Ezekiel 8
1 “And it
came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the
fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine
house, and the elders of
Judah sat before me, that the hand of the
Lord GOD fell there upon
me.” And it came to pass, etc. We begin with a fresh date. One year
and one month had passed since the vision of Chebar, and had been
occupied partly by the acted, partly by the spoken,
prophecies of the
preceding chapters. In the mean time, things had gone from bad to worse
in
rampant, and had found its way even into the temple. It is probable that
tidings of this had reached Ezekiel, as we know that
frequent
communications passed between the exiles and those they had
left behind
(Jeremiah 29:1-3, 9, 25). Directly or indirectly, Elasah the son of
Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah. may have conveyed a
message, orally or written, from Jeremiah himself. Some
such report may
have led to the visit from the elders of
term the exiles of Tel-Abib. I
venture, however, on the conjecture that
possibly those who came to the prophet were actually
visitors who had
come from
thus came are described as “elders of
“they of the
Captivity” (ch. 3:15). In either case, the
visions
that follow gain a special significance. The prophet
becomes the seer. It is
given to him to know, in a manner which finds a spurious analogue
in the
alleged mental traveling of the clairvoyant of modern
psychology, what is
passing in the city from which the messengers had come —
and to show
that he knows it. With such facts before his eyes, what
other answer can
there be than that EVIL MUST MEET ITS DOOM? And so we pass into
the second series of prophecies which ends with ch.13:23.
It would seem as
if the enquirers had kept silent as well as the prophet. We
are not told that
they asked anything. His look and manner, perhaps also attitude
and
gesture, forbade utterance. The hand of the Lord — the trance state —
was in the act to fall on him (see notes on ch. 3:14, 22). When the
trance state was over, we may think of him as reporting and
recording
what he had thus seen in vision.
2 “Then I
beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the
appearance of his loins even downward,
fire; and from his loins
even upward, as the appearance of
brightness, as the color of
amber.”
I beheld, and lo a likeness, etc. The vision opens with a
theophany like that of ch. 1.; but here,
as there, Ezekiel uses the word
which emphasizes the fact that what he had seen was but a “likeness”
of
the ineffable glory, an image of the Unseen. (For “amber,” see ch.1:4, 27.)
In this case we note the absence of the cherubic figures.
It is
simply the “appearance of the likeness of the glory of Jehovah,” seen now
in the glow of fire, without the milder, more hopeful
brightness of the
rainbow (ch. 1:28).
A Revelation of Fire (v.2)
The prophet is visited with a series of new visions under
fresh
circumstances. No longer walking among the weeping captives
by the
waters of
now in his own house receiving a deputation of Jewish
leading men, who
have evidently been impressed by his earlier prophecies,
and who have
come to consult him on the condition and prospects of his
nation, when he
is seized with an inspired rapture. The house and the
visitors melt away
from his consciousness, and there in the very presence of
these waiting and
astonished guests the prophet’s eyes are opened to a vision
of God, and he
is carried in imagination to
scenes of sin and shame in the temple at
Truly the Spirit breatheth where
it listeth. God may visit a soul in company
as well as in solitude, in the home as well as in the
temple or in the
seclusion of nature. HE IS
EVER PRESENT! The only question in
—
When and how will the veil be lifted?
that is here portrayed. Not that
man at any time can see God with the
outward eye, for flesh cannot
see spirit. But in vision and representative
form God now manifests Himself
to Ezekiel.
Ø
The vision of God precedes the revelation of truth. It was usual
for this great seer of
visions, Ezekiel, to have a new series of revelations
opened by some overwhelming
manifestation of God’s presence. The
same occurred with John’s
visions in the Apocalypse. We must know
God before we can
understand Divine truth. The vision of God in the
soul must come
first. Then truth can be seen in his light.
Ø
The vision of God precedes the revelation of man. Ezekiel is about to
see awful sights of sin. He must first behold the pure fire of God’s
presence. We cannot know man till we see him in the light of God. The
Bible that gives us our highest
knowledge of God also gives us our
Deepest insight into man. Vague ideas of God lead to LIGHT
THOUGHTS OF SIN! When about to visit the haunts of wickedness,
the Christian should first come
into communion with God. This will
help him to see the horror of sin, to keep himself from contamination,
and to feel the right
commiseration for the fallen.
human shape, but in one of fire
— burning flames below, brilliant radiance
above.
Ø
The fire below suggests WRATH
AGAINST SIN. “Our God is a
consuming Fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Christ
came to baptize with fire,
and to burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:11-12).
There is a righteous
indignation against sin, the lack of which would
mean moral feebleness. God
burns to consume all evil.
Ø
The brightness above suggests THE SUPREME GLORY OF GOD.
The
crowning characteristic of God is not wrath. Above the fire is
the serene radiance. There
is terror in the holiness of God when this
touches the sin of man. Yet
God Himself is supremely calm and
beautiful. If we can rise
from the flaming wrath about His feet,
and behold the beauty of
His countenance, we shall see on it the
expression of eternal
goodness.
3 “And he
put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine
head; and the spirit lifted me up between
the earth and the heaven, and
brought me in the visions of God to
gate that looketh
toward the north; where was the seat of the image of
jealousy, which provoketh
to jealousy.” The form of an hand (compare
ch.2:9; Daniel
5:5). For the mode of transit, see Bel and the Dragon, v. 36
(a book of the Apocrypha that is included as chapter 14 of Daniel in the
Douay Bible) as probably a direct imitation. The touch of the “hand”
was followed by the action of the Spirit, in visions which he knew to
be more than dreams, visions that came from God (compare
ch.1:1; 40:2).
The word is not the same as that commonly used by Daniel (chazon), and
often by Ezekiel himself (ch.
7:13; 12:22-23, et al.), but mareh,
which
implies a more direct act of intuition. The word appears
again in ch. 11:24;
43:3, and in Daniel 8:26-27, et al. To the door of the gate, etc. From
the
first we trace the priest’s familiarity with the structure
of the temple. He is
brought, as it were, after his journey in the spirit, to the door of the gate
of the inner court
that looketh towards the north (Revised Version).
This is identified in v. 5 with the “gate of the altar.” It may probably also
be identified with the “upper
gate” of ch. 9:2; the “high gate” of
Jeremiah 20:2; the “higher
gate” of II Kings 15:35, built by Jotham;
the “new gate” of
Jeremiah 36:10. Obviously it was one of the most
conspicuous portions of the temple, where the people
gathered in large
numbers. And here the prophet sees what he calls the image of jealousy.
The words that follow probably give his explanation of the
strange phrase,
not found elsewhere, though it might naturally be suggested
by
Deuteronomy 32:16, 21; Psalm 78:58. What this image was we
can
only conjecture. The word for “image” is a rare one, and is found only here
and in Deuteronomy 4:16; II Chronicles 33:7, 15. It may
have been
the Asherah (the “grove” of the Authorized Version), or
conical stone,
such as Manasseh had made and placed, with an altar
dedicated to it, in the
house of the Lord (II Kings 21:3; II Chronicles 33:3), or
one of
Baal, or of Ashtaroth, or even of
Tammuz (see v. 14). As the word
“grove” does not occur in Ezekiel, it may be sufficient to state
that the
Ashera was a pillar
symbolical either of a goddess of the same name, or, as
some think, of the Phoenician Astarte.
The worship seems to have first
become popular under Jezebel (I Kings 18:19), and took deep
root
both in
been connected with the foulest licence,
like that of the Babylonian Mylitta
(Herod., 1:199; Baruch 6:43). The work of Josiah had
clearly had but a
temporary success, and the people had gone back to the
confluent
polytheism of the reign of Manasseh. In such a state of
things the worst
was possible!
The
Image of Jealousy (v. 3)
Ezekiel in vision imagines himself plucked up by a lock of
hair and carried
from the land of his exile back to
abominations that are being practiced in the
sacred enclosure he sees an idol that provokes the jealousy
of the true God.
God has been grossly
misapprehended. It has been taken as meaning that
God was regarded as narrow,
self-seeking, or harsh. Such criticisms reveal a
total misapprehension of the Old
Testament position, according to which
the jealousy of God is a
necessity of His nature and righteousness.
Ø
A necessity of God’s
nature. There is but ONE GOD who fills all
things. When He is represented as jealous, this
cannot be because
He grudges a certain amount
of honor to a rival — as Zeus might
be jealous of Apollo — for GOD
HAS NO POSSIBLE RIVALS!
The supposed rivals are not
gods at all. The worship of them is
the
worship of empty names. God
is calling men back from delusion
to fact when He is jealous
of heathenish worship.
Ø
A necessity of righteousness. Forsaking Jehovah for
false gods is not
merely leaving one deity for
another, nor even only turning aside to
vanity and a delusion. It is turning from holiness TO SIN! The
worship of God involves purity
of heart and life; idolatry means a
lower moral life. For the sake
of holiness God cannot endure the
lower worship. It might be said
that God could be worshipped under
various names as “Jehovah, Jove,
or Lord.” But if the lower forms of
worship involve false thoughts
of God and evil practices in morals,
they are degrading and
unendurable.
the place of God, sits on His
throne, defiles His temple, usurps His Name
and authority and worship.
Anything that works in this way is an idol, and
needs to be visited with the
just indignation of God. Let us note some of
these “images of jealousy.”
