Ezekiel 8

1-18 Abominations in the Temple

• In the 6th year [of Jehoiachin’s captivity], 6th month, 5th day [a sabbath], Ezekiel sees a vision. His report of this vision goes through Chapter 11.
• A human figure, with loins of fire, above which is a brightness like amber, stretches out its hand, and lifts Ezekiel up by a lock of his hair.
• It lifts him up between earth and heaven, and he sees visions of God in Jerusalem, to the “seat of the image of jealousy” [the temple], and the glory is like the vision he saw in the valley (3:23).
• God tells Ezekiel to look in the direction of the temple, and he will see the abominations there that drive God away from his own temple.
• And he will see even great abominations than that.
• He tells Ezekiel to dig a hole through the wall, and when he does, he sees images of “creeping things and loathsome animals” and 70 elders (including Jaazaniah son of Shaphan) burning incense. Jaazaniah was probably a descendant Shaphan, who was a scribe during Josiah’s reign (2 Kings 22: 3, 12). He was certainly someone of significance, whom Ezekiel recognized, perhaps the chief of the elders (Ezekiel 11:1)
• They do this in the dark, so they think God does not see what they are doing, that he has forsaken them. When I begin thinking that Ezekiel is only about Israel and their disobedience, I come along a statement like this that is true for all people in all centuries. We think that if people cannot see our sinning, God doesn’t see, either.
• But he will see even great abominations than that.
• God takes Ezekiel to the north gate (the outer court), where women are weeping for Tammuz [the Syrian name for the Greek god, Adonis]. Jamiesson, Fausset and Brown give more details about this idol.
• But he will see even great abominations than that.
• God takes Ezekiel to the inner court, where 25 men, with their backs to the temple, bow to the sun and “put the branch to their nose,” a reference to an idolatrous practice (JFB).
• All these things, plus their violent acts toward fellow Jews, are the reasons God will punish them without pity.