And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel. Ezekiel 8:1-4 God's presence a reproof to His idolatrous people A. B. Davidson, D. D. Two chief thoughts appear expressed by the symbolism; first, by making the "glory" of Jehovah appear in Jerusalem, the prophet points the contrast between the glorious God whom the people had abandoned and the debased forms of worship to which they had addicted themselves, and also implies that this worship was done in the face of Jehovah, to provoke the eyes of His glory ( Isaiah 3:8 ): and secondly, when Jehovah Himself shows the idolatrous practices of the people, we see, what is characteristic of the prophet, the effort to throw himself into the consciousness, so to speck, of Jehovah, and look out at things from His mind, He being who He is. ( A. B. Davidson, D. D. ) And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah. Ezekiel 8:11 Evil secrets revealed Christian Magazine. 1. Persons may sometimes be found where we would little expect them to be. It may happen that the irreligious shall appear among the godly, seem to be actuated by the same spirit, and to the surprise of all who knew them, contribute to the advancement of a good cause: "Is Saul also among the prophets?" But how frequently is the case reversed, and those who make a good profession, of whom we thought well, and even hoped the things that accompany salvation, to our great surprise, are found in situations very inconsistent with what they professed, perhaps totally foreign to all that we had thought and hoped about them. The saint, on revisiting a place from which, like the prophet, he may have been absent for a time, may behold with grief some with whom he had formerly walked in sweet fellowship, gone off from their profession, and no longer the steady ornamental friends of the cause they had once solemnly espoused. But supposing the profession retained, how often may those who are engaged in it be found in situations, in places and occupations, in which their friends and religious acquaintances would little have expected to find them! 2. Persons may even go great lengths, and take a very active part in those things which were little to be expected from their former character or present reputation in the church. Jaazaniah was one of the ancients or elders of Israel. His former character at least appears to have been good, somewhat worthy of his name, which signifies one attentive to God, or whom God will hear, — a name probably given him by his religious parents as a son of their vows. By his station he was to preside over the administration of the law, and even to take care of the worship of God, as a member of the great council to which the Jews ever looked up with veneration. But, alas! how vain is it to trust in man! "In the midst, of them stood Jaazaniah." He seems to have occupied some prominent place that struck at once the eye of the prophet; he was at any rate actively engaged, and had gone every length with his companions in sin; he stood in the midst of them, while "every man had his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up." Who knows, when once he has deviated from the right path, how far he may go? how far he may be left to go? nay, supposing his heart not imbued with grace, how totally, if not finally, he may be given up to apostasy, and all manner of vice? 3. Godly parentage and the advantages of a religious education Neatly aggravate the criminality of such conduct. The parentage of this man is particularly noticed, and, considering the person from whom he was descended, we may well believe he had the advantage of a religious education. His very parentage and religious education greatly aggravated his crime. How seldom do ungodly or apostate children reflect upon this! They despise the religion of their fathers; they forsake, without compunction, the law of their mother. The children of such parents will have to answer, not only for the obedience they would have owed to God, even in a heathen country, and of whomsoever descended, but for all these peculiar advantages; for the contempt too, or violation, of the most sacred obligations, strengthened by the influence which natural affection ought to have had; not merely for disrespect to parental authority, for dishonouring their parents, but for dishonouring them in the most beneficial discharge of their duty, and in the best character they can sustain. 4. The idea of secrecy is a great inducement and strong temptation to engage in unworthy, inconsistent, and wicked practices. The mysteries of Pagan superstition, and the scheme of an interior doctrine in the heathen philosophy, are both well known. The former, particularly, may he traced to very ancient times, when the priests began to secrete what they accounted the essentials of religion, the foundations of even civil order, and of all morality, and to impart them only to a few; — a grand device of the devil, for not only promoting idolatry, but every species of wickedness, without fear of detection. How often do persons persuade themselves that all is well, provided only they can be concealed while indulging themselves! Such conduct, however, must indicate a want of cordial regard to truth and righteousness for their own sake, a secret contempt for the laws of the church, and even of moral decorum; it must shew that the regularity otherwise displayed is only compelled by the fear of men. 5. Notwithstanding their apprehended secrecy, such persons are still under the eye of God. ( Hebrews 4:13 , in connection with Psalm 139:1-12 .) 6. God can easily detect and expose them to others, to their shame and confusion. Various are the ways of detection that God hath employed. Sometimes the habit of irregularity in profession, or of intemperance and profligacy in manners, fostered for a time by secrecy, at length gains the ascendency and breaks out, so that the person stands revealed in his true colours. Sometimes, though only associates be present, their very transactions, their riot and excess, shall make the discovery, and become the subject of talk. Sometimes these associates, not to be trusted, shall divulge the matter, particularly if they have to tell that a Jaazaniah, a son of Shaphan, was among them; and the deluded man finds himself betrayed and made a sport of by those whom he attempted to gratify. ( Christian Magazine. ) Every man in the chambers of his imagery. Ezekiel 8:12 Chambers of imagery J. Parker, D. D. Though we are not told that this was a human vision, or in any sense what we understand as an incarnation, yet there are terms in the description of it which might lead to that conclusion. Always it is made evident that a struggle is proceeding in Biblical history towards the miracle of incarnation. The angel would be as a man; cherubim and seraphim come before us in human outlines; yea, God Himself is not afraid to reveal His glory to us under human forms and symbols. Nothing of mere fancy is found in the interpretation that all these initial intimations, struggles, visions, point to One whose name was to be Emmanuel — God with us. In the fulness of time God sent forth His Son. In Christ Jesus we see the meaning of all these premonitions, hints, dim yet exciting suggestions. When Ezekiel is taken, in the third verse, by a lock of his hair and lifted up between the earth and the heaven, we are, of course, to understand that this was done, not literally, but in vision. Here is what we have often seen as the power of being absent, yet present; in an immediate locality, yet far away beyond the horizon; in Jerusalem, and yet at the ends of the earth; in the midst of the sea, and yet beyond the stars. Here is a counterpart of the action which has just been described. Whilst spirits are continually struggling to assume human shape, men are continually aspiring towards some new condition of being and service. There is a continual process of descent and ascent in the whole economy of God. Such double action is full of moral suggestion, and should certainly ennoble us with a feeling that as yet we know little or nothing of the possibilities of our own nature, but that a great revelation of God's purpose in our existence is yet to be made. In the same verse there is a singular expression — "where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy." It has been supposed that at this time heathen idols had actually found a place in the holy temple, and this is supposed to present the most vivid and appalling proof of the corruption into which the priests and the people had fallen. Is the meaning of the fourth verso that for the last time there was an evident struggle as between the image of jealousy and the glory of the God of Israel? It has been suggested that we are not to understand by this "glory" the glory of the Lord which once filled the temple, but the particular glory which was seen in the vision shown to Ezekiel in the plain, a vision within a vision, a dim light in a far-off horizon, not the old glory which burned with infinite brightness, but another glory as of one preparing to vanish in judgment from the temple and the city. It is interesting to notice that we have in all these descriptions, not the view which Ezekiel took of the condition of Israel, — we have the condition of Israel as it revealed itself to the Divine eyes. It is essential to all true and lasting ministry that it should proceed upon God's own estimate of human nature. We are not left to form our own fancies regarding human origin, or human apostasy, or human capability: in this as in all other things we nave to trust to a revelation which has been made to us, a revelation which would be the less valuable if it were not confirmed at every point by our own painful