Beginning with chapter 8, the prophet Ezekiel describes the content of his second vision and the Lord’s words spoken within it. Unlike...
Beginning with chapter 8, the prophet Ezekiel describes the content of his second vision and the Lord’s words spoken within it. Unlike the first, given to Ezekiel on the bank of the Chebar, the second vision occurred in an assembly of the faithful—a foreshadowing of the synagogue—in the prophet’s house. The second vision is a kind of insight, an illumination that comes upon the prophet’s mind by the will of the Holy Spirit. God places the prophet at a new vantage point and shows him what he already knows but does not fully realise. Compared with the first vision, the second can be classed as a type much more widespread in the Church. Here God does not so much tell someone something new as open their eyes to a reality they already know. We cannot say that God gives the prophet His own viewpoint; rather, He grants him a certain detachment that enables him to see life anew.
The prophet describes his subjective experiences as ‘God brought me... and I saw...’. Thus the Lord shows Ezekiel all Jerusalem’s lawlessness. Whereas previously the subject was the cruelty and violence that had permeated the people’s life, God now draws the prophet’s attention to direct manifestations of Israel’s idolatry. Not just anywhere, but within the Temple itself, the prophet sees worship of the most popular idols of the ancient East. Here is the statue of Astarte, probably erected half a century earlier under King Manasseh; her cult was widespread throughout the Near East and was highly indecent in character. Here is ‘weeping for Tammuz’, the veneration of the eastern peoples’ dying and rising agricultural god, and worship of the sun and every kind of creature, characteristic of Egypt and Babylonia, the countries Israel strives so hard to surpass... All this was known both to the prophet and to the elders of Judah gathered in his house. But in the vision God calls things by their names, and the picture of Israel’s complete apostasy becomes frighteningly obvious.
The conclusion about what will happen to the people who have betrayed God for idols suggests itself. The prophet depicts the consequences of idolatry in chapter 9, and his words recall with exceptional force the plagues of Egypt that fell upon Pharaoh as he resisted God. The marking of the innocent, those ‘grieving over Israel’s abominations’, vividly recalls the night of the Exodus. But now Israel itself stands as God’s opponent, doomed to destruction: ‘You alone have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities,’ as God said to the prophet Amos almost two hundred years before Ezekiel (Am 3:2). To the prophet Ezekiel himself it seems that all Israel is destined to perish, and he cries out to God in trembling: ‘Will You really destroy everyone?’
Answering Ezekiel, the Lord again speaks of lawlessness and violence. Idolatry recedes into the background, and God says, ‘This land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice... I will bring their conduct upon their own heads.’ We cannot fail to see that this is the fate of all societies in which violence becomes the defining feature of people’s lives. Moreover, God clearly has in mind not so much state violence as ‘everyday’ violence—what we call living by the unwritten code of the criminal world.
But this is not all: God reveals the truth to the prophet to its utmost limit, to the most terrible thing that no Israelite could even have imagined. The Israelites of Old Testament times conceived of God’s presence as His Glory filling the Jerusalem Temple (compare chapter 6 of the book of the prophet Isaiah). This Glory, the Shekhinah or Shekinah, was not simply a radiance emanating from God, but His own presence. The Israelites were certain that as long as God’s Glory remained in the Temple, nothing bad would or could happen to them. This underlies the saying ‘Here is the Temple of the Lord’, denounced by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 7:4). The very presence of God’s Glory in the Temple was considered unshakeable and unconditional, in accordance with the promise to David and Solomon.
But the Creator’s presence is incompatible with any sin. When people definitively choose sin, the presence of the Glory of the Lord becomes impossible. And the prophet Ezekiel sees that, because of the sins of Israel, which worships idols, breeds lawlessness and treats the Almighty Himself as an idol, God’s Glory will be taken away. The central and most important part of the vision is the description in chapter 10 of how the Glory of the Lord leaves the Temple on a fiery chariot.
The prophet explains that what he has seen cannot be described in human language, and he creates a kind of verbal icon. Hence the strange images of wheels full of eyes, incredible beings moving in all four directions at once, and so on. Perhaps this description, written down in Babylon, was influenced by images the prophet saw there. The essence of chapter 10 is, of course, not these details but the content of the Revelation.
