by those whom he attempted to gratify. (Christian Magazine.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v13 Third and fourth abomination (Eze_8:13-18)
Third and fourth abomination (Eze_8:13-18)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_8:13-14. The seer is led from the secret chamber back to the point at which he had first approached to the precincts of the Temple (Eze_8:3). He stands now at its northern entrance, not at the entrance to the inner court as in the former case, “and, behold, the women weeping for Tammuz were sitting there.” Whether they were without or within the Temple walls is not stated, but they were in the attitude of mourners. Jeremiah bears witness (Jer_7:11; Jer_44:17) to the activity of women at this period in the service of idolatry, though he does not mention their devotion to Tammuz. Nor is it mentioned anywhere else, and no satisfactory explanation has been given of it. Conjectures are abundant—often wide of the mark. They have too readily accepted this weeping and that of the Syrians, Greeks, &c., for Adonis, or the Egyptians for Osiris, as standing on the same ground. It might be no forceful objection against such comparison to say that the rites in those countries involved rejoicings as well as lamentations, and that they were accompanied with “unbridled license and excess.” But surely we may believe that if the women of Jerusalem indulged in the gross orgies common to Adoniac worship, Jeremiah was not the man to have shunned all reference to their wickedness. Whether the “Babylonian legend,” deciphered from an ancient tablet, and which tells of “a goddess, widow of Duzi, the ‘Son of Life,’ descending through the seven circles ‘of the land of invisibility,’ and reascending after various vicissitudes,” indicates the quarter from which the weeping for Tammuz was derived, is of no consequence as yet. “The Speaker’s Commentary,” while mentioning the legend, acknowledges that its purport and its influence are utterly obscure. The habit of the Jewish women, somehow or another, must have demoralised themselves and those related to them, and so was regarded as an “abomination.”
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Eze_8:15. The seer had to observe great abominations (Eze_8:6), then great abominations they were doing (Eze_8:13), and now greater abominations than these he had already seen. His view had gone from general idol-worship to secret worship among the magnates of Jerusalem, afterwards from open debasement of the women to utter defiance of God in the priestly portion of the Temple. The climax of evil in warfare is reached when the soldiers become rebels, when works of darkness are substituted for the whole attire of light.
Eze_8:16. Again Ezekiel is taken further, to a point from which he can inspect the spot “between the porch and the altar,” a sacred place in the inner court where the priests gathered together apparently only in seasons of extraordinary interest, such as a national fast (Joe_2:17). On that hallowed ground he saw “as it were twenty-five men.” Fairbairn calls them men “of priestly rank, the princes of the sanctuary,” and considers the number was made up of the High Priest and the twenty-four heads of the courses of the priests which had been arranged by David. He takes them as representing “the whole priesthood.” Is it not better to regard the number, as the Seventy was, as a historical number, and intended to show nothing more than that the priesthood even was not wholly loyal to God? Consecrated for His worship in the place where He had chosen to put His name, they were seen “with their backs towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces to the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east.” The worship of the sun, so common in many countries, had already been practised in Judea, and was put down in Josiah’s reforming reign (2Ki_23:5; 2Ki_23:11). It was too deeply rooted and too attractive to be overturned by a transient revival of purer worship; and here it is seen to have seduced the guardians of that worship.
Eze_8:17. The scenes which had been unfolded in the seer’s vision were in palpable contrariety to the worship of the Lord, but the forms of apostasy he had observed were of little account, “a light thing to the house of Judah:” they would disregard God if they disregarded the rights of their brethren, “for they filled the land with violence, and returned,” i.e., gone back again and again to their evil doings, “to provoke me to anger, and,” something especially offensive is singled out for mention, “lo, they put the branch to their nose.” The explanations of this obscure phrase, which refer it to a rite of heathen worship in which a branch was carried in the hand, or raised to the mouth, do not agree with the words: Moreover, the context has left the sphere of religion for that of morals, and would suggest some action not directly religious—at any rate, some very gratuitous evil deed. But there is no tolerable accounting for the words, and the conclusion to which Fairbairn comes seems reasonable: “One would expect the clause to denote something that rendered their sinful ways peculiarly obnoxious to God, and nothing would more readily do this than feelings of fancied security and insolent scorn.” So he surmises that it must have reference to some insulting kind of proceedings. The result would be a correspondence between their conduct and the position which the Lord was driven to take—urgent prayers but no reply (Eze_8:18). “I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity” (Jer_18:17).