Ø
Pleasure. If men set pleasure first, guiding their lives by its gaudy
radiance, pleasure presides over
the altar of their souls. “Love not
pleasure, love God,” says
Carlyle; for the supreme love of the one
excludes the supreme love of the
other. (One of the characteristics
of the end of time will be “Men
will be…..lovers of pleasure more
than love of God” – II Timothy 3:4 – CY – 2014)
Ø
Money. This idol of gold is the modern representative of
Nebuchadnezzar’s statue on the plain of Shinar —
a hard, helpless
idol, which the man who lives
for money enshrines in the temple
of his soul.
Ø
Earthly love.
God does not require us to abandon human
affection; on
the contrary, we cannot love God
unless we love man, and we learn to
love God best through the
exercise of human affections (I John 4:20).
But when a human affection is
supreme and will not yield in submission
to the will of God, the object
of it becomes an “image of jealousy.”
Ø
Self-will. We may think we serve God and yet we may refuse to obey
Him, only working according
to our own will. This also is idolatry.
Ø
Fixed opinions.
Instead of loving truth, we are tempted to
love our
Own ideas; wishing them to
be true, we are led to regard them as
such, and so to shut our
minds against the correcting voice of Divine
revelation. All these
images of jealousy are just so many embodiments
of SELF, the monster idol of the soul and rival of God. To cast out
these images we need the true Image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ,
to come and take possession
of our hearts.
4 “And,
behold, the glory of the God of
the vision that I saw in the plain. 5 Then said he unto me, Son of man,
lift up thine
eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes
the way toward the north, and behold
northward at the gate of the altar
this image of jealousy in the entry.” And, behold, etc. In appalling contrast
with that “image of
jealousy,” Ezekiel saw what he had not
seen, as he first
became conscious that he was in the court of the temple — the vision of the
Divine glory, such as he had seen it on the
banks of Chebar
(ch.1:4-28). He
was to look first on this picture and then on that, and the
guilt of
measured by that contrast.
6 “He said
furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they
do? even the great abominations that the
house of
committeth here, that I should go far off from my
sanctuary? but
turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.”
That I should go
far off, etc. The lesson taught was that
already implied in the fact that the glorious vision had
come to him from
the north (ch. 1:4). The temple was already as a God-deserted
shrine. His return to it now was but the coming of the Judge and the
Destroyer. We are
reminded of the Μεταβαίνωμεν ἔντευθεν
–
Metabainomen enteuthen - Let us depart hence), which
was heard in the
darkness of the night before the later
destruction of
‘
led onward as through the successive stages of an inferno of idolatries.
7 “And he
brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked,
behold a hole in the wall. 8 Then said
he unto me, Son of man, dig now
in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.
9 And he
said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations
that they do here.” To the door of the court. What follows suggests that the
prophet was led to the gate that opened from the inner to
the outer court.
This was surrounded by chambers or cells (Jeremiah 35:4).
The term for
“wall” (kir) is that specially
used for the wall which encloses a whole group
of buildings (Numbers 35:4). Behold a hole in the wall. The fact was
clearly significant. The worship here was more clandestine
than that of the
“image of
jealousy.” We are not warranted, perhaps,
in insisting on minute
consistency in the world of visions, but the question
naturally arises —
How did the worshippers enter the chamber if Ezekiel had to
enlarge the
hole in the wall in order to get in? We may surmise that
the entrance from
the temple court had been blocked up all but entirely in
the days of Josiah,
that the idolaters now entered it from without or through
some other
chamber, while Ezekiel thinks of himself as coming upon
them like a spy in
the dim distance of the covered passage through which he
made his way.
10 “So I
went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things,
and abominable beasts, and all the idols of
the house of
pourtrayed upon the wall round about.” Every form of creeping things.
The words obviously paint the theriomorphic
worship of
probably being
prominent. The alliance between Jehoiakim and Pharaoh
(II Kings 23:33-35), and which Zedekiah was endeavoring to renew,
would
naturally bring about a revival of that cultus.
Small chambers in rock or
tomb filled with such pictured symbols were specially
characteristic of it
(Gosse, ‘Monuments
of
Base Idolatry (v. 10)
Placed, as the children of
nations, they were exposed to a great variety of
temptations.
Circumstances must sometimes have favored the influence of
one nation,
sometimes of another. Commercial intercourse, political
leagues,
matrimonial alliances, all had a share in determining which
nation should
predominate in influencing the Jewish people. And it is
certain that by such
influences the people were led into idolatries of different
kinds.
the neighbor of
contact with the people who had been by Divine power
delivered from her
hands. Probably some relics of Egyptian superstition
lingered for
generations among the Jews, and it seems certain that
efforts were made to
introduce the deities and idolatrous worship of
worshippers of Jehovah. This verse obviously refers to the
practice of
Egyptian idolatry in the capital, and in the very temple
courts.
Ø
It was the worship of
living creatures.
Ø
And of the lowest
forms of life. This we know to have been
Especially characteristic
of the religion of ancient
Ø
It was the
elevation of the creature above the Creator.
Ø
It was the
glorification of animal in preference to spiritual life.
Ø
It manifested itself
in the most irrational and indefensible forms
which so called religion
could possibly assume.
Ø
It lowered the
worshippers to a moral level of degradation below
which it was scarcely
possible to sink.
Ø
They forsook the pure
and elevating worship of the living and true God,
preferring the vile to the
precious, the disgusting to the sublime.
Ø
They acted in a manner
contrary to all the lessons of their past history.
Ø
They rebelled against
the authoritative admonitions of the Lord’s faithful
prophets. In all these respects
the Hebrew people were far more blamable
than the surrounding nations who
had been trained in idolatrous practices,
and had never declined from a
purer and nobler faith and worship.
11 “And
there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the
house of
Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand;
and a thick cloud
of incense went up.” Seventy men, etc. The number was probably chosen with
reference to the “elders”
who had seen the Divine glory in Exodus 24:9-10.
The Sanhedrin, or council of seventy, did not exist till
after the
Captivity. The number can scarcely have been accidental,
and may imply
that the elders were formally representative. Another Jaazaniah, the son of
Jeremiah, appears in Jeremiah 35:3; yet another, the son of
Azur, in
Ezekiel 11:1. If the Shaphan
mentioned is the scribe, the son of
Azaliah, under Josiah (II Kings 22:3), the father of Ahikam (Ibid. v.12),
of Elasah (Jeremiah 29:3), and of
Gemariah (Ibid. ch.36:10-12), and the
grandfather of Gedaliah (Ibid. ch. 39:14, et al.), all of whom were
prominent
in the reform movement under Josiah, or as friends of
Jeremiah, and no other
Shaphan appears in history, the fact that one of his sons is the
leader of the
idolatrous company must have had for Ezekiel a specially
painful significance.
He could scarcely have forgotten the meaning of his name, “The Lord is listening,”
and probably refers to it in v. 12. As the climax of this
chamber of horrors, the
seventy elders were all acting as priests, and were
offering to their pictured idols
the incense which none but
the sons of Aaron had a right to use, and which
they offered TO JEHOVAH ONLY!
12 “Then
said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the
ancients of the house of
chambers of his imagery? for they say, the
LORD seeth us not; the
LORD hath forsaken the earth.” Every man, etc. And this, after all, was but
a sample of the
prevalence of the Egyptian influence. Other
elders had, in the dark,
a like adytum, a like chamber
of imagery, like the Latin lararium, filled
with a
like cloud of incense. And though the name of the leader of
the band might
have warned them that the Lord was listening, they boasted, in their
blindness, that Jehovah did not see them; he had forsaken
the temple, and
had gone elsewhere. They thought of Jehovah as of a local deity who had
abdicated. They were free to do as they liked without fear.
The words are
worth noting further as the first of a series of popular half proverbs, in
which the thoughts of the people clothed themselves:
·
The time “It
is not near” - ch.11:3;
·
“The days are
prolonged, and every vision faileth” – ch.
12:22;
·
“The fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth
are set on edge.”
- ch.18:2,
Away in them, how
should we then live?” - ch.33:10;
our parts. – ch.37:11.
All these imply some personal knowledge of what was passing
in
Chambers of Imagery (v. 12)
Old men who should have been the guides of the younger
generation were
found by the prophet to have their secret practices of
idolatry in private
chambers, where they kept idols unknown to the world at
large. Too
careful for their reputation to share in the open idolatry
of the mass of the
people, these venerable hypocrites aggravated their guilt
by cowardly
deception. Safely enclosed in the seclusion of their
chambers of imagery,
they reveled in the orgies of a degrading idolatry, and then appeared in the
streets as sedate citizens. The shameful sin of this double
living may be
practiced in other forms with another kind of chamber of
imagery.
HEART. Children and
poets are possessed of the most powerful
imagination; but even the
dullest, most prosaic person is haunted with
visionary presences, though of
the most common place order. When we
retire into ourselves, we unlock
the door of our chamber of imagery and
look at its ghostly scenes.
There hang the portraits of the past, some
blurred by the dust of years,
others as clear as when they were first painted
by the flash of a keen
experience; some distorted into painful, impossible
ugliness, others rounded into
equally impossible perfection. There, too, are
vague shadows of the future. But
the most important images are designs
and wishes, favorite fancies and pet ideas. These we embrace as friends;
before some of them, perhaps, we
prostrate ourselves in idolatrous
worship. But happily we may also
find there inspiring images of noble
deeds, the ideals we would
strive to copy in actual life. We may have left
them too long in the dim chamber
of imagery. We should bring them forth
and clothe them with the flesh
and blood of living deeds, while the bad
images had better be crushed
before they reach the doorway of utterance.