experience. We should not forget the sacred and gracious fact that, notwithstanding the rebelliousness of the house of Israel, one of their own number was sent to pronounce Divine judgment and to reveal Divine purpose. In what contrast did Ezekiel stand to his own countrymen! God has never left Himself without an Elijah, or an Ezekiel, or some other prophet, or suppliant, that has proved the continuity of Divine providence and the continuity of Divine grace. Ezekiel was to be astounded by revelations which he never could have discovered by himself. The mighty being under whose conduct he was placed brought him to the door of the court, and when he looked he beheld a hole in the wall. This hole or window was too small for entrance, hence Ezekiel was directed to enlarge it so that he might enter in — "Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door." All this is indicative of extreme secrecy, as if the men would have hidden themselves from the very God of heaven, as if they would have had a hole all their own, unpenetrated by Divine inspection. There was an open and public idolatry in Jerusalem at this very time, but such is the downward tendency of all evil that it was not sufficient to have a public and an almost established idolatry, but something further should be done in darkness and concealment. Stolen waters are sweet. When wickedness can be enjoyed in public it ceases to be an enjoyment. It would appear as if the darkness were necessary to bring out the full savour of a bad man's delight. By "chambers of imagery" understand chambers painted throughout with images such as Ezekiel saw. We are not to understand that this was a solitary instance; we are to accept it rather as indicative of the general condition and worship of the idolatrous people. Conscience had been driven away from the rule of human life. The people who were once the very elect of God said in their wickedness, "The Lord seeth us not": we have found a refuge from His eye, and here we may do what we please in the gratification of our worst desires. Is this merely a historical instance? Is there no desire now to plunge into an impenetrable concealment? Is it not true now that in many enjoyments the whole delight is to be found in the secrecy of their participation? A man can hide himself from his fellow man in this matter, and can in the very act of prayer place himself within chambers of imagery, and delight himself with visions which no eye but his own can see. The painful part of all this revelation consists in the fact that the idolatry was perpetrated within the sacred enclosure of the temple. This was not something done at a distance, in some far-away grove, in some spot which but few had ever penetrated; it was actually done in the temple, in the sacred building, on the consecrated floor, and the altar itself was dragged into the unholy and disastrous service. How are the high places made low! How are the mighty fallen! A decay of veneration is a decay of the whole character. Once let us feel that all places are equally common, and the level of our whole life will go down with that conclusion. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Chambers of imagery E. Peabody, D. D. Though this was merely a vision, through which it was intended to present the corrupted state of Judah, we may suppose that the imagery was drawn from customs that then prevailed. These secret midnight incantations were not unusual in heathen worship. An ancient historian relates, that round the room in African Thebes where the body of one of their kings was supposed to be buried, a multitude of chambers were built, which had beautiful paintings of all the beasts held sacred in Egypt. But we need not regard this as merely a visionary representation of the state of Judah. The mind of man is a chamber of imagery in whose darkness go on works hidden from the world, and sometimes, we may fancy, hidden even from the eye of God. A hall of imagery! No phrase could better describe the mind of man, — and Memory the painter. In colours bright or dark, in the very lineaments of joy or shame or grief, she paints every deed, every struggle of the soul; our very wishes and purposes, though unacted, all are there. The world may be ignorant of what is there, but we cannot forget. Come, then, and by that door to which all have the key let us enter these halls of imagery within the human soul. Light up the torches and raise them aloft, that we may see what is upon the wall. These halls are as various as are the lives of men. We have all read of the Catacombs that lie under one of the great European capitals. They stretch under whole quarters of the city. In terrible order, arranged in innumerable galleries, are deposited the remains of more than ten generations, — a world of silence below, while heave and swell in endless confusion the surges of life above. You enter these gloomy abodes with torches, and on every side are seen the mementos of death and decay. More gloomy than this, sometimes, is the human mind. Portrayed on its walls are scenes of decay and death. Here the innocence of childhood — a fair, frail creature of the light — is slowly dying. There, on an altar whence once arose holy aspirations to heaven, the fire is gone out. Virtues once fresh and blooming sink and expire under the assaults of the world. Here is seen one, trembling and yet resolved, bartering away to the Evil One his honesty for gain; and there another surrendering his conscience for pleasure. In another space, the demolished temple, the trampled cross, are but symbols of a dead faith, And the angels weep over another scene, not because sickness and death of the body are there, but because in the soul the affections have withered into selfishness and died. And the man, as he passes through this awful gallery, recognises his own life. There are chambers of imagery in which we might gladly linger. It is said that in the Old World is a gallery of paintings in which are collected none but pictures of the Holy Family. The Virgin Mother and the infant Jesus, images of innocence and faith and heaven, smile on every side from the canvas. Some pure souls there may be who when they enter their chambers of imagery may behold such scenes alone as these; — a virtuous youth, a devout age, a Divine faith triumphing over the powers of the world. But at the best, the gallery of the mind can often present only a mingled series of pictures. We call ourselves Christians, and all unite in one form of outward homage to the same Almighty Power. the Lord of heaven and earth. But each man has his chamber of imagery, and, could we enter in, how often should we find there the unhallowed rites of another worship. Enter silently this dark and concealed chamber. These are not the symbols of Jehovah's presence that we see. Here is an altar, and the god that is reared over it is Mammon. And here Power looks down from his throne; and there Pleasure stretches out her arms. The walls are covered with emblems of the world and the passions. And the man in the secret chamber of his imagery swings his censer, and bows down in adoration before the gods of his idolatry. Here, in this secret chamber, are those wishes uttered which are his real prayers, and here that bowing down of the soul which is the only true worship. We are apt to feel as if what was done in these halls of imagery was unmarked. So thought the faithless ancients of the house of Judah. Darkness and thick walls gave concealment to their midnight conclave. Yet even there the angels, to whose spiritual vision these walls were transparent, were looking in; and to the Prophet, his eyes touched with spiritual light, all became visible. Silent, unseen, and mourning spectators they stood of these rites of sin and darkness. And when we enter our chambers of imagery, may there not be other witnesses than we think? Surely it is not a vain nor unreasonable thought, that around us are spiritual beings, to whose spiritual eyes the mind lies open, even as the scenes of the visible world lie open to the bodily eye. Happy is he who suffers to abide in his mind only those thoughts and purposes which these spiritual beings may gladly look upon. But if there be no other, there is one eye that looks through all the veils of time and sense, — from whom nothing is hid while doing, and by whom nothing is forgotten when done, — before whom all things lie open. We are apt to regard as of no importance what merely transpires in the mind. Yet, in the sight of God, in the mind is the seat and source of all good and ill. In these chambers of imagery is the real life of man. Here, where are the secret counsels and plans and resolves, where the passions conquer or are subdued, where are the principles that we obey and the will that resolves, — here is the life of the man. All else is but outward show and manifestation. It is here that He looks who requires that all true worshippers shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is described as one of the marks of the folly and impiety of the ancients of Judah that, when met in their chambers of imagery for their unhallowed rites, they said, "The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth." Ah no! Shut ourselves up in the chambers of the soul, and all lies exposed to Him. The imaginations that we indulge take form and shape before Him; and the hopes that we cherish are audible prayers to the object of our worship; and the thought is as the word, and the purpose as the deed. We enter now these halls of imagery at our choice, to review the past for correction and improvement. The time comes when we must enter them for judgment. In that dread hour the memory must take a conspicuous part. It is memory and conscience