HOMILETICS
EMOTIONAL WORSHIP (Eze_8:14)
This abomination in worship is not described by Ezekiel, as it has been by many interpreters, as gross and licentious. And though, probably, it deserved such epithets, yet the one term which he employs, “weeping,” suggests a course that leads far from holiness and love. We see the dominance of the emotions in worship—
I. In sensuous procedure. Weeping at one time, shouting at another, processions and extravagant gestures, are specimens of the actions to which the indulged emotions prompt. That those manifestations might appear when any feeling is casually and strongly moved need not surprise; but that they should be made a regular part of the service throws doubt on their genuineness, and brands them as unworthy of the God who is Spirit and Truth. If the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets, why should not the emotions also be?
II. In the persons chiefly affected. More readily than men, women are stirred on the emotional side of their nature. Let that side be controlled so as to stand in due proportion to the other sides, and it will help to fill worship with the tone befitting One who is loved for His love. But when it is unduly fostered, when it is fascinated to extravagant assertion of itself, a deteriorating effect must follow. For then the influence of womanly emotion, which should keep clear our family life and purify it when muddied, not only loses its efficacy, but tends to render it turbid and malarious. Women stand in a perilous position when they allow free scope to their emotions in worship. They make it an offence to God, however devoted and continuous it may be.
III. In a wrong estimate of the objects. Legends which have no truth, or so scanty an item of it that prehistoric studies and mythological suggestions are needed to find it; imaginary evils; a morbid craving for some excitement to break into the idleness of life, or into the trials which seek for the relief of change, these “beguile women of her tears,” and draw into sentimental and fantastic expressions of devotion. True, the gross aspects of emotional worship may be little manifested in modern Christendom; but emotions still count for something in worship; and we do well to remind ourselves that however deeply we feel awe in what are called sacred or holy places, however moved by a dim religious light or music, by prayer or pathetic preaching, that the worship engendered from such feelings does no more in the perfect will of God than idol images or clouds of incense. We need truth to originate and regulate emotions.
“Let Christian women, instead of wasting in sickly and carnal sentimentality the tender and susceptible natures which God has given them, weep with them that weep, heal the bruises of the suffering members of the Church, and minister to those who need temporal or spiritual help. Let them, instead of weeping over fictitious tales of morbid love and carnal sorrows, consecrate their fine sensibilities to the active promotion of the glory of Him who is altogether lovely, and whose bitter sufferings for us should call forth our tears of gratitude and glowing love. Let them try to resemble Mary, who, in her devotion, when all others were gone, stood at the sepulchre of her crucified Lord weeping, and so had her tears dried up by the risen Saviour Himself.”—Fausset.
WILFUL WORSHIP (Eze_8:16)
All forms of worship are not equally dishonouring to the only Lord. However foolish, corrupted, or exaggerated some of them may be, the climax in evil is assigned to that which springs from the determination of men to turn their backs upon Him who has revealed Himself to them. Their worship is—
I. Against knowledge. The spot at which the twenty-five men carried on their worship indicated a priestly office. Of that office it was said, “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” But here were men disowning their highest functions, doing despite to the law they were appointed to observe, who “loved darkness rather than the light,” and fell under the condemnation passed upon those who forsake their own mercies. It is hard on a father that he should be disobeyed by his child, and the hardest point of such disobedience is when it is done notwithstanding clear knowledge of his commands.
II. In desecration of the temple. Sun-worship would have been sinful anywhere; this had its aggravation in that it was conducted in the place where God’s honour dwelt. They provoked Him to His face. They deliberately polluted with their abominations that which He ordained to be holy. And though there be no such sacred place now, yet may we learn that if we take our self-pleasings in where we and others worship, we erect barriers between us and our Lord. We sin against Him and sin against our brethren.
