Ezekielchapter 8
18 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel dated this vision a little over a year after his call, and he received it while the leaders of the exiles sat in his house. They had come expecting a word about going home. The chapter opens the longest vision in the first half of the book, which runs through chapter 11. Listen for the guide who leads the prophet deeper at each step and asks whether he has seen. Notice who is doing the worship in each place, and the excuse they give for doing it.
Context
- Who
- The community leaders who had come to his house expecting a word from God about going home
- What
- In a vision the prophet is carried to the temple in Jerusalem and shown four scenes of idolatry, each worse than the one before.
- Where
- The prophet's house at Tel Abib, and in the vision the gates and courts of the temple in Jerusalem.
- When
- The sixth year, sixth month and fifth day of Jehoiachin's exile, about September 592 BC.
- Why
- To show the exiles' leaders that the temple they trusted had been defiled from within by the men who ruled Jerusalem.
Historical context
The scene begins with a detail that is easy to skip: the elders of Judah were sitting in his house. The exiles had kept their own leadership structure, and a prophet's house functioned as a place where people came to ask. That is why the shock lands with witnesses in the room.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
What he is shown in the temple is a tour of four courtyards, each worse than the last. First, an image at the north gate that provoked God's jealousy, most likely a carved Asherah image of the kind Manasseh had once set inside the house itself. Second, seventy elders in a hidden room, each with a censer, the walls carved with crawling things and beasts, animal imagery of the sort Egyptian religion was famous for, being burned to in the dark by the men who governed the city.
Third, women weeping for Tammuz at the north gate. Tammuz, called Dumuzi in Sumerian, was the shepherd-god of Mesopotamian myth who died and went down to the underworld; his death was mourned with ritual wailing every year, and one of the Babylonian months carried his name. Judean women were keeping a Babylonian mourning rite in the courts of the LORD.
Fourth, twenty-five men between the porch and the altar, the holiest ground a non-priest could stand on, with their backs to the sanctuary and their faces east, bowing to the sunrise. Sun worship had a foothold in Judah before this; Josiah had removed horses and chariots dedicated to the sun from the temple entrance. Turning your back on the house to face the sun is a posture, and Ezekiel reports it as one.
Significance
The elders in that room believed the temple was the reason Jerusalem would be spared. The vision walks them through the temple and shows them that the reason has been hollowed out from the inside, by men whose names their community knew.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And it answers the excuse quoted in the chapter itself: the LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land. He does see, and He is describing the back rooms in detail from six hundred miles away.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table of synagogue readings ties no weekly portion and no Haftarah to this chapter. Probed for this lane, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Ezekiel 8, and no festival reading for the book. The table holds the Haftarah of each weekly portion and the six books read whole on a feast or a fast. Across chapters 1 to 24 of Ezekiel the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 20 and 22.
How it is read
Rashi is the main commentator on this chapter in the corpus. He is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer.
The vision is dated "in the sixth year of the exile of Jeconiah" (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:1:1). On the fiery form of the second verse Rashi writes one line: "It is forbidden to reflect on this verse" (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:2:1). The prophet is not carried bodily. God "showed me [a vision looking] as if He were carrying me and bringing me to Jerusalem" (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:3:2).
Rashi walks the reader through the gates of the Temple as the vision moves inward. The prophet begins outside the northern entrance of the court (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:5:1). He is then brought to the entrance of that gate (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:7:1). At last he stands in the inner court, the Temple court proper, "for the Temple Mount is called the outer court" (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:16:1).
Of the seventy elders one is named. Jaazaniah son of Shaphan "was of high esteem, and his generation was learning from him" (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:11:1). For that reason God took particular offense at him. The rooms of the twelfth verse are chambers "Covered with a floor of marble" (Rashi on Ezekiel 8:12:1).
