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 upon His people for their sins and to forewarn that continuance in these outrages would result in a final and complete exile of Israel from the promised land. The present chapter amplifies the reason for the threatenings found in 7:20-22."140
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 dramatizing God's judgment on Judah for her iniquity (cf. 1:1-3; 3:16; 4:4-8). The elders were the leaders of the Judean exiles in Babylonia who had been deported in 605 and 597 B.C. This verse describes the single vision that Ezekiel wrote about in chapters 8-11.
8:2 Ezekiel had another vision of God. The description of God is the same as what the prophet wrote that he saw by the river Chebar (1:27). The description of God stresses His holiness.
8:3 In his vision Ezekiel saw God reach out and pick him up by his hair and transport him to Jerusalem by the Spirit. The Lord placed him down at the north gate of the inner court of the temple where there was an image of an idol.142This idol provoked the Lord to jealousy.
8:4 The prophet also saw the glory of the Lord manifested there, as he had seen it in his initial vision of God (1:28). The glory of God sets the idolatry of the people, which Ezekiel next saw in more detail, in striking contrast.
8:5 At the Lord's command, Ezekiel looked north from where he was in his vision and saw the idol that provoked the Lord to jealousy north of the north entrance into the inner court of the temple near the altar of burnt offerings. Many expositors believe that this may have been an image of Asherah because King Manasseh had erected such an idol and then destroyed it (2 Kings 21:3, 7; 2 Chron. 33:15), and King Josiah had destroyed a later rebuilt version of it (2 Kings 23:6). The people could have raised it up again after Josiah's death. Any idol provoked the Lord to jealousy because He is the only true God (cf. Exod. 20:1-4; Deut. 4:23-24). God is jealous in the sense that He does not want people to pursue idols because idols divert people from the true God and destroy them eventually (cf. Deut. 4:16; 32:16; 1 Kings 14:22; Ps. 78:58).
8:6 The Lord asked Ezekiel if he saw the great abominations that the people were practicing in Jerusalem by worshipping this image. It was so bad that the Lord had removed Himself from His temple. Yet He told the prophet that he would see worse abominations than this one.
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 following the Lord's instructions, Ezekiel went through the entrance and found himself in a chamber full of images carved on the wall that the Judahites were worshipping. There were pictures of many types of insects, animals, and other detestable things (cf. Lev. 11:40-42; Deut. 4:16-19).
8:11 Ezekiel also saw 70 of the elders of Israel (cf. Num. 11:16-17), including Jaazaniah (lit. "Yahweh hears") the son of Shaphan, with censers containing burning incense in their hands worshipping these images (cf. Rom. 1:23).144Some commentators believed that the gods they were worshipping were Egyptian in view of what these gods were and since the men were worshipping in secret.145Some of Judah's leaders advocated reliance on Egypt. If they were Egyptian gods, it was ironic that 70 elders of Israel had earlier confirmed the Mosaic Covenant after God delivered them from bondage to the gods of Egypt (Exod. 24:1, 9). Now Israel's leaders appear to have been appealing to those same gods for help against the Babylonians.
8:12-13 The Lord explained that the elders were secretly worshipping idols believing that the Lord did not see them because He had forsaken the land. The terminology used suggests that they were worshipping idols in their homes as well as in the temple precincts.146
"What people do when they think no one else can see them reveals their true character."147
Yet the prophet would see even greater abominations than these.
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 Akkadian fertility deity, the husband and brother of Ishtar.148Since Ezekiel saw this vision in September (v. 1), these women may have been weeping for Tammuz because he was thought to die at the end of the summer only to rise again each Spring.149
"After the exile the Hebrew calendar included a month called Tammuz, the fourth month (June-July). This was the time for grapes to be harvested. The preservation of the name Tammuz in the calendar suggests the impact this form of pagan worship had on Jewish life and worship, both during and after the exile."150
8:15 The Lord made sure Ezekiel saw the women, but He also assured him that he would see even greater abominations than these things.
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 temple facing east worshipping the sun. The Mosaic Law forbade sun worship (Deut. 4:19), but King Manasseh had promoted it in Judah (2 Kings 21:5).151Many interpreters assume that these men were priests, perhaps the high priest and a representative of each of the 24 courses of priests (1 Chron. 23), because of their number and where they were standing. Normally only priests went into the inner court of the temple (2 Chron. 4:9; Joel 2:17).
8:17 The Lord explained that not only had the Judahites committed all these abominations but they had also filled the land with violence and provoked Him repeatedly. Putting a twig to the nose was evidently part of the ritual practice of sun worship.152Another interpretation views this expression as describing some gross insult against God, something like creating a stench in God's nose.153Perhaps both meanings are correct.
8:18 The Lord promised to deal with the Jerusalemites in His wrath and not to pity or spare them even though they would cry to Him loudly for mercy. He would not listen to them.
We must remember that what Ezekiel saw he saw in a vision (v. 3). Therefore it may not be that the abominations he saw were really taking place in Jerusalem just as he saw them in his vision. The practices he saw represented to him the rampant idolatry of all the people, the civic leaders, the women, and the priests. The exclusive worship of Yahweh had broken down completely in the "holy"city.
