Ezekiel 8 Footnotes

8:1 When Ezekiel said, “The hand of the Lord GOD came down on me,” this was a visionary experience. Physically Ezekiel was in Babylon, but in “visions of God” he was transported to Jerusalem to see the abominations in the temple (v. 3). This vision occurred fourteen months after his first two visions recorded at 1:1 and 3:16.

8:5-6 This passage provides no description of “the offensive statue” (semel, v. 3) in the temple courtyard. The word was also used to describe the image set up by Manasseh (2Kg 21:7; 2Ch 33:7,15). The people violated the commandments (Ex 20:4) by bringing an idol into the temple area. All Ezekiel saw was great, or terrible, abominations (Ezk 8:6,9,13,15,17), detestable especially to a priest.

8:14-15 This is the only biblical reference to this Babylonian cult. The women “weeping for Tammuz” were mourning the Babylonian equivalent of the Assyrian god of vegetation known as Demuzi. They believed the cycle of seasons represented the dying and rising of Tammuz. In Babylonian mythology, Tammuz was the son of Nimrod (Gn 10:8-14) and his wife Semiramus. He was killed on a wild boar hunt and immortalized by his mother as a nature god and an embodiment of the hope of resurrection depicted in the cycles of the seasons. Women wept each year in the fourth month, at the on-set of spring, to induce Tammuz to rise again. Today the fourth month of the Jewish calendar is still called Tammuz. It is not clear why these women were worshiping in the sixth month instead of the fourth, but it may indicate that Tammuz worship had become institutionalized year round.

8:16-18 The twenty-five men facing east, worshiping the sun, were in the inner court of the temple where only priests were permitted to be. If they were not priests, not only were they practicing idolatry but they had also violated the sanctity of the inner court. If they were priests, their sin was all the more severe. Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, introduced this kind of idolatry (2Kg 21:5,18,25-26). Such abhorrent behavior would not go unpunished. God would “respond with wrath.” The Lord would spare no one, and neither would he hear their cries for help.