And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
In a vision God carries Ezekiel from exile into the temple courts, shows him a hole in an inner wall, and tells him to dig until a door appears. Behind it is the worship Judah's leaders kept hidden — and God now sends the prophet in to look.
The chapter belongs to a longer revelation in which God explains why He will give up His own sanctuary. One commentator sets the scene by noting who was standing in front of the prophet when the vision came:
The elders of Judah came before the prophet. Jehovah used the moment to show him all the outrages that would bring judgment down on the people. In the prophecy of the year before, God had spoken through the prophet and threatened Israel that He would give up His sanctuary to the profane (chapter 7:20-22). Here Jehovah shows in detail the cause of this judgment.
Inside, painted creatures cover every wall. The men bowing to them are not outsiders but Judah's own leaders.
It is a scene of still more intimate and degrading idolatry, a repeat of the shameful practices of Egypt. And bowing down to these are not the dregs but the rulers of the people! … Long ago God had appointed seventy judges, and one of their weightiest duties was to deal with idol-worship. Here that same number are caught, we may say, in the very act of priestly devotion to images of serpents, loathsome beasts and dung-gods.
Why bury such worship behind a wall at all? The concealment is read as evidence that the worshippers knew exactly what they were doing.
The second proof of Israel's condition is their open adoption of beast-worship — if we may call it open. After all, the secrecy and darkness that go with it betray their awareness of the moral deformity attaching to it.
One writer turns the command to go in and look on the reader:
Gaze with the prophet through the hole in the wall, into chambers of imagery in the idol's temple. See the almost inconceivable horrors portrayed there; human corruption in its lowest forms. You say, how could a people think that religious worship? Dear friends, it is just what all men do. They turn away from God as He is revealed to us in Christ. They make a god of their own imagination. They give free rein to the lusts of their own hearts.
The same writer refuses to guess which deity the image stood for:
We need not speculate about the form of the image, or what false deity it stood for. The less we define it — and we really cannot define it — the more telling what is before us becomes. The crowd might disown any one false god. Men's thoughts vary, so their gods are as many as their thoughts. But the trouble is with the thinking at all. God has revealed Himself. How good to know we have only to receive His revelation.
God let the incense rise and sent no sign against it. One writer points to what kept the prophet safe:
The old men of religion were raising clouds of incense in the dark. In their vain imaginations they were saying, "The Lord does not see us." … The Lord did not interfere with these celebrations. He sent no rain on the clouds of incense. They rose in beautiful wreaths, as if He who dwelt in the temple accepted them. No hand traced out a warning message on the wall! Still, the Word of the Lord called these fascinations abominations. The prophet's safety — and ours at the present moment — lay in the love of the truth.
The hidden worship stood inside God's own house, and that is where judgment starts:
Judgment must begin at the house of God. It always begins there. The greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility. Outward nearness to God, with the heart far away, only invites judgment all the more.
- Seen — God takes the prophet into the hidden room for a reason. He is showing him, in detail, why He will give up His own sanctuary.
- Concealed — The secrecy and darkness betray that the worshippers knew the moral deformity of what they did. Hiding a thing is already an admission.
- Led — Those bowing to creeping things were not the dregs but the rulers. The seventy elders were the very men whose duty was to deal with idol-worship.
- Imagined — The image is never named, so no one can file this under ancient religion. Men still turn from God as He is revealed in Christ and make a god of their own imagination.
- Judged — Nothing interrupted the incense. Safety lay in loving the truth that called it abomination. Judgment begins where nearness to God is greatest and the heart is furthest away.
And I went in and looked, and behold, every form of creeping thing and abominable beast, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about.
In a vision, God brings Ezekiel to Jerusalem and tells him to dig through a wall. Behind it he finds a hidden door, and a room where carved figures cover every wall. What he finds there raises two questions: why these particular images, and why hidden?
Commentators trace the figures on the wall back to the animal worship of Egypt. William Kelly names what the images were, and who was bowing before them.
This is a scene of even closer and more degrading idolatry, a repeat of the debased worship of Egypt. And bowing down to these images are not the lowest of the people but their rulers! Long before, God had appointed seventy judges, and one of their weightiest duties was to deal with idol-worship. Here we find the same number of men caught, we may say, in the very act of priestly devotion to images of serpents, disgusting beasts (or cattle) and all dung-gods.
The images follow an order. Samuel Ridout traces idolatry downward, and puts the crawling creature at the bottom.