The corpus carries 9 notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. Radak's notes stand at 8:1:1, 8:2:1, 8:4:1, 8:6:1, 8:13:1, 8:15:1 and 8:18:1. Metzudat David's notes stand at 8:4:1 and 8:9:1. Each stands cited and unquoted, because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 38 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 7 filed under the Talmud and 31 under the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 1 it holds Seder Olam Rabbah 26:1. On verse 3 it holds Bereshit Rabbah 23:3, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Bereshit 63, Ein Yaakov, Yevamot 1:3 and Menachot 42a:3. On verse 4 it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 228:1. On verse 5 it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:49, Devarim Rabbah 2:20 and Vayikra Rabbah 17:7. On verse 6 it holds Tractate Soferim 7:3.
On verse 10 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:16, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 11:15, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:1:1, Sanhedrin 92b:9 and Sifrei Devarim 306:1. It also holds Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 5:1. On verse 11 it holds Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:9, Pesikta Rabbati 29:1, Pesikta Rabbati 29:11, Pesikta Rabbati 33:1 and Yoma 76b:12. On verse 12 it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 22, Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 30:15:8, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 32:25:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Noach 4:5 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:25:4. It also holds Pesikta Rabbati 31:1.
On verse 15 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yevamot 9:1. On verse 16 it holds Ein Yaakov, Kiddushin 4:13, Ein Yaakov, Sukkah 5:22, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:5:3, Jerusalem Talmud Sukkah 5:5:1 and Jerusalem Talmud Sukkah 5:5:4. On verse 17 it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 13:3, Bereshit Rabbah 31:6, Eikhah Rabbah 1:57, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 6:3 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:21:18.
The corpus also files 2 entries from a modern study, Learning to Read Midrash, on verse 3. They are left out of the list above because they are not a saying of the rabbis.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 8:1:1 to 8:16:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 8:1:1 to 8:18:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 8:4:1 to 8:9:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/8.json, the 38 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Ezekiel 8: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Lifted by a lock of hair between earth and heaven
Ezekiel 8:1-2
the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me: A second dated vision opens, fourteen months after Ezekiel 1:1, with “the elders of Judah” sitting before the prophet. He sees fire “From His waist down” and “as bright as the gleam of amber” from the waist up. This is the glory seen by the Kebar in Ezekiel 1:27.
Ezekiel 8:1
“Chapter 8, Verse 1. And it came to pass 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 were sitting before me. In the fifth year of the exile of Jehoiachin, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, we read about a previous vision to the prophet. But now, in the sixth year of the same king, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, a new vision is mentioned.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 8:1
“And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month,.... This was the sixth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin; the sixth month was the month Elul, which answers to part of August, and part of September. The Septuagint and Arabic versions wrongly render it, the fifth month.”
Ezekiel 8:1
“Lord God fell . . . upon me--God's mighty operation fell, like a thunderbolt, upon me (in Eze 1:3, it is less forcible, "was upon him"); whatever, therefore, he is to utter is not his own, for he has put off the mere man, while the power of God reigns in him [CALVIN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 8:1
“The elders of Judah - The prophet’s fellow-exiles are no longer unwilling to hear him Eze 2:1-10. They sat as mourners. The message here is not as in Eze 6:2, but distinctly to Judah, that portion of the people whose exile Ezekiel shared.”
a figure like that of a man: Ezekiel sees a figure like a man, fire below the waist and bright as amber above, as in chapter 1. Albert Barnes identifies him with the one enthroned above the cherubim, now standing apart to guide the prophet. Many older Christian commentators take him to be Christ.
Ezekiel 8:2
“The appearance of fire - In margin reference, seen as the appearance of a man enthroned upon the cherubim. Here He stands apart from the throne revealing Himself to His servant. Compare Dan 3:25 note. Amber - See the margin reference note.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:2
“He beheld a likeness, of a man we may suppose, for that was the likeness he saw before, but it was all brightness above the girdle and all fire below, fire and flame. This agrees with the description we had before of the apparition he saw, ch. i. It is probably that it was the same person, the man Christ Jesus.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 8:3-4
the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven: A hand takes the prophet “by the hair of my head,” while he sits in Babylon. At the north gate of the inner court sits “the idol that provokes jealousy,” and there too is “the glory of the God of Israel.” The idol and the glory face each other.
