Perhaps this might be taken from the word Ammuz, which means somewhat concealed. We no where meet with the word but Ezekiel 8:14. And the Holy Ghost, by his servant the prophet, hath thought proper to say so little upon it, that we can only form conjectures from the Scriptures connected with it. As this was an age when Israel were gone far into idolatry, it should seem that this was an idol particularly worshipped by the women, as the sun was the idol of the men. And from the connected circumstances with the idolatry of the neighboring nations, there is reason to believe that acts of obscenity and lewdness accompanied this horrid species of Israel's transgressions. One of the old writers, David Kimchi, hath gone so far as to explain according to his views, and perhaps from tradition, that this figure of Tammuz was made of hollow brass, the eyes of the figure filled with a composition that when melted from the heat of a fire made within, seemed to drop like tears; and that upon those occasions the women at their festivals presented themselves before the idol as weeping before it. Oh, what an awful state is our nature reduced to by the fall! (See Moloch.)


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