Ezekiel 8

About a year and two months after his first vision, Ezekiel is carried in a vision from his house in Babylon to the temple in Jerusalem. There God shows him four escalating scenes of idolatry inside His own house. The people believed God did not see them, but He saw everything, and judgment must follow.

Ezekiel 8:1

Ezekiel is at home among the exiles in Babylon, with the elders of Judah sitting before him, when God’s power seizes him. The elders came to hear a word from God, but they were about to be shown what was really going on in Jerusalem.

BSA: hand (“power, authority”): God’s hand means His powerful, overriding grip on the prophet, not a gentle suggestion.

See also: Ezekiel 1:3.

Ezekiel 8:2

Ezekiel sees a figure in human form, fiery below and gleaming above. It is like the glorious appearance he saw by the river Chebar. God shows Himself in blazing holiness, which will judge the filth he is about to be shown.

BSA: amber (“a shiny metal”): The upper part of the figure shone like glowing, polished metal, a picture of radiant glory.

See also: Ezekiel 1:26-27.

Ezekiel 8:3

The figure takes Ezekiel by a lock of his hair, and the Spirit carries him in a vision to Jerusalem. His body stays in Babylon. He is brought to the temple’s north gate, where a rival image stood, an idol that stirs up God’s jealousy.

BSA: jealousy (“stirs up envy, arouses passion”): God’s jealousy is the faithful passion of a husband whose covenant love has been betrayed.

Hebrew: סֵמֶל (semel, H5566) — “image, statue.” The Hebrew word for this idol is rare and simply means a carved figure. Its very position in God’s courtyard was the offense.

See also: Exodus 20:4-5.

Ezekiel 8:4

Even in the midst of this defilement, God’s glory is present. It is the same glory Ezekiel saw in the plain. God has not yet left the temple, and He stays to witness and to judge.

See also: Ezekiel 3:22-23.

Ezekiel 8:5

God tells Ezekiel to look north, and he sees the idol of jealousy at the entrance by the Altar Gate. It stood right where worshipers came to offer sacrifice to the LORD. The sin was placed at the very center of worship.

BSA: Son of man (“human, a son of Adam”): God keeps reminding Ezekiel that he is a frail human being, called to see and speak for God.

Ezekiel 8:6

God asks if Ezekiel sees what Israel is doing. These abominations drive God away from His own sanctuary. The people were pushing out the One they claimed to worship. Worse is still to come.

BSA: abominations (“detestable things, idolatries”): These are things God finds loathsome because they betray His holiness and His covenant.

Ezekiel 8:7-8

Ezekiel is brought to the court entrance and sees a hole in the wall. He is told to dig through it, and he finds a hidden doorway. What was hidden from men was never hidden from God, and now it is brought to light.

BSA: dig (“force a passage, make a hole”): Ezekiel has to break through the barrier, which shows how carefully the secret worship had been concealed.

Ezekiel 8:9-10

Inside the hidden room, the walls are covered with carved crawling creatures, unclean animals and idols. God had forbidden such images. This room looks like a shrine to Egyptian-style animal worship. The people had filled their private chamber with what God calls detestable.

BSA: engraved (“carved, portrayed”): These images were deliberately cut into the wall, a lasting, planned devotion to false gods.

See also: Leviticus 11:41-43; Romans 1:22-23.

Ezekiel 8:11

Seventy elders stand there, each with a censer, and incense rises. These were the nation’s leaders, a number recalling the seventy elders who once saw God on Sinai. Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, stands among them. Their religious gestures were real but misdirected.

BSA: censer (“a vessel for burning incense, a container”): The censer was a vessel meant for worship of the LORD, here used before idols.

See also: Exodus 24:9-11.

Ezekiel 8:12

God exposes the elders’ secret reasoning. Hidden in the dark, each at his own idol’s shrine, they say that the LORD does not see them and has left the land. It was a comfortable lie. God sees every hidden room of the heart.

BSA: darkness (“secretly, without light”): They thought concealment could shield them from God, but darkness is no hiding place from Him.

See also: Psalm 139:11-12; Ezekiel 9:9.

Ezekiel 8:13

God promises Ezekiel still greater abominations. The tour moves from hidden shame to open rebellion. Sin that is not repented of grows deeper and bolder.

BSA: greater (“more severe, intense”): Each scene is worse than the last, building toward the climax at the temple door.

Ezekiel 8:14

At the north gate of the LORD’s house, women sit weeping for Tammuz. Tammuz was a Mesopotamian god of vegetation, mourned each year as he was said to die and return. Grief that belonged to the LORD was given to a false god.

BSA: Tammuz (“the pagan deity, a false god”): Tammuz was a foreign god, and mourning for him in God’s temple showed how far worship had drifted.

Ezekiel 8:15

Again God asks if Ezekiel sees, and again He promises something worse. The repeated question shows how seriously God wants the prophet to take in the truth. These were things that God could not overlook.

BSA: see (“have you looked, perceived”): God wants more than a glance. He wants Ezekiel to take in and understand what he sees.

Ezekiel 8:16

In the inner court, between the porch and the altar, about twenty-five men turn their backs on the LORD’s temple and bow east toward the sun. The temple door faced east, so they literally turned their backs on God. This is idolatry at its most open and insulting.

BSA: backs (“rear side, posterior”): Turning their backs on the temple pictures turning their backs on God Himself.

See also: Deuteronomy 4:19; Jeremiah 2:27.

Ezekiel 8:17

God asks if idolatry was not enough, since they also fill the land with violence. False worship and injustice go together. The phrase about the branch at the nose is obscure. It seems to describe some insulting or idolatrous gesture. Whatever it was, it was another offense against God.

BSA: violence (“cruelty, injustice”): Forsaking God led to mistreating people, so ruined worship produced a ruined society.

See also: Ezekiel 7:23.

Ezekiel 8:18

God’s verdict is firm. He will act in wrath, show no pity and spare no one. Even their loud cries will go unheard. After long patience, persistent, unrepentant rebellion meets judgment. This is sobering, and it shows that God takes holiness seriously.

BSA: pity (“tender, loving”): The tender compassion God often shows is, for now, withdrawn from a people who refuse to turn back.

See also: Proverbs 1:28-29.