The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 153

tho worshippers enter the chamber if Ezekiel the temple, and had gone elsewhere. They bad to enlarge the hole in the wall in order thought of Jehovah as of a local deity who to get in? We may surmise that the entrance had abdicated. They were free to do ae from the temple court had been blocked up they liked without fear. The words are all but enti.l'ely in the days of J osia.h, that worth noting fnrther as the first of a series the idolaters now entered it from without or of popular he.If-proverbs, in which the tluough·some other chamber, while Ezekiel thoughts of the people clothed themselves thinks of himself as coming upon them like (see eh. xi. 3; xii. 22; xviii. 2, 19; xxxiii. a spy in the dim distance of the covered 10; xxxvii. 11). All theee imply some per- passage through which he made his way. gon11l knowledge of what wae passing in Ver. 10.-Every form of oreeping things. Jerusalem. The words obviously paint the theriomorphic Ver. 14.-Behold, there sat women wailing worship of Egypt, the scarabarns probably for Te.mmuz. The point of view is probably being J>rominent. The alliance between the same as that of ver. 3, but the women Jehoitl/kim and I,>haraoh (2 Kings x.xiv. were apparently in the outer porch of it, as 33-35), and which Zedekiah was endeavour- he he.a to be brought to the gate in order to ing to renew, would naturally bring about see them. We are led to note two things: a revival of that cnltus. Small chambers in (1) the general prominence of women in the rock or tomb filled with such pictured later idolatry of Judah; (2) the specific symbols were specially characteristic of it character of the Tammnz-worship. Under (Gosse, 'Monuments of Egypt,' p. 6; (1) we have the women who wove hangings • Ammian. Marcellin.,' xxii. 15). for the Ashera (2 Kings xxiii. 7), those who Ver. 1!.-Seventy men, etc. The nnmber had burnt incense to other gods, especially was probably chosen with reference to the to the queen of heaven (Jer. xliv. 9, 15-19), "elders" who had seen the Divine glory in probably, i.e., to Ashte.roth. (2) The name Exod. xxiv. 9, 10. The Sanhedrin, or Tammuz does not meet us elsewhere in the council of seventy, did not exist till after Old Testament. All interpreters, however, the Captivity. The number can scarcely agree that it answers to the Adonis of Greek have been accidental, and may imply that mythology. So Jerome translates it, and the elders were formally representative. expressly states (in Zoo.) that what Ezekiel Another Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, ap- saw corresponded to the Adouis festive.ls. pears in Jer. xx.xv. 3; yet another, the son It may be enough to state, without going of Azur, in eh. xi. 1. If the Shaphan men- into the details of the story, that Adonis, the tioned is the scribe, the son of Azalie.h, beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite, was under Josiah (2 Kings xxii. 3), the father slain by a wild boar; that after his death he of Ahikam (2 Kings x.xii. 12), of Elasah was allowed to spend six months of each (Jer. xxix. 3), and of Gemarie.h (Jer. x.xxvi. year with her, wbile the other was passed 10, 11, 12), and the grandfather of Gedalia.h with Persephone in Hades. The cultus (Jer. x.xxix. 14, et al.), all of whom were thus became the symbol of the annuo.l prominent in the reform movement under decay and revival of nature; bnt the legend Josiah, or as friends of Jeremiah, and no rather tho.n the inner meaning w11s in the other Shaphan appears in history, the fact thoughts of the worshippers. The emotions th11t one of his sons is the leader of the of women poured themselves out in lamenta- idolatroUB company must have had for tions over the waxen image of the becmtiful Ezekiel a specially painful significance. dead youth who had perished in his prime, He could scarcely have forgotten the me11n- and iu orgiastic joy over his return to life. ing of his name, "The Lord is listening," Milton, deriving his knowledge, probably, and probably refers to it in ver. 12. As from Selden's • De Dils Syria,' ho.a po.inted the climax of this chamber of horrors, the the whole scene in words which may well seventy elders were all acting as priests, be quoted- and were offering to their pictured idols the incense which none but the sons of Aaron " The.mmuz next came behind, had a right to use, and which they offered Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured to Jehovah only. The Syrian damsels to lament his fate Ver. 12.-Everyman, eto. And this, after In amorous ditties all a sullllller's day: all, was bnt a sample of the prevalence of While smooth Adonis from his native rock the Egyptian influence. Other elders had, Rl\n purple to the aea, supposed with blood iu the dark, a like adytum, a like chamber Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-talo of imagery, like the Le.tin lararium, filled Infected Sion's daughters with like heat; with a like cloud of incense. And though Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch the name of the leader of the band might Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, have warned them that the Lord was listen- His eyes surveyed the dark idolatries ing, they boasted, in their blindness, that Of alienated Judah." Jellove.h did not see them; he had forsaken (' Par. Lost,' i. 446, eto.) EZEKIEL, i. 146 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHE1' EZEKIEL. [011. vm. 1-18,