Ezekielchapter 8
18 verses · KJVEzekiel book hub →
Key verse
And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Fourteen months later, with the elders of Judah sitting before him, the Spirit lifts Ezekiel by a lock of his head and carries him in visions to Jerusalem for a tour of hidden abominations. At the north gate stands the image of jealousy. Told to dig through a wall, he finds a chamber where seventy elders swing censers among every form of creeping thing portrayed round about, each man in his chambers of imagery, saying 'Jehovah seeth us not.' At the temple gate women weep for Tammuz. And between the porch and the altar, twenty-five men with their backs to the temple bow eastward to the sun.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 8 falls in Symbolic acts and judgment on Jerusalem (chapters 4–24). Lying on his side for 430 days; shaving the head with a sword; eating food in anxiety; the glory departs in stages (8–11); the prophet survives his wife's death without mourning (24).
Abominations in the Temple. Ezekiel transported in vision to see what Judah has been doing behind closed doors.
Before it: Call and wheels-vision, chapters 1–3. After it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 25–32.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 8The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel
A. Lifted by a lock of hair between earth and heaven
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me: A second dated vision opens the way the first did, fourteen months on from chapter 1, the elders of Judah sitting before the prophet in his own house when the hand of the Lord God fell there upon him. What he sees repeats the fire and brightness of the throne vision, a likeness as the appearance of fire from the loins down and brightness like amber from the loins up, the same glory that appeared at Chebar now appearing again before it moves. Keil reads the repeated imagery as the text's own signal that this is one continuous vision cycle rather than an unrelated new appearance.
Ezekiel 8:1, 4 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
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
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
“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.”
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 8:2, 2 voices
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.”
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
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven: A hand takes the prophet by a lock of his own head, and the spirit lifted him up between the earth and the heaven, carrying him in the visions of God from Babylon to Jerusalem's inner gate without his body ever leaving Chebar, which the commentators take as an ecstatic seeing rather than a bodily removal. There at the gate stands the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy, and there too stands the glory of the God of Israel, the same glory of the vision in the plain, confronting its rival face to face in the very courts built for it alone. Fairbairn reads the collision of idol and glory in one verse as the chapter's whole argument stated before any tour begins.
Ezekiel 8:3, 2 voices
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.”
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
Ezekiel 8:4, 2 voices
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.”
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
B. The image of jealousy at the north gate
1. (vv. 5-6)
a.Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north: The guide names the first abomination directly, the image of jealousy at the gate of the altar, and asks the question the whole chapter will keep repeating, seest thou what they do? The reason given is the plainest statement in Scripture of what idolatry costs a sanctuary, that I should go far off from my sanctuary, the glory's own withdrawal named as the consequence before the tour has even reached the worst of what is hidden. Henry notes that an idol set up at the very gate of the altar, the place nearest the true worship, is a provocation sharper than one set up at a distance, and turn thee yet again promises worse still to come.
Ezekiel 8:5, 1 voice
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
C. A hole in the wall and seventy elders in the dark
1. (vv. 7-9)
a.brought me to the door of the court: The tour moves from the open provocation at the gate to a hidden one: a hole in the wall, a command to dig, and behind the digging a door leading to a secret chamber. Gill reads the physical concealment as the text's own commentary on the difference between the first abomination and what follows, sin practiced in the open at the altar gate compared with sin that still knows enough to hide itself behind a wall. The command go in, and behold the wicked abominations makes the prophet an eyewitness rather than a hearer of report, the pattern the whole chapter uses to certify what it charges.
Ezekiel 8:7, 2 voices
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.”
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.”
2. (vv. 10-13)
a.every form of creeping things: Behind the door stands a room painted with every form of creeping things and abominable beasts, Egyptian-style animal worship carried into the temple's own precinct, and before the painted wall stand seventy elders with censers, Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan named among them though his father served Josiah's reform (2 Kings 22:8-10). Their reasoning is given in their own words, the Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth, a practical atheism among the very men responsible for teaching the law, and verse 13 repeats the summons, turn thee yet again, before a third and worse abomination. Wesley notes the naming of Shaphan's son by name as deliberate, the corruption reaching a family that had stood for reform only one generation earlier.
Ezekiel 8:10, 1 voice
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
Ezekiel 8:11, 3 voices
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
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
Ezekiel 8:12, 2 voices
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.”
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
Ezekiel 8:13, 1 voice
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.”
D. Women weeping for Tammuz
1. (vv. 14-15)
a.there sat women weeping for Tammuz: At the north gate of the Lord's own house sit women weeping for Tammuz, the Babylonian and Sumerian fertility god mourned in an annual rite for his descent to the underworld, a foreign cult of death and renewal practiced at the door of the house built for the living God. The commentators note the location as the point, not a private grove but the gate of the Lord's house itself, and the fourth summons, greater abominations than these, promises a still deeper compromise ahead. Clarke identifies Tammuz with the Adonis of Greek myth, a mourning rite the ancient world knew widely and Judah had adopted rather than invented.
Ezekiel 8:14, 3 voices
Ezekiel 8:14
“Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which was towards the north,.... By "the Lord's house" no doubt is meant the temple, which the Targum here calls the house of the sanctuary of the Lord; that gate of the temple (for the temple had several gates) which was to the north was the gate called Teri or Tedi, and was very little used (y).”
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
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
Ezekiel 8:15, 1 voice
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.”
E. Twenty-five men with their backs to the temple
1. (vv. 16-18)
a.he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house: The tour ends at the innermost point it could reach, between the porch and the altar, where about twenty-five men turn their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces east to worship the rising sun, the direction reversed so precisely that the text spends a whole clause describing the men's own posture. The closing verses drop the guide's question and give God's own verdict directly, is it a light thing... they have filled the land with violence, and mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, the fourfold sequence of abominations answered with the judgment already declared in chapter 7. Fairbairn reads the escalation from the gate to the innermost court as spatial as much as moral, the compromise moving steadily closer to the holy place with each stage of the tour.
Ezekiel 8:16, 2 voices
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
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
Ezekiel 8:17, 2 voices
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.”
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
Ezekiel 8:18, 2 voices
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.''”
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
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; 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 (1871); Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill; John Wesley; Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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