Ezekiel 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the sixth year, while Ezekiel sits at home with the elders of Judah, God's hand comes on him and a fiery figure carries him in visions to Jerusalem. There, at the temple, he is shown four scenes in turn: an idol set up at the north gate, seventy elders burning incense to carved animals in a hidden room, women weeping for Tammuz, and about twenty-five men bowing east to the sun. Each scene is called worse than the one before. The chapter ends with God saying he will act in fury and will not listen when they cry out.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • It happened in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month.
   • Ezekiel was sitting in his house.
   • The elders of Judah were sitting before him.
   • The hand of the Lord GOD fell upon Ezekiel there.
2. 8:2
   • Ezekiel looked and saw a likeness with the appearance of fire.
   • From the appearance of its loins downward there was fire.
   • From its loins upward there was the appearance of brightness, like the gleam of amber.
3. 8:3
   • The figure put forth the form of a hand.
   • The figure took Ezekiel by a lock of his head.
   • The spirit lifted Ezekiel up between the earth and the heaven.
   • The spirit brought Ezekiel to Jerusalem in visions of God.
   • Ezekiel was brought to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north.
   • The seat of the image of jealousy was at that entrance.
   • That image provokes jealousy.
4. 8:4
   • The glory of the God of Israel was there.
   • The glory appeared like the vision Ezekiel had seen in the plain.
5. 8:5
   • The figure said to Ezekiel, Son of man, lift up your eyes now toward the north.
   • Ezekiel lifted up his eyes toward the north.
   • North of the gate of the altar, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy.
6. 8:6
   • The figure asked Ezekiel, Son of man, do you see what they are doing?
   • The figure said the house of Israel commits great abominations here.
   • The figure said these abominations drive him far off from his sanctuary.
   • The figure told Ezekiel to turn again and he would see greater abominations.
7. 8:7
   • The figure brought Ezekiel to the door of the court.
   • Ezekiel looked and saw a hole in the wall.
8. 8:8
   • The figure said to Ezekiel, Son of man, dig now in the wall.
   • Ezekiel dug in the wall.
   • Ezekiel found a doorway.
9. 8:9
   • The figure said to Ezekiel, Go in and see the wicked abominations that they do here.
10. 8:10
    • Ezekiel went in and looked.
    • Every form of creeping thing was portrayed on the wall.
    • Detestable beasts were portrayed on the wall.
    • All the idols of the house of Israel were portrayed on the wall.
    • The portrayals were on the wall all around.
11. 8:11
    • Seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel stood before them.
    • Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan stood in the midst of them.
    • Each man had his censer in his hand.
    • A thick cloud of incense went up.
12. 8:12
    • The figure said to Ezekiel, Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark?
    • The figure said each man does it in the chambers of his carved images.
    • The figure said they say the LORD does not see us.
    • The figure said they say the LORD has forsaken the land.
13. 8:13
    • The figure told Ezekiel to turn again and he would see greater abominations that they do.
14. 8:14
    • The figure brought Ezekiel to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which faced north.
    • Women were sitting there.
    • The women were weeping for Tammuz.
15. 8:15
    • The figure asked Ezekiel, Have you seen this, son of man?
    • The figure told Ezekiel to turn again and he would see greater abominations than these.
16. 8:16
    • The figure brought Ezekiel into the inner court of the LORD's house.
    • About twenty-five men were at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar.
    • Their backs were toward the temple of the LORD.
    • Their faces were toward the east.
    • They were bowing down eastward to the sun.
17. 8:17
    • The figure asked Ezekiel, Have you seen this, son of man?
    • The figure asked whether it is a light thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations they commit here.
    • The figure said they have filled the land with violence.
    • The figure said they have returned to provoke him to anger.
    • The figure said they are putting the branch to their nose.
18. 8:18
    • The LORD said he also will deal in fury.
    • The LORD said his eye shall not spare.
    • The LORD said he will not have pity.
    • The LORD said that though they cry in his ears with a loud voice, he will not hear them.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1

Ezekiel dates events from the deportation of King Jehoiachin and the first group of exiles to Babylon in 597 BC, so the sixth year is about 592 BC; the sixth month falls in late summer. Ezekiel is living among the deported Judeans in Babylonia, and the "elders of Judah" are the heads of families who led that exile community and who have come to consult him. "The hand of the LORD fell on me" is a stock phrase in this book for the overpowering onset of a prophetic vision, a state that seizes the prophet rather than something he chooses.

