Ezekiel 8:11

8:11 Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel ¹  (with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand, and fragrant ²  vapors from a cloud of incense were swirling upward.

Ezekiel 8:14

8:14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house. I noticed ³  women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ⁴ 

Ezekiel 8:16

8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there ⁵  at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, ⁶  were about twenty-five ⁷  men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, ⁸  facing east – they were worshiping the sun ⁹  toward the east!

[8:11]  ¹ 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]  ² tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.

[8:14]  ³ tn Given the context this could be understood as a shock, e.g., idiomatically “Good grief! I saw….”

[8:14]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

[8:16]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ sn The temple faced east.

[8:16]  ⁹ tn Or “the sun god.”