2 Chronicles 4:9

4:9 He made the courtyard of the priests and the large enclosure and its doors; ¹  he plated their doors with bronze.

Jeremiah 32:34-35

32:34 They set up their disgusting idols in the temple which I have claimed for my own ²  and defiled it. 32:35 They built places of worship for the god Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they could sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god Molech. ³  Such a disgusting practice was not something I commanded them to do! It never even entered my mind to command them to do such a thing! So Judah is certainly liable for punishment.’ ⁴ 

Ezekiel 8:7-18

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 ⁵  of creeping thing and beast – detestable images ⁶  – and every idol of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall all around. ⁷  8:11 Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel ⁸  (with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand, and fragrant ⁹  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? ¹⁰  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 ¹¹  women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ¹²  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 ¹³  at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, ¹⁴  were about twenty-five ¹⁵  men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, ¹⁶  facing east – they were worshiping the sun ¹⁷  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! ¹⁸  8:18 Therefore I will act with fury! My eye will not pity them nor will I spare ¹⁹  them. When they have shouted in my ears, I will not listen to them.”

[4:9]  ¹ tn Heb “and the doors for the enclosure.”

[32:34]  ² tn Heb “the house which is called by my name.” Cf. 7:10, 11, 14 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 for the explanation for this rendering.

[32:35]  ³ sn Compare Jer 7:30-31; 19:5 and the study notes on 7:30. The god Molech is especially associated with the practice of child sacrifice (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; 2 Kgs 23:10). In 1 Kgs 11:7 this god is identified as the god of the Ammonites who is also called Milcom in 1 Kgs 11:5; 2 Kgs 23:13. Child sacrifice, however, was not confined to this god; it was also made to the god Baal (Jer 19:5) and to other idols that the Israelites had set up (Ezek 16:20-21). This practice was, however, strictly prohibited in Israel (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut 12:31; 18:10). It was this practice as well as other pagan rites that Manasseh had instituted in Judah that ultimately led to Judah’s demise (2 Kgs 24:3-4). Though Josiah tried to root these pagan practices (2 Kgs 23:4-14) out of Judah he could not do so. The people had only made a pretense of following his reforms; their hearts were still far from God (Jer 3:10; 12:2).

[32:35]  ⁴ tn Heb “They built high places to Baal which are in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to cause their sons and daughters to pass through [the fire] to Molech [a thing] which I did not command them and [which] did not go up into my heart [= “mind” in modern psychology] to do this abomination so as to make Judah liable for punishment.” For the use of the Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) to refer to the liability for punishment see BDB s.v. חָטָא Hiph.3 and compare the usage in Deut 24:8. Coming at the end as this does, this nuance is much more likely than “cause Judah to sin” which is the normal translation assigned to the verb here. The particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) that precedes it is here once again introducing a result and not a purpose (compare other clear examples in 27:10, 15). The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style and an attempt has been made to make clear that what is detestable and not commanded is not merely child sacrifice to Molech but child sacrifice in general.

[8:10]  ⁵ tn Or “pattern.”

[8:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “detestable.” The word is often used to describe the figures of foreign gods.

[8:10]  ⁷ sn These engravings were prohibited in the Mosaic law (Deut 4:16-18).

[8:11]  ⁸ sn Note the contrast between these seventy men who represented Israel and the seventy elders who ate the covenant meal before God, inaugurating the covenant relationship (Exod 24:1, 9).

[8:11]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.

[8:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:14]  ¹¹ tn Given the context this could be understood as a shock, e.g., idiomatically “Good grief! I saw….”

[8:14]  ¹² sn The worship of Tammuz included the observation of the annual death and descent into the netherworld of the god Dumuzi. The practice was observed by women in the ancient Near East over a period of centuries.

[8:16]  ¹³ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

[8:16]  ¹⁴ 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).

[8:16]  ¹⁵ tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.

[8:16]  ¹⁶ sn The temple faced east.

[8:16]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the sun god.”

[8:17]  ¹⁸ tn It is not clear what the practice of “holding a branch to the nose” indicates. A possible parallel is the Syrian relief of a king holding a flower to his nose as he worships the stars (ANEP 281). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:145-46. The LXX glosses the expression as “Behold, they are like mockers.”

[8:18]  ¹⁹ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.