Ezekiel 8:1

EZEKIEL'S `JOURNEY' TO JERUSALEM (Ezekiel 8-11)

Ezekiel's prophecy in these four chapters "form a connected whole."[1] (1) There is presented in chapter 8 a detail on the horrible defilement of God's temple by apostate Israel, which God forewarns will cause the removal of his presence from it (Ezekiel 8:6). (2) The supernatural ministers of instruments of Israel's punishment appear in Ezekiel 9. (3) The cherubim make preparatory movements to depart the Temple in Ezekiel 10; and (4) the actual departure of God's presence from the Temple occurs in Ezekiel 11:22-25. The one topic here is the defilement of the Temple and God's removal from it.

THE TEMPLE DEFILED AND THE WARNING OF GOD'S REMOVAL OF HIS PRESENCE FROM IT

God revealed to Ezekiel the abominations and detestable things going on within the precincts of the sacred Temple itself. Some have mistakenly interpreted this chapter as a composite of all of the various idolatries practiced previously to the times of Ezekiel; but the better understanding of it indicates that all of the abominations and detestable things going on in this vision were actually being practiced in both the Temple and throughout Israel right up until the very capture and destruction of the city.

Of course, there had been reforms under Josiah; but Jehoiachim had quickly restored all of the abominations of Manasseh's evil reign. It would frustrate the very purpose of the vision to apply it to Israel's past history and not the current conditions when the city fell.

Ezekiel 8:1-4

"And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord Jehovah fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and, lo, a likeness as the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his loins and downward, fire, and from his loins and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as it were glorying metal. And he put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoked to jealousy. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the image that I saw in the plain."

"In the sixth year ..." (Ezekiel 8:1). "This date appears to be August-September, 592 B.C."[2] For a list of all the dates given in Ezekiel, see our introduction. Beasley-Murray calculated the interval from the first vision that came to Ezekiel at the river Chebar as "fourteen months";[3] however, Plumptre stated that it was only thirteen months.[4] There are too many uncertainties regarding ancient dates to leave much room for dogmatism. Cooke explains how these different calculations are made.[5]

Moshe Greenberg, a very able scholar, has calculated that the long period when Ezekiel lay upon his side ended just "three weeks before the date given here."[6]

"And the elders of Judah sat before me ..." (Ezekiel 8:2). "This indicates that Ezekiel did indeed have a certain amount of prestige with the exiles. Here he sits in his own home, and before him the elders of Judah have come apparently for counsel and information."[7]

Watts has outlined what he believed to be the reason for this visit of the elders to Ezekiel.

Ezekiel's prophecies had reached Jerusalem, leading to the outright despisal of all the exiles. The exiles were separated from the privileges of the Temple; the remainder of the people in Jerusalem told the exiles to forget about their confiscated property which then belonged to the remnant in Jerusalem, who in their own estimation were the favored of the Lord (11:15). This arrogant attitude of the citizens of Jerusalem had reached the exiles, who were grieved and distressed by it. Therefore they presented themselves before the prophet Ezekiel to learn what he had to say about the situation.[8]

"A likeness as of the appearance of fire ..." (Ezekiel 8:3). Although the word "man" does not appear in this text, it is clearly a human figure in the vision, as indicated by the mention of the likeness of a hand, and of "his loins." This is what the marginal reference here has, "the appearance of a man enthroned," of course, a representation of God Himself.

"In the visions of God ..." (Ezekiel 8:3). All of the things mentioned here were seen "in this vision." Ezekiel was not bodily transported to Jerusalem. His vision was possibly like that of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, where it is recorded that the apostle was caught up into the third heaven, "whether in the body or out of the body," he did not know. Apparently the elders of Judah were in Ezekiel's house when this vision occurred to him, and presumably they were there when it ended, and Ezekiel explained it to them.

"The image of jealousy ..." (Ezekiel 8:3). We do not know exactly what that image was; but it makes no difference. Any image whatever would have served to provoke God to jealousy over his apostate people. It was here called "the image of jealousy," because of God's reaction to it.

"Behold, the glory of the God of Israel ..." (Ezekiel 8:4). How surprising it is that the image of God's glory Should have been visible at all in the Temple. It is a comment upon the mercy and forbearance of God that even at this late date and in spite of the horrible apostasy of the rebellious people, God still allowed this image of himself to appear in the house dedicated to his name.

There are four abominations mentioned in the balance of the chapter, where they appear in an ascending order of offensiveness to God.