Hesekiel 8:16 Kommentar

God, having given the prophet a clear foresight of the people's miseries that were hastening on, here gives him a clear insight into the people's wickedness, by which God was provoked to bring these miseries upon them, that he might justify God in all his judgments, might the more particularly reprove the sins of the people, and with the more satisfaction foretel their ruin. Here God, in vision, brings him to Jerusalem, to show him the sins that were committed there, though God had begun to contend with them (Eze 8:1-4), and there he sees, I. The image of jealousy set up at the gate of the altar (Eze 8:5, Eze 8:6). II. The elders of Israel worshipping all manner of images in a secret chamber (Eze 8:7-12). III. The women weeping for Tammuz (Eze 8:13, Eze 8:14). IV. The men worshipping the sun (Eze 8:15, Eze 8:16). And then appeals to him whether such a provoking people should have any pity shown them (Eze 8:17, Eze 8:18).

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 8 This chapter contains a vision the prophet had of the idolatry of the Jews, which was the cause of their destruction. The time when, place, where, and persons with whom he was, when the hand of the Lord came upon him, are mentioned, Eze 8:1; then follows a description of the divine Person that appeared to him, Eze 8:2; and an account is given how he was in a visionary way brought to Jerusalem, and to the temple, where he saw the glory of the God of Israel, and the idolatry of the people, Eze 8:3; which latter was gradually represented to him; first the image of jealousy in the entry at the gate of the altar northward, Eze 8:5; then greater abominations through a hole in the wall, by which he saw their idols, in the form of reptiles and four footed beasts, portrayed on the wall, Eze 8:6; next seventy of the ancients of Israel, among whom were one mentioned by name, offering incense to these idols, Eze 8:11; after this, greater abominations still are showed him, at the north of the temple, women weeping for Tammuz, Eze 8:13; and then again far greater ones, twenty five men, between the porch and the altar, with their backs to the temple, and their face to the east, worshipping the sun, and putting the branch to the nose, Eze 8:15; wherefore it is reasoned to deal with them in fury, without any mercy, pity, and compassion, Eze 8:18.

And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house,.... The court of the priests, where they offered sacrifice, and into which none might come but themselves: and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar; the porch that led into the temple, and the brasen altar, the altar of burnt offerings, which was a very sacred place, and reckoned more holy than the court of the priests (g). were about five and twenty men; the number, more or less, not being exactly known; who they were, whether the priests or princes of the people, is not certain; probably some of both: with their backs towards the temple of the Lord; that is, the most holy place, which they were obliged to, in order to do what is afterwards affirmed of them; for the sanctuary was built to the west, that in their worship the Jews might not look to the east, as the Gentiles did; wherefore these men, that they might imitate the Gentiles in their idolatry, turned their backs to the most holy place; which is an aggravation of their impiety; casting the utmost contempt on God, his worship, and the place of it: and their faces towards the east: when the sun rises: and they worshipped the sun towards the east; as many nations did, though forbidden the Jews by an express law of God, Deu 4:19; yet this they fell into, and had horses and chariots devoted to this idolatry; see Kg2 21:3. The word rendered "worshipped" is compounded of two words; one signifying to "corrupt", the other to "worship": showing that, by worshipping the sun, they corrupted themselves, and the house of God; and so the Targum renders it, "and, lo, they corrupted themselves, worshipping in the east the sun;'' and so it is explained in the Jerusalem Talmud, "they corrupted the temple, and worshipped the sun;'' but Kimchi thinks the word (h) consists of the verb in the past tense, and of the participle; and that the sense is, when the prophet saw the men worshipping the sun to the east, as amazed at it, put this question to those that went in, "do ye worship also?" (i) so Ben Melech. (g) Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 7. fol. 184. 4. (h) (i) Vid. Hottinger. Smegma Orientale, l. 3. par. 1. c. 24. p. 154. who rather is of opinion that the word is compounded of the participle and the particle or the pronoun