8:2

"Amber" translates the Hebrew word hashmal, whose exact meaning is unknown; ancient translators took it as a bright metal or metallic alloy, something like polished bronze or electrum, glowing rather than transparent. The same word describes the fiery figure in Ezekiel's opening vision (chapter 1).

8:3

The journey happens "in visions of God": Ezekiel's body stays in Babylonia while he is shown Jerusalem, roughly 900 kilometres away. The inner gate is a gateway in the wall around the temple's inner courtyard. "Jealousy" here renders a Hebrew word used of a husband's exclusive claim on his wife; Israel's covenant language regularly used marriage imagery, so an idol installed at God's own temple gate is called the image that provokes that reaction. Which god the statue represented is not stated.

8:4

"The plain" refers back to the valley by the Chebar canal in Babylonia where Ezekiel first saw this vision of God's glory (chapters 1 and 3).

8:5

"Son of man" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning simply "human being" or "mortal." It is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book, more than ninety times, and marks the distance between the speaker and the man being spoken to.

8:6

"Abominations" translates a Hebrew word for what is detestable or repellent, used above all for the worship of other gods and for ritual practices Israel's law forbade. "Sanctuary" is the temple in Jerusalem, the building itself.

8:7

A court was an open yard with a wall around it. The temple had a yard outside and another one further in.

8:8

Many walls back then were made of dried mud bricks. A person could dig a hole through one with his hands.

8:10

"Creeping things" and "abominable beasts" are the classes of animal that Israel's food and purity laws ruled unclean and unfit for the altar (Leviticus 11), reptiles, insects, vermin and the like. "Portrayed upon the wall" means carved or incised into the wall surface, a decorative scheme familiar from Egyptian and Mesopotamian temples.

8:11

Seventy is the traditional number for a full body of Israel's elders, going back to the seventy who went up the mountain with Moses (Exodus 24). Shaphan was the royal scribe under King Josiah and his family were prominent officials in Jerusalem, so Jaazaniah is a man of standing, not a fringe figure. A censer is a small hand-held pan or bowl for burning incense over coals; offering incense in the temple was in principle restricted to priests.

8:12

"The LORD has forsaken the land" is what the elders say about the country of Judah itself: with Jerusalem battered and part of the population already deported, they conclude that their God has abandoned the territory and cannot see what they do in it.

8:14

Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi) was a Mesopotamian god associated with shepherding and with the vegetation that dies in the summer heat; the myths have him carried off to the underworld, and his cult involved seasonal ritual mourning performed mainly by women. A month of the Babylonian calendar was named after him, falling in midsummer, close to the date given in verse 1.

8:16

The temple's entrance faced east, so worshipers normally stood facing west, toward the building. To bow toward the rising sun these men have had to turn right around, putting their backs to the sanctuary. The "porch" or portico was the roofed entrance hall at the front of the temple; the space between it and the great altar in the courtyard was where priests customarily stood to pray on the people's behalf.

8:17

"Put the branch to their nose" is one of the most obscure phrases in the Hebrew Bible and no translation is secure. It may describe a ritual gesture in which worshipers held a twig or sprig to the face, a practice pictured in some ancient Near Eastern art; some ancient interpreters took it as an insulting gesture, and Jewish scribal tradition records that the line may once have read "to my nose," that is, an affront aimed at God. The rendering keeps the wording unresolved because the sense is genuinely unknown.

8:18

"My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity" is a fixed legal-sounding pairing in Hebrew, used of a judge who refuses to let sympathy soften a sentence.