III. In preference of the creature to the Creator. The altar was the spot on which God received the signs of homage due to Him. They turned their backs on it and insulted Him by rendering homage to the sun. The east was more to them than the threat or the promise of the God of their fathers; the seen more reverenced than the unseen; a dead object chosen rather than the living God. Thus they were guilty of treason, and under the awful ban of those who are without excuse! Alas! a similar procedure may be found still under the shadow of the Cross. “If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth”—how could professing Christians regard these words as true if it were not for sad examples to illustrate them? How many preach for self or the world! How many enter into places of worship rather to be considered respectable, to please a patron, to acknowledge an unknown God, than to “rejoice in God through Jesus Christ the Lord!” Surely we all need to try our ways in worship, to realise the Light which is ever searching our services, not that it may find fault, but that it may show our faults, so that we shall repent of our errors and form a pure and steadfast regard to the Lord alone. Then, when we cease from the creature, we shall worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, seeking not our own glory, but the glory of Him who is greatly to be feared and had in reverence.
RELIGION AND MORALITY (Eze_8:17)
The “abominations” were meant to make a deep impression upon the seer as to the religious condition of his people in their own metropolis. But more was to be observed. The evils which were seen in the Temple were surpassed throughout the land; and he is asked to institute a comparison between worship and conduct, religion and morality. Among the elements which bring religion and morality into comparison are these—
I. They are distinguished from each other. Religion has reference to visible and invisible objects in which some kind of force is supposed to reside, and which are rarely men. When they are human beings, real or imaginary, they have ascribed to them certain attributes which separate them from ordinary men. Morality has reference to the men whom we think of, speak to, act with or on. This distinction, however, does not imply separation of the two spheres.
II. They are intimately associated. Religion and morality may be separated in thought; they cannot be in practice. This is not to be understood to say that a religious man cannot exist without some kind of moral conduct, or a moral man without some friendly or unfriendly attitude towards religion. It is to say that a man’s religious sentiments have always some influence upon his social actions, even if image or sun worship could be shown never to have let their rill of religious thought flow into the stream of moral requirements. It may be that a man who worships an idol, or says there is no God, is irreproachable in his morals. Allowing that there might be no question as to the reality of individual cases, yet are they rare. They are exceptions to the general rule that a high morality depends upon a true religion. This is manifest where the God of Israel, the only true God, is served or disobeyed. His religion is inextricably mingled up with morality. Whosoever gives due honour to the Lord God accepts every moral obligation. The love of God and the righteousness of God produce love and rectitude in all relations. And should it be said that His professed worshippers are often unfaithful, dishonourable, impure, self-seeking in regard to man, it can be replied that such persons do not possess the religion pure and undefiled before God and the Father. If they went out from it, they were not of it. They never knew Jesus the Holy One or His Father. They swell the instances which show that an irreligious class or nation must be, on the whole, immoral—a moral class or nation, on the whole, religious.
III. They are unfairly estimated. The bearing of the question put to the prophet defines not only a set of opinions which held that it was not an evil thing to resort to idol-worship, but also that it was even a lighter evil to commit flagrant injustice towards each other. Both religion and morality were under-estimated; and such a course implied that if a man kept up forms of worship, he might be a tyrant, a cheat, or seducer, and be at ease! Against the notion that morality is of less consequence than religion, this appeal to Ezekiel takes an unfaltering stand. It signifies that men who supposed that acts of worship allowed them liberty to set at nought the rights of the poor and needy provoked the Lord deeply. It signifies that by the former course they had put God far away, had removed the great restraint against wrong-doings, and in the latter sent violent dealings into every circle of social life in which they could press their selfish interest. It signifies that men who were more careful to pay their idolatrous worship than to do justly and love mercy were preparing for themselves a fearful doom. Whether religion is to be more highly valued than morality is a vain question. The doctrine of God our Saviour insists on their interfusion as parts of doing His will. When sects, churches, societies, speak lightly of a man’s bad conduct because he is a recognised member; when it is judged more expedient to bend the head or knees, to wave incense, to weep over fancies or pictures, to say the words of a creed, to make reverence towards the east, to have a form of godliness, than it is to keep evil thoughts down, or to do fairly to every man, or to live unspotted from the world; when there is an attempt to palliate covetousness, misrepresentations, unkindness, on the ground that they belong to the reign of “mere morality”—then the standard of God must be lifted up, “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.” On the other hand, when it is maintained that religion is of no force to form a moral life; when palliation is made for worldly and unrighteous conduct on the ground that the doers make no profession of faith in the Christian’s God, then we must affirm that the religion of Christ is a religion of righteousness, and that they who make light of Him will go on in darkness, and so will reap the fruit of their own ways.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v12
Ezekiel
CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY
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Eze 8:12.