(Verse 15, 16.) And he said to me: Surely you have seen, son of man: yet you will see even greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun in the east. We interpreted this vestibule to be near Symmachus, who placed the πρόπυλον, because the LXX and Theodotion translated the Hebrew word for it as Aelam (): Aquila's first edition, προστάδα: second edition, was interpreted as the Aelam of the temple, which we can express as the portico of the temple: or the covered courtyard that was between the temple and the altar. And as we read above, after the idol of Zeal, which appeared at the Northern Gate: You will still see even greater abominations; and the pictures of all the beasts that the seventy priests and Jezonias, son of Saphan, were worshiping were shown on the wall, with the censers in their hands. It is said a second time: You will still see even greater abominations, which these people do, because the women were sitting and mourning for Adonis; and after the third sin, it is said: You will still see even greater abominations than these. But what is the greatest abomination of the three previous sins? Namely, the fourth that follows: Behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the rising sun. They did this because they despised the Lord, that is, the Creator, and worshipped the sun, that is, the creature of the Lord, as the Lord Himself commanded through Moses (Deut. XII), that they should not worship God against the east in the manner of the Gentiles: but wherever they were in the world, whether to the east, or to the west, or to the south, or to the north, they should worship toward the temple, where it was believed the Lord dwelled in the Holy of Holies. Indeed, we read in Daniel (Dan. VI) that he did this in Babylon, who, with the windows of his upper room open, worshipped the Lord opposite the temple, which was in Jerusalem. That this was sacrilege according to the letter, no one doubts. According to allegory, he will be able to know that all heretics are worse than their predecessors, that is, the idol of Zeal and the painted figures of animals on the wall, and the lamentation for Adonis, through which idolatry and pleasures are demonstrated, he who understands the prophet saying: But you hate discipline, and you have cast my words behind you (Ps. XLIX, 17). And in another place: They turned against me the back and not the face (Jer. II, 27). Do we not know Marcion and the other heretics, who tear apart the old Testament, despising the Creator, that is, the just God, and worship and adore another false good God, whom they have invented from their own imagination? And all the heretics of our time, who preach that the Son of God is a creature, and yet adore him, confess with their own words that they adore a creature, having deserted the temple of divinity and turned their backs to it. But we worship the sun of righteousness in such a way that we worship God in the temple of the old Testament, where the Law and the Prophets, where the Cherubim and the mercy seat are. These twenty-five men we have translated, the seventy placed twenty, and in some copies, five from Theodotion were added.

Here begins a section of prophecy extending to the twelfth chapter. In this chapter the prophet is carried in vision to Jerusalem, Eze 8:1-4; and there shown the idolatries committed by the rulers of the Jews, even within the temple. In the beginning of this vision, by the noblest stretch of an inspired imagination, idolatry itself is personified, and made an idol; and the image sublimely called, from the provocation it gave God, the Image of Jealousy, Eze 8:5. The prophet then proceeds to describe the three principal superstitions of this unhappy people: the Egyptian, Eze 8:6-12, the Phoenician, Eze 8:13, Eze 8:14, and the Persian, Eze 8:15, Eze 8:16; giving the striking features of each, and concluding with a declaration of the heinousness of their sins in the sight of God, and the consequent greatness of their punishment, Eze 8:17, Eze 8:18.

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.

(Eze. 8:1-18) sixth year--namely, of the captivity of Jehoiachin, as in Eze 1:2, the "fifth year" is specified. The lying on his sides three hundred ninety and forty days (Eze 4:5-6) had by this time been completed, at least in vision. That event was naturally a memorable epoch to the exiles; and the computation of years from it was to humble the Jews, as well as to show their perversity in not having repented, though so long and severely chastised. elders--namely, those carried away with Jehoiachin, and now at the Chebar. sat before me--to hear the word of God from me, in the absence of the temple and other public places of Sabbath worship, during the exile (Eze 33:30-31). It was so ordered that they were present at the giving of the prophecy, and so left without excuse. hand of . . . 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].

worshipped--In the Hebrew a corrupt form is used to express Ezekiel's sense of the foul corruption of such worship.