that shall affirm the righteous judgments of God. For that day, in which the strong shall bow and the most devout tremble, may God in His mercy aid us to be prepared! There is yet one other view of the subject. Our life must be very much in the present and the past. We have hopes, plans, speculations for the future; yet even these, so far as they are reasonable, depend on foundations laid in the past. The future is uncertain, but the past is fixed. It exerts a steady influence. Leaving out of view the effects of its discipline on the character, who can tell its power over our present happiness? It is our very dwelling and home which we build up around us day by day. We may leave our dwellings of wood and stone; may pull them down, repair them, remove from them; but not so this spiritual dwelling, this presence and audience chamber of the memory. We build it once for all; it stands forever, and is, according to what we have made it, our home or our prison. This is the soul's hall of imagery. Let us give heed to the significance of the words. We think it desirable that the apartments in which we dwell should not be deformed or unsightly; if in our power, we would have them ornamented with pictures and works of art and taste. What, then, to us is the soul's chamber of imagery! It is crowded with pictures; each deed and thought, by a daguerreotype that asks no light of the sun or chemist's skill, is at once and silently transferred, and takes its place immovably on the wall. Like the chamber of the ancients of Judah, it may be covered with every form of creeping things and beasts worshipped as idols, which are but the symbols of our earthly passions and appetites; or on it may be portrayed Divine pictures of hope and faith. But once there, there they remain, a perpetual presence before the memory and conscience. Each new scene we picture on the walls must remain there forever, to frown or smile upon us. Hang up in your halls of imagery what you will hereafter rejoice to see there. Suffer not to be there scenes which shall affright and sting the soul. God has granted to man the boon and the opportunity of repentance, and in His mercy granted to repentance the promise of forgiveness. If the picture of the prodigal's departure is painted, there may be added the prodigal's return and the father's enduring love. If there be the picture of one forgiven much, let there be added to it that of one who loves much. By the side of the wrong we have done, may be set our efforts to repair the wrong. Over the scenes of guilt and repentance, as over the retreating waves of the deluge, there may be arched the rainbow of the Divine mercy. Repentance may not face the past. The rays of the setting sun do not disperse the clouds that gather along the western horizon, but they fill the clouds with light, and make them luminous with hues of beauty. So repentance, though it cannot efface the past, transfigures it; and while it leaves enough of the dark cloud to make us humble, it pours over it and around it a light from heaven that fills the soul with serene hope. ( E. Peabody, D. D. ) Chambers of imagery T. C. Finlayson. Although we do not bow down before graven images, and our women weep not for Adonis, yet we may be as really idolaters as ever were the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, or these apostate Jews. We may be doing practical homage to the Baal of power, — canonising brute force, or adoring mere success. We may be "causing our children to pass through the fire to Moloch," — sacrificing their happiness and their spiritual growth at the altar of society, or fashion, or worldly prudence. We may be practical worshippers of the Astarte of licentiousness, — sacrificing health, fortune, friendship, nobleness at the shrine of lust. We may be devotees of Mammon, — ever toiling, with selfish aims, to lay up stores of wealth; or we may be devotees of fame, — labouring with all our might to secure the breath of human applause. I. These "chambers of imagery" may be taken as the type of A BLIND MATERIALISM. If we cease to exercise faith in the God whom we see not, all our boasted civilisation will not prevent us from beginning to worship, practically, the things which we see. This century has a materialism of its own — more refined, but perhaps just as dangerous as that of the ancient Egyptians. 1. Some of our men of science seem practically to have lost God. They may not be so unphilosophical as to assert that there is no God; but they tell us that they have abandoned "the conception of creative acts," and that "matter is the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb." They tell us that "all we see around us and all we feel within us — the phenomena of physical nature, as well as those of the human mind — have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life." They say that, "if the human mind will turn to the mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith," then this is a field for. what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man. And then they bid us take note that "there is no very rank materialism here." But is it not the simple fact that these men have practically ceased to believe in a personal God? With them nature — "the universal mother" — takes the place of "our Father in heaven." Swinging their censers in their halls of science, they burn their incense to "matter," as having in itself "the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." 2. The secularist follows in the same key, — addressing himself, however, to the working man, rather than to the student. "God," he says, "may or may not be a dream; but man is a reality. A future life may or may not be a dream; but the present life is palpable and real. Let us therefore confine ourselves to what we see and know. Let us cherish faith in political economy and social science. Let us believe that good budgets will do vastly more for the people than the old, worn out Bible!" 3. It is reserved, however, for the "positive" philosopher to assert that the very idea of a personal God belongs to the infantile age of humanity, and that the notion of a personal immortality is nothing but a childish fancy. Auguste Comte, the founder of this philosophy, had his peculiar "chamber of imagery"; for, although a materialist, he discovered that he must have something to worship. And accordingly he employed his "creative faculty" to fashion what he calls the "Religion of Humanity," which he believed was destined to supplant all other religions of the world. By the great being "Humanity" is to be understood the aggregate of good human beings — past, present, and future; including, however, such of the lower animals as have been and are most serviceable to mankind! Is not this, indeed, coming back again to the "chambers of imagery" — to the "four-footed beasts," as well as to the images of human form? 4. Only one thing can save us from the grasp of materialism. Not civilisation, not poetry, not art, not philosophy; but simply the exercise of the faculty of faith. "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how dark must the darkness be!" If we will not use the inner eye which beholds the unseen and spiritual, that eye will become blind, and we shall begin to worship "in the dark," and in some form or other the created instead of the Creator. II. These "chambers of imagery" may be taken as the symbol of A SECRET UNGODLINESS. 1. Men present themselves in the sanctuary; they seem to join in the praises and prayers which are offered to the Creator; perhaps they even come to the table of the Lord, and take into their hands the memorials of His death; but where all the while are their hearts? What is the real state of their souls? Whom are they actually serving in their daily life? What are they in their business and in their homes? 2. Sometimes the iniquity which men are carrying on "in the dark" comes suddenly and strangely to light; "some hole in the wall" betrays the secret! Here is a man who has had the reputation of being thoroughly upright and honourable, and whom his friends would have trusted to the utmost; but the hidden "door" is at length discovered, and it turns out that he has been engaged in some fraudulent transaction — cheating his creditors, or tampering with his employer's books. Here is a woman, seemingly religious, outwardly decorous, spoken of by her friends and acquaintances as worthy of all respect and affection; but it turns out that, in secret, she is allowing the habit of drunkenness to creep over her, and that her servants could tell the tale of her occasional debasement. Here, again, is a man, respectable, amiable, seemingly devout, of whom everybody speaks well: when, all of a sudden, the hidden door is revealed, and it turns out that he has been living an unchaste and brutish life. 3. Resolve to be, at least, real and genuine. Let not your worship be a sham. Be impatient of every approach to insincerity. Give your very heart to God. Be Christ's, not in name only, but in deed and in truth. III. These "chambers of imagery" may be taken as the emblem of AN IMPURE IMAGINATION. Whether a man's imagination be pure or impure will depend, partly on his past conduct, partly on his present character, partly also, it must be acknowledged, on his circumstances. A man may accidentally see something which he wishes he had never seen, but which, being once seen, lodges itself in the memory, and is apt thenceforth to be reproduced in the imagination. Still, the mind has a certain power of self-direction, and can deliberately turn away its gaze from the picture thus presented. The same may be said of scenes of impurity, through which a man may have passed, only too willingly, in former days. As such scenes are reproduced occasionally in the chambers of imagery, — the man, if he be altered in character, will turn away from them with revulsion. But, alas! there are many who deliberately carry the lamp of memory into this secret chamber of the soul, and cast its full light on these loathsome pictures. Oh, beware of retiring into the chamber of an impure imagination, to revel in the pictures which it presents to you. This is the surest way of shutting your eye to the vision of the Eternal; for it is "the pure in heart" who "see God." Beware, too, of everything that tends to defile the imagination, — impure actions, impure companionship, impure literature. Guard your imagination. Watch your reveries. Seek to carry a pure mind and heart after your evening prayer, even into the land of dreams. Cherish a love of what is truly beautiful and good. Live purely; and you will people your imagination with scenes of purity. Above all, cherish a sense of the presence of the Holy One. Say not, with the worshippers in the dark chamber, "The Lord seeth us not"; but say rather, "Thou God seest me." ( T. C. Finlayson. ) Chambers of imagery A. Maclaren, D. D. Look at that dark painted chamber that we have all of us got in our hearts; at the idolatries that go on there, and at the flashing of a sudden light of a God who marks, into the midst of the idolatry. I. THINK OF SOME DARK AND PAINTED CHAMBER WHICH WE ALL OF US CARRY IN OUR HEARTS. 