Ezekiel 8:14

14. Women weeping for Tammuz Women were very prominent in idolatrous worship (2 Kings 23:7; Jeremiah 44:9; Jeremiah 44:15-19). Perhaps it was for this reason that women, in later Hebrew history, were ritualistically repressed (Peritz, Women in the Ancient Hebrew Cult, and Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 312, 313). Tammuz was the youthful sun god who perished after a brief season of illicit love with the amorous and wanton goddess Ishtar, but who received life again through the tears of his paramour. It is but another form of a sun myth common among many ancient peoples, symbolizing the yearly marriage of earth and heaven. “The earth is thrilled by the breath of the spring and abandons herself without shame to the caresses of heaven; she welcomes him to her arms, is fructified by him and pours forth the abundance of her flowers and fruits. Then comes summer and kills the spring; earth is burned up and withers, she strips herself of her raiment and her fruitfulness departs, till the gloom and icy numbness of winter have passed away, and spring brings the resurrection of the buried life.” (See Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, pp. 639, 640; Struggle of Nations, p. 174, etc.) The distinguishing and most common names for Tammuz in the cuneiform texts are “shepherd” and “lord” ( adoni). An old Akkadian hymn speaks of him ( W.A.I., 4:271):

Shepherd, lord Tammuz, spouse of heaven’s queen!

King of Aralu, king of Dusibba!

Willow that in a garden bed hath not drunk water,

Whose buds have borne no shoot (or bloom) in a field! etc.

Society Biblical Archaeology, Ezekiel 16:7 .

We know the very hymns sung in this most voluptuous and popular drama and the musical instruments which were in most common use. One hymn says:

On the day of Tammuz, play for me on the flute of lapis lazuli.

Together with the lyre of pearl, play for me.

Together let the professional dirge singers, male and female play for me,

That the dead may arise and inhale the incense of offerings.

(See Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 575; also, for the obscurity of the worship, pp. 475, 485, and for the influence of the festival, even to modern times, p. 682.)

The fourth Assyrian month (June-July) was named Tammuz (Duzu), the fifth month, which may have been the very month in which this vision came (LXX., Ezekiel 8:1), was sacred to Ishtar, and the sixth month was designated as the “mission of Ishtar,” and in this month the Tammuz festival was celebrated in Babylonia.

If this actually represents a scene which occurred in the temple in the month Tammuz, there had been abundance of time in the two months past (or one month LXX., Ezekiel 8:1) for all the details of the sacrilegious festival to reach the ears of the exiles. It might well be that such news as this would bring the elders to the prophet’s house (Ezekiel 8:1). Indeed these “elders” might possibly have been visitors from Jerusalem (Dean Plumptre) to whom the seer now proves that he knows what is passing in the city from which they came.