Ezekiel 8:3
“And - This, and all the passages to the end of the 16th verse, was done in vision only. Inner gate - To the door of the gate of the inner court. The north - The temple courts had four gates towards the four quarters, and this was the north gate, which opened into the great court where Ahaz had set up his Damascen altar, and where the idols were set up.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:3
“In the visions of God - Ezekiel was not transported “in the body,” but rapt “in spirit,” while he still sat amidst the elders of Judah. The inner gate - Or, the gate of the inner court. This gate, leading from the outer to the inner court (the court of the priests), is called Eze 8:5 “the gate of the altar,” because it was from this side that the priests approached the brass altar.”
the glory of the God of Israel: is still in the temple, near the idol at the north gate. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that it stays until Ezekiel 10:18, a sign of God's patience. It is the same glory Ezekiel had seen in the plain.
Ezekiel 8:4
“The Shekinah cloud of Jehovah's glory, notwithstanding the provocation of the idol, still remains in the temple, like that which Ezekiel saw "in the plain" (Eze 3:22, 23); not till Eze 10:4, 18 did it leave the temple at Jerusalem, showing the long-suffering of God, which ought to move the Jews to repentance.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:4
“The glory of the Lord having departed from His seat between the cherubims in the holy of holies (see Eze 9:3) rests in the threshold of the temple, to execute vengeance before it quits the house altogether Eze 10:18. The “there” in the inner court, which was “full of the brightness of the Lord’S glory” Eze 10:4, and at the gate of which Ezekiel stands.”
The image of jealousy at the north gate
Ezekiel 8:5-6
The guide names the first abomination, “this idol of jealousy” set “in the entrance north of the Altar Gate,” the place nearest the true worship. He names the cost: “to drive Me far from My sanctuary.” The glory’s departure is named before the tour reaches the worst.
Ezekiel 8:5
“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 Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Lord asks Ezekiel whether he sees the great abominations of the house of Israel. These sins will drive the Lord far from His own sanctuary. Jerome reads the question as a defense of God, who leaves the temple for good cause, and still greater abominations are to come.
Ezekiel 8:6
“There are those who live in retirement who do no think what wickedness there is in this world; and the more we converse with it, and the further we go abroad into it, the more corrupt we see it. When we have seen that which is bad we may have our wonder at it made to cease by the discovery of that which, upon some account or other, is a great deal worse.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A hole in the wall and seventy elders in the dark
Ezekiel 8:7-9
Then He brought me to the entrance to the court: The tour moves from open provocation to hidden sin: a command to “dig through the wall,” and behind it “a doorway.” “Go in and see the wicked abominations they are committing here” makes the prophet an eyewitness, the pattern the chapter uses to certify its charges.
Ezekiel 8:7
“And he brought me to the door of the court,.... Of the inner court, the court of the priests and Levites. Dr. Lightfoot (x) says this was the east gate, and most common way of entrance; and in that gate the sanhedrim used to sit in these times; and there the prophet sees their council chamber painted about with imagery: and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall; of one of the chambers of the priests and Levites, where they lay. (x) Prospect of the Temple, c. 28. p. 2018.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:7
“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.”
Ezekiel is told to dig through the wall, and he finds a doorway. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown give two readings: the door had been walled up in Josiah's reform. Or the scene is a picture of secret idol worship done out of the light.
Ezekiel 8:8
“Then said he unto me, son of man, dig now in the wall,.... And so make the hole larger; that he might have a fuller view of what was to be seen within the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door; an opening, by which he could go into the cell or chamber, and take a full view of what was to be seen there.”
The Lord sends Ezekiel through the doorway to see the wicked abominations inside. John Gill explains the pairing: these practices were wicked in themselves and hateful to God. The prophet must see them with his own eyes.
Ezekiel 8:9
“And he said unto me, go in,.... Into the room or chamber the door opened into: and behold the wicked abominations they do here; the idolatries there committed, wicked in themselves, and abominable to God.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:9
“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. It is a very melancholy one.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 8:10-13
every kind of crawling creature: Engraved on the wall is “every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast,” and before it stand seventy elders. “The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.” The men charged with teaching the law worship “in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol.”
