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Texts -- Ezekiel 8:1-18 (NET)

Context
A Desecrated Temple
8:1 In the sixth year , in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month , as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting in front of me, the hand of the sovereign Lord seized me. 8:2 As I watched , I noticed a form that appeared to be a man . From his waist downward was something like fire , and from his waist upward something like a brightness , like an amber glow . 8:3 He stretched out the form of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head . Then a wind lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem by means of divine visions , to the door of the inner gate which faces north where the statue which provokes to jealousy was located . 8:4 Then I perceived that the glory of the God of Israel was there , as in the vision I had seen earlier in the valley . 8:5 He said to me, “Son of man , look up toward the north .” So I looked up toward the north , and I noticed to the north of the altar gate was this statue of jealousy at the entrance . 8:6 He said to me, “Son of man , do you see what they are doing – the great abominations that the people of Israel are practicing here , to drive me far from my sanctuary ? But you will see greater abominations than these!” 8:7 He brought me to the entrance of the court , and as I watched , I noticed a hole in the wall . 8:8 He said to me, “Son of man , dig into the wall .” So I dug into the wall and discovered a doorway . 8:9 He said to me, “Go in and see the evil abominations they are practicing here .” 8:10 So I went in and looked . I noticed every figure of creeping thing and beast – detestable images– and every idol of the house of Israel , engraved on the wall all around . 8:11 Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel (with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand , and fragrant vapors from a cloud of incense were swirling upward . 8:12 He said to me, “Do you see , son of man , what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark , each in the chamber of his idolatrous images ? For they think , ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land !’” 8:13 He said to me, “You will see them practicing even greater abominations !” 8:14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house . I noticed women sitting there weeping for Tammuz . 8:15 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man ? You will see even greater abominations than these !” 8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house . Right there at the entrance to the Lord’s temple , between the porch and the altar , were about twenty-five men with their backs to the Lord’s temple , facing east – they were worshiping the sun toward the east ! 8:17 He said to me, “Do you see , son of man ? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here ? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further . Look , they are putting the branch to their nose ! 8:18 Therefore I will act with fury ! My eye will not pity them nor will I spare them. When they have shouted in my ears , I will not listen to them.”

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Expository Notes on the Bible (Constable)

  • 6:9-12 "The same explanation for Enoch's rescue from death (he walked with God') is made the basis for Noah's rescue from death in the Flood: he walked with God' (6:9). Thus in the story of Noah and the Flood, the author is a...
  • 46:4-5 God's presence in Jerusalem was similar to that of a refreshing life-giving river rather than the raging sea (v. 3; cf. Isa. 8:6; 33:21). Old Jerusalem, of course, had no literal river flowing through it (cf. Rev. 22:1...
  • 6:1 Why did Isaiah date this passage since he did not date most of his others?70Probably he did so because King Uzziah had been the best king of Judah since Solomon. Nevertheless during the last part of his reign he suffered ...
  • 7:29 The people were to cut off their hair as a sign of grief."The command to cut off the hair' (lit., crown' . . .) is in the feminine in Hebrew, showing that the city (cf. 6:23--'O Daughter of Zion') is meant. The charge st...
  • "The sermon ends (if these verses, still in prose, should be taken with ch. 7) on a note which takes away the last shreds of comfort for those whose hopes or memories are bound up with Jerusalem."1838:1 When the invasion from...
  • Having given a true prophecy about the future, Jeremiah proceeded to announce God's judgment on the false prophets who were misleading His people with false prophecies (cf. v. 1). This section consists of six different messag...
  • This section consists of four parts: a summary of Jeremiah's Temple Sermon (vv. 2-6), the prophet's arrest and trial (vv. 7-16), the elders' plea for his life (vv. 17-19, 24), and the incident involving Uriah and his executio...
  • 29:1-3 Jeremiah sent a letter to all the Judahites who had gone into exile in Babylon with King Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) in 597 B.C. We do not know the date of its composition, but Jeremiah probably wrote it within a few years o...
  • Ezekiel ministered to the Jews in exile. He probably wrote this book for the benefit of the exiles and the other Jewish communities of his day and beyond his day. In some of his visions (e.g. chs. 8 and 11) the Lord carried t...
  • There are two major structural peculiarities that set Ezekiel off as distinctive.First, the book is a collection of prophecies arranged in almost consistent chronological order. No other prophetical book is as consistently ch...
  • Ezekiel contains a combination of several types of literature. These include proverbs, visions, parables, symbolic acts, allegories, rhetorical questions, dreams, drama, funeral dirges, history, and apocalyptic revelations."T...
  • Several theological concepts receive considerable attention in Ezekiel. Alexander identified five central ones: the nature of God, the purpose and nature of God's judgment, individual responsibility, the ethical, religious, a...
  • Ezekiel began prophesying when he was 30 years old, and he had gone into captivity five years before that. Thus Ezekiel was familiar with Jeremiah's preaching and ministry. Ezekiel shows quite a bit of similarity to Jeremiah ...
  • I. Ezekiel's calling and commission chs. 1-3A. The vision of God's glory ch. 11. The setting of the vision 1:1-32. The vision proper 1:4-28B. The Lord's charge to Ezekiel chs. 2-31. The recipients of Ezekiel's ministry 2:1-52...
  • "The setting of the Mesopotamian dream-visions--which occurred in both the Assyrian period and the Babylonian period . . . --consisted of four elements: (1) the date, (2) the place of reception, (3) the recipient, and (4) the...
  • 1:22 Ezekiel also saw something like a clear expanse (Heb. raqia', firmament, Gen. 1:6; Ps. 19:1; 150:1; Dan. 12:3) of ice (Heb. qerah, crystal) over the heads of these four living creatures. Rather than being empty space thi...
  • This pericope contains 10 commands, and it is the center of the chiasm in chapters 1-3."The Lord's charge to Ezekiel emphasized the absolute necessity of hearing, understanding, and assimilating God's message prior to going f...
  • Evidently Ezekiel's verbal explanation of this drama came at the very end of the drama, at the time of the real destruction of Jerusalem. Ezekiel was no longer silent then.5:5-6 The Lord explained that the center of the drama...
  • These chapters all concern one vision that Ezekiel received. Chapter 8 exposes the abominable idolatry of the people of Jerusalem, and chapters 9-11 describe God's judgment on this idolatry."Ezekiel was first confronted with ...
  • This chapter contrasts the glory of God with the idolatry of Judah's leadership and citizens back in Jerusalem."The purpose of the visions of chapter 8 was twofold: to show the Jews in Babylon the righteous judgment of God up...
  • 8:1 The following prophecy came to Ezekiel during September of 592 B.C. as he was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel.141This would have been during the time when he was lying on his right side for part of the day ...
  • 8:7-8 The Lord then brought Ezekiel, in his vision, to some entrance to the temple courtyard. There Ezekiel saw a hole in the wall.143At the Lord's command, Ezekiel dug in the wall and discovered an entrance.8:9-10 Also follo...
  • 8:14 The Lord then brought Ezekiel to the north entrance to the inner temple courtyard, in his vision (cf. vv. 3, 5). There the prophet saw women weeping for Tammuz (cf. Isa. 17:10-11). Tammuz was an ancient Sumerian and then...
  • 8:16 The Lord next took Ezekiel to the main entrance into the temple, to a place between the altar of burnt offerings and the temple porch. There Ezekiel saw about 25 men bowing down to the ground with their backs to the temp...
  • 9:1 In his vision Ezekiel heard the Lord (cf. v. 4) cry out loudly for the executioners (guards), who would punish the people of Jerusalem, to draw near to Him with their weapons in hand. The Lord had predicted that the peopl...
  • Ezekiel's vision of the departure of Yahweh's glory (chs. 8-11) now reached its climactic conclusion.
  • 11:1 The Spirit next lifted Ezekiel up in his vision and transported him to the east (main) gate of the temple courtyards where God's glory had moved (cf. 10:19). There the prophet saw 25 of the governing leaders of the peopl...
  • "The exiles had not grasped the serious consequences of Ezekiel's warnings. They still hoped for an early return to Palestine, for they viewed the continued preservation of Jerusalem and Judah as signs of security. After all,...
  • This section contains three messages from the Lord all of which deal with the inevitability of another deportation of Jews from Jerusalem and Judah (vv. 1-7, 8-16, 17-20). Jerusalem would be overthrown and the Jews still ther...
  • 14:1-2 Some of the elders of the Jewish community in exile came to visit Ezekiel. While these men sat with the prophet, a word from the Lord came to him.14:3 The Lord revealed to His servant that these elders (along with the ...
  • 20:1 Certain elders of the Jewish exiles came to Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord (cf. 14:1-11). Inquiring of the Lord meant securing a divine revelation concerning a particular event (cf. 1 Kings 14:5-18; 22:7-28; 2 Kings 8:8-...
  • It is appropriate that this section appears at this point in Ezekiel, between the messages announcing judgment on Judah and Jerusalem for sin (chs. 4-24) and the messages announcing future blessings for Israel (chs. 33-48). I...
  • "This last major division of the book focuses on the restoration of Israel's blessing. Israel would be judged for her sin (chaps. 1-24) as would the surrounding nations (chaps. 25-32). But Israel will not remain under judgmen...
  • Since this message is undated, it may have come to Ezekiel about the same time as the previous two in chapter 32, namely, in the last month of 585 B.C. If so, Ezekiel received it about two months after God gave him the six me...
  • This part of Ezekiel's message of warning to the exiles is similar to 3:16-21. Yahweh recommissioned Ezekiel to his prophetic task (cf. chs. 2-3)."Now that Ezekiel's original ministry of judgment was completed, God appointed ...
  • This well-known apocalyptic vision of the valley of dry bones pictures the manner in which Yahweh would restore His people.473This may be the best known section of the Book of Ezekiel."Few other passages have suffered more fr...
  • The Book of Ezekiel begins with a vision of God's glory (ch. 1), records the departure of God's glory (chs. 8-11), and ends with another vision of God's glory (chs. 40-48). This is the longest vision outside the Book of Revel...
  • 40:1 Ezekiel dated the vision that comprises the final portion of the book as coming to him in 573 B.C., more than 12 years after his immediately preceding messages (cf. 33:21-22).512He located it in time using two points of ...
  • 43:1-2 Ezekiel's guide next led him to the east gate in the outer wall. This was the wall of the millennial temple that he had been seeing and continued to see, not the wall of the Solomonic temple. There the prophet saw the ...
  • 43:6 The prophet heard someone speaking to him from the temple, and there was a man, probably Ezekiel's guide, standing beside him (cf. 1:16).43:7-8 The one speaking from the temple, undoubtedly the Lord, told Ezekiel that th...
  • Ackroyd, Peter R. Exile and Restoration. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968.Alexander, Ralph H. Ezekiel. Everyman's Bible Commentary series. Chicago: Moody Press, 1976._____. "Ezekiel."In Isaiah-Ezekiel. Vol. 6 of The Expo...
  • 8:2 Evidently Daniel was in Babylon when he had this vision, but what he saw, including himself, was in Susa (Shushan, AV; cf. Ezek. 8:3; 40:1).293Daniel probably knew where he was in his vision because he had visited Susa. I...
  • 1:9 John now addressed the seven churches to which he sent this epistolary prophecy directly. He described himself to his readers as their brother in Christ and a partaker with them in three things. These were, first, the rel...
  • 4:2 As soon as John heard this invitation, he entered another ecstatic state (cf. 1:10). His body remained on the earth, but he saw a throne and someone sitting on it in heaven (cf. Ezek. 11:1, 5). "Throne"occurs 45 times in ...
  • What happened next evidently took place in heaven.6:9 The altar John saw was evidently in heaven (cf. 8:3, 5; 14:18). Earlier John had seen a throneroom in heaven (chs. 4-5), but now he saw a temple. Probably the concepts of ...

Expositions Of Holy Scripture (Maclaren)

  • Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery?'--Ezekiel 8:12. THIS is part of a vision which came to the prophet in his cap...
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