This is part of a vision which came to the prophet in his captivity. He is carried away in imagination from his home amongst the exiles in the East to the Temple of Jerusalem. There he sees in one dreadful series representations of all the forms of idolatry to which the handful that were left in the land were cleaving. There meets him on the threshold of the court ‘the image of jealousy,’ the generalised expression for the aggregate of idolatries which had stirred the anger of the divine husband of the nation. Then he sees within the Temple three groups representing the idolatries of three different lands. First, those with whom my text is concerned, who, in some underground room, vaulted and windowless, were bowing down before painted animal forms upon the walls. Probably they were the representatives of Egyptian worship, for the description of their temple might have been taken out of any book of travels in Egypt in the present day. It is only an ideal picture that is represented to Ezekiel, and not a real fact. It is not at all probable that all these various forms of idolatry were found at any time within the Temple itself. And the whole cast of the vision suggests that it is an ideal picture, and not reality, with which we have to do. Hence the number of these idolaters was seventy-the successors of the seventy whom Moses led up to Sinai to see the God of Israel! And now here they are grovelling before brute forms painted on the walls in a hole in the dark. Their leader bears a name which might have startled them in their apostasy, and choked their prayers in their throats, for Jaazan-iah means ‘the Lord hears.’ Each man has a censer in his hand-self-consecrated priests of self-chosen deities. Shrouded in obscurity, they pleased themselves with the ancient lie, ‘The Lord sees not; He hath forsaken the earth.’ And then, into that Sanhedrim of apostates there comes, all unknown to them, the light of God’s presence; and the eye of the prophet marks their evil.
I have nothing to do here with the other groups which Ezekiel saw in his vision. The next set were the representatives of the women of Israel, who, false at once to their womanhood and to their God, were taking part in the nameless obscenities and abominations of the worship of the Syrian Adonis. And the next, who from their numbers seem to be intended to stand for the representatives of the priesthood, as the former were of the whole people, represent the worshippers who had fallen under the fascinations of a widespread Eastern idolatry, and with their backs to the house of the Lord were bowing before the rising sun.
All these false faiths got on very well together. Their worshippers had no quarrel with each other. Polytheism, by its very nature and the necessity of its being, is tolerant. All its rabble of gods have a mutual understanding, and are banded together against the only One that says, ‘Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me.’
But now, I take this vision in a meaning which the prophet had no intention to put on it. I do not often do that with my texts, and when I do I like to confess frankly that I am doing it. So I take the words now as a kind of symbol which may help to put into a picturesque and more striking form some very familiar and homely truths. Look at that dark-painted chamber that we have all of us got in our hearts; at the idolatries that go on there, and at the flashing of the sudden light of God who marks, into the midst of the idolatry, ‘Hast thou seen what the ancients of the children of Israel do in the dark, each man in the chambers of his imagery?’
I. Think of the dark and painted chamber which we all of us carry in our hearts.
Every man is a mystery to himself as to his fellows. With reverence, we may say of each other as we say of God-’Clouds and darkness are round about Him.’ After all the manifestations of a life, we remain enigmas to one another and mysteries to ourselves. For every man is no fixed somewhat, but a growing personality, with dormant possibilities of good and evil lying in him, which up to the very last moment of his life may flame up into altogether unexpected and astonishing developments. Therefore we have all to feel that after all self-examination there lie awful depths within us which we have not fathomed; and after all our knowledge of one another we yet do see but the surface, and each soul dwells alone.
There is in every heart a dark chamber. Oh, brethren! there are very, very few of us that dare tell all our thoughts and show our inmost selves to our dearest ones. The most silvery lake that lies sleeping amidst beauty, itself the very fairest spot of all, when drained off shows ugly ooze and filthy mud, and all manner of creeping abominations in the slime. I wonder what we should see if our hearts were, so to speak, drained off, and the very bottom layer of every thing brought into the light. Do you think you could stand it? Well, then, go to God and ask Him to keep you from unconscious sins. Go to Him and ask Him to root out of you the mischiefs that you do not know are there, and live humbly and self-distrustfuliy, and feel that your only strength is: ‘Hold Thou me up, and I shall be saved.’ ‘Hast thou seen what they do in the dark?’