Fourth Abomination: Worship of the Sun by the Priests Eze 8:16. And He took me into the inner court of the house of Jehovah, and behold, at the entrance into the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, as it were five and twenty men,with their backs towards the temple of Jehovah and their faces towards the east; they were worshipping the sun towards the east. Eze 8:17. And He said to me, Seest thou this, son of Man? Is it too little for the house of Judah to perform the abominations which they are performing here, that they also fill the land with violence, and provoke me to anger again and again? For behold they stretch out the vine-branch to their nose. Eze 8:18. But I also will act in fury; my eye shall not look compassionately, and I will not spare; and if they cry with a loud voice in my ears, I will not hear them. - After Ezekiel has seen the idolatrous abominations in the outer court, or place for the people, he is taken back into the inner court, or court of the priests, to see still greater abominations there. Between the porch of the temple and the altar of burnt-offering, the most sacred spot therefore in the inner court, which the priests alone were permitted to tread (Joe 2:17), he sees as if twenty-five men, with their backs toward the temple, were worshipping the sun in the east. כּ before עשׂרים is not a preposition, circa, about, but a particle of comparison (an appearance): as if twenty-five men; after the analogy of כּ before an accusative (vid., Ewald, 282d). For the number here is not an approximative one; but twenty-five is the exact number, namely, the twenty-four leaders of the classes of priests (Ch1 24:5.; Ch2 36:14; Ezr 10:5), with the high priest at the head (see Lightfoot's Chronol. of O.T., Opp. I. 124). As the whole nation was seen in the seventy elders, so is the entire priesthood represented here in the twenty-five leaders as deeply sunk in disgraceful idolatry. Their apostasy from the Lord is shown in the fact that they turn their back upon the temple, and therefore upon Jehovah, who was enthroned in the temple, and worship the sun, with their faces turned towards the east. The worship of the sun does not refer to the worship of Adonis, as Hvernick supposes, although Adonis was a sun-god; but generally to the worship of the heavenly bodies, against which Moses had warned the people (Deu 4:19; Deu 17:3), and which found its way in the time of Manasseh into the courts of the temple, whence it was afterwards expelled by Josiah (Kg2 23:5, Kg2 23:11). The form משׁתתּויתם must be a copyist's error for משׁתּחוים; as the supposition that it is an unusual form, with a play upon השׁחית, (Note: "An extraordinary form, invented for the purpose of more effectually expressing their extraordinary abomination." - Lightfoot.) is precluded by the fact that it would in that case be a 2nd per. plur. perf., and such a construction is rendered impossible by the המּה which immediately precedes it (cf. Ewald, 118a). To these idolatrous abominations Judah has added other sins, as if these abominations were not bad enough in themselves. This is the meaning of the question in Eze 8:17, 'הנּקל וגו: is it too little for the house of Judah, etc.? נקל with מן, as in Isa 49:6. To indicate the fulness of the measure of guilt, reference is again briefly made to the moral corruption of Judah. חמס embraces all the injuries inflicted upon men; תּועבות, impiety towards God, i.e., idolatry. By violent deeds they provoke God repeatedly to anger (שׁוּב, followed by an infinitive, expresses the repetition of an action). The last clause of Eze 8:17 ('והנּם שׁלחים וגו) is very obscure. The usual explanation, which has been adopted by J. D. Michaelis and Gesenius: "they hold the twig to their nose," namely, the sacred twig Barsom, which the Parsees held in their hands when praying (vid., Hyde, de relig. vet. Pars. p. 350, ed. 2; and Kleuker, Zend-Avesta, III. p. 204), suits neither the context nor the words. According to the position of the clause in the context, we do not expect an allusion to a new idolatrous rite, but an explanation of the way in which Judah had excited the wrath of God by its violent deeds. Moreover, זמורה is not a suitable word to apply to the Barsom - Zemōrâh is a shoot or tendril of the vine (cf. Eze 15:2; Isa 17:10; Num 13:23). The Barsom, on the other hand, consisted of bunches of twigs of the tree Gez or Hom, or of branches of the pomegranate, the tamarisk, or the date (cf. Kleuker l.c., and Strabo, XV. 733), and was not held to the nose, but kept in front of the mouth as a magical mode of driving demons away (vid., Hyde, l.c.). Lastly, שׁלח אל does not mean to hold anything, but to stretch out towards, to prepare to strike, to use violence. Of the other explanations given, only two deserve any consideration - namely, first, the supposition that it is a proverbial expression, "to apply the twig to anger," in the sense of adding fuel to the fire, which Doederlein (ad Grotii adnott.) applies in this way, "by these things they supply food, as it were, to my wrath, which burns against themselves," i.e., they bring fuel to the fire of my wrath. Lightfoot gives a similar explanation in his Hor. hebr. ad Joh 15:6. The second is that of Hitzig: "they apply the sickle to their nose," i.e., by seeking to injure me, they injure themselves. In this case זמורה must be taken in the sense of מזמּרה, a sickle or pruning-knife, and pointed זמורה. The saying does appear to be a proverbial one, but the origin and meaning of the proverb have not yet been satisfactorily explained. - Eze 8:18. Therefore will the Lord punish unsparingly (cf. Eze 7:4, Eze 7:9; Eze 5:11). This judgment he shows to the prophet in the two following chapters.