Idolatry does move forward, but it moves downward. First, people make a god of man, who was made in the image of God. Then come birds of the air, then four-footed beasts, and down to the grovelling, creeping insects. Every step shows the progress of degradation. You can see it in the magnificent temples of Egypt, where building reached its height of grandeur. Grand avenues lead up to the temples, with their outer court and inner sanctuary. But in the innermost room of all that magnificence sits a hideous beetle, a creeping thing — as though Satan delighted to insult God with such a likeness.
The shocking thing is the address. J. N. Darby describes where God took the prophet, and what He showed him there.
The glory of the Lord appeared to the prophet, and in the visions of God He carried him to Jerusalem. There, in the courts, the chambers and the gates, God showed him every form of hateful and defiling idolatry that the elders and others of Israel were practising in the Lord's own house. Compare this with the history of Jeremiah, and with the outward profession they kept up — the claim that the law would never fail from the priest. Then we will understand how great the sin of the Jews was, and how deep their hypocrisy.
Meanwhile the outward claim went on. One writer sets the slogan of the day beside God's verdict on it.
They were still saying, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD" (Jer. 7:4). They imagined, wrongly, that their formal worship — corrupt as it was — would save them from God's judgment, because the building that carried God's Name was still standing. But God had passed His judgment on Jerusalem. His glory was about to leave the temple, and it was leaving because of the awful corruption in the place that bore His Name.
The images were not on display. A Bible dictionary puts the point in one line.
Ezekiel 8 speaks of the idolatry connected with the temple. Much of it was in secret, and it had to be dug out.
William Kelly measures how far these men had fallen.
They had stopped even holding the truth in unrighteousness, bad as that is. They had sunk to a lower depth still: denying the attributes that belong to God, falling into Jewish apostasy.
A. Pridham names the root of that darkness, and where it drives men:
The cause of moral darkness is unbelief. Men say in their hearts, "The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land" — and then they withdraw into the chambers of their imagery (Ezek. 8:12).
Ridout takes the reader through the hole in the wall and turns the vision on us.
Gaze with the prophet through the hole in the wall, into chambers of imagery in the idol's temple. See the almost unimaginable horrors pictured there; human corruption in its lowest forms. You say, how could a people think that was religious worship? Dear friends, it is just what all men do. They turn away from God as He has revealed Himself to us in Christ. They make a god of their own imagination, and they give free rein to the lusts of their own hearts.
- Unbelief first. Men retreat into a hidden chamber once they have decided that God does not see them and has forsaken the land.
- Then concealment. The idols were real but hidden. Ezekiel had to break through the wall before he could see the worship behind it.
- Then downward. Idolatry sinks from man, to beasts, to creeping things — each step lower, and each one drags the worshipper down with it.
- Inside the house. Carved figures covered the walls of the temple itself, while outside the people still repeated the slogan "the temple of the LORD".
- Led by the elders. Not the crowd but the rulers led this worship, so the judgment that followed fell on the place that bore God's Name.
And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
A vision carries Ezekiel from Babylon to Jerusalem. There he digs through a temple wall into a hidden room where idols cover the walls, and the men worshipping inside are the leaders of the nation.
The whole weight of the verse falls on the identity of the worshippers. One commentator notes what their office was meant to be for:
This is a scene of even closer and more degrading idolatry, a repeat of the shameful things of Egypt. And those bowing down to them are not the dregs of society but the rulers of the people! … Long ago God had appointed seventy judges, and one of their weightiest duties was to deal with idol-worship. Here the same number are caught, we may say, in the very act of priestly devotion to images of serpents, unclean beasts (or cattle), and every filthy idol.
The men appointed to stamp out idol-worship are the ones performing it.
The verse names Jaazaniah for one reason: his father. Shaphan was the scribe who received the book of the law when Hilkiah the priest found it in the temple. One writer draws the blunt conclusion:
Shaphan did wisely, for a Bible unread is useless to anybody. This man's son became a leader in idolatry (Ezek. 8:11). The Word of God clearly had no power over him.
Another writer sees the same collapse in the two names:
The names here mark the rapid and complete falling away that had been going on. Jaazaniah means "Jehovah hears," and this name came to him from a father whose own name means "one who is hidden" … The record of Shaphan in 2 Kings 22:8-10 fits this, connecting him with the newly discovered book of the law, which Hilkiah the priest gives first to Shaphan. How rapid then had been the movement toward turning away from God! The father in the light, holding to God and His Word; the son in the midnight darkness, degrading himself into a worshipper of the beasts that perish!