1. Every man is a mystery to himself as to his fellows. The most silvery lake that lies sleeping amidst beauty, itself the very fairest spot of all, when drained off shows ugly ooze and filthy mud, and all manner of creeping abominations in the slime. I wonder what we should see if our hearts were, so to speak, drained off, and the very bottom layer of everything brought into the light? Do you think you could stand it? Well, then, go to God and ask Him to keep you from the unconscious sins. Go to Him and ask Him to root out of you the mischiefs that you do not know are there, and live humbly and self-distrustfully, and feel that your only strength is: "Hold Thou me up, and I shall be saved." 2. The walls of that chamber were all painted with animal forms, to which these men were bowing down. You and I, by our memory, by that marvellous faculty that people call the imagination, by our desires, are forever painting the walls of the inmost chambers of our hearts with such pictures. It is an awful faculty that we possess of, so to speak, surrounding ourselves with the pictures of the things that we love, and have yielded ourselves in devotion and desire unto. Just as today, thousands of years after the artists have been gathered to the dust, we may go into Egyptian temples and see the figures on their walls, in all the freshness of their first colouring, as if the painter had but laid down his pencil a moment ago; so, on your hearts, youthful evils, the sins of your boyhood, the pruriences of your earliest days, may live ugly shapes, that no tears and no repentance will ever wipe out. Nothing can do away with "the marks of that which once hath been." II. LOOK AT THE IDOLATRIES OF THE DARK CHAMBER. A man's true worship is not the worship that he performs in the public temple, but that which he offers down in that little private chapel where nobody goes but himself. Worship is the attribution of supreme excellence to, and the entire depende

Benson Commentary Ezekiel 8:1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month , in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me. Ezekiel 8:1 . And it came to pass in the sixth year — Namely, of Jehoiachin’s captivity. In the sixth month — The LXX. read, in the fifth month. As I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah — Men of note for their age or authority, or the chief of those who had been made captives with Jehoiachin, sat before me — Having come, probably, to inquire of the Lord concerning their present state of affairs, what the issue would be; or what would become of their brethren who remained in Judea and Jerusalem. It must be observed, “that in Ezekiel 4:4-6 , the prophet is commanded to lie on his left side three hundred and ninety days, and on his right side forty days; to which must be added the seven days mentioned Ezekiel 3:15 . But the interval between this vision, and Ezekiel 1:1 , is only one year and two months, or four hundred and twenty days, reckoning thirty days in a month. It would seem, therefore, that this revelation was made to the prophet during his typical siege. ‘But Vignoles, 5. 2:447, thinks, that the year was a lunar one, with an intercalation of thirty days.’ — Secker. And, according to Michaelis, the Jews, and in general the people of Asia, were used to lunar years of three hundred and fifty-four days. Add to them two months, or fifty-nine days, and you have four hundred and thirteen days. A whole month was intercalated from time to time into the lunar year, to make it agree with the harvest year. Add twenty-nine days, and you have four hundred and forty-two days.” — Newcome. Ezekiel 8:2 Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. Ezekiel 8:2 . I beheld, and lo a likeness — Namely, of a man; the man whom he had seen upon the throne; as the appearance of fire — This seems to have been the same appearance as that mentioned before, Ezekiel 1:27 , signifying that God was about to inflict heavy judgments on the Jewish nation, but so as not entirely to destroy it. It is probable, while those who are here called the elders of Judah were sitting before the prophet with silence and attention, waiting for an answer to some inquiries they had made of him, as God’s prophet, concerning what was to be the future condition of the Jewish nation, that Ezekiel was on a sudden seized with an ecstasy, and had the things he gives an account of in the following verses presented before his eyes; or such a strong impression of them made upon his mind, that it seemed to him as if he actually saw them. Ezekiel 8:3 And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. Ezekiel 8:3-6 . And he put forth the form of a hand — He appeared so to do. This, and all that follows, to the end of Ezekiel 8:16 , was done in vision only, as appears from the expression here used: and brought me in the visions of God, &c. — In a similar manner, it was represented to the Prophet Elisha’s mind, ( 2 Kings 5:26 ,) what Gehazi was doing when he took the presents from Naaman, which the prophet there calls being present with Gehazi. To Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate — To the entrance that goes into the inner court, called the court of the priests, where the altar of burnt-offerings stood; where was the seat of the image of jealousy — “An image set up within the precincts of the temple, to provoke God to jealousy, by setting up a rival against him in the place dedicated to his own worship.” This was most probably an image of Baal, for that, we find, was the idol they chiefly worshipped. As it was exceedingly provoking to God to set up another object of worship besides him; so it was still more so to do this in the place which had been built for, and was dedicated to, his worship only. To speak in the figurative sense in which God is spoken of, with regard to the Jewish nation, namely, as being a husband to it, it was just the same as if the adulterer were brought into the house of the husband whom he had injured, in his very sight; therefore it is very properly called here, the image of jealousy, or that exciteth jealousy. That I should go far off from my sanctuary — Which are provocations sufficient to cause me to forsake my sanctuary, and deliver it up to be profaned by the heathen, Ezekiel 7:21-22 . This is significantly represented by the departing of the divine glory from the threshold of the temple, Ezekiel 10:18 . Ezekiel 8:4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. Ezekiel 8:5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. Ezekiel 8:6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations. Ezekiel 8:7 And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Ezekiel 8:7-11 . And he brought me to the door of the court — This, Dr. Lightfoot understands of the east gate of the inner court, called the gate of Nicanor, over which was the council chamber, where the sanhedrim used to meet, and in some of the rooms near it they secretly practised idolatry, as God discovered to the prophet, Ezekiel 8:11 . Behold a hole in the wall — Through which I could look in, and see what abominations were committing there. Then he said, Dig now in the wall — This, and what follows, was done only by vision, during the prophet’s trance or ecstasy, while the elders sat before him. And when I had digged in the wall, behold a door — A private door, by which the elders entered into the chambers of their imagery, to perform idolatrous worship to the images. And he said unto me, Go in, &c. — To give me the fullest conviction, I not only looked through the hole, mentioned Ezekiel 8:7 , but went into the very room where these idolatries were committed. Behold the abominations that they do here — Hebrew, are doing here: even under the approach of judgments, and under the walls of my temple. So I went in, and behold every form of creeping things — It is probable that they imitated the Egyptians in this kind of idolatry; for the Egyptians used to worship several kinds of beasts and reptiles. According to Diodorus Siculus, 50. 