What matters to the prophet is that what he has seen emphasises the universal character of God’s authority and presence—hence the references to the four points of the compass. The immeasurable difference in scale between the Almighty and humanity is revealed to him. Over the centuries since the Exodus, the Israelites had come to treat God as their little national deity of folklore—and now Ezekiel has seen a reflection of the Creator’s true majesty. It is in this perspective that he also sees his people’s moral wretchedness.
The terrible tension running through these chapters is the inexorable logic of what happens. Events unfold before the prophet’s eyes, each following from the one before it, and this chain of cause and effect seems natural in its details and horrifying as a whole. Thus petty but understandable human vileness leads to a catastrophe utterly out of proportion to it. In this respect, the description of Jerusalem’s destruction strongly recalls the Way of the Cross.
8 God in vision brings Ezekiel to Jerusalem, Eze 8:1-4.
There he sees the image of jealousy, Eze 8:5-6.
The elders of Israel worshipping all manner of images, Eze 8:7-12.
The women weeping for Tammuz, Eze 8:13-14.
The men worshiping the sun, Eze 8:15-16.
Threatenings against them, Eze 8:17-18.
8:1 Sixth year - Of Jeconiah's captivity. Sixth month - Elul or our August. The elders - The chief of those that were now in captivity. They were come either to spend the sabbath in religious exercises, or to enquire what would become of their brethren in Jerusalem. The hand - The spirit of prophecy.
8:2 A likeness - Of a man; the man whom he had seen upon the throne.Fire - This fire might denote the wrath of God against Jerusalem.
8:3 And - This, and all the passages to the end of the 16th verse, was done in vision only. Inner gate - To the door of the gate of the inner court. The north - The temple courts had four gates towards the four quarters, and this was the north gate, which opened into the great court where Ahaz had set up his Damascen altar, and where the idols were set up. The image - Baal, which Manasseh had set up, Josiah had destroyed, but succeeding kings had again set it up.Jealousy - Because it was so notorious an affront to God, who had married Israel to himself.
8:5 Northward - Ahaz had removed it from the middle of the court and set it near this north gate, to which it gave name. Entry - In the very passage to the temple, to affront the worship of God.
8:6 They - The generality of the Jews. Great abominations - The notorious idolatries. Here - In this court, in view of my temple.Far off - Not that they designed this, but no other could be expected.
8:7 The door - The second door, for there were two in the north side.
8:8 A door - A private door, by which the priests entered into the chamber of their imagery, to perform idolatrous worship to their images.
8:9 Are doing - Under the approach of judgments, in this very place, under the walls of my temple.
8:10 Every form - Of such creatures as the Egyptians, or any others with whom the Jews had acquaintance, worshipped.
8:11 Seventy - Heads of the tribes or families, who should have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry.Shaphan - Mentioned Ki2 22:9.Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God.
8:12 Seeth not - They deny God's care of them and their affairs, and therefore they must chuse some other god.
8:13 Greater - Either because added to all the rest: or, because some circumstances in these make them more abominable.
8:14 The door - Of the outer court, or court of the women, so called, because they were allowed to come into it. Weeping - Performing all the lewd and beastly rites of that idol, called by the Greeks, Adonis.
8:15 Greater - These later wickednesses may be accounted greater, because acted in a more sacred place.
8:16 Inner court - The innermost, that which was next the temple, called here the Lord's house. At the door - Before he saw abominations in the gates of the courts, now he is come to the very house itself.The porch - That stately porch, beautified with the curious and mighty brass pillars, Jachin and Boaz. Altar - The brazen altar for burnt - offerings, which was placed in the court before the front of the temple, and is here represented in its proper place.Their backs - In contempt of God, and his worship.The sun - In imitation of the Persians, Egyptians, and other eastern idolaters; these Jews turn their back on God who created the sun, and worship the creature in contempt of the Creator.
8:17 Violence - All injustice is here meant towards all sorts of men, whom they first despise and next destroy. Returned - From injustice against man they return to impiety against God. The branch - As the worshippers of Bacchus waved their Thyrsus, the stalk wreathed with ivy, and bowed their bodies and often kissed the branches, so did these idolatrous Jews.
8:18 Will not hear - The time was, when God was ready to have heard, even before they cried: but now they cry aloud, and yet cry in vain.It is the upright heart which God regards, and not the loud voice.