Lust is there,
and adultery, covetousness, theft, hatred, and murder. So
long as a man restrains his
utterance he is tempted to believe that it matters
not what he imagines. No greater
delusion can be possible; for the true life
is that which is lived within.
While in his chamber of imagery, a man is his
true self divested of the cloak
of semblance which he wears when about in
the world. What images does he there delight to gaze upon? The true
character of the
man will be determined by the answer to that question.
Certainly evil images may come
there unsought and unloved as painful
temptations, and it is the duty
of one who loves holiness to turn aside from
such. (You can’t keep a bird from flying over your head but you
can keep
him from building a nest in your
hair – Chinese proverb – CY – 2014)
But the
images delighted in reveal the true self. The wickedness there
planned and gloated over in evil
thought is sin — a deed of the soul.
Ultimately it must come out in
the life, for the imagination of the heart
colors the external conduct,
Shakespeare says —
Dangerous
conceits are, in their natures, poisons,
Which, at
the first, are scarce found to distaste,
But, with
a little act upon the blood,
Burn like
the mines of sulphur.”
TO WHAT HAPPENS IN THE CHAMBER OF IMAGERY. The old
Men of
see them, that He had forsaken the earth. This Ezekiel knew to be A
MONSTROUS
DELUSION!
Ø
God looks into the chamber of imagery. There is a window in
every
soul, through which
the eye of God gazes right down to the bottom
of its most secret
thoughts. He knows us better than we
know ourselves.
The cloak of hypocrisy is not as the thinnest veil between us
and God.
Now, this is of supreme interest, because, while it does not
very much
Matter what our fellow men
may think about us, God’s thought of
us
is ALL IMPORTANT!
Ø
God will judge us for deeds done in the chamber of imagery.
Knowing all, He will not
judge only by what the world sees.
Sins of the heart will be
noted by God, and will bring down
upon us His just wrath,
even though the hands have been clean
from iniquity.
Ø The only
effectual salvation must be ore that cleanses the chamber of
imagery. “Create in me a clean heart, O God” cries David, in the depth
of his penitence (Psalm 51:10,
knowing that the outward sins he had
committed have sprung from the evil of his imagination. Therefore
nothing short of
the new birth which Christ brings can save our souls.
Atheism (v. 12)
In the chambers of the temple courts the prophet in his
vision beheld
seventy elders, representing the people of
idolatrous worship. The walls of the chambers were
decorated with figures
of the animals to which homage was rendered. Those who by
reason of
character and station should have been the leaders of the
people in the
offices of pure religion were engaged in waving the censers
of the
idolatrous worship, and the thick cloud of unholy incense
filed the
chambers. As the prophet gazed appalled at this awful
spectacle, the voice
of the Lord addressed him: “Hast
thou seen what they do? They say, The
Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath
forsaken the earth.” Here was the true
explanation of the defection of the Jews — leaders and
common people
alike. It was atheism
which led to idolatry. And atheism is
far more
generally at the root of all evils in society than many
superficial observers
are willing to allow.
professedly and openly atheists,
who are such in reality. They may not cast
aside the Name of God, they may
not openly repudiate the Law of God;
but in their
hearts they believe not in Him. There
may be recognized on
their part:
Ø
Disbelief in the
Lord’s omniscient observation of men. “They say,
The Lord seeth us not.”
Ø
Disbelief in the
Lord’s presence and activity. “They say, The Lord
hath forsaken
the earth.” Whoever they may be who
make these
assertions, and whatever their
standing among their fellow men,
they are practically
and really atheistic.
as that described should be
without influence upon the moral nature and
conduct.
Ø
Atheism removes the
restraints from sin which belief in the Divine
presence imposes. This is not
the highest view to take of the question,
but it is a just one; and many
natures are largely influenced by the
knowledge that AN ALL-SEEING GOD REGARDS ALL
THEIR WAYS AND
THOUGHTS!
Ø
Atheism removes the
inspiration to goodness which belief in the
Divine presence furnishes. The knowledge that a holy and
omnipotent Father is ever with us, is ever ready to encourage and
assist us in all our endeavors to realize our highest
ideal, must needs
be a factor of great
importance in our spiritual life.
Let this be
withheld or contradicted,
and how much that is best must be
withdrawn along with it!
Ø
Among these Jews at
superstition and idolatry —
no unusual conjunction.
Ø
Very generally, atheism
leads to self-indulgence
and vice.
Ø
And IT IS DESTRUCTIVE OF NATIONAL LIFE! Fidelity
to God is fidelity to
principle, fidelity to society, fidelity to the
highest conception formed
of human life. Infidelity to God
involves the opposite of
all these virtues (especially abortion on
demand – CY - 2014), and
abandonment to the life of interest,
of ease, of pleasure; it gives
power to every temptation to sin,
to every evil tendency of
society. Under its influence man sinks
to the merely
animal life, and to such mental
activity as
subserves that life.
APPLICATION. We are
sometimes told that in speculative atheism there
is no great harm; that without belief in God men may be
good citizens, and
may discharge honorably the several relationships of life.
Without denying
that, in certain instances, the influence of Christianity
may for a time abide
after Christianity itself has been abandoned, we have yet to look at the
proper and inevitable consequences of a general abandonment
of belief in
God. We shall find
these SO TERRIBLE, that we may well watch and pray
against the first loosenings of
belief in the most fundamental and precious
of all truths.
13 “He
said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt
see
greater abominations that they do. 14 “Then he brought me to the door
of the gate of the LORD’s
house which was toward the north; and,
behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.” Behold, there sat
women wailing for Tammuz. The point of view is probably the same as that of
v. 3, but the women were apparently in the outer
porch of it, as he has to be
brought to the gate in order to see them. We are
led to note two things:
we have the women who wove
hangings for the Ashera (II Kings
23:7), those who had burnt
incense to other gods, especially to the queen
of heaven (Jeremiah 44:9, 15-19), probably, i.e.,
to Ashtaroth.
(Note
the had become leaders – see
Isaiah 3:12)
the name Tammuz and
does not meet us elsewhere in the Old Testament.
All interpreters, however, agree
that it answers to the Adonis of Greek
mythology. So Jerome translates
it, and expressly states (in loc.) that what
Ezekiel saw corresponded to the
Adonis festivals. It may be enough to
state, without going into the
details of the story, that Adonis, the beautiful
youth beloved of Aphrodite, was
slain by a wild boar; that after his death
he was allowed to spend six
months of each year with her, while the other
was passed with Persephone in
Hades. The cultus thus became the symbol
of the annual decay and revival
of nature; but the legend rather than the
inner meaning was in the
thoughts of the worshippers. The emotions of
women poured themselves out in
lamentations over the waxen image of the
beautiful dead youth who had
perished in his prime, and in orgiastic joy
over his return to life.
well be quoted —
“Thammuz next came behind,
Whose annual
wound in
The Syrian
damsels to lament his fate
In amorous
ditties all a summer’s day;
While
smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple
to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion’s daughters with like heat;
Whose
wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel
saw, when, by the vision led,
His eyes
surveyed the dark idolatries
Of
alienated
(‘
The chief center of the Tammuz-Adonis
worship was
it spread widely over the shores of the
both in
planting flowers in vases for forced cultivation, has been
perpetuated by
Plato’s allusion to “the gardens of Adonis” as the type of transitoriness
(‘Phaedr.’ p. 376, b). Cheyne, following Lagarde, finds
a reference to the
cultus in Isaiah 17:10; 65:3: 66:17. The festival of Ishtar and Tammuz
(or Tam-zi) at
a doubt, identical with the Hebrew Adonai
(equivalent to “Lord”). Tammuz
has been explained as meaning “victorious,” or
“disappearance,” or
“burning;” but all etymologies are conjectural. Lastly, it
is not without
interest to note
overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz (‘Ep. ad Paul.’); and
corresponded to July. The
festival seems to have been celebrated at the
summer solstice. The time of
Ezekiel’s vision was in the sixth month, sc.
about the time of the autumnal
equinox (see ‘Dict. Bible,’ art. “Tammuz”).
Mr. Baring-Gould, treating the
legend as a solar myth, finds the old
Phoenician deity represented in
the “St. George of Merrie
(‘Curious Myths,’ pp. 277-316).
An exhaustive monograph, “Tammuz
Adonis,” has been published by Liebrecht, in his ‘Zur Volkskunde’ (1879),
reprinted from the Zeitschrift Deutschen Morgen-Gesellschaft, vol. 17. pp.
397, etc.
Secret Sins (vs. 7-13)
“And he brought me to the door of the court;
and when I looked, behold a
hole in the wall,”
etc. In the case of “the image of
jealousy” the idolatry of
the Israelites was open; in this
case it is secret. In that the
abominations
were committed by the house of
SECRET, These chambers
of imagery, in which the elders of the house of
access. The secrecy with which
their vile sins were committed is
graphically set forth in the
text. “He brought me to the door of the court;
and when I looked,
behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of
man, dig now in
the wall,” etc. The
idolatry practiced in these chambers
of imagery was the animal
worship of the Egyptians. The prophet beheld
“every form of
creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of
the house of
spiritual
degradation, and by its influence it
increases that degradation. It is
fitly characterized as “the
wicked abominations that they do.”
