Ezekiel 6:4

And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. IMAGES - called so from a Hebrew root [chaamam], to wax hot, implying the mad ardour of Israel after idolatry (Calvin). Others translate [ chamaaneeykem (H2553)], sun-images; and so in Ezekiel 6:6, (see 2 Kings 23:11, where Josiah is stated to have burned "the chariots of the sun with fire;" 2 Chronicles 34:4, margin; and Isaiah 17:8, margin.) The cognate word ...

Hence it appears how greatly obedience pleases God, and how true it is that it is better than sacrifices. (1 Samuel 15:22; 1 Kings 12:0.) For it is certain that the _Israelites _extolled their own fictions exorbitantly, as if they were worshipping God _correctly _In the beginning, indeed, Jeroboam cunningly devised those new rites, that he might alienate the ten tribes from the family of David, and at length the error spread, so that they thought that God approved that impious worship. But we see that God abominates them. We should always hold this principle, that although men think that they obey God when they thrust in their own fictions, yet they produce no other effect than to provoke the wrath of God against them. This vengeance, therefore, had not been taken against altars, unless God had been greatly offended with the impious mixture. Your al

Verse Ezekiel 6:4. _YOUR IMAGES SHALL BE BROKEN_] Literally, your _sun_ _images_; representations of the sun, which they worshipped. See the margin....

IMAGES - See the margin and margin reference, and the Ezekiel 8:16 note. IDOLS - The Phoenicians were in the habit of setting up “heaps” or “pillars” of stone in honor of their gods, which renders the use of the word more appropriate....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 6:2, EZEKIEL 6:3 SET THY FACE TOWARD THE MOUNTAINS, etc. The formula is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel. We have had it with a different verb in the Hebrew, in Ezekiel 4:3. It will meet us again in Ezekiel 20:46; Ezekiel 21:2; Ezekiel 25:2; Ezekiel 28:21;...

AND YOUR ALTARS SHALL BE DESOLATE,.... Being pulled down; or because the priests and worshippers would now be slain, and there would be none to attend them: AND YOUR IMAGES SHALL BE BROKEN; the "images of the sun" b. The word for images has its derivation from heat; and were so called, either from the heat of the sun, to whose worship they were devoted, or from the heat of the love and affections of their worshippers: AND I WILL CAST DOWN YOUR SLAIN [MEN] BEFORE YOUR IDOLS; before your dung, or your "dunghill gods" c; for the word used has the signification of dung, Ezekiel 4:12. The Targum renders it, "before the carcass of your idols;'' where they committed idolatry, there they should be slain; which points at the cause of their punishment. b חמניכם "simulacra vestra solis", Pagninus; "solaria vestra", Vatablus;

Ezekiel 6:1. The mountains of Israel are mentioned first, because they were the places where the people practiced idolatry; they were the high places so often mentioned in the historical books. (Read Leviticus 26:30 .) Hundreds of years before, Moses wrote these words; and now they were all to be fulfilled. But the Lord also promised that a remnant should be left. That remnant would acknowledge the evil they had done. “They shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.” The words “because I am broken with their whorish heart” means literally translated, “When I shall have broken their whorish heart which has departed from Me.” No judgment which has ever come upon Israel made a complete end of the nation. A remnant always remained and returned to the Lord. (See...

EZEKIEL 6. THE DOOM OF THE SINFUL MOUNTAINS. Ezekiel 6:1. Not only, however, was Jerusalem steeped in sin, but the whole land; therefore the whole land is here addressed and denounced, or rather the mountains, partly because the mountains were the conspicuous and characteristic feature of Canaan: but more especially because from time immemorial the high places upon them had been the seat of idolatry. The Hebrews had taken them over from the Canaanites, and with them many elements of the idolatrous worship practised within them. Thirty years before a desperate effort, based upon the newly-discovered book of Deuteronomy, had been made by Josiah to abolish these sanctuaries; but such a passage as this shows us that they still persisted. The words high places, which primarily denoted sanctuaries on heights (_e.g._ of hills), came to denote sanctuaries in general, and so are applied her

IMAGES. sun. images. Ref, to Pentateuch (Leviticus 26:30). App-92. Compare 2 Chronicles 14:5. 2Ch 34:4, 2 Chronicles 34:7; Isaiah 17:8; Isaiah 27:9. IDOLS. manufactured gods....

Second Section. Ch. Ezekiel 3:22 to Ezekiel 7:27 The second section of the Book contains these parts: (1) Ch. Ezekiel 3:22-27. A preface in which the prophet is commanded to confine himself to his own house, and abandon for a time his public ministry. (2) Ch. Ezekiel 4:1-4. A series of symbols representing the siege of Jerusalem, the scarcity during it, the pollution of the people in exile among the nations, and the terrible fate of the inhabitants on the capture of the city. (3) Ch. Ezekiel 5:5-17. Exposition of these s