9 Instruments prepared to destroy the city, Eze 9:1-2.
The glory removes to the threshold of the temple, Eze 9:3.
Orders given to mark a remnant, Eze 9:3-4.
The execution of them who were not marked begun, Eze 9:5-7.
The prophet intercedes, but in vain, Eze 9:8-10.
The report of him that had marked the remnant, Eze 9:11.
9:1 He - The man whom he had seen upon the throne.Them - Those whom God hath appointed to destroy the city: perhaps angels.Every man - Every one; 'tis an Hebrew idiom. Each of these had a weapon proper for that kind of destruction which he was to effect; and so, some to slay with the sword, another with the pestilence, another with famine. In his hand - Denoting both expedition in, and strength for the work.
9:2 And - As soon as the command was given, the ministers of God's displeasure appear. Men - In appearance and vision they were men, and the prophet calls them as he saw them. The north - Insinuating whence their destruction should come. One man - Not a companion, but as one of authority over them. With linen - A garment proper to the priesthood.They - All the seven.
9:3 The glory - The glorious brightness, such as sometimes appeared above the cherubim in the most holy place. Gone up - Departing from the place he had so long dwelt in. He was - Wont to sit and appear.Threshold - Of the temple, in token of his sudden departure from the Jews, because of their sins.
9:4 That sigh - Out of grief for other mens sins and sorrows.Cry - Who dare openly bewail the abominations of this wicked city, and so bear their testimony against it.
9:5 The others - The six slaughter - men.
9:6 At my sanctuary - There are the great sinners, and the abominable sins which have brought this on them.
9:7 And slew - The slaughter also was in vision.
9:8 Was left - Left alone, now both the sealer, and the slayers were gone.
10 The scattering the coals of fire upon the city, Eze 10:1-7.
The removal of the glory of God from the temple, Eze 10:8-22.
10:2 He - That sat on the throne. Scatter - That it may take fire in all parts, and none may escape.
10:3 The right side - The north - side, the side towards Babylon, from whence the fire came which consumed the city. The man - Christ, the Lord of angels, who now attend his coming and commands.The cloud - As the sign of God's presence.The inner court - The court of the priests, who were chief in the apostacy.
10:4 The glory - The visible token of the presence of the God of glory.Went up - In token of his departure from the temple. And stood - Shewing his unwillingness to leave, and giving them time to return to him, he stands where he might he seen, both by priests and people, that both might be moved to repentance.
10:5 Was heard - As a mighty and terrible thunder.
10:6 And stood - Either as one that deferred execution, to try whether the city would repent, or as one who was to give some farther order to the angels, that were to be the ministers of his just displeasure.
10:7 One Cherub - One of the four. And took - As a servant that reaches what his master would have. Went out - Out of the temple.
10:9 Looked - Attentively viewed. Beryl stone - Of sea - green.
10:10 They - The wheels. This intimates the references of providence to each other, and their dependences on each other: and the joint tendency of all to one common end, while their motions appear to us intricate and perplexed, yea, seemingly contrary.
10:11 When - The wheels moved by the cherubim, or that spirit of life, which moved the living creatures. They went - They were so framed, that they could move on all four sides without the difficulty and delay of turning. Head - Of the living creatures.
10:12 And - Now he describes both the cherubim and wheels as full of wisdom, and as governed by an excellent wisdom. The wheels - Which the four cherubim had to move, govern, and direct.
10:13 The wheels - As to their frame and motion.It was cried - Still there was one who guided, as by vocal direction.Unto them - To each of them.
10:14 Every one - Of the living creatures, chap.Eze 1:6.
10:17 For - There is a perfect harmony between second causes in their dependence on, and subjection to, the one infinite, wise, good, holy, and just God. The spirit of God directs all the creatures, upper and lower, so that they shall serve the divine purpose. Events are not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is blind, but by the wheels of providence, which are full of eyes.
10:18 And stood - On the right side of the house, where the cherubim were in the inner court.
10:19 And every one - The glory, the cherubim, the wheels, all stood, respiting execution, and giving opportunity of preventing the approaching misery. The east gate - The last court, the court of the people.
10:20 I knew - Either by special assurance as a prophet, or by comparing them with those which he had often seen in the temple.