Every thing
created, however good it may be
in itself, becomes an abomination as soon as
it stands with man beside, or
quite about, God. What a fall for the elders of
adoration of cattle and creeping things! And they must have felt the
wrongness of this, or they would not have so carefully
striven to conceal it.
There are secret sins in the lives even of good men
— sins of thought and
feeling that are
hidden from
our fellow men. Who could bear to have
everything that transpires in his mind and heart exposed
to the gaze of
even his tenderest
and best human
friend; or, indeed, to any one except
the merciful and holy One?
“Or what
if Heaven for once its searching light
Lent
to some partial eye, disclosing all
The rude
bad thoughts, that in our bosom’s night
Wander
at large, nor heed Love’s gentle thrall?
“Who would
not shun the dreary uncouth place?
As
if, fond leaning where her infant slept,
A mother’s
arm a serpent should embrace:
So
might we friendless live, and die unwept.
“Then keep
the softening veil in mercy drawn,
Thou
who canst love us, tho’ thou read us true;
As on the
bosom of th’ aerial lawn
Melts
in dim haze each coarse ungentle hue.”
(Keble.)
But the secret sins most analogous to those of the text are
those which are
practiced willfully. Could we read the chambers of imagery
in human hearts,
what pictures of sins
tolerated, and even indulged in some,
we should see,
while the lives present a fair exterior! Secret impurities, veiled dishonesties,
concealed jealousies and animosities, and hidden
idolatries, would appear
before us in appalling shapes and colors, and perhaps in
astounding numbers.
SECRETLY BY THOSE WHO ARE UNDER THE STRONGEST
OBLIGATIONS TO ESCHEW THEM. “And there stood
before them
seventy men of
the ancients of the house of
“seventy men of the ancients,” compare Exodus 24:1, 9; Numbers 11:16,
24-25.)
Ø The seventy
elders may be viewed as representing the whole people, and
thus indicating the general corruption. In accordance with this view, the
entire nation is represented as having fallen from its high
and holy calling
into this groveling
superstition. And with comparatively few exceptions
the whole house of
Lord Jehovah.
Ø The seventy elders may be viewed as showing the corruption
of those
who should have been most
incorruptible. They were the
representatives and counselors
of the people, and as such they were
morally bound by advice and
example to have endeavored to keep
the people from idolatrous
associations, and to have maintained in its
integrity the worship of the
true God; yet they fell themselves into
abominable idolatries. More than
once, persons standing highest in
religious position have been
amongst the lowest in their real character.
Such was the case with the
scribes and Pharisees during the time of
our Lord’s life upon earth
(compare Matthew 23:13-33). Exalted
religious position or office is
no guarantee of exalted spiritual excellence.
PRACTICAL ATHEISM. “For they say, The Lord seeth us
not; the Lord
hath forsaken the
earth.” Here is a twofold denial.
Ø
Denial of the Divine observation of human life and conduct. “The
Lord seeth us not.” The attempt at concealment implies the fact that
they ignored the
all-seeing eye. The practice of sin generally involves
the overlooking or ignoring of the presence and observation of God.
“The eyes of the Lord are in every place,
beholding the evil and the
good” (Proverbs
15:3). Let
this
become a conviction, let it be realized
as a solemn fact, and sin
would
become an impossibility, at any rate
with most persons.
Ø
Denial of the Divine interest in human life. “The Lord hath
forsaken
the earth.” Their feeling seems to have been this: “God does not care for
us; he is indifferent to what we
do, or what becomes of us.” “As He does
nothing for them, they must help
themselves as well as they can.” This
practical atheism is the prolific parent of secret and other sins. If man
realized the deep concern of God for his
well being, in that realization,
he would have a most effectual
restraint from sin.
THE EARNEST CONSIDERATION OF THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS
OF GOD. “He
said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations
that they do here
.... Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen
what the ancients
of the house of
chambers of his
imagery?” Thus the prophet was
summoned to consider
the secret idolatries which were
being practiced by the elders of
important that the faithful
servants of God should consider the existence
and practice of secret sins:
Ø
To qualify them for battling with such sins. The reformer must
become
acquainted with the full measure
and force of the evils which he would
abolish, if he would succeed in his
mission. And the physician, if he
would overcome disease, must
know it in its inner workings as well as
in its outer manifestations. So
also is it with him who would wage war
against sin.
Ø To qualify
them for estimating the righteousness of God’s
treatment of
sinners. To appreciate how just and true He is in all His dealings
with
men, it is necessary to consider
the sins of mind and heart which are
committed against Him, as well
as those of the tongue and hands.
ASSUREDLY BE MADE MANIFEST. God is perfectly acquainted with
every one of them. Our secret
sins are set in the light of His countenance
(compare Psalm 90:8). The
revelation to the prophet of the wicked
abominations practiced in the
dark in the chambers of imagery, is
suggestive of the unveiling of
all secret sins. (“All
things are naked
and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” -
Hebrews 4:13)
Ø In the present life circumstances sometimes arise which
occasion the
revelation of hidden sins. Afflictions sometimes strip off the mask
from the face of the
hypocrite. (“Some men’s sins aree open
beforehand, going
before to judgment” – I Timothy
5:24). Or
the near approach of death leads
to the acknowledgment of
concealed vice or crime.
Ø In the future
life there will be an awful revelation of human character
and conduct. “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with
every secret thing,
whether it be good, or whether it be evil”
(Ecclesiastes 12:14).
“Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord
come, who will both
bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (I Corinthians 4:5).
Ø
“Create in me a
clean heart, O God;” (Psalm 51:10)
Ø
“Cleanse thou me
from secret faults.” (Ibid. ch. 19:12)
Ø
“Keep thy heart
with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
(Proverbs 4:23)
15 “Then
said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee
yet again, and thou shalt
see greater abominations than these.
16 And he
brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house,
and,
behold, at the door of the temple of the
LORD, between the porch
and the altar, were about five and twenty
men, with their backs
toward the temple of the LORD, and their
faces toward the east;
and they worshipped the sun toward the
east.” He brought me into
the inner
court. The last and the
worst form of desecration follows. It was the “inner
court”
(Joel 2:17) which, after the exile, was entered only by the
priests. During the
monarchy, however, it seems to have been accessible to kings and
other persons of
importance, as in the case of Solomon (I Kings 8:22. 64;
9:25) in the
revolution against Athaliah (II
Kings 11:4-15), and Hezekiah (Ibid. ch.19:14),
and Josiah (Ibid. ch.23:2). Ezekiel does not say that the
men whom he saw were
priests, though the number twenty-five suggests that they
were taking the place of
the high priest and the heads of the twenty-four courses of
the priesthood
(I Chronicles 24:4-19), and so symbolized the whole order
of the priesthood as the
seventy elders represented the laity. In II Chronicles
36:14 the chief of the priests is
spoken of as having been prominent in “polluting the house of the Lord.”
They were seen turning their backs to the
sanctuary. The very act was symbolical of their apostasy
(Ibid. ch. 29:6; Isaiah 1:4;
Jeremiah 7:24). And they did this in order that they might
look to the east and
worship the rising sun. That, and not the temple (Daniel
6:10), was the Kiblah
of their adoration. The sun worship here appears to have
had a Persian character,
as being offered to the sun itself, and not to Baal, as a
solar god. Of such a worship
we have traces in Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3; Job 31:26; II
Kings 23:5, 11.
Greater
Abominations (v. 15)
As Ezekiel is taken from one chamber of idolatry to
another, in his visionary
visit to the temple, he finds to his horror a continuous
aggravation of the
abominations. This is similar to the results of a survey of
the world’s sin.
patristic statement that all sin
is infinite, because it is an offence against the
infinite God, is not found in
Scripture, nor is it borne out by observation or
experience. The Bible refers to
various degrees of guilt; e.g. John 19:11.
Peter’s denial of Christ was a
sin; but Judas’s betrayal was a vastly
greater sin. We are conscious of
degrees of guilt in our own lives. It looks
as though the sink of iniquity
must be a bottomless pit. There are even
deeper, blacker, more frightful
and damnable sins yet to be reached by an
abandoned soul that plunges down
an unchecked descent of iniquity. No
one is so bad that he can say,
“I can do nothing worse than I have done.”
MEASURED BY EXTERNAL STANDARDS. They are not to be
determined by any graduated code
of formal morality. What is a weakness
in one man may be a crime in
another. The father of a starving family who
steals a loaf — like the hero of
Victor Hugo’s ‘Les Miserables’ — is not to
be judged as the respectable
promoter of rotten investments, who grows
rich on the ruin of thousands of
helpless people. The miserable child of the
put into comparison with the son
of a happy, prosperous Christian home.
There are hereditary tendencies
to evil and peculiar circumstances of
temptation which beset certain
people more than others. The degree of
guilt varies accordingly. We
cannot weigh all these conditions. Hence the
advice, “Judge not, that ye be not
judged.” (Matthew 7:1)
ABOMINATION. As
Ezekiel went from one chamber to another, he came
upon a continually descending
series of scenes of wickedness. The worst
were last. Sin is never at a
standstill. It is a dark and turbid torrent that
SWELLS AND
BLACKENS AS IT FLOWS! The man who begins
with a
slight lapse from virtue is on
the road to greater abominations. Herein is the
danger, the fatal insidiousness
of evil. If the sinner saw the whole course of
his future from the first and at
once — like Hogarth’s pictures of the ‘Rake’s
Progress’ — he would start back
with horror. Yet while HE LINGERS
AND TOYS WITH
SIN, it is silently coiling about him
with more and
more direful entanglements. (The chains of sin are too light to be felt
until they are too strong to be broken!)
