Ezekiel 8:13
Ver. 13. He said also unto me, turn thee yet again,.... Towards the north, as before; See Gill on "Eze 8:6";[and] thou shall see greater abominations that they do; or: "the great abominations"; for so the words may be strictly rendered; nor does it appear that what follows, though great abominations, were greater than the creeping things, four footed beasts, and other idols, or dunghill gods, portrayed upon the walls, which the elders of Israel burnt incense to. Ezekiel 8:14Ver. 14. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which [was] towards the north,.... By "the Lord's house" no doubt is meant the temple, which the Targum here calls the house of the sanctuary of the Lord; that gate of the temple (for the temple had several gates) which was to the north was the gate called Teri or Tedi, and was very little used {y}. In this part of the temple were the sacrifices offered; and therefore it was the greater abomination to commit idolatry where the Lord was more solemnly worshipped:and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz: they were not in the court of the women, where they should have been; but at the northern gate, near the place of sacrifice; and they were sitting there, which none but the kings of the house of Judah, and of the family of David, were allowed in the temple {z}; but, what was the greatest abomination, they were weeping for Tammuz. Jarchi says this was an image, which they heated inwardly, and its eyes were of lead; and these being melted with the heat, it seemed to weep; wherefore (the women) said, it asks for an offering: but not the idol, but the women, wept. Kimchi relates various interpretations of it;"some (he says) expound it by an antiphrasis, "making Tammuz glad"; in the month of Tammuz they made a feast to the idol, and the women came to make him glad: others say, that with great diligence they brought water to the eyes of the idol called Tammuz, and it wept; signifying that it desired they would worship it: others interpret the word Tammuz as signifying "burnt"; (from the words in Da 3:19; anwtal azml, "to heat the furnace";) as if should say, they wept for him, because he was for they burnt their sons and daughters in the fire, and the women wept for them. He further observes, that Maimonides {a} writes, that he found written in one of the books of the ancient idolaters, that there was a man of the idolatrous prophets, whose name was Tammuz; who called to a certain king, and commanded him to worship the seven stars, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, for which the king put him to a violent death; and, the same night he died, all the images from the ends of the earth gathered together to the temple of Babylon, to a golden image which was the image of the sun; and this image was hanging between the heavens and the earth, and it fell into the midst of the temple, and so all the images round about it; and it declared unto them what had happened to Tammuz the prophet; and all the images wept and lamented all that night; and when it was morning, they all fled to their temples at the ends of the earth; and this became an everlasting statute to them, that at the beginning of the first day of the month Tammuz, every year, they lament and weeps for Tammuz; and there are others that expound Tammuz the name of a beast which they worship;''but, leaving these interpretations, Tammuz was either the Adonis of the Grecians; and so the Vulgate Latin version renders it Adonis; who was a young man beloved by Venus, and, being killed by a boar, his death was lamented by her; and, in respect to the goddess, an anniversary solemnity was kept by men and women lamenting his death, especially by women. So Pausanias, speaking of a certain place, there (says he) the women of the Argives (a people in Greece) mourn for Adonis {b}. Lucian {c} gives a particular account of this ceremony, as performed at Byblus, a city in Phoenicia, not far from Judea; from whence the Jews might have borrowed this custom."I have seen (says he), in Byblus, a large temple of Venus Byblia, where they performed the rites unto Adonis, and I was a spectator of them. The Byblians say the affair relating to Adonis (or his death) by a boar happened in their country; and, in memory of it, every year they beat themselves, lament and offer sacrifice, and great mourning goes through the whole country; and when they beat themselves and mourn, they sacrifice to Adonis as dead; but the day following they pretend he is alive; and they shave their heads, as the Egyptians do at the death of Apis;''and indeed it is thought by some that this Tammuz is the Osiris of the Egyptians; the same with Mizraim, the first king of Egypt, who, being slain in battle, his wife his ordered that he should be worshipped as a god, and a yearly lamentation made for him; and indeed Osiris and Adonis seem to be one and the same, only in different nations called by different names. Mention is made in Plato {d} of Thamus, a king that reigned at Thebes over all Egypt, and was the god called Ammon; no doubt the same with this Tammuz; and who is here called, in the Syriac and Arabic versions, Thamuz or Tamuz; he seems to be the same with Ham; and Egypt was called, the land of Ham, Ps 105:27; and it is most probable the Jews borrowed this piece of idolatry from the Egyptians their neighbours; with whom they were now very familiar, and from whom they expected help against the Chaldeans; but as there were such shocking obscenities used in this idolatrous service, it is most amazing that the Jewish women, who had been instructed in the law and worship of God, should ever go into it. Gussetius {e} thinks that Bacchus, the god of wine, is meant; and gives several reasons for it; and among the rest observes, that in the fourth month, called Tammuz from him, the vine was forming in ripe grapes; near the beginning of a fifth month, it was pressed out, and tunned up; and by the next month, having done fermenting, it was stopped up, which represented him buried; and for which the weeping was in this month.{y} Misn. Middot, c. 5. sect. 3. {z} Maimon. Hilchot Melachim, c. 2. sect. 4. {a} Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c. 29, p. 426. {b} Corinthiaca, sive l. 2. p. 121. {c} De Dea Syria. Vid. Theocriti, adoniazousai, Idyll. 