1. p. 59, edit. Wess., (referred to by Secker,) “round the room in Thebes, where the body of King Osymanduas seemed to be buried, a multitude of chambers were built, which had elegant paintings of all the beasts sacred in Egypt.” It is not unlikely they imagined they evaded the law against setting up any image to worship, by having them only portrayed, or painted, on the wall; or, at least, that it was not so great an offence; for the Jewish people in general seem to have had little regard to any thing but the strict letter of the law, not regarding the spirit of it. However, as to objects for worship, pictures were prohibited, as well as carved images, as appears from Numbers 33:52 . And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients, &c. — Heads of the tribes or families, or, at least, principal men, (according to the number of the sanhedrim,) who ought to have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry. By this the prophet was given to see, that it was not the vulgar, or the poor and ignorant only that were guilty of idolatry, but the leading men of the nation, and those of the greatest knowledge, power, and influence, who were superior to, and had the direction of the common people; so that it was properly a national guilt, and, as such, loudly called for national punishment. And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah — Probably a prince of the people; the son of Shaphan — Mentioned 2 Kings 22:9 . Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah, and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God. Ezekiel 8:8 Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. Ezekiel 8:9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. Ezekiel 8:10 So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about. Ezekiel 8:11 And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Ezekiel 8:12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth. Ezekiel 8:12 . Hast thou seen what the ancients do in the dark — Do secretly; every man in the chambers of his imagery — Chambers so very private, that the prophet is described as obliged to dig a hole through the wall before he could discover their idolatrous practices. For they say, The Lord seeth us not — They either deny the being and providence of God, ( Ezekiel 9:9 ,) or they say in their hearts, God hath cast us off, and withdrawn his wonted protection from us. They seem to have been of the same mind with Ahaz, who resolved to worship the gods of the Syrians, his conquerors, 2 Chronicles 28:23 . So these men worshipped the idols of their neighbours, whom they saw to be more prosperous than themselves. Observe here, reader, a practical disbelief of God’s omniscience and superintending providence is one chief cause of men’s treacherous departures from him. The Lord hath forsaken the earth — Looks not after the affairs of it, and therefore we had as well worship any other god as him. Or, he hath forsaken our land, and left it to be a prey to its enemies, and therefore it is time for us to look out to some other god to whom to commit the protection of it. This was a blasphemous reflection upon God, as if he had forsaken them first, otherwise they would not have forsaken him. Those are indeed ripe for ruin who are arrived to such a pitch of impudence as to lay the blame of their sins on God himself. Ezekiel 8:13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Ezekiel 8:14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Ezekiel 8:14 . Then he brought me to the door which was toward the north — Dr. Lightfoot distinguishes this door from that mentioned Ezekiel 8:5 ; this, he says, was the upper north gate, and that the lower; this being just over against the temple itself; whereas that was opposite the altar. Behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz — “The prophet here refers to a Phœnician or Syrian superstition. Tammuz was an idol of Chaldee extraction, as is plain from his name; which also is used for the tenth month, reckoning from the autumnal equinox, that is, the month of June; and Tammuz, as the object of worship, expresses the solar light in its perfection, as in the summer solstice. The Vulgate renders Tammuz, by Adonis; and that Adonis, according to the physical theology of the heathen, was the same as the sun, there is no question. Macrobius expressly affirms it, Saturnal., lib. 1. cap. 21, and says, that the tradition of Adonis being killed by a boar, means the diminution of the sun’s light and heat by winter. This departure of Adonis, or the sun, was lamented in the most frantic ceremonies of grief by the Phœnician and Assyrian women, who, on these occasions, used to prostitute themselves in honour of his vivifying power; and thus the Jewish women are described by our prophet, weeping for Tammuz, on the fifth day of the sixth month, that is, of August; at which time his death, by the winter boar, was drawing on apace. Tammuz was supposed to have been killed by a wild boar in mount Lebanon, whence flows the river Adonis, concerning which Lucian relates an opinion prevailing in these parts, that its stream, at certain seasons of the year, is of a bloody colour, which the heathen considered as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for his death: see Parkhurst and Uni. Hist., vol. 1. p. 342. Milton has touched upon each of these particulars in the following elegant lines: “ — — — Tammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, In am’rous ditties all a summer’s day, While smooth Adonis, from his native rock, Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Tammuz, 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 eye survey’d the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah — — — .” PARADISE LOST b. 1. 5:446. Ezekiel 8:15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this , O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. Ezekiel 8:15-16 . Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations — These latter wickednesses may be accounted greater, because they were acted in a more sacred place. And he brought me into the inner court — The court next the temple, namely, that of the priests. And, behold, at the door of the temple — At that door through which there was an entrance into the porch of the temple, from the altar of burnt- sacrifices. Before, he saw the abominations committed in the gates of the courts, now he is come to the very house itself. Were about five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple, &c. — In contempt of God and his worship they turned their backs toward his sanctuary, and their faces toward the sun; according to the custom of the Chaldeans, Persians, and other eastern nations who worshipped the sun. Lowth thinks Hezekiah might allude to some idolatrous practice of this kind, in that confession of his, recorded 2 Chronicles 29:6 , Our fathers have forsaken him, and turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs. They turned their back to God, and not the face, as Jeremiah expresses their contempt toward him, Jeremiah 2:27 . To prevent even the appearance of this, the people were commanded to come into the courts of the temple at the north or southern gates when they came to worship, that they might not, at their return, turn their backs upon God: see Ezekiel 46:9 . God ordered the holy of holies, in his temple, to be placed toward the west, in opposition to this species of heathen idolatry, which consisted in worshipping the rising sun. And the pious Jews always turned their faces toward the temple when they worshipped. Ezekiel 8:16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Ezekiel 8:17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this , O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Ezekiel 8:17-18 . Then he said — After the prophet had seen all, and had had time to consider all he saw, God appeals to him concerning the heinousness of their crimes. Is it a light thing to the house of Israel — Who know and profess better things, and are dignified with so many privileges above other nations? Is it excusable in them, who have God’s oracles and ordinances, that they commit the abominations which they commit here? — Do they not deserve to suffer who thus sin? Should not such abominations as these make desolate? For they have filled the land with violence — All kinds of injustice are here meant, toward all sorts of men, whom they first despised and then defrauded, oppressed, or destroyed. And it is not strange if they who wrong their Creator make no conscience of injuring their fellow- creatures, and with all that is sacred, trample also on all that is just. And this wickedness of their conduct toward each other would have made their worship an abomination, even if it had been paid to the true God: see Isaiah 1:11 , &c. And have returned to provoke me, &c. — After having filled the land with violence, they return to the temple to practise their idolatries: from injustice against man they return to impiety against God, and thus, by fresh abominations, add new aggravations to their guilt. And lo, they put the branch to their nose — This obscure clause is supposed by several commentators to relate to some custom among the idolaters of dedicating a branch of laurel, or of some other tree, to the honour of the sun, and carrying it in their hands at the time of their worship. And Spencer, De leg. Hebrews, lib. 4. cap. 5, observes, “that the heathen, in the worship of their deities, held forth the branches of those trees which were dedicated to them:” a rite which was called among the Greeks, ????????? , ????????? : that is, branch-bearing. And Lewis, in his Origines Hebrææ, vol. 3. p. 4, observes, that the most reasonable exposition is, that the worshipper, with a wand in his hand, was wont to touch the idol, and then apply the stick to his nose and mouth, in token of worship and adoration. The Jewish rabbins, however, reckon this among the texts which their wise men have corrected, and say the original reading was not ??? , their