IS A REASON FOR SPEEDY REPENTANCE.
Ø
All sin is abominable. One sin may be a
greater abomination than
another, but the standard of
measurement is not the depth below,
but the height above. The
question is — How far have we fallen?
not — How much further may we
yet sink away from the light?
A man’s sin is
not one whit the less because his
brother’s sin is
greater in guilt. (There is great
danger in taking comfort because
everybody is doing it! - CY – 2014)
Ø
The sooner we repent the
easier it is to return. Sin hardens as it
becomes more aggravated in evil.
While the light of God is waning,
the way of recovery is becoming
more obscure. “Today is the
accepted time.” (Hebrews 4:7)
Ø
It is possible for the greatest abomination to be
forgiven. The
obstacle is only on one
side. CHRIST CAN SAVE THE
WORST OF SINNERS!
Sun Worship (v. 16)
When Ezekiel, in his visionary visit to the temple, came
upon the last scene
of horror, and beheld the greatest of all the abominations
therein committed, he
saw twenty-five men performing rites of worship before the
rising sun.
common, and perhaps also the
most primitive, heathen cult. It was very
prominent in the ancient
Egyptian religion — the rising, the midday, and
the setting sun being honored
with separate names and rites; it was the
essential idea of the Canaanite
Baal worship, as well as of the Babylonian
religion; and it lies at the
heart of the Aryan mythology in Sanskrit, Greek,
and Teutonic forms. If any
material object should be selected for worship,
it is natural that the earth’s
great source of light, power, and life should be
the universal favorite. Our
modern idolatries do not reach this material
form, but they contain the same
ideas.
Ø
The worship of light. This takes two forms.
o
Aestheticism. Grace of form and tone are set up as supreme objects
of admiration, to the neglect of moral goodness.
o
Science. This is
put on a pinnacle as lord of all thought and life.
Now, knowledge is good, and
all truth, which is the subject of
science, is in itself pure,
and should be pursued by men. But the
exclusive cult of
science is idolatry, because it is placing knowledge
above obedience.
o
The worship of power. The sun is the great
motive power of the
universe. Latent sun heat in
coal drives our steam engines. Direct sun
heat lifts the water from the
sea, that afterwards descends in
avalanches and mountain
torrents. We do not prostrate ourselves
before the sun, the source of
all this force, but we do magnify the
virtue of the power itself. Yet
material resources are not the highest
good.
o
The worship of life. The sun is the great
fertilizing influence of
nature. The return of its warm rays awakens nature
from the death
of winter, and creates the
new life of spring; its great heat makes the
tropics to teem with swift
growing vegetable and insect life. The
most modern idolatry is the
deification of the vital powers
(something like Mother
Nature – CY – 2014) — the idea that, as
all natural instinct is
pure, the indulgence of naturalism is
commendable. This is just
the old Canaanite abomination.
o
The worship of the future. The sun worshipper
turned to the east
and hailed the sunrise.
There is something fascinating and
exhilarating in this
anticipation of the morning. Christianity
consecrates hope. But it is
a mistake to believe in the future
as in a fate of coming
good. The future can only be good
because GOD IS IN
IT and blesses it.
things.
Ø
Departure from God.
The sun worshippers stood with their backs
turned towards the temple.
Their attitude was most significant.
All idolatry
must be practiced with the back turned towards
the
truly Divine. We cannot serve the false
and the true one at
the same time.
Ø
The degradation of God’s
greatest works. The more beautiful and
powerful and fruitful the sun is
seen to be, the more shameful is it
that men should degrade their
thought of it into idolatry. When
we abuse God’s best gifts by
idolizing them, we turn what should
occasion our deepest gratitude
and admiration for God’s goodness
into an occasion for departing
from Him.
Ø
The consecration of sin. Sun worship began in
adoration of the lord of
day. But it descended into gross
licentiousness, through the selection of
the fertilizing power of sun
heat as a special object of adoration. Thus
sun worship became the worship
of lust. This will be the inevitable
effect of naturalism regarded as
a religion. The worship of nature powers
pure and simple involves the
consecration of the lowest of those powers,
so that what should be kept down
as a slave claims to rule as a master,
with obscene effrontery.
ancient — is to be found in the
revelation of One infinitely greater than
nature. No wonder men who had no
vision of the spiritual God selected the
sun — so powerful in his
southern splendor — as the greatest object of
adoration. But we have “the Sun of
Righteousness,” before whose glory
all
physical brightness grows pale
and fades away.
17 “Then
he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a
light thing to the house of
abominations which they commit here? for
they have filled the
land with violence, and have returned to
provoke me to anger: and,
lo, they put the branch to their nose.” For returned read,
with the Revised
Version, turned again. The
word seems chosen with special reference to the
attitude of the idol worshippers. It may be noted that even
here the prophet
speaks not only of the idolatry of
down the judgments of Jehovah. (So also at the end of time – even now
violence is a factor not only in
city, with the shootings of the last month! So also in the days before the
Flood when God destroyed all mankind, except Noah and his
family –
Genesis 6:11 – CY – 2014)
Lo, they put the branch to their nose. The
opening word expresses the prophet’s burning indignation.
The act
described probably finds its best explanation in the
Persian ritual of the
Avesta. When men prayed to the sun, they held in their left hands
a
bouquet of palm, pomegranate, and tamarisk twigs, while the
priests for
the same purpose held a veil before their mouth (Spiegel, ‘
3:571, 572, in Smend), so that
the bright rays of the sun might not be
polluted by human breath. And this was
done in the very
by those who were polluting the whole land by their violence. The Septuagint
gives, as an explanation, ὡς μυκτηρίζοντες
– hos muktaerizontes – put a
branch to their nose, as though the act was one of scornful
pride (compare
Isaiah 65:5), the sign of a temper like that of the Pharisee as
he looked upon
the publican (Luke 18:11).
The word for “branch” is used
in ch.15:2 and
Numbers 13:23 for a vine branch.
Making Light of Sin (v. 17)
sin” (Proverbs
14:9). This is a commonly observed fact.
Let us see how it is caused.
Ø
As an attempt to excuse the sinner. This, of course, is
the most
obvious and palpable reason
why many people try to minimize
their own sin. The prisoner
pleads “Not guilty” simply to save
himself. The same is done
even before the private bar of a man’s
own conscience; for we wish to excuse ourselves to ourselves.
Thus there may be no
conscious deception, no
hypocrisy. We may really
persuade ourselves that we are not so
bad as we seem to be. The wish
is father to the thought.
Ø
By the force of habit. We grow accustomed to
the worst
companions if we are much
with them, as we scarcely notice
the ugliness of what is
constantly with us, though strangers
would be struck with their
first sight of it. So while we become
familiar with our sins,
their supreme and most dreadful
wickedness ceases to affect
us, as the fearful sight of mutilated
bodies ceases to affect hospital
surgeons. The horror dies out
of the aspect of wickedness, and
a look of familiarity takes its place.
Ø
Through the influence of example. If a man stood alone
in his sin, he
would he appalled at the
singular horror of it. But he sees it reflected
in the lives of his neighbors,
and, judging himself by the average
standard of society, instead of taking the Law of God for his
measure, he passes an easy sentence.
Ø
In the deadening of conscience. This is the worst and
the most
dangerous effect of sin. The
sense for perceiving its guilt is blunted.
Until conscience is reawakened
by the Spirit of God, no man truly
appreciates his own guilt.
“If I willfully
keep my conscience in darkness and continue
in errors which I might easily know to be such
by a little
thought and searching of God’s Word,
then my conscience
conscience can offer me no excuse
for I am guilty of
blindfolding the guide which I have
chosen and then
knowing him to be blindfolded, I am
guilty of the folly
of letting him lead me into rebellion against God.
Ø
He sees it as it truly is. God is not deceived
by our excuses. He sees
into the true
nature of our thought and conduct with an all-searching
eye, and He is
perfectly true and just to judge according to fact.
Ø
God measures it by the law of holiness. He knows our
weakness, our
ignorance, our temptation; and
He does not judge men as He would
judge angels — of that we may be
sure; for “shall not the Judge of
all the earth do
right?” (Genesis 18:25) But according as we have
light He will judge our conduct, measuring it
against that light, and
not against the darkness of our neighbors. God
cannot endure iniquity.
In His sight it is hideous and hateful and
utterly deserving of
condemnation. Let us remember
that we shall not be judged by man’s
standards of conventionality, but by God’s pure law of righteousness.
Ø
If God forgives sin, He does not make light of it. Forgiveness is not
excusing evil. It recognizes the whole black guilt of it. Jesus who
brought free forgiveness
denounced sin itself as no stern Hebrew
prophet had ventured to denounce
it. In pardoning the penitent He
carefully noted that her sins
were “many”
(Luke 7:47). The publican
is commended for his humiliation
in the confession of sin (Ibid. ch.
18:13). We can only judge of God’s horror of sin by the darkness
and
agony of
Gethsemane and
OF HIS OWN SON! The great atonement
of Christ was rendered
necessary because God could not
make light of sin, though
He desired to save the sinner.
We can be saved from our sin, not by
Making light of it, but when we
fully confess its whole guilt and shame.