The censer was not a pagan object. It came from the worship God Himself had commanded. A survey of incense in Scripture shows both sides of it:
The incense was to be put on burning coals in a censer and carried by the high priest into the most holy place on the Day of Atonement, so that the cloud of incense might cover the mercy seat. It stood for the personal perfection of Him who carried in the blood of atonement. Lev. 16:12-13. We also find that while the high places remained, people burnt incense there as well as offering sacrifices. 1 Kings 22:43, etc. Scripture also speaks often of incense burnt to Baal and other false gods. Jer. 1:16; Jer. 7:9, etc. Satan has his own incense and perfume, and makes it a delight to those willing to serve him.
A thick cloud rising is the picture of enthusiastic devotion — offered to nothing.
They dug into a wall to reach this room. The concealment is itself a confession, as one commentator observes of their beast-worship:
The second proof of Israel's condition is their open adoption of beast-worship — open, if we may call it that, for the secrecy and darkness that went with it show they knew how morally deformed it was.
They knew enough to hide it. They did not know enough to stop.
The location matters as much as the act. All this was happening in the building people were still boasting about, while judgment stood at the door:
Just before Judah went into captivity, people still made an outward show of worshipping Jehovah, but idolatry had come even into what bore Jehovah's Name. They were still saying, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD" (Jer. 7:4). They imagined in vain that this formal, corrupt worship would save them from God's judgment, simply because the building was called by God's Name.
A single heart can hide the same room. One writer presses the vision inward:
…you keep some part of your heart shut away from Him. You do not want the light of God's Presence to enter that dark room, because it is a secret idol-shrine, and you do not want the idol shown up in the light of a God who is rightly jealous… And remember, an "idol" is anything you prefer to Christ and allow to slip in between Him and the soul.
- Leaders. The seventy were the rulers. The men whose duty was to judge idolatry were caught doing it.
- Legacy. Shaphan received the recovered book of the law. His son led the idolaters. A Bible in the family is not a Bible in the heart.
- Vessels. The censer and the cloud of incense belonged to God's own worship — a picture of the perfection of the One who carried in the blood of atonement. Satan copies them for willing worshippers.
- Darkness. They dug through a wall to do it, and that secrecy was their own admission that they knew it was deformed.
- Warning. The rot sat inside the building that carried God's Name. The same locked, dark room can exist in any heart that prefers something to Christ.
And he said unto me, Hast thou seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in his chambers of imagery? for they say, Jehovah seeth us not; Jehovah hath forsaken the land.
In a vision God carried Ezekiel to Jerusalem. There He showed him what the nation's leaders were doing where no one could watch, and the excuse they gave themselves for it.
This was not some fringe group. Notice the rank of the men bowing there, and the family name of one who stood among them.
It is a scene of even more intimate and debasing idolatry, a copy of the degradations of Egypt. And the ones bowing down to these were not the dregs of the people but their rulers! God had long ago appointed seventy judges, and one of their most important duties was to deal with idol-worship. Shaphan was the scribe who read the book of the law to the tender-hearted Josiah. What an ominous change in Judah, that now Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan stood in the middle of the seventy idolatrous elders!
These same men kept up the nation's public religion. The vision exposes the gap between what they showed and what they did.
These chapters judge the state of things at Jerusalem... The glory of the Lord appeared to the prophet. In the visions of God He took him to Jerusalem. There, in the courts, the chambers and the gates, He showed him every form of hateful and defiling idolatry practised in the Lord's own house by the elders and others of Israel. Compare the history of Jeremiah with the outward profession they kept up — the claim that the law would not perish from the priest. Then we understand the excessive iniquity of the Jews and their hypocrisy.
The secrecy itself is evidence. Men do in the dark what they already know will not bear light.
The secrecy and darkness surrounding this worship betray their awareness of the moral deformity attached to it.
The words at the end of the verse are not a slip of the tongue. They deny two things about God at once: that He watches, and that He is still here. These writers quote an older translation. It says "forsaken the earth" where the ESV says "the land," and "chambers of imagery" where the ESV says "room of pictures."
They had stopped even holding the truth in unrighteousness, bad as that is. They had sunk to the lower depth of denying the necessary attributes of God. They had sunk into Jewish apostasy, saying, "The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the earth."
The order matters. The sentence men say in their hearts is what drives them into the chamber, not the other way round.
The cause of moral darkness is unbelief. Men first say in their hearts, "The Lord does not see us: the Lord has forsaken the earth." Then they retire to the chambers of their imagery (Ezek. 8:12).