Ezekiel 8:10
“And saw - every form of creeping things - It is very likely that these images pourtrayed on the wall were the objects of Egyptian adoration: the ox, the ape, the dog, the crocodile, the ibis, the scarabaeus or beetle, and various other things. It appears that these were privately worshipped by the sanhedrin or great Jewish council, consisting of seventy or seventy-two persons, six chosen out of every tribe, as representatives of the people.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
seventy elders of the house of Israel: stand before the painted walls, each with a censer. John Wesley notes that Shaphan helped Josiah reform the worship of God in 2 Kings 22, while his son Jaazaniah now leads its corruption. Those who should guard the faith burn incense to idols.
Ezekiel 8:11
“Seventy - Heads of the tribes or families, who should have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry. Shaphan - Mentioned 2 Kings xxii, 9. Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 8:11
“Seventy men - Compare Exo 24:9-10. The vision may have pointed to the contrast between the times. The number “seven” is symbolic of the covenant between Yahweh and His people, and so the “seventy” men exhibit forcibly the breach of the covenant. It is a figure of the covert idolatry of the whole people.”
Ezekiel 8:11
“How awfully it aggravates the national sin, that the seventy, once admitted to the Lord's secret council (Ps 25:14), should now, "in the dark," enter "the secret" of the wicked (Ge 49:6), those judicially bound to suppress idolatry being the ringleaders of it!”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
in the darkness: The elders worship in the dark, each before his own idol, and say the LORD has forsaken the land. They think He cannot see them. Matthew Henry notes that they hid it to keep their places and their good name.
Ezekiel 8:12
“Here what is meant is that the people generally addicted themselves to secret idolatry, led on by their elders; there is no doubt, also, allusion to the mysteries, as in the worship of Isis in Egypt, the Eleusinian in Greece, &c., to which the initiated alone were admitted.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:12
“In the dark - Hidden in the secret places which the seer dug through the wall to discover. Chambers of his imagery - i. e., chambers painted with images.”
The tour goes on, and each step shows worse sin. The Lord tells Ezekiel he will see even greater abominations. John Gill notes that the Hebrew can be read as great abominations, for the scene that follows is hard to rank above the elders' idols.
Ezekiel 8:13
“He said also unto me, turn thee yet again,.... Towards the north, as before; See Gill on Eze 8:6; and thou shall see greater abominations that they do; or: "the great abominations"; for so the words may be strictly rendered; nor does it appear that what follows, though great abominations, were greater than the creeping things, four footed beasts, and other idols, or dunghill gods, portrayed upon the walls, which the elders of Israel burnt incense to.”
Women weeping for Tammuz
Ezekiel 8:14-15
the north gate of the house of the LORD: At the north gate of the Lord’s house the prophet sees “women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz,” the Mesopotamian god mourned in a yearly rite. Clarke identifies Tammuz with the Adonis of Greek myth, a rite Judah adopted. The place is the point, the gate of the Lord’s own house.
Ezekiel 8:14
“There sat women weeping for Tammuz - This was Adonis, as we have already seen; and so the Vulgate here translates. My old MS. Bible reads, There saten women, mornynge a mawmete of lecherye that is cleped Adonrdes. He is fabled to have been a beautiful youth beloved by Venus, and killed by a wild boar in Mount Lebanon, whence springs the river Adonis, which was fabled to run blood at his festival in August.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:14
“Yet such absurdities as these are those guilty of who follow after lying vanities and forsake their own mercies. Some think it was for Adonis, an idol among the Greeks, other for Osiris, an idol of the Egyptians, that they shed these tears. The image, they say, was made to weep, and then the worshippers wept with it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
After the women weeping for Tammuz, the Lord asks Ezekiel whether he sees this. Still greater abominations wait in the inner court. Jerome describes what follows: about twenty-five men between the porch and the altar, backs to the temple, bowing to the sun in the east.
Ezekiel 8:15
“Then said he unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man?.... This shocking piece of idolatry, women weeping for Tammuz: turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these; or, "great abominations besides these" (f). (f) תועבות גדלות מאלה "abominationes magnas praeter istas", Calvin.”
