ThC' chief centre of the Tammuz-Adonis of the priesthood as the seventy elders re• w~rship was Byblos, in Syria, but it spread presented the laity. In 2 Ohron. xxxvi. 14 widely over the shores of the Mediterranean, the chief of the priests is spoken of es Rnd was fashionable both in Alexandria and having been prominent in "polluting the Athens. One of the practices of the fes- house of the Lord." They were seen turn- tirnl, that of planting flowers in vases for ing their backs to the temple of Jehovah, forced cultivation, has been perpetuated by i.e. .the sanctu~y. The very act wo.s sym- Plato's allusion to "the gardens of Adonis" bolical of the1.r apostasy (2 Ohron. xxix. 6 ; as the type of transitoriness (' Phredr.,' p. Isa. i. 4; J er. vii. 24). And they did this 376, b). Cheyne, following Lagarde, finds in order that they might look to the east a reference to the cultus in Isa. xvii. 10; and worship the rising sun. That, and not lxY. 3; !xvi. 17. The festival of Ishtar and the temple (Dan. vi. 10), was the Kiblah Tammuz (or Tam-zi) at Babylon presented of their adoration. The sun-worship here a marked parallel. Adonis is, with hardly appe.a.rs to have had a Persian character, :i doubt, identical with the Hebrew .Adonai as being offered to the sun itself, and not (equivalent to "Lord"). Tammu.z ha.s been to Baa.I, as a solar god. Of such a worship explained e.s meaning "victorious,'' or "dis- we have traces in Deut. iv. 19; xvii. 3; appearance," or "burning;" but all etymo- Job xxxi. 26; 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 11. logies are conjectural. Lastly, it is not Ver. 17.-For returned read, with the without interest to note (1) that when Revised Version, turned again. The wmd Jerome wrote, the Cave of the Nativity at seems chosen with special reference to the Bethlehem was overshadowed by a grove attitude of the idol-worshippers. It may be of Tammuz (' Ep. ad Paul.'); and (2) that noted that even here the prophet speaks not the later Jewish calendar included the month only of the idolatry of Judah, but of its ofTammuz, which corresponded to July. The violenoe also, o.s bringing down the judg- festive.I seems to have been celebrated at ments of Jehovah, :Lo, they put the branoh the summer solstice. The time of Ezekiel's to their nose. The opening word expresses vision was in the sixth month, sc. about the the prophet's bnrning indignation. The e.ot time of the autumnal equinox (see 'Diet. described probably finds its best explanation Bible,' a.rt. "Tammuz "). Mr. Barin_g-Gould, in the Persian ritual of the Avesta. When treating the legend as a solar myth, finds men prayed to the sun, they held in their the old Phmnician deity represented in the left hands a bouquet of palm, pomegranate, '' St. George of Merrie England" (' Curious and to.ma.risk twigs, while the priests for Myths,' pp. 277-316). An exhaustive mo- the same purpose held a veil before their nograpll, "Tammuz Adonis," has been mouth (Spiegel, ' Iran. Alterth.,' iii. 571, pnblished by Liebrecht, in his 'Zur Volks- 572, in Smend), so that the bright rays of kunde' (1879), reprinted from the Zeuschrift the sun might not be polluted by human Deutschen Morgen-Gesellschaft, vol. xvii. pp. breath. And this was done in the very 397, etc. temple of Jehovah by those who were pol- Ver. l 6.-He brought me into the inner luting the whole land by their violence. The court. The last and the worst form of dese- LXX. gives, as an explanation, ws µ.v1t'T1/Pl- cration follows. It was the "inner court" (ovTEs, as though the act was one of scornful (Joel ii 17) which, after the exile, was pride (comp; Ise. !xv. 5), the sign of a temper entered only by the prieote. During the like that of the Pharisee as he looked upon monarchy, however, it seems to have been the publican (Luke xviii. 11). Lightfoot accessible to kings and other persons of takes the "nose" as the symbol of anger, imp0rtance, as in the case of Solomon and looks on the phrase as proverbial : (1 Kings viii 22, 64; ix. 25) in the revolu- "They add the twig to their anger, fuel to tion against Athaliah (2 Kings xi. 4-15), the fire;" but this has little to commend it. and Hezekiah (2 Kings xix. 14), and Josiah The word for "branch'' is used in eh. xv. 2 (2 Kings xxiii 2). Ezekiel does not say and Numb. xiii. 23 for a vine-branch. that the men whom he saw were priests, Ver. 18.-The verse serves as a transition though the number twenty-five suggests to eh, ix. The unpitying aspect of the that they were taking the place of the high Divine judgments is age.in promiueut. Such priest and the hea.de of the twenty-four sins deserved, and could only be expiated ,·ourses of the priesthood (1 Chron. xxiv. by, the judgments to whioh we now pass. I -19), and so symbolized the whole order
HOMILETICS. Ver. 2.-.A revelation of fire. The prophet is visited with a. series of new visions under fresh circumstances. No longer walking among the weeping captives by the \faters of Babylon, or standing in solitude upon the great plain, Ezekiel is now in his oa. vm. 1-18.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 147