One writer turns the scene on the reader. He treats it as a picture of what every heart does with God, and warns where it ends.
Gaze with the prophet through the hole in the wall, into chambers of imagery in the idol's temple. See the almost unthinkable horrors pictured there; human corruption in its lowest forms. You say, how could a people think that was worship? Dear friends, it is just what all men do. They turn away from God as He is revealed to us in Christ. They make a god of their own imagination. They give free rein to the lusts of their own hearts... it should make us tremble. If you or I turn away from obeying God, and begin to serve a god of our own imagining, God will give us up to the desires of our own corrupt hearts.
Nothing stopped the ceremony while the incense went up. So what did that silence mean?
The Lord did not interfere with these celebrations. The clouds of incense rose in beautiful wreaths. He sent no rain on them, as if He who lived in the temple accepted them. No hand traced out a warning message on the wall! Still, the Word of the Lord described these fascinations as abominations. The prophet's safety, and ours at the present moment, lay in the love of the truth.
God's answer came in the next chapter.
In Ezekiel 9 we read the words, "Begin at My sanctuary. So they began with the elders who were in front of the house." Began what? Began to execute judgment!
- Seen — the whole vision exists because God was watching the exact room where men assumed He was not.
- Said — "The Lord does not see us" denies that He looks and that He is here. Commentators call it a denial of God's necessary attributes.
- Sequence — unbelief causes the darkness. Men say it in the heart first, then go into the room of pictures.
- Self-made — the idol is a god of our own imagination. Leave obedience, and God may give us up to our own desires.
- Settled — God's silence over the incense was not approval. Judgment began at the sanctuary, with the elders in front of the house.
And he said unto me, Yet again thou shalt see great abominations which they do.
In a vision, God takes Ezekiel from exile in Babylon to the temple in Jerusalem. There He shows him what is going on inside, one scene at a time. Each scene is worse than the last. The words of verse 13 are the hinge: God tells the prophet to look again, because what he has already seen is not the bottom.
God is laying out, piece by piece, the case behind the judgment He is about to bring.
These chapters judge the state of things at Jerusalem. The elders of Judah came before the prophet. The Lord used this moment to show him every outrage that would bring judgment down on the people... Here the Lord shows in detail the cause of this judgment... The Lord showed him every form of hateful and defiling idolatry that the elders and others of Israel practised in His own house.
What Ezekiel had already seen was bad enough. Notice who was bowing down in it.
This is a scene of idolatry even more secret and degrading. It copies the shameful practices of Egypt. And bowing down to these images were not the lowest of the people but their rulers! God long ago appointed seventy judges, and one of their most important duties was to deal with idol-worship. Here that same number are caught, you might say, in the very act of priest-like devotion to images of serpents, unclean beasts and worthless idols. Shaphan was the scribe who read the book of the law to the tender-hearted Josiah. What a dark change in Judah! Now Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan stood in the middle of those seventy idolatrous elders.
There is a last step down, and the priests are the ones who take it.
The last picture here is that of priestly apostasy; in this way it is the natural conclusion of the whole. Approach to God is what His house speaks of. The apostasy of the priesthood leaves this approach no longer possible.
Right after this verse, Ezekiel sees women weeping for Tammuz.
Tammuz is a name of uncertain origin, but his story is fairly clear. He is surely the figure better known to us and to history as Adonis, who in the legend was loved by Venus for his beauty. A boar killed him while he was hunting, says the legend, and at her request he was allowed to return from the underworld for six months of each year to be with her... It truly represents the short and lawless joys of earth, under a heaven pictured as no less lawless. Those joys soon end in mourning. With them goes a longing to have them back. In one way or another men predict that return for themselves, but they find little comfort even in what they predict. And no wonder, since there is no knowledge of sin in it, and no repentance.
If God already knew all of this, why did He wait?
God does not judge until the corruption is fully out in the open. He lets evil come to its full head before He strikes it, for He will be shown right in judging it, and clear when He Himself is judged.
This chapter is not only a record of one nation's past.
Gaze with the prophet through the hole in the wall, into chambers of imagery in the idol's temple. See the almost unimaginable horrors portrayed there — human corruption in its lowest forms. You say, how could a people think that was religious worship? Dear friends, it is just what all men do. They turn away from God as He is revealed to us in Christ. They make a god of their own imagination. They give free rein to the lusts of their own hearts.
So where does God start when He judges?