nose, but ??? , my nose, or face; according to which reading the sense will be, They put a stick to my face, namely, to mock, or exasperate me: or, taking ???? to mean here, not a branch, but, as Buxtorf renders it, odor malus ventris, the words will mean, they put an offensive smell to my nose, that is, they put an open affront upon me, namely, by turning their back to me in the place dedicated to my worship. And to this sense the LXX. interpret it, reading ????? ?? ????????????? , they are as those that mock me, or publicly affront me. The Vulgate, however, reads the clause as we do. Dr. Lightfoot renders the place, They put the branch to my wrath, or their wrath; that is, “they add more fuel to my wrath, which will burst out like a flame to consume them: just as if one should lay a heap of dry sticks upon a fire.” Therefore will I deal in fury, &c. — Hebrew, in anger, or wrath. Mine eye shall not spare — Their provocations are such, that my justice cannot be satisfied without bringing deserved punishment upon them; and though they cry, &c. — Their sins cry louder for vengeance than their prayers cry for mercy. Ezekiel 8:18 Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ezekiel 8:1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month , in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me. YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE Ezekiel 8:1-18 ; Ezekiel 9:1-11 ; Ezekiel 10:1-22 ; Ezekiel 11:1-25 ONE of the most instructive phases of religious belief among the Israelites of the seventh century was the superstitious regard in which the Temple at Jerusalem was held. Its prestige as the metropolitan sanctuary had no doubt steadily increased from the time when it was built. But it was in the crisis of the Assyrian invasion that the popular sentiment in favour of its peculiar sanctity was transmuted into a fanatical faith in its inherent inviolability. It is well known that during the whole course of this invasion the prophet Isaiah had consistently taught that the enemy should never set foot within the precincts of the Holy City-that, on the contrary, the attempt to seize it would prove to be the signal for his annihilation. The striking fulfilment of this prediction in the sudden destruction of Sennacherib’s army had an immense effect on the religion of the time. It restored the faith in Jehovah’s omnipotence which was already giving way, and it granted a new lease of life to the very errors which it ought to have extinguished. For here, as in so many other cases, what was a spiritual faith in one generation became a superstition in the next. Indifferent to the divine truths which gave meaning to Isaiah’s prophecy, the people changed his sublime faith in the living God working in history into a crass confidence in the material symbol which had been the means of expressing it to their minds. Henceforth it became a fundamental tenet of the current creed that the Temple and the city which guarded it could never fall into the hands of an enemy; and any teaching which assailed that belief was felt to undermine confidence in the national deity. In the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel this superstition existed in unabated vigour, and formed one of the greatest hindrances to the acceptance of their teaching. "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these!" was the cry of the benighted worshippers as they thronged to its courts to seek the favour of Jehovah. { Jeremiah 7:4 } The same state of feeling must have prevailed among Ezekiel’s fellow exiles. To the prophet himself, attached as he was to the worship of the Temple, it may have been a thought almost too hard to bear that Jehovah should abandon the only place of His legitimate worship. Amongst the rest of the captives the faith in its infallibility was one of the illusions which must be overthrown before their minds could perceive the true drift of his teaching. In his first prophecy the fact had just been touched on, but merely as an incident in the fall of Jerusalem. About a year later, however, he received a new revelation, in which he learned that the destruction of the Temple was no mere incidental consequence of the capture of the city, but a main object of the calamity. The time was come when judgment must begin at the house of God. The weird vision in which this truth was conveyed to the prophet is said to have occurred during a visit of the elders to Ezekiel in his own house. In their presence he fell into a trance, in which the events now to be considered passed before him; and after the trance was removed he recounted the substance of the vision to the exiles. This statement has been somewhat needlessly called in question, on the ground that after so protracted an ecstasy the prophet would not be likely to find his visitors still in their places. But this matter-of-fact criticism overreaches itself. We have no means of determining how long it would take for this series of events to be realised. If we may trust anything to the analogy of dreams-and of all conditions to which ordinary men are subject the dream is surely the closest analogy to the prophetic ecstasy-the whole may have passed in an incredibly short space of time. If the statement were untrue, it is difficult to see what Ezekiel would have gained by making it. If the whole vision were a fiction, this must of course be fictitious too; but even so it seems a very superfluous piece of invention. We prefer, therefore, to regard the vision as real, and the assigned situation as historical; and the fact that it is recorded suggests that there must be some connection between the object of the visit and the burden of the revelation which was then communicated. It is not difficult to imagine points of contact between them. Ewald has conjectured that the occasion of the visit may have been some recent tidings from Jerusalem which had opened the eyes of the "elders" to the real relation that existed between them and their brethren at home. If they had ever cherished any illusions on the point, they had certainly been disabused of them before Ezekiel had this vision. They were aware, whether the information was recent or not, that they were absolutely disowned by the new authorities in Jerusalem, and that it was impossible that they should ever come back peaceably to their old place in the state. This created a problem which they could not solve, and the fact that Ezekiel had announced the fall of Jerusalem may have formed a bond of sympathy between him and his brethren in exile which drew them to him in their perplexity. Some such hypothesis gives at all events a fuller significance to the closing part of the vision, where the attitude of the men in Jerusalem is described, and where the exiles are taught that the hope of Israel’s future lies with them. It is the first time that Ezekiel has distinguished between the fates in store for the two sections of the people, and it would almost appear as if the promotion of the exiles to the first place in the true Israel was a new revelation to him. Twice during this vision he is moved to intercede for the "remnant of Israel," as if the only hope of a new people of God lay in sparing at least some of those who were left in the land. But the burden of the message that now comes to him is that in the spiritual sense the true remnant of Israel is not in Judaea, but among the exiles in Babylon. It was there that the new Israel was to be formed, and the land was to be the heritage, not of those who clung to it and exulted in the misfortunes of their banished brethren, but of those who under the discipline of exile were first prepared to use the land as Jehovah’s holiness demanded. The vision is interesting, in the first place, on account of the glimpse it affords of the state of mind prevailing in influential circles in Jerusalem at this time. There is no reason whatever to doubt that here in the form of a vision we have reliable information regarding the actual state of matters when Ezekiel wrote. It has been supposed by some critics that the description of the idolatries in the Temple does not refer to contemporary practices, but to abuses that had been rife in the days of Manasseh and had been put a stop to by Josiah’s reformation. But the vision loses half its meaning if it is taken as merely an idealised representation of all the sins that had polluted the Temple in the course of its history. The names of those who are seen must be names of living men known to Ezekiel and his contemporaries, and the sentiments put in their mouth, especially in the latter part of the vision, are suitable only to the age in which he lived. It is very probable that the description in its general features would also apply to the days of Manasseh; but the revival of idolatry which followed the death of Josiah would naturally take the form of a restoration of the illegal cults which had flourished unchecked under his grandfather. Ezekiel’s own experience before his captivity, and the steady intercourse which had been maintained since, would supply him with the material which in the ecstatic condition is wrought up into this powerful picture. The thing that surprises us most is the prevailing conviction amongst the ruling classes that "Jehovah had forsaken the land." These men seem to have partly emancipated themselves, as politicians in Israel were apt to do, from the restraints and narrowness of the popular religion. To them it was a conceivable thing that Jehovah should abandon His people. And yet life was worth living and fighting for apart from Jehovah. It was of course a merely selfish life, not inspired by national ideals, but simply a clinging to place and power. The wish was father to the thought; men