Ezekiel 8:9

_AND HE SAID UNTO ME, GO IN, AND BEHOLD THE WICKED ABOMINATIONS THAT THEY DO HERE._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

7-12 A secret place was, as it were, opened, where the prophet saw creatures painted on the walls, and a number of the elders of Israel worshipped before them. No superiority in worldly matters will preserve men from lust, or idolatries, when they are left to their own deceitful hearts; and those who are soon wearied in the service of God, often grudge no toil nor expense when following their superstitions. When hypocrites screen themselves behind the wall of an outward profession, there is some hole or other left in the wall, something that betrays them to those who look diligently. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the world. They think themselves out of God's sight. But those are ripe indeed for ruin, who lay the blame of their sins upon the Lord....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 8:1 AND IT CAME TO PASS, etc. We begin with a fresh date. One year and one month had passed since the vision of Chebar, and had been occupied partly by the acted, partly by the spoken, prophecies of the preceding chapters. In the mean time, things had gone from bad to worse in Jerusalem. In the absence of the higher priests, idolatry was more rampant, and had found its way even into the temple. It is probable that tidings of this had reached Ezekiel, as we know that frequent communications passed between the exiles and those they had left behind (Jeremiah 29:1, Jeremiah 29:9,...

AND HE SAID UNTO ME, GO IN,.... Into the room or chamber the door opened into: AND BEHOLD THE WICKED ABOMINATIONS THEY DO HERE; the idolatries there committed, wicked in themselves, and abominable to God....

CHAPTER S 8-11 Visions in Relation to Jerusalem _ 1. The vision of abomination in the temple (Ezekiel 8:1) _ 2. The vision of the linen-clothed man with the inkhorn (Ezekiel 9:1) 3. The vision of the coals of fire (Ezekiel 10:1) 4. The vision concerning the leaders: The glory departs (Ezekiel 11:1) Ezekiel 8:1. This vision shows the abomination which prevailed in the temple of Jehovah. In the visions of God, Ezekiel is brought to the door of the inner gate that looks to the north. Here was the image o

THE MYSTERY CULT. Next, through a hole in the Temple wall, Ezekiel saw seventy elders headed by Jaazaniah (son, perhaps, of that very Shaphan who had been associated with the reform of the worship thirty years before, 2 K. 228ff.) indulging in mysterious animal worship, which some trace to Egypt, others to Babylon, while others, with more probability, regard it as a recrudescence of ancient Canaanitish practice (possibly totemistic). But the explanation of this, as partly of the other practices, lies in this (Ezekiel 8:12), that they believe both themselves and their land to be forsaken by their God, Yahweh, and they are therefore driven to seek the support of other gods. (The meaning and the text of the phrase chambers of imagery in Ezekiel 8:12 are uncertain.)...

The word "wicked" is wanting in LXX....

_EZEKIEL 8:7_.— _He brought me to the door_] The first inference which may be drawn from these words is, that the superstition here described was Egyptian. This appears from its objects being the gods peculiar to Egypt: _every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts,_ Ezekiel 8:10 which in another verse the same prophet calls, with great propriety and elegance, the _abominations of the eyes of the Israelites,_ chap. Ezekiel 20:7. The second inference is, that they contain a very lively and circumstantial description of the celebrated mysteries of Isis and Osiris. For, 1. The rites are represented as performed in a secret subterraneous place,...

B. The Abominations of Jerusalem 8:5-16 TRANSLATION (5) And he said unto me, Son of man, set, I pray you, your eyes to the way of the north, and behold, north of the altar gate was this image of jealousy in the entrance. (6) And He said unto me, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? the great abominations which the house of Israel are doing here that I should go far away from My sanctuary? But You shall yet see greater abominations. (7) And He brought me unto the entrance of the court; and I looked, and behold, a hole in the wall. (8) And He said unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall. And I dug in the wall, and behold, a door. (9) And He said unto me, Go in, and see the evil abominations which they are doing here. (10) So I went in, and I saw, and behold, every form of creeping thing and detestable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall round ab...

§ 3. A VISION OF JERUSALEM'S SIN AND DOOM (EZEKIEL 8-11) Date, August-September, 591 b.c. A year and two months after his call to be a prophet, Ezekiel was visited in his house by the elders of the Jewish colony at Tel-abib, and in their presence he fell into a trance, during which he was transported in spirit to Jerusalem, and witnessed, as in a dream, a remarkable drama being enacted there. The glory of God was present during this vision in the same symbolic form, and accompanied by the same living chariot, as in Ezekiel 1, but with this difference, that it sometimes left the chariot and took up its position elsewhere. Ezekiel witnessed first the idolatries practised in the Temple (Ezekiel 8), then the slaughter of all the idolaters in Jerusalem ...