Ezekiel 8:14 - Exposition

Behold, there sat women wailing for Tammuz. The point of view is probably the same as that of Ezekiel 8:3 , but the women were apparently in the outer porch of it, as he has to be brought to the gate in order to see them. We are led to note two things:

Under

"Thammuz next came behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer's day;

While smooth Adonis from his native rock

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale

Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;

Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch

Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,

His eyes surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah."

('Par. Lost,' 1:446, etc.)

The chief centre of the Tammuz-Adonis worship was Byblos, in Syria. but it spread widely over the shores of the Mediterranean and was fashionable both in Alexandria and Athens. One of the practices of the festival, that of planting flowers in vases for forced cultivation, has been perpetuated by Plato's allusion to "the gardens of Adonis" as the type of transitoriness. Cheyne, following Lagarde, finds a reference to the cultus in Isaiah 17:10 ; Isaiah 65:3 : Isaiah 66:17 . The festival of Ishtar and Tammuz (or Tam-zi ) at Babylon presented a marked parallel. Adonis is, with hardly a doubt, identical with the Hebrew Adonai (equivalent to "Lord"). Tammuz has been explained as meaning "victorious," or "disappearance," or "burning;" but all etymologies are conjectural. Lastly, it is not without interest to note