18 “Therefore
will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither
will I have pity: and though they cry in
mine ears with a loud
voice, yet will I not
hear them.” The
verse serves as a transition to ch. 9.
The unpitying aspec
of the Divine judgments is again
prominent. Such sins
deserved, and could only be expiated by, the judgments to which we now pass.
Man’s
Provocations of God, and God’s Punishment of Man (vs. 14-18)
“Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s
house which
was toward the north,” etc.
returned to
provoke me to anger.” The sins
mentioned in this paragraph
were not the only provocations
of the Most High, as the words of the
clause imply. Professor Cheyne translates, “provoke me to anger again and
again.” And Ewald, “exasperated me repeatedly.” The various idolatries
and other sins committed by the
people were so many provocations of the
Lord. But as to those mentioned
in the text, notice:
Ø
The foul idolatry of the women. “He brought me to
the door of the
gate of the Lord’s
house which was toward the north; and, behold,
there sat women weeping for Tammuz.” The
meaning of Tammuz
is not certain, but the
conjecture which is by far the most probable is
that it is the Hebrew and Syriac name for the heathen god Adonis,
who, according to the fable,
was
the beautiful paramour of Venus.
He was said to have been
killed by a bear in the chase, and
afterwards to have returned
to life. The worship of Adonis took
its rise at
over the East, and was thence
carried to
introduced to the Jews front
celebrated in the fourth month
(corresponding to portions of our
June and July). This celebration
“was of a twofold character: first,
that of mourning, in which the
death of Adonis was bewailed with
extravagant sorrow; and then,
after a few days, the mourning gave
place to wild rejoicings for his
restoration to life. This was a revival
of nature worship under another
form — the death of Adonis
symbolized the suspension of the
productive powers of
nature, which were in due time
revived. Accordingly, the time of
this festival was the summer
solstice, when in the East nature seems
to wither and die under the
scorching heat of the sun, to burst forth
again into life at the due
season” (‘Speaker’s Commentary’). For seven
days the women gave themselves
up to this lamentation, chanting
mournful songs to the
accompaniment of pipes, cutting their breasts
with knives, and either cutting
off their hair as a sacrifice to the god,
or presenting to him the more costly and shocking sacrifice of their
chastity. Well does Fairbairn say, “This Phoenician abomination had
become one of the festering sores
of
Ø
The idolatry of the men. “And he brought me into the inner court
of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the
door of the temple of the
Lord,”
etc. (v. 16). Most expositors regard
these five and
twenty men as the presidents of
the twenty-four orders into which the
priesthood was divided (I
Chronicles 24.), with the high priest at their
head; and thus they look upon
them as representing the entire priesthood.
This, however, is by no means
certain. As a matter of fact, the priesthood
as a whole had never given
themselves up to idolatry. The number
(twenty-five) is a round one, as
in ch. 11:1.
Had it been stated that the
men were priests, we might have
supposed that they were the heads of
the twenty-four courses, together
with the high priest. But no; they
were ‘elders’, i.e. laymen.
The inner court was not closed to
the laity till after the return
from exile (see I Kings 8:22, 64; 9:25;
II Kings 11:4-15).” But to
whatever class these men belonged,
they were offering provocation
to God by worshipping the sun.
This form of idolatry was of
very ancient origin. Job declares his
Innocence of it (Job 31:26). It
is distinctly prohibited in the Law
given by Moses (Deuteronomy
17:3). In its earliest form, among the
Arabians, the worship was
addressed directly to the heavenly bodies,
without the intervention of
images. In times preceding those of the
prophet this idolatry had been
introduced into
by King Josiah (II Kings 23:5,
11). But by some means it had been
revived or reintroduced, and now
in the days of Ezekiel was openly
flourishing again. Moreover,
their worship of the sun was aggravated
by the posture in which it was
practiced. “With their backs toward the
temple of the Lord,
and their faces toward the east.” The
sanctuary of
the Lord God was behind them, as
a thing
they were renouncing, while
they were looking to the new
object of their
hope and adoration rising
in the east. A still further
aggravation of their sin is mentioned: “And,
lo, they put the
branch to their nose.” We are not certain as to
the
meaning of this expression. “The
Persian sun worshipper, according to
Strabo and others, held in his hand a bunch of shoots, called barsom,
when praying to the sun, and
applied it to the mouth when uttering
prayer. This quite agrees with
the rite here.” It appears to be of Persian
origin; only this qualification
must be made that, considered as a
Persian practice, it has
reference not to the worship of the sun, but to
that of the sacred fire. In the Avesta we read of a bundle of branches
called baresma
(later writings call it barsom), which
occupied as
important a place in Zoroastrian
worship as in the worship of these
‘five and twenty men.’
The twigs preferred for this sacred object
were those of the date, the
pomegranate, and the tamarisk,
and the words of the Zoroastrian
Scripture (Vendidad, 19:64) are
rendered as follows by the
latest translator: ‘Let the faithful man cut
off a twig of baresma, long as a ploughshare, thick as a barleycorn.
The faithful one, holding it in
his left hand, shall not leave off keeping
his eyes upon it.’ Thus it is
not expressly stated by the Zoroastrian
authorities (nor yet is it by Strabo) that the baresma
was to be held to
the mouth (or the nose). This,
however, was the way of holding the veil
called paitidana,
the object of which was to prevent the impurities
of the breath from passing into
the sacred fire. By this heathenish
and
idolatrous practice the Lord Jehovah was insulted by His own people.
Ø
The social injustice and oppression. “They have filled the land with
violence.” Unfaithfulness to God and cruelty to man were sins that
went
hand in hand amongst the people
of
in the temple
were pollutions, and in the land violence. The princes and
judges, they wronged men; the
priests and prophets, they wronged God
(Zephaniah 3:3-4) If there be
violence in a land, there will be
corruptions, pollutions,
abominations in the sanctuary; if there be
superstition, idolatry in the
Church state, there will be oppression,
injustice, and spoil in the
civil state: when the temple is a den of thieves,
the land will be a den of
oppressors and murderers (Jeremiah 7:9-11).
Thus the people provoked the Lord to anger by their oft repeated
and much aggravated sins and crimes.
mine eye shall not
spare,” etc. (v. 18). The nature of
the punishment is
not stated here; but it has already
been set forth at length by the prophet,
and is still further indicated
in the next two chapters. Two remarks
concerning it are suggested by
this verse.
Ø
It will be the expression of His righteous anger. “Therefore will
I also deal in fury.” The “therefore”
indicates the close connection
between THE
SIN and THE PUNISHMENT. They are related as
cause and effect (see our remarks on ch.7:4).
Ø
It will be inflicted without any relenting. “Mine eye shall not
spare,
neither will I pity:
and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice,
yet will I not hear
them.” The former of these clauses we
noticed on its
occurrence in ch.7:4. And as to the loud cries of the wicked in
their distress, they are
generally the mere outburst of selfishness,
without a particle
of true penitence or prayer (compare
Proverbs
1:24-31). When Nebuchadnezzar came, besieged the city: when
plague and
famine increased, then they fell upon their knees and
cried to God for
help; as malefactors,
when the judge is ready to
give sentence, cry out, and importune
him to spare their lives.
Such prayers are
the voice of the flesh, not of the spirit: forced,
not free: faithless and
unseasonable prayers, COMING TOO LATE
and therefore
UNACCEPTABLE! Let men therefore not defer
seeking of God TILL
NECESSITY PUTS THEM UPON IT!
And let us seek
Him, not with the selfish cries of terror, BUT WITH
PENITENT AND
BELIEVING HEARTS! It is not the loud voice,
but the upright heart, THAT GOD WILL
REGARD!
"Excerpted text Copyright AGES Library, LLC. All rights reserved.
Materials are reproduced by
permission."
This material can be found at:
http://www.adultbibleclass.com
If this exposition is helpful, please share
with others.
The Glory of God and the Image of
Jealousy (vs. 4-5)
In prophetic vision Ezekiel was transported from the place
of exile to his
country’s metropolis, and to the temple which was the very centre of his
people’s religious observances. It may not be certain
whether what in this
vision he discerned actually took place, or whether the
vision was
representative and symbolical of what was occurring
elsewhere in
and even in
contrast is that described in these verses! One observer in
one spot is
brought face to face both with the splendour
of the Divine manifestation
and with the horror of idolatrous rites!
·
THE GLORY OF THE GOD OF
appearance of splendour, such as he had previously beheld in the plain,
and
had described in an earlier
passage of iris prophecies.
1. This appearance was emblematical of the Divine
attributes; alike of
God’s power to punish and to
save, and of his moral excellences, justice
and truth, mercy and love.
2. This appearance was peculiarly suitable to the place
where it was
discerned: the
his peculiar presence, who giveth not his glory to another.
3. This appearance was a reminder that for the Jewish people
there was
one, and only one, proper Object
of adoration and worship.
·
THE IDOLATROUS IMAGE.
1. This was doubtless a figure of one of the false gods
worshipped by one
of the nations in the neighbourhood of
corrupted and seduced. Which of
the several idols was at that time
worshipped by the Jews we are
not told; and, indeed, this does not signify.
2. Whatever this imaginary deity may have been, it is certain
that the
attributes assigned to it were
opposed to those belonging to Jehovah.
Cruelty and impurity were
certainly qualities attributed to this false god.
3. Thus moral degradation was involved in the worship of
this image;
degradation all the more signal
because the Jews forsook a God of
righteousness and clemency, and
fashioned or accepted an imaginary deity
embodying their own worst faults
and vices.
