Ezekiel 8:15

15. Greater abominations It is suggestive that while the “weeping for Tammuz” in the heat of summer or beginning of winter seems to have been marked by some self-restraint; in the spring, when Tammuz with all nature was supposed to come back again to passionate life, there was scarcely any limit to the licentiousness permitted and even probably prescribed by the ritual. The lascivious worship of Tammuz (Adonis) including the wailing, etc., dates back to the Gilgamish epic 2300 B.C. in which the passion of Ishtar is set forth with many disgusting details. Even much earlier than this, the unchaste worship of Ishtar was popular at Erech and Niffur. In some ruins entire walls have been found built of phallic emblems. ( Zeits. fur Assyriologie, 6:3339. Yet, against this, see Jastrow, p. 673.) Many prayers to Ishtar are in existence like that of Nebuchadnezzar (B.C. 605-562), “Enlarge my seed, multiply my offspring in the midst of my harem.” The texts have encouraged the belief that the ancient tradition was all too true, that no woman could expect the favor of the deity without the sacrifice of her chastity. In Ezekiel’s day, as in the days of Herodotus, it is probable that every native woman had to enter, at least once in her life, the temple of the unchaste goddess, and must there sit down and unite herself to any stranger who should throw her a silver coin and lead her away. (Maspero, Dawn of History, 1896, p. 640.) And this unspeakable abomination Ezekiel now sees in vision in Jehovah’s temple! Compare Milton’s description:

Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer’s day;

Whose wanton passions on the sacred porch

Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,

His eyes surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah.

Paradise Lost, 1: 446, etc.