Twenty-five men with their backs to the temple
Ezekiel 8:16-18
So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD: About twenty-five men stand “with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east,” bowing to the sun. God answers with the sentence of chapter 7: “I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them.”
Ezekiel 8:16
“Five and twenty men - These most probably represented the twenty-four courses of the priests, with the high priest for the twenty-fifth. This was the Persian worship, as their turning their faces to the east plainly shows they were worshipping the rising sun.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:16
“The porch - That stately porch, beautified with the curious and mighty brass pillars, Jachin and Boaz. Altar - The brazen altar for burnt-offerings, which was placed in the court before the front of the temple, and is here represented in its proper place. Their backs - In contempt of God, and his worship.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
they are even putting the branch to their nose!: The Lord joins two charges, abominations in His house and violence that fills the land, which Albert Barnes calls sin against God and against man. The branch to the nose was a known act of worship. Its meaning is now uncertain.
Ezekiel 8:17
“Violence” represents sin against man, “abominations” sins against God. These went hand in hand in Jerusalem. And have returned - After the reformation effected for a time by Josiah’s zeal, they have gone back to their old state. They put the branch to their nose - An allusion to a then familiar practice, of which we find no clear traces elsewhere. Ezekiel is describing the attitude usual in such devotions, the branch held before the mouth, but wishing to represent it in contemptuous and derogatory terms, he substitutes the word “nose” for “mouth.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:17
“Violence - All injustice is here meant towards all sorts of men, whom they first despise and next destroy. Returned - From injustice against man they return to impiety against God. The branch - As the worshippers of Bacchus waved their Thyrsus, the stalk wreathed with ivy, and bowed their bodies and often kissed the branches, so did these idolatrous Jews.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Lord answers with wrath, without pity or sparing. Even loud cries will go unheard. Matthew Henry notes that the Lord will now be as deaf to them as their idols were to those who cried to them.
Ezekiel 8:18
“Therefore will I also deal in fury,.... Being provoked by such abominable idolatries, and such horrid insolence, and most contemptuous treatment: mine eye shall not spare: neither will I have pity: see Eze 5:11; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice; very pressingly and earnestly for help, being in great distress: yet will I not hear them; as they turned their backs on him, he will turn a deaf ear to them, and not regard their cries. The Targum is, "they shall pray before me, with a great voice, and I will not receive their prayer.''”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 8:18
“God will now be as deaf to their prayers as their own idols were, on whom they cried aloud, but in vain, 1 Kings xviii. Time was when God was ready to hear even before they cried and to answer while they were yet speaking; but now they shall seek me early and not find me, Prov. i. It is not the loud voice, but the upright heart, that God will regard.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How this psalm is built
The form: A tour of the temple in four scenes, each nearer the sanctuary and each introduced as a greater abomination, as Gill classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| You will see even greater abominations | The guide ends three scenes with the same line, at verses 6, 13 and 15, and each time leads the prophet farther in. Gill notes that the Hebrew of verses 13 and 15 may also be rendered great abominations, or great abominations besides these, and doubts that each scene was worse than the one before. Read either way, the refrain moves the prophet from the north gate to the space between the portico and the altar.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Ezekiel 8:13 and 8:15. | Ezekiel 8:6, Ezekiel 8:13, Ezekiel 8:15 |
How this chapter is built
1 more paragraph on the patterns
The chapter is a guided tour in four stops, and each stop is closer to the house of the LORD. The idol that provokes jealousy stands at the north gate in verses 3 to 6, the seventy elders burn incense before carved images inside a wall in verses 7 to 13, women weep for Tammuz at the north gate of the house in verses 14 and 15, and twenty-five men bow to the sun between the portico and the altar in verse 16. A question and a refrain close three of the stops, do you see, and you will see even greater abominations. Gill notes that the Hebrew may be read great abominations rather than greater, and Jerome identifies Tammuz with the Adonis mourned by the Greeks. The tour ends in verse 18 with the verdict, and chapter 9 carries it out.
Keep studying
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Ezekiel 8:13 and 8:15.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.