Still further, we may take another part of this description with possibly permissible violence as a symbol of another characteristic of our inward nature. The walls of that chamber were all painted with animal forms, to which these men were bowing down. By our memory, and by that marvellous faculty that people call the imagination, and by our desires, we are for ever painting the walls of the inmost chambers of our hearts with such pictures. That is an awful power which we possess, and, alas! too often use for foul idolatries.
I do not dwell upon that, but I wish to drop one very earnest caution and beseeching entreaty, especially to the younger members of my congregation now. You, young men and women, especially you young men, mind what you paint upon those mystic walls! Foul things, as my text says, ‘creeping things and abominable beasts,’ only too many of you are tracing there. Take care, for these figures are ineffaceable. No repentance will obliterate them. I do not know whether even Heaven can blot them out. What you love, what you desire, what you think about, you are photographing on the walls of your immortal soul. And just as to-day, thousands of years after the artists have been gathered to the dust, we may go into Egyptian temples and see the figures on their walls, in all the freshness of their first colouring, as if the painter had but laid down his pencil a moment ago; so, on your hearts, youthful evils, the sins of your boyhood, the pruriences of your earliest days, may live in ugly shapes, that no tears and no repentance will ever wipe out. Nothing can do away with ‘the marks of that which once hath been.’ What are you painting on the chambers of imagery in your hearts? Obscenity, foul things, mean things, low things? Is that mystic shrine within you painted with such figures as were laid bare in some chambers in Pompeii, where the excavators had to cover up the pictures because they were so foul? Or, is it like the cells in the convent of San Marco at Florence, where Fra Angelico’s holy and sweet genius has left on the bare walls, to be looked at, as he fancied, only by one devout brother in each cell, angel imaginings, and noble, pure celestial faces that calm and hallow those who gaze upon them? What are you doing, my brother, in the dark, in your chambers of imagery?
II. Now look with me briefly at the second thought that I draw from this symbol,-the idolatries of the dark chamber.
All these seventy grey-bearded elders that were bowing there before the bestial gods which they had portrayed, had, no doubt, often stood in the courts of the Temple and there made prayers to the God of Israel, with broad phylacteries, to be seen of men. Their true worship was their worship in the dark. The other was conscious or unconscious hypocrisy. And the very chamber in which they were gathered, according to the ideal representation of our text, was a chamber in, and therefore partaking of the consecration of, the Temple. So their worship was doubly criminal, in that it was sacrilege as well as idolatry. Both things are true about us.
A man’s true worship is not the worship which he performs in the public temple, but that which he offers down in that little private chapel, where nobody goes but himself. Worship is the attribution of supreme excellence to, and the entire dependence of the heart upon, a certain person. And the people or the things to which a man attributes the highest excellence, and on which he hangs his happiness and well-being, these be his gods, no matter what his outward profession is. You can find out what these are for you, if you will ask yourself, and honestly answer, one or two questions. What is that I want most? What is it which makes my ideal of happiness? What is that which I feel that I should be desperate without? What do I think about most naturally and spontaneously, when the spring is taken off, and my thoughts are allowed to go as they will? And if the answer to none of these questions is ‘God!’ then I do not know why you should call yourself a worshipper of God. It is of no avail that we pray in the temple, if we have a dark underground shrine where our true adoration is rendered.
Oh, dear brethren! I am afraid there are a great many of us nominal Christians, connected with Christian Churches, posing before men as orthodox religionists, who keep this private chapel where we do our devotion to an idol and not to God. If our real gods could be made visible, what a pantheon they would make! All the foul forms painted on that cell of this vision would be paralleled in the creeping things, which crawl along the low earth and never soar nor even stand erect, and in the vile, bestial forms of passion to which some of us really bow down. Honour, wealth, literary or other distinction, the sweet sanctities of human love dishonoured and profaned by being exalted to the place which divine love should hold, ease, family, animal appetites, lust, drink-these are the gods of some of us. Bear with my poor words and ask yourselves, not whom do you worship before the eye of men, but who is the God to whom in your inmost heart you bow down? What do you do in the dark? That is the question. Whom do you worship there? Your other worship is not worship at all.