who so readily yielded to the belief in Jehovah’s absence were very willing to be persuaded of its truth. The religion of Jehovah had always imposed a check on social and civic wrong, and men whose power rested on violence and oppression could not but rejoice to be rid of it. So they seem to have acquiesced readily enough in the conclusion to which so many circumstances seemed to point, that Jehovah had ceased to interest Himself either for good or evil in them and their affairs. Still, the wide acceptance of a belief like this, so repugnant to all the religious ideas of the ancient world, seems to require for its explanation some fact of contemporary history. It has been thought that it arose from the disappearance of the ark of Jehovah from the Temple. It seems from the third chapter of Jeremiah that the ark was no longer in existence in Josiah’s reign, and that the want of it was felt as a grave religious loss. It is not improbable that this circumstance, in connection with the disasters which had marked the last days of the kingdom, led in many minds to the fear and in some to the hope that along with His most venerable symbol Jehovah Himself had Vanished from their midst. It should be noticed that the feeling described was only one of several currents that ran in the divided society of Jerusalem. It is quite a different point of view that is presented in the taunt quoted in Ezekiel 11:15 , that the exiles were far from Jehovah, and had therefore lost their right to their possessions. But the religious despair is not only the most startling fact that we have to look at; it is also the one that is made most prominent in the vision. And the Divine answer to it given through Ezekiel is that the conviction is true; Jehovah has forsaken the land. But in the first place the cause of His departure is found in those very practices for which it was made the excuse: and in the second, although He has ceased to dwell in the midst of His people, He has lost neither the power nor the will to punish their iniquities. To impress these truths first on his fellow-exiles and then on the whole nation is the chief object of the chapter before us. Now we find that the general sense of God-forsakenness expressed itself principally in two directions. On the one hand it led to the multiplication of false objects of worship to supply the place of Him who was regarded as the proper tutelary Divinity of Israel; on the other hand, it produced a reckless, devil-may-care spirit of resistance against any odds, such as was natural to men who had only material interests to fight for, and nothing to trust in but their own right hand. Syncretism in religion and fatalism in politics-these were the twin symptoms of the decay of faith among the upper classes in Jerusalem. But these belong to two different parts of the vision which we must now distinguish. I. The first part deals with the departure of Jehovah as caused by religious offences perpetrated in the Temple, and with the return of Jehovah to destroy the city on account of these offences. The prophet is transported in "visions of God" to Jerusalem and placed in the outer court near the northern gate, outside of which was the site where the "image of Jealousy" had stood in the time of Manasseh. Near him stands the appearance which he had learned to recognise as the glory of Jehovah, signifying that Jehovah has, for a purpose not yet disclosed, revisited His Temple. But first Ezekiel must be made to see the state of things which exists in this Temple which had once been the seat of God’s presence. Looking through the gate to the north, he discovers that the image of Jealousy has been restored to its old place. This is the first and apparently the least heinous of the abominations that defiled the sanctuary. The second scene is the only one of the four which represents a secret cult. Partly perhaps for that reason it strikes our minds as the most repulsive of all; but that was obviously not Ezekiel’s estimate of it. There are greater abominations to follow. It is difficult to understand the particulars of Ezekiel’s description, especially in the Hebrew text (the LXX is simpler); but it seems impossible to escape the impression that there was something obscene in a worship where idolatry appears as ashamed of itself. The essential fact, however, is that the very highest and most influential men in the land were addicted to a form of heathenism, whose objects of worship were pictures of "horrid creeping things, and cattle, and all the gods of the house of Israel." The name of one of these men, the leader in this superstition, is given, and is significant of the state of life in Jerusalem shortly before its fall. Jaazaniah was the son of Shaphan, who is probably identical with the chancellor of Josiah’s reign whose sympathy with the prophetic teaching was evinced by his zeal in the cause of reform. We read of other members of the family who were faithful to the national religion, such as his son Ahikam, also a zealous reformer, and his grandson Gedaliah, Jeremiah’s friend and patron, and the governor appointed over Judah by Nebuchadnezzar after the taking of the city. The family was thus divided both in religion and politics. While one branch was devoted to the worship of Jehovah and favoured submission to the king of Babylon, Jaazaniah belonged to the opposite party and was the ringleader in a peculiarly obnoxious form of idolatry. The third "abomination" is a form of idolatry widely diffused over Western Asia-the annual mourning for Tammuz. Tammuz was originally a Babylonian deity ( Dumuzi ), but his worship is specially identified with Phoenicia, whence under the name Adonis it was introduced into Greece. The mourning celebrates the death of the god, which is an emblem of the decay of the earth’s productive powers, whether due to the scorching heat of the sin or to the cold of winter. It seems to have been a comparatively harmless rite of nature-religion, and its popularity among the women of Jerusalem at this time may be due to the prevailing mood of despondency which found vent in the sympathetic contemplation of that aspect of nature which most suggests decay and death. The last and greatest of the abominations practised in and near the Temple is the worship of the sun. The peculiar enormity of this species of idolatry can hardly lie in the object of adoration; it is to be sought rather in the place where it was practised, and in the rank of those who took part in it, who were probably priests. Standing between the porch and the altar, with their backs to the Temple, these men unconsciously expressed the deliberate rejection of Jehovah which was involved in their idolatry. The worship of the heavenly bodies was probably imported into Israel from Assyria and Babylon, and its prevalence in the later years of the monarchy was due to political rather than religious influences. The gods of these imperial nations were esteemed more potent than those of the states which succumbed to their power, and hence men who were losing confidence in their national deity naturally sought to imitate the religions of the most powerful peoples known to them. In the arrangement of the four specimens of the religious practices which prevailed in Jerusalem, Ezekiel seems to proceed from the most familiar and explicable to the more outlandish defections from the purity of the national faith. At the same time his description shows how different classes of society were implicated in the sin of idolatry-the elders, the women, and the priests. During all this time the glory of Jehovah has stood in the court, and there is something very impressive in the picture of these infatuated men and women preoccupied with their unholy devotions and all unconscious of the presence of Him whom they deemed to have forsaken the land. To the open eye of the prophet the meaning of the vision must be already clear, but the sentence comes from the mouth of Jehovah Himself: "Hast thou seen, Son of man? Is it too small a thing for the house of Judah to practise the abominations which they have here practised, that they must also fill the land with violence, and (so) provoke Me again to anger? So will I act towards them in anger: My eye shall not pity, nor will I spare." { Ezekiel 8:17-18 } The last words introduce the account of the punishment or Jerusalem, which is given of course in the symbolic form suggested by the scenery of the vision. Jehovah has meanwhile risen from His throne near the cherubim, and stands on the threshold of the Temple. There He summons to His side the destroyers who are to execute His purpose-six angels, each with a weapon of destruction in his hand. A seventh of higher rank clothed in linen appears with the implements of a scribe in his girdle. These stand "beside the brasen altar," and await the commands of Jehovah. The first act of the judgment is a massacre of the inhabitants of the city, without distinction of age or rank or sex. But, in accordance with his strict view of the Divine righteousness, Ezekiel is led to conceive of this last judgment as discriminating carefully between the righteous and the wicked. All those who have inwardly separated themselves from the guilt of the city by hearty detestation of the iniquities perpetrated in its midst are distinguished by a mark on their foreheads before the work of slaughter begins. What became of this faithful remnant it does not belong to the vision to declare. Beginning with the twenty men before the porch, the destroying angels follow the man with the inkhorn through the streets of the city, and slay all on whom he has not set his mark. When the messengers have gone out on their dread errand, Ezekiel, realising the full horror of a