15. {d} Phaedrus, tom. 3. p. 974, Ed. Serran. {e} Ebr. Comment. p. 903. So Luther apud Dieteric. Antiqu. Bibl. par. 2. p. 132. Ezekiel 8:15Ver. 15. Then said he unto me, hast thou seen [this], O son of man?.... This shocking piece of idolatry, women weeping for Tammuz:turn thee yet again, [and] thou shalt see greater abominations than these; or, "great abominations besides these" {f}.{f} hlam twldg twbewt "abominationes magnas praeter istas", Calvin. Ezekiel 8:16Ver. 16. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house,.... The court of the priests, where they offered sacrifice, and into which none might come but themselves:and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar; the porch that led into the temple, and the brasen altar, the altar of burnt offerings, which was a very sacred place, and reckoned more holy than the court of the priests {g}[were] about five and twenty men; the number, more or less, not being exactly known; who they were, whether the priests or princes of the people, is not certain; probably some of both:with their backs towards the temple of the Lord; that is, the most holy place, which they were obliged to, in order to do what is afterwards affirmed of them; for the sanctuary was built to the west, that in their worship the Jews might not look to the east, as the Gentiles did; wherefore these men, that they might imitate the Gentiles in their idolatry, turned their backs to the most holy place; which is an aggravation of their impiety; casting the utmost contempt on God, his worship, and the place of it:and their faces towards the east: when the sun rises:and they worshipped the sun towards the east; as many nations did, though forbidden the Jews by an express law of God, De 4:19; yet this they fell into, and had horses and chariots devoted to this idolatry; see 2Ki 21:3. The word rendered "worshipped" is compounded of two words; one signifying to "corrupt", the other to "worship": showing that, by worshipping the sun, they corrupted themselves, and the house of God; and so the Targum renders it,"and, lo, they corrupted themselves, worshipping in the east the sun;''and so it is explained in the Jerusalem Talmud,"they corrupted the temple, and worshipped the sun;''but Kimchi thinks the word {h} consists of the verb in the past tense, and of the participle; and that the sense is, when the prophet saw the men worshipping the sun to the east, as amazed at it, put this question to those that went in, "do ye worship also?" {i} so Ben Melech.{g} Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 7. fol. 184. 4. {h} Mtywxtvm. {i} Vid. Hottinger. Smegma Orientale, l. 3. par. 1. c. 24. p. 154. who rather is of opinion that the word is compounded of the participle and the particle ta, or the pronoun Mta. Ezekiel 8:17Ver. 17. Then he said unto me, hast thou seen [this], O son of man?.... Took notice of and considered this piece of idolatry, worshipping the sun toward the east:is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? could these things, which are such dreadful abominations, committed here in the temple, be reckoned light things by them, as surely they cannot? yet these are not all that they have done:for they have filled the land with violence; with rapine and oppression; doing injury to the poor and needy, the widow and the fatherless, in all places:and have returned to provoke me to anger; by other instances of idolatry:and, lo, they put the branch to their nose; a laurel, or olive, or vine branch, which idolaters carried in their hands, and put to their nose, in honour of the idol they worshipped; in like manner as they kissed their hand at the sight of the sun, Job 31:26; and which the Jews did in imitation of the Heathen. This is one of the eighteen places in which there is "tikkun sopherim", or a "correction of the scribes"; who, instead of "my nose", direct to read "their nose"; hence the words are differently interpreted by the Jewish commentators; who, by hrwmz, rendered "branch", think an ill smell is meant; arising either from their posteriors, their back being towards the temple; or from the incense which they offered up to their idols; so Kimchi and Menachem in Jarchi; agreeably to which Fortunatus Scacchus {k} understands this, not of any branch used by idolaters, which they put to the nose of their idol, or their own, for the honour of that; but of the censer which the Israelites used, contrary to the command of God, and which they put to their nose to enjoy a forbidden smell; see Eze 16:18; but Gussetius {l} gives another sense of the words, rendering them, "they send forth a branch to their anger"; the Israelites are compared to a vine, as in Isa 5:1; sending forth bad branches, idolatrous actions, as here in this chapter; and to these bad branches they sent forth or added another, even anger against God, the prophets, true believers, and right worshippers of God; and therefore he also would deal in fury and wrath, as in Eze 8:18; so Dr. Lightfoot {m} renders it,""they send the branch to my wrath", or "to their own wrath"; that is, to what they have deserved; as if it was said, in the same manner that anyone puts wood to the fire, the branch of the wild vine, that it may the more quickly be burnt; so do these put the branch to my wrath, that it may burn the more fiercely; hence it follows, "therefore will I also deal in fury", &c.''The Targum is,"and, lo, they bring shame (or confusion) to their faces;''what they do turns to their own ruin and destruction; as follows:{k} Sacror. Eleaochr. Myrothec. l. 2. p. 536. {l} Ebr. Comment. p. 231. {m} Heb. & Talmud. Exercitat. in Johan. xv. 6. Ezekiel 8:18Ver. 18. Therefore will I also deal in fury,.... Being provoked by such abominable idolatries, and such horrid insolence, and most contemptuous treatment:mine eye shall not spare: neither will I have pity: see Eze 5:11;and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice; very pressingly and earnestly for help, being in great distress:[yet] will I not hear them; as they turned their backs on him, he will turn a deaf ear to them, and not regard their cries. The Targum is,"they shall pray before me, with a great voice, and I will not receive their prayer.''
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.