Do not forget that all such diversion of supreme love and dependence from God alone is like the sin of these men in our text, in that it is sacrilege. They had taken a chamber in the very Temple, and turned it into a temple of the false gods. Whom is your heart made to enshrine? Why! every stone, if I may so say, of the fabric of our being bears marked upon it that it was laid in order to make a dwelling-place for God. Whom are you meant to worship, by the witness of the very constitution of your nature and make of your spirits? Is there anybody but One who is worthy to receive the priceless gift of human love absolute and entire? Is there any but One to whom it is aught but degradation and blasphemy for a man to bow down? Is there any being but One that can still the tumult of my spirit, and satisfy the immortal yearnings of my soul? We were made for God, and whensoever we turn the hopes, the desires, the affections, the obedience, and that which is the root of them all, the confidence that ought to fix and fasten upon Him, to other creatures, we are guilty not only of idolatry but of sacrilege. We commit the sin of which that wild reveller in Babylon was guilty, when, at his great feast, in the very madness of his presumption he bade them bring forth the sacred vessels from the Temple at Jerusalem; ‘and the king and his princes and his concubines drank in them and praised the gods.’ So we take the sacred chalice of the human heart, on which there is marked the sign manual of Heaven, claiming it for God’s, and fill it with the spiced and drugged draught of our own sensualities and evils, and pour out libations to vain and false gods. Brethren! Render unto Him that which is His; and see even upon the walls scrabbled all over with the deformities that we have painted there, lingering traces, like those of some dropping fresco in a roofless Italian church, which suggest the serene and perfect beauty of the image of the One whose likeness was originally traced there, and for whose worship it was all built.
III. And now, lastly, look at the sudden crashing in upon the cowering worshippers of the revealing light.
Apparently the picture of my text suggests that these elders knew not the eyes that were looking upon them. They were hugging themselves in the conceit, ‘the Lord seeth not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.’ And all the while, all unknown, God and His prophet stand in the doorway and see it all. Not a finger is lifted, not a sign to the foolish worshippers of His presence and inspection, but in stern silence He records and remembers.
And does that need much bending to make it an impressive form of putting a solemn truth? There are plenty of us-alas! alas! that it should be so-to whom it is the least welcome of all thoughts that there in the doorway stand God and His Word. Why should it be, my brother, that the properly blessed thought of a divine eye resting upon you should be to you like the thought of a policeman’s bull’s-eye to a thief? Why should it not be rather the sweetest and the most calming and strength-giving of all convictions-’Thou God seest me’? The little child runs about the lawn perfectly happy as long as she knows that her mother is watching her from the window. And it ought to be sweet and blessed to each of us to know that there is no darkness where a Father’s eye comes not. But oh! to the men that stand before bestial idols and have turned their backs on the beauty of the one true God, the only possibility of composure is that they shall hug themselves in the vain delusion:-’The Lord seeth not.’
I beseech you, dear friends, do not think of His eye as the prisoner in a cell thinks of the pin-hole somewhere in the wall, through which a jailer’s jealous inspection may at any moment be glaring in upon him, but think of Him your Brother, who ‘knew what was in man,’ and who knows each man, and see in Christ the all-knowing Godhood that loves yet better than it knows, and beholds the hidden evils of men’s hearts, in order that it may cleanse and forgive all which it beholds.
One day a light will flash in upon all the dark cells. We must all be manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ. Do you like that thought? Can you stand it? Are you ready for it? My friend! let Jesus Christ come to you with His light. Let Him come into the dark corners of your hearts. Cast all your sinfulness, known and unknown, upon Him that died on the Cross for every soul of man, and He will come; and His light, streaming into your hearts, like the sunbeam upon foul garments, will cleanse and bleach them white by its shining upon them. Let Him come into your hearts by your lowly penitence, by your humble faith, and all these vile shapes that you have painted on its walls will, like phosphorescent pictures in the daytime, pale and disappear when the ‘Sun of Righteousness, with healing in His beams, floods your soul, leaving no part dark, and turning all into a temple of the living God.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv5, 14 Son of man
Son of man
The combined purport of the four visions of profanation in Ezekiel 8, is idolatry set up in the entire temple, even in the holy of holies Eze 8:10; Eze 8:11 women given over to phallic cults Eze 8:14 and nature-worship Exo 8:16.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v5 Various Abominations
Various Abominations
v. 5. Then said He unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north, to the left of the direction in which the Temple faced. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north and behold northward, at the Gate of the Altar, probably just outside the entrance, this image of jealousy in the entry, the idol which filled the Lord with such deep resentment and anger.
