8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there 3 at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, 4 were about twenty-five 5 men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, 6 facing east – they were worshiping the sun 7 toward the east!
12:12 “The prince 11 who is among them will raise his belongings 12 onto his shoulder in darkness, and will go out. He 13 will dig a hole in the wall to leave through. He will cover his face so that he cannot see the land with his eyes.
1 sn Reference to the glowing substance and the brilliant light and storm phenomena in vv. 27-28a echoes in reverse order the occurrence of these phenomena in v. 4.
2 tn The vision closes with the repetition of the verb “I saw” from the beginning of the vision in 1:4.
3 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.
4 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).
5 tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.
6 sn The temple faced east.
7 tn Or “the sun god.”
5 tn Apart from this context the Hebrew term occurs only in Gen 15:17 in reference to the darkness after sunset. It may mean twilight.
6 tn Or “land” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
7 sn See also Ezek 12:11, 24:24, 27.
7 sn The prince is a reference to Zedekiah.
8 tn The words “his belongings” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied.
9 tc The MT reads “they”; the LXX and Syriac read “he.”