·
THE INDIGNATION WITH WHICH JEHOVAH REGARDED
provoketh to jealousy.” The reasons why the idol should be so
designated,
why such should be the way in
which it was regarded, are obvious enough.
1. Jehovah had enjoined upon the posterity of Abraham
abstinence from
the idolatries from which the
great forefather of the chosen people had
been delivered. Monotheism was
the very stamp and seal of their election.
2. The very first and second commandments of the first table
of the moral
Law prohibited idolatry.
3. The history of
warning against falling into
this seductive snare.
4. The ordinances and institutions of the nation were
expressly designed to
act as a check and dissuasive
against the sin of the surrounding and heathen
nations.
·
APPLICATION. Apostasy from the service of the one living and true
God is rendered inexcusable, and
is worthy of severe condemnation, when,
as in the case of
and opportunities and inducements
abound to be faithful and diligent in the
practice of pure religion.
Weeping
for Tammuz (v. 14)
If the usual interpretation of this passage is correct,
then it is clear that
there had been introduced from Northern Syria into
superstitious practice and cultus,
which was altogether alien from the
beliefs and the worship proper to the nation whom the
Supreme had
favoured with a clear and glorious revelation of his blessed
character and
his holy will. It is an illustration of the weakness and
proneness to err
characteristic of our humanity, that a nation so favoured as
borrow from their neighbours
religious rites and observances utterly
inconsistent with their own religion, and of a kind fitted
to degrade rather
than to exalt the moral life. We may observe of this
special superstition —
·
THAT IT SUBSTITUTED FICTION FOR TRUTH.
·
THAT IT CONCENTRATED ATTENTION UPON NATURE
INSTEAD OF UPON THE AUTHOR OF NATURE.
·
THAT IT SUBSTITUTED AN IMAGINATIVE AND FANCIFUL
FOR A REAL AND LEGITIMATE CAUSE OF EMOTION.
·
THAT IT PROMOTED VICE INSTEAD OF MORAL PURITY.
·
THAT IT CONSEQUENTLY DEGRADED THE NATION THAT
SUFFERED ITSELF TO BE SEDUCED BY IT.
·
APPLICATION. No nation and no individual is superior to the necessity
of watchfulness against the
contaminating influence of neighbours upon a
lower moral platform, “Evil
communications corrupt good manners.”
instead of the good leavening
the evil, and so purifying the mass, the
contrary may happen, and the
defiling influence of error and impurity may
spread. In this case there is
every likelihood of the fulfilment of the
proverb, “The companion of fools
shall be destroyed.”
Sun
Worshippers in
Although the worship of Baal and other similar deities was
no doubt a
corruption due to the personification of the great orb of
day, it does not
seem that, in this passage, the prophet intends to denounce
that form of
idolatry. It appears that actual sun worship, which we know
to have been
practised among the Persians, obtained in the time of Ezekiel at
though it is scarcely credible that it took place literally
in the circumstances
depicted in the context.
·
THE SUN WORSHIP ITSELF. Of this it is enough to say that it is
creature worship, and is
therefore dishonouring to the Creator who kindled
the sun in the firmament, and
who is himself the eternal, uncreated Light.
·
THE SUN WORSHIPPERS.
Ø
They included the
priesthood; for the five and twenty here mentioned
were doubtless the heads of the
twenty-four courses, with the high priest
presiding over them.
Ø
Their attitude was
indicative of profanity and defection; they are
depicted as turning their backs
towards the
might face the sun as he rose in
the east.
·
THE EFFECTS OF SUN WORSHIP.
Ø
This superstition
estranged the minds of those who practised it from
the
God who is Light, and in whom is
no darkness at all; it rendered them
indifferent to the Divine Law,
and inattentive to the Divine service and
worship.
Ø
It was the means of
filling the land with abominations and violence, and
this was especially the case
when conjoined with the worship of the
Phoenician sun god.
Ø
It thus became one of
the many occasions for the arousing of the anger
of God, and led to the retributions
and chastenings which speedily came
upon the ungrateful,
unspiritual, and apostate people.
Gradual Disclosure of
Human Sin (vs. 1-16)
The prophet notes the exact date of the vision, so that, if
any doubt arose,
the circumstance could be verified, so long as any one of
these elders
survived. These details of day and month may seem to many
readers
needless and tedious; yet, in an earlier day, they probably
served an
important purpose, and may be again useful in a future age.
Even now they
demonstrate with what diligent care the prophet preserved
the records of
Divine manifestations. The three hundred and ninety days
during which
Ezekiel was to be a living sign were now fulfilled.
·
THE OCCASION. The
occasion arose out of a visit made to Ezekiel by
the elders of
to God. If men ask after truth
from righteous motive, God is prepared to
meet them. The response from
heaven may not be in the mode men expect,
yet some response there will be.
On this occasion, too, God was honoured
in the person of his messenger.
It becomes us to use those channels for
information which God has
opened. If we are at our Sovereign’s footstool,
we shall not have long to wait.
·
GOD’S GRACIOUS MANIFESTATION. It was an act of grace that
God should reveal Himself to His
prophet, so that through the prophet he
might reveal himself to the
elders. In every age God has chosen the most
fitting agencies through which
to manifest himself to men.
Ø
It was an exact
repetition of a former appearance. This
was to intimate
that God’s designs had in no
respect changed. There were the same
splendours of majesty — the unchangeable glory — of Jehovah; there
was
the same appearance of radiant
fire in the loins and feet, to indicate that he
was about to march through the
land in righteous indignation. “Verily, a
fire goeth
before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about.” “For
he cometh to judge the earth.”
Ø
A mighty energy was
put forth. There was the form of a hand,
by which
the prophet was lifted up. From
first to last we need Divine assistance. So
feeble is human nature, that at
every step we need gracious succour, both
to learn and to do God’s will.
We must be separated from earthly scenes —
have elevation of mind — if we
would see things as God sees them.
Ø
Personal effort. There was place and scope for the prophet’s exertion.
Man must cooperate with God. “I
beheld.” Ezekiel must use his eyes. In
that state of ecstasy to which
he had been raised there is need for special
activity. Human nature at
present cannot long endure the ecstatic state.
Golden opportunities such as
these are brief. Therefore note well the
precious lessons.
·
THE GRADUAL DISCLOSURES OF
of God was manifest in the
temple.
Ø In the clear light of Jehovah’s presence we see the real character of sin.
The eye of man needs the medium
of light through which to discern
objects; and a special
revelation of God is required in which to discover
the
turpitude of sin. It was when
God came near to Job that this exemplary
man exclaimed, “I abhor myself.”
It was when Christ first revealed his
glory to Peter that he put up
the prayer, “Depart from me; for I am a
sinful man, O
Lord.”
Ø
All
forms of idolatry provoke God’s jealous anger. We take this “image
of jealousy” as an allegorical
representation of the many sided idolatry of
common — they usurped Jehovah’s
place; they supplanted his authority.
In stupendous condescension, God
speaks to us after the manner of a
man. As the strongest passion
which fallen man knows is jealousy, so
God represents this as
the picture of indignant sentiment in his own
breast. He sets high value on our
human love. It is the most precious
thing we can give
Him. Hence, we wound Him in the tenderest part
when we erect a rival in His place.
This is a root sin.
Ø Sin becomes
most heinous of all sin when committed in the temple.
God’s dwelling place on earth is
designed to be a fount, whence streams
of blessing may flow to every
province of our human life. To defile this
fount is to send a stream of
pollution into the domestic, commercial, and
political life of the nation. If
there be idolatry in the temple, there will be
idolatry in the home; there will
be disorder everywhere. The sanctuary
will always be a source of life
or of death to the whole empire.
Ø
God’s disclosures
of our sin are gradual. This method has two
advantages:
o
It
gives us a clearer conception of the magnitude and the degrees of
sin.
o
It
serves to deepen impression, while it does not overwhelm us with
despair. If we
desire to know the truth respecting our sin,
God’s Spirit
will lead us from point to point, so that we may have
an ever-deepening
sense of our iniquity.
·
THE HEINOUSNESS OF
Ø Its secrecy. The prophet had to break through the wall
in order to
discover it.
Men will often indulge secretly in sins which they are ashamed
to commit openly.
The censure of our fellow men is often a useful
deterrent. The
opinion of others is a mirror, in which we see ourselves.
Every man has
his “chamber of imagery” within. Idolatry in the heart
precedes the
idolatry of temple worship. Can we not find some image of
evil painted on
the wails of our imagination — some form of mammon, or
pleasure, or
self? Therefore “keep thy heart with all diligence.”
Ø The deceitfulness of sin. It had blinded men’s eyes to the fact of
God’s
presence — to
the fact of certain discovery and certain retribution. A
growing
acquaintance with sin convinces us of its many wiles to deceive.
Few men venture
to sin until they forget God’s omniscience; and the habit
of
forgetfulness leads swiftly to atheism.
Ø The sin was spread by most pernicious
example. The men who
ought to
have been
beacons and bulwarks against idolatry were pioneers in iniquity.
Men holding
high rank, whether in Church or in state, cannot sin as others
do. Their
influence is enormous, and it is inevitable that they lead others to
heaven or to
hell. Every station has its responsibilities. If, in
princes and
elders had set a high example of pious obedience, in all
likelihood the
fortunes of the nation had been retrieved. If the helmsman be
blind, there is
small chance for the safety of the ship.
4. This sin is seminal; it soon produces a brood of other
sins. Idolatry
blossomed into
sensual lust — into vice, disorder, and violence. The
idolatries of
the heathen suited the popular taste, because they did not curb
natural inclination;
gave a dangerous licence to every sensual and selfish
passion. They
who have driven from the heart the love of God are soon
filled with
every vile affection. They who have ceased to fear God soon
cease to have
any regard for others’ weal. Sin rapidly generates a swarm
noxious vices.
The women who wept for Tammuz at the door of the
temple were,
without doubt, living in shameless prostitution. To depart
from God is to
run into every excess of iniquity. The more we examine the
matter, the
more flagrant and aggravated human sin appears. Superficial
observers may
talk of sin as a mere bagatelle; but they who search out the
matter conclude
that language is too poor to describe the cursed thing. It is
the heaviest
calamity that can rest on a human being; worse than poverty,
or pain, or
ill-repute, or desertion, or death: “He is in danger of eternal
sin.”
Men Co-Assessors in Judgment
with God (vs. 17-18)
In saving men from sin, God qualifies them for the highest
offices in his
kingdom. “They shall sit upon thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of
·
GOD GIVES US, IN
STAGES, HIS VIEW OF HUMAN GUILT.
Without question, we should take
very low and imperfect conceptions of
sin, unless God revealed to us
the facts in the moral department of
existence. By such means, God
condescends to train us for companionship
with himself, and for high
office in his realm. “Know ye not that we shall
judge angels?”
·
GOD SHOWS US FURTHER THE MANIFOLD EFFECTS OF
HUMAN SIN.
Ø Its inexcusableness. It
is not committed from want of knowledge. Those
in
yielded to idolatry.
Ø
Its effect upon
others. All sin is contagious; and when
exhibited in the
lives of learned and official
personages, it has peculiar fascination. The
mystic force of influence
diffuses it far and wide.
Ø
Its penetrative
power. It touches and taints every part of
man’s nature
— body, soul, and spirit. It
defiles every department of human life and
interest — agriculture,
commerce, literature, legislation, the household.
Ø
Its cumulative
energy. It grows worse and worse, until
every restraint is
broken down, and all sense of
shame is destroyed. Open defiance of God is
the last phase of iniquity.
·
GOD SUMMONS OUR JUDGMENT TO ASSESS THE GUILT.
God appeals to his prophet for
his estimate of the case. “Hast thou seen
this, O son of man? Is this a
light thing?’ Our judgment, our reason, our
moral sensibility, our
conscience, have been conferred upon us for this
selfsame purpose, viz. that we
should condemn what is evil and approve
what is good. Under certain
circumstances it is our duty not to judge; as,
for instance, when all the facts
of the case are not within our possession, or
when sympathetic help is better
than critical examination, or when our
judging faculty is better
exercised about ourselves than about others. Our
good, and the world’s advantage,
must be our guide when to judge and
when not to pass a judgment.
·
GOD DESIRES TO HAVE OUR ACQUIESCENCE IN HIS
DECISIONS. He puts
great honour upon men in making them partners
with him in the highest offices
of the heavenly state. God is no lover of
monopoly. As his creatures
become fitted for eminent office and honour,
he promotes them. To give them
pleasure is to give himself pleasure. If any
of his creatures become as wise
and pure and good as he is, he will not
repine. He calls us his sons and
daughters; and inasmuch as the relationship
is real, he loves to have
our companionship, ay, and our hearty approval of
all that he does. When Christ
shall sit as Judge, in glorious state, we are
told that all the holy angels
shall sit with him. And if he will come to “be
admired by his saints,” he will
desire to have admiration for his deeds as
well as for his Person.
“He shall be justified” by his people “as often as he
judges.”
The Vision of the Image
of Jealousy (vs. 1-6)
“And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth
month,” etc. This and
the following three chapters are one discourse, or the
record of one vision.
In this chapter we see how the prophet was transported in
spirit to the
temple at
idolatrous abominations of which the people of
portions of these verses have already engaged our attention
in other
connections. Moreover, vers. 1-4
are merely introductory to the vision; but
the following points may perhaps be considered by us with
advantage.
·
THE ELDERS SEEKING COUNSEL OF THE PROPHET OF THE
LORD. “I sat in mine
house, and the elders of
been suggested that this was on
the sabbath day, and that the elders were
accustomed to meet thus on that
day to hear the Word of the Lord from
Ezekiel, and to unite in the
worship of the Lord their God. But others are
of opinion that the occasion was
an extraordinary one, and that they were
assembled to seek counsel or
comfort from the prophet. Whatever the
occasion might have been, there
can be but little doubt that they were
endeavoring to obtain some
communication of the Divine will. Thus in the
troubles of their captivity,
when removed from their temple, and deprived
of the regular ordinances of
religion, these elders of
been more attentive to the
prophet of Jehovah than they were when they
had their religious privileges
in fall. When the vision had become rare, it
was prized. It is our sin and loss
that our blessings are often not justly and
adequately valued until we have
lost them wholly or in part.
“What we
have we prize not to the worth,
Whiles we
enjoy it; but being lack’d and lost,
Why, thee
we rack the value; then we find
The
virtue, that possession would not show us
Whiles it
was ours.”
(Shakespeare.)
Wise and blessed are they who
duly prize their good and perfect gifts while
in the possession and enjoyment
of them.
·
THE DIVINE INSPIRATION OF THE PROPHET OF THE LORD.
Ezekiel had been inspired
previously. The Spirit of God had moved him
mightily before; but now the
hand of the Lord came again upon him. New
services require new
inspirations. Fresh duties demand for their worthy
discharge fresh impartations of
strength. Each day we need the renewal of
grace and strength from above.
We discover in the prophet a triple effect
of Divine inspiration.
Ø
Strengthening him. “The hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.” (We
have spoken of this in our
remarks on ch. 1:3.)
Ø
Exalting him. “And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a
lock of mine head; and the
Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the
heaven, and brought me in the
visions of God to
was sitting there amidst the
elders of
carried away to
above its ordinary level,
stimulates it into greater and nobler activities, and
renders it more capable of
receiving Divine impressions and
communications.
Ø
Enlightening him. The Spirit enlightened the prophet by quickening his
spirit to perceive Divine
visions, and by unfolding those visions unto him.
(See our remarks on ch. 1:1, “The heavens were opened, and I saw
visions of God.”)
·
THE SPIRITUAL VISIONS GRANTED UNTO THE PROPHET
OF THE LORD.
Ø A Vision of the glory of the Lord God. “Then I beheld, and lo a likeness
as the
appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward,
fire; and from
his loins even upward, as the appearance… as the colour
of
amber Aria,
behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to
the vision that
I saw in the plain.” Thus the prophet himself informs us that
this vision of
the glory of God corresponds with one which he saw before,
and which we
have already noticed (on ch. 1:26-28).
Ø A vision of the dishonour
done to the Lord God. The
prophet was
transported in
spirit “to
looketh toward
the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy,
which provoketh to jealousy… So I lifted up mine eyes the way
toward the
north, and
behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy
in the entry.”
Many have thought that this was an image of Baal. Lightfoot
concluded that
it was an image of Moloch. Others are of opinion that it
was an image of
Asherah or Astarte, which
is mentioned in II Kings
21:7; 23:4, 7,
and incorrectly translated in the Authorized Version “grove.”
It has been
suggested that it was an image of the Tammuz or
Adonis
mentioned in v.
14, “and called ‘the image that provoked to jealousy,’
with special
reference to the yonthful and attractive beauty of
the object it
represented.”
The view of Fairbairn seems to us the most probable.
“We
are disposed to
think,” he says, “from the ideal character of the
representation,
that it should not be limited to any specific deity. The
prophet, we are
persuaded, purposely made the expression general, as it
was not so much
the particular idol placed on a level with Jehovah, as the
idol worship
itself, which he meant to designate and condemn. So sunk and
rooted were the
people in the idolatrous feeling, that where Jehovah had an
altar, there
some idol form must have its ‘seat’ — a fixed residence, to
denote that it
was no occasional thing its being found there, but a regular
and stated
arrangement. And whatever it might for the time be — whether
it was Baal, or
Moloch, or Astarte, that the image represented — as
it was
necessarily set
up for a rival of Jehovah, to share with him in the worship
to which he
alone was entitled, it might justly be denominated ‘the image
of jealousy,’
as it provoked that jealousy, and called for that visitation of
wrath, against
which the Lord had so solemnly warned his people in the
second
commandment.” “The image of jealousy, which provoketh
to
jealousy,” is
an expression which looks back to Deuteronomy 32:16,
21: “They
provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations
provoked they
him to anger.” Thus Ezekiel beheld the Lord Jehovah
dishonoured
by his own people, and at the gate of his own altar. And being
thus dishonoured, Jehovah abandons his temple. “He said unto me,
Son of
man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that
the house
of
When that
sanctuary has been grossly polluted with idols he will no longer
dwell there.
And this is applicable to the Church of Jesus Christ. If a spirit
of pride,
worldliness, or selfishness become predominant in any Christian
community, he
departs far off from it. If any idol of creed, or ritual, or
fashion, or
popularity be established therein, he will go far away. And this
is applicable
also to the human heart. If we give the devotion of our hearts
to another
object or objects, he will leave us. He claims our supreme
affection. He
will not have any rival for our love.