4. The rarity with which the above ideas are touched upon in Ezekiel is plainly owing to the circumstance that he feels himself in the first instance far more impelled to give strong expres- sion to his holy indignation at the sins and the consequently enormous guilt of his people. Hence his Divine commission has for its very starting- point that he is sent to ‘the apostate ones, the house of rebellion’ (2°: * 5° and often). And in- deed it is always the same complaint that occupies the foreground in all his arraignments of the people, namely, that of gross apostasy from Jahweh —idolatry.
In order rightly to appreciate this charge, two things must be kept in view. (a) First of all, by idolatry Ezekiel understands not merely the actual worship of strange, heathen gods,* such as he once beheld (8!) in a vision, when he saw carried on in the temple at Jerusalem the worship of the ‘ image of jealousy’ (?an ’dshérah) and of all kinds of creep- ing things, the lamenting for Tammuz, and the adoration of the sun. He includes in the term the whole of the Jahweh cult, in so far as it is com- bined with the use of images of Jahweh and sacri- ficial worship on the so-called ‘ high places.’
The Book of Deuteronomy makes no secret that the abolition of the high place worship is an inno- vation, which must be carried out with a certain measure of forbearance. For it really amounted to counting every spot outside Jerusalem profane —an intolerable idea to the ancient way of think- ing. Consequently, Deuteronomy had conceded to the former priests of the high places at least the right of officiating in the temple, and at the same time commended them as far as possible
* There is no evidence for the view of Robertson Smith and
Smend, that in Ezk 8 it is ancient Israelitish family or tribal gods that are in view.
to kindness at the hands of the people. An absolute condemnation of the high place worship as a heinous sin was thus far from its intention, although it held that subsequent to the time of Solomon the confining of the cultus to the temple had become a universal obligation. Quite different is the judgment of Ezekiel. The occur- rences of the year 597, by which he had suffered so much personally, and the days that followed, had revealed to him that the roots of the evil lay too deep to be removed by the reforms of Josiah. Not only from the time of Solomon, but from the very first the worship of Israel, even when it had Jahweh for its object, had been pure idolatry, masquerading first in Egyptian (23* *)* and after- wards in Canaanite dress. The latter is what is referred to by the prophet at the commencement of his great arraignment of Jerusalem in ch. 16: ‘Thy birth and thy nativity are of the land of the Canaanites ; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.’ Hzekiel’s intention here is not to teach anything new about the earliest history of Israel, but simply to characterize in the strongest fashion the heathenish form of its worship. ‘This comes out not only in the two great indictments of chs. 16 and 23, but also elsewhere (ef. e.g. 445#:), The heathen character of this worship is shown to consist not only in specifically heathen practices connected with the cultus, such as excess and immorality at the sacrificial meals, but in the utter lack of fine feeling for what is holy and worthy of the Deity. No wonder that Ezekiel regarded the transferring of this cultus to one sanctuary as only a half measure, which must now be energetically superseded by a whole one. For, even after the reforms of Josiah, the sanctuary had been further ‘defiled’; in particular, images of Jahweh appear to have been afterwards reintro- duced and to have played an important réle (54 Gif. 13 720),
(0) But, secondly, the charge of idolatry as adultery against Jahweh includes also courting the favour and aid of the heathen powers. This is clearly the case in 1676, probably also in 23% & 1M4f. 21. elsewhere it is sometimes doubtful whether actual apostasy to heathen gods, as the result of political intercourse, is not intended. To Ezekiel, indeed, ald contact with the sphere of heathendom causes outward and inward defilement.
5. In the view of Ezekiel, both kingdoms (Samaria in 234 under the name ’Ohdlah=‘her [own] tent,’ and Jerusalem under the name ’OAdlébah =‘ my tent is in her’) are naturally in the same condemnation. Yet Judah’s guilt is greater in so far as she has not only failed to take warning from the fate of Sodom and of Samaria, but has acted even more corruptly than these her sisters. Therefore the ill- fortune of the latter is to be reversed, that they may serve for the profound humiliation of Judah ; for the latter has shown by her conduct, that, in comparison with herself, even Sodom and Samaria still deserved consideration (1645 2311),
6. The special charges made by Ezekiel (esp. 225") against Jerusalem are concerned, above, all, with the perverting of justice and the committing of deeds of violence, and remind us strongly of the ever recurring complaints of the earlier prophets. The only strange feature is the emphatic mention of incest (22), which it is impossible to under- stand in a figurative sense. Moreover, all classes share in the general corruption: the king (Zede- kiah), who is to pay heavily for his perjury and _ * The picture of gross unchastity which the prophet draws in such realistic fashion in chs. 16 and 23 can only be intended, in accordance with a familiar usage of language, to stand for idolatry (a view which is confirmed by 208); and thus the sug- gestion is very natural that Ezekiel was led to the above judg- aes referring Am 5%6 to the Egyptian period of the people’s