scene which he dare not describe, falls prostrate before Jehovah, deprecating the outbreak of indignation which threatened to extinguish "the remnant of Israel." He is reassured by the declaration that the guilt of Judah and Israel demands no less a punishment than this, because the notion that Jehovah had forsaken the land had opened the floodgates of iniquity, and filled the land with bloodshed and the city with oppression. Then the man in the linen robes returns and announces, "It is done as Thou hast commanded." The second act of the judgment is the destruction of Jerusalem by fire. This is symbolised by the scattering over the city of burning coals taken from the altar-hearth under the throne of God. The man with the linen garments is directed to step between the wheels and take out fire for this purpose. The description of the execution of this order is again carried no further than what actually takes place before the prophet’s eyes: the man took the fire and went out. In the place where we might have expected to have an account of the destruction of the city, we have a second description of the appearance and motions of the merkaba, the purpose of which it is difficult to divine. Although it deviates slightly from the account in chapter 1, the differences appear to have no significance, and indeed it is expressly said to be the same phenomenon. The whole passage is certainly superfluous, and might be omitted but for the difficulty of imagining any motive that would have tempted a scribe to insert it. We must keep in mind the possibility that this part of the book had been committed to writing before the final redaction of Ezekiel’s prophecies, and the description in Ezekiel 8:8-17 may have served a purpose there which is superseded by the fuller narrative which we now possess in chapter 1. In this way Ezekiel penetrates more deeply into the inner meaning of the judgment on city and people whose external form he had announced in his earlier prophecy. It must be admitted that Jehovah’s strange work bears to our minds a more appalling aspect when thus presented in symbols than the actual calamity would bear when effected through the agency of second causes. Whether it had the same effect on the mind of a Hebrew, who hardly believed in second causes, is another question. In any case it gives no ground for the charge made against Ezekiel of dwelling with a malignant satisfaction on the most repulsive features of a terrible picture. He is indeed capable of a rigorous logic in exhibiting the incidence of the law of retribution which was to him the necessary expression of the Divine righteousness. That it included the death of every sinner and the overthrow of a city that had become a scene of violence and cruelty was to him a self-evident truth, and more than this the vision does not teach. On the contrary, it contains traits which tend to moderate the inevitable harshness of the truth conveyed. With great reticence it allows the execution of the judgment to take place behind the scenes, giving only those details which were necessary to suggest its nature. While it is being carried out the attention of the reader is engaged in the presence of Jehovah, or his mind is occupied with the principles which made the punishment a moral necessity. The prophet’s expostulations with Jehovah show that he was not insensible to the miseries of his people, although he saw them to be inevitable. Further, this vision shows as clearly as any passage in his writings the injustice of the view which represents him as more concerned for petty details of ceremonial than for the great moral interests of a nation. If any feeling expressed in the vision is to ‘be regarded as Ezekiel’s own, then indignation against outrages on human life and liberty must be allowed to weigh more with him than offences against ritual purity. And, finally, it is clearly one object of the vision to show that in the destruction of Jerusalem no individual shall be involved who is not also implicated in the guilt which calls down wrath upon her. II. The second part of the vision (chapter 11) is hut loosely connected with the first. Here Jerusalem still exists, and men are alive who must certainly have perished in the "visitation of the city" if the writer had still kept himself within the limits of his previous conception. But in truth the two have little in common, except the Temple, which is the scene of both, and the cherubim, whose movements mark the transition from the one to the other. The glory of Jehovah is already departing from the house when it is stayed at the entrance of the east gate, to give the prophet his special message to the exiles. Here we are introduced to the more political aspect of the situation in Jerusalem. The twenty-five men who are gathered in the east gate of the Temple are clearly the leading statesmen in the city; and two of them, whose names are given, are expressly designated as "princes of the people." They are apparently met in conclave to deliberate on public matters, and a word from Jehovah lays open to the prophet the nature of their projects. "These are the men that plan ruin, and hold evil counsel in this city." The evil counsel is undoubtedly the project of rebellion against the king of Babylon which must have been hatched at this time and which broke out into open revolt about three years later. The counsel was evil because directly opposed to that which Jeremiah was giving at the time in the name of Jehovah. But Ezekiel also throws invaluable light on the mood of the men who were urging the king along the path which led to ruin. "Are not the houses recently built?" they say, congratulating themselves on their success in repairing the damage done to the city in the time of Jehoiachin. The image of the pot and the flesh is generally taken to express the feeling of easy security in the fortifications of Jerusalem with which these light-hearted politicians embarked on a contest with Nebuchadnezzar. But their mood must be a gloomier one than that if there is any appropriateness in the language they use. To stew in their own juice, and over a fire of their own kindling, could hardly seem a desirable policy to sane men, however strong the pot might be. These councillors are well aware of the dangers they incur, and of the misery which their purpose must necessarily bring on the people. But they are determined to hazard everything and endure everything on the chance that the city may prove strong enough to baffle the resources of the king of Babylon. Once the fire is kindled, it will certainly be better to be in the pot than in the fire; and so long as Jerusalem holds out they will remain behind her walls. The answer which is put into the prophet’s mouth is that the issue will not be such as they hope for. The only "flesh" that will be left in the city will be the dead bodies of those who have been slain within her walls by the very men who hope that their lives will be given them for a prey. They themselves shall be dragged forth to meet their fate far away from Jerusalem on the "borders of Israel." It is not unlikely that these conspirators kept their word. Although the king and all the men of war fled from the city as soon as a breach was made, we read of certain high officials who allowed themselves to be taken in the city. { Jeremiah 52:7 } Ezekiel’s prophecy was in their case literally fulfilled; for these men and many others were brought to the king of Babylon at Riblah, "and he smote them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath." While Ezekiel was uttering this prophecy one of the councillors, named Pelatiah, suddenly fell down dead. Whether a man of this name had suddenly died in Jerusalem under circumstances that had deeply impressed the prophet’s mind, or whether the death belongs to the vision, it is impossible for us to tell. To Ezekiel the occurrence seemed an earnest of the complete destruction of the remnant of Israel by the wrath of God, and, as before, he fell on his face to intercede for them. It is then that he receives the message which seems to form the Divine answer to the perplexities which haunted the minds of the exiles in Babylon. In their attitude towards the exiles the new leaders in Jerusalem took up a position as highly privileged religious persons, quite at variance with the scepticism which governed their conduct at home. When they were following the bent of their natural inclinations by practising idolatry and perpetrating judicial murders in the city, their cry was, "Jehovah hath forsaken the land; Jehovah seeth it not." When they were eager to justify their claim to the places and possessions left vacant by their banished countrymen, they said, "They are far from Jehovah: to us the land is given in possession." They were probably equally sincere and equally insincere in both professions. They had simply learned the art which comes easily to men of the world of using religion as a cloak for greed, and throwing it off when greed could be best gratified without it. The idea which lay under their religious attitude was that the exiles had gone into captivity because their sins had incurred Jehovah’s anger, and that now His wrath was exhausted and the blessing of His favour would rest on those who had been left in the land. There was sufficient plausibility in the taunt to make it peculiarly galling to the mind of the exiles, who had hoped to exercise some influence over the government in Jerusalem, and to find their places kept for them when they should be permitted to return. It may well have been the resentment produced by tidings of this hostility towards them in Jerusalem that brought their elders to the house of Ezekiel to see if he had not some message from Jