Text -- Ezekiel 8:16 (NET)

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!

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Eze 8:16

¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

² sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).

³ tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.

tn Or “exactly twenty-five.”

⁴ sn The temple faced east.

⁵ tn Or “the sun god.”

sn The worship of astral entities may have begun during the reign of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:5).