God always takes light and privilege into account when He judges. The elders who have privilege also carry the deepest responsibility. Their years do not exempt them; rather their stain is of a deeper shade... The evil had spread from the top downwards, so the judgment would follow the same course. God deals with the matter near to Him first: "Begin at my sanctuary."
- Deeper. Every "look again" takes the prophet one level deeper. God is not sampling the evil. He is showing in detail the whole cause of the judgment.
- Darker. The idolatry sank lower at every step. It ended with the priests. Their apostasy closed off the approach to God that His house was meant to give.
- Higher up. The guilty were the rulers and elders, even the son of the scribe who had read the law to a godly king.
- Emptier. The worship behind the next door longed for lost joys to return. It had no knowledge of sin in it, and no repentance.
- Nearer. God waits until the evil is fully out in the open. Then He begins judging at His own sanctuary, where the light and the responsibility were greatest.
And he brought me to the entry of the gate of Jehovah's house that was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
In a vision, God carries Ezekiel from Babylon to the temple in Jerusalem and shows him one hidden evil after another. At the north gate of His own house sit women in tears over a foreign god — and the question is what He will do about it.
Tammuz was a foreign god. Women mourned him each year, weeping over a death that comes from legend, not from Scripture.
A Phoenician idol, thought by some to be the same as the Greek Adonis, as in the Vulgate. The prophet saw women weeping for "the Tammuz," who according to tradition had been killed.
The worship was worse than a mistake. One writer describes what went on alongside the mourning, and where the whole path led.
The women wept for Tammuz, the Babylonian "Dumuzi," the god of spring, who dies and revives each year. It was a vile, obscene cult, because immoral, indecent ceremonies went with the worship of Tammuz. Sun-worship was the crown of all these abominations.
The vision moves from bad to worse. Here the source of the corruption shifts.
Here the idolatry is not Syrian or Egyptian, but Phoenician, and of the most deeply corrupting kind. It seems to be what the Greeks took up in the legend of Adonis and Aphrodite.
The earlier scene exposed the leaders. This one reaches further.
This next scene brings in a different group from the elders, and shows that every part of the nation was now infected.
One writer tells the legend behind these tears, then weighs what it leaves a person holding.
This is the god better known to history as Adonis. According to the legend, which is told in different ways, Venus loved him for his beauty. A boar killed him while he was hunting, and at her request he was allowed to return from the underworld for six months of the year… It is a nature picture in some way, no doubt. It truly represents the brief and lawless joys of earth, under a heaven pictured as just as lawless — joys which soon end in mourning. With them goes the longing to get those joys back, which in one way or another makes men predict this for themselves. But there is little comfort even in what they predict. And no wonder, since there is no knowledge of sin in it, and no repentance.
Grief is no proof of true worship. These women wept, and God called it an abomination.
One writer sets this scene beside a street in his own day.
In principle we see the deceitful character of religious activity in Ezekiel's day… Then on the other side of the House women were weeping for Tammuz (a heathen deity). The same thing showed itself some time ago in the South of England. During a huge ritualistic procession, bathers overcome with emotion knelt along the roadside as the "host" passed by… The Lord did not interfere with these celebrations. He did not pour rain on the clouds of incense that rose in beautiful wreaths as if He who dwelt in the temple accepted them. No hand traced out a warning message on the wall! Still, the Word of the Lord described these fascinations as abominations. The prophet's safety — and ours at this moment — lay in the love of the truth.
God's silence proved nothing about His approval.
Ezekiel's tour does not stop at the north gate. What he sees next is worse, and it ends with God's own answer.
We see how the prophet Ezekiel saw them weeping for Tammuz. Then, worse still, he saw them worshipping the sun. Through the hole dug in the wall he saw the images portrayed, and he found things getting only worse and worse. Could God spare such a nation? So He goes up with the cherubim and leaves the nation altogether.
- Tammuz. A Phoenician idol, mourned each year as a god who dies and comes back. Writers link him with the Greek Adonis and call the worship corrupting.
- Deeper. The vision moves from bad to worse. This scene reaches past the elders and shows that the rot had spread through the whole nation.
- Emptier. The myth is a picture drawn from nature: brief joys that end in mourning. There is no knowledge of sin in it, and no repentance.
- Louder. Real tears at the gate of God's house still counted as an abomination. Strong feeling does not prove that worship is real.
- Later. God did not interrupt the ritual, and His silence looked like approval. But the vision ends with His glory rising up and leaving the nation.