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v. 6. He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? namely, the members of the house of Israel in erecting and worshiping a picture devoted to idolatry. Even the great abominations that the house of Israel, the members of the covenant nation, committeth here, that I should go far off from My Sanctuary? being obliged to forsake His own seat of worship on account of the fact that it was now entirely devoted to idolatrous practices. The north gate of the Temple was called the Gate of the Altar probably because the sacrificial animals were brought in there, to be slaughtered near this entrance. But turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.
v. 7. And He brought me to the door of the court, very likely the northern entrance to the outer court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall, in that portion of the wall which divided the courts.
v. 8. Then said He unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall, enlarging the hole which he saw before him; and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. Some commentators think that the text speaks of an opening which had been made contrary to the Law to admit such people to the inner court as had no right to enter, and that this opening had been blocked up during Josiah’s reformation.
v. 9. And He said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here, the idolatrous customs which they practiced.
v. 10. So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, of reptiles, worms, and similar animals, Lev 11:29-32. and abominable beasts, such as were regarded as Leviticallv unclean, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about, after the manner of decorative painting indulged in by heathen, especially by Egyptians.
v. 11. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, a number which is found also elsewhere for representative bodies among time people of the covenant, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up, as all these men were deeply engrossed with their idolatrous worship. The picture was a representation of what was done throughout the nation, in the form of secret idolatry, in various abominable cults which had gained a foothold in the country.
v. 12. Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, in the secrecy of these hidden cells, every man in the chambers of his imagery? where idolatrous pictures were painted on the walls and other evidences of idolatrous abominations were freely exposed. For they say, The Lord seeth us not, not being aware of their transgression; the Lord hath forsaken the earth, having withdrawn His merciful presence from His people. Thus they denied both the omniscience and the omnipresence of God.
v. 13. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
v. 14. Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north, where the outer court of the Temple opened toward the outside, and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz, an idol identified with the Adonis of the Greeks, whose festival, celebrated in June, was celebrated with immoral excesses. This public weeping for a heathen idol of this kind characterizes the state of affairs among the women of Israel at that time.
v. 15. Then said He unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? being duly impressed with the heinousness of the abominations practiced by people who would be regarded the nation of the Lord. Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these, some which challenged the Lord’s punishment in a still greater degree.
v. 16. And He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, to the Court of the Priests, immediately before the sanctuary of the Temple, and, behold, at the door of the Temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, the most sacred part of the inner court, forbidden to all but the priests, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord, as though ignoring or despising the Sanctuary altogether, and their faces toward the east, away from the Holy Place and from the altar of burnt offerings; and they worship the sun toward the east, in the idolatrous worship practiced by many heathen, as they gave divine honor to the lights of the heavens.
v. 17. Then He said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? this open denial of the one true God. Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, in thus heaping guilt upon guilt by utterly disregarding the rights of their neighbors, and have returned to provoke Me to anger; and, lo, they put the branch to their nose, apparently in a gesture or act expressing their utter contempt for the true worship of Jehovah, and that in the very Temple dedicated to Him.
v. 18. Therefore will I also deal in fury; Mine eye shall not spare, in showing them any measure of mercy, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, in an attempt to influence the Lord to show them a favor, yet will I not hear them. Open and vicious sinners will finally place themselves in a position where they are outside the pale of God’s mercy, when even repentance conies too late.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17 General Information:
General Information:
The "figure like a man" (Ezekiel 8:2) speaks to Ezekiel.
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Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
lift up your eyes ... lifted up my eyes
This idiom means that he should look towards something. AT: "look up ... looked up" or "turn your head and look ... turned my head and looked" (See: Idiom)
gate leading to the altar
"gate through which people would walk so they could go to the altar"
do you see what they are doing?
God uses this question to bring Ezekiel's attention to what the people were doing. AT: "I want you to understand why I hate what the people here are doing." (See: Rhetorical Question)
the house of Israel
The word "house" is a metonym for the family that lives in the house, in this case the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob over many years. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:1. AT: "the Israelites" or "the Israelite people group" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Son of Man
gate
altar
false god
jealous
abomination
house
sanctuary
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 8:7-8 The first abomination was very public, and the…
8:7-8 The first abomination was very public, and the second was very private. In order to witness it in his vision, the prophet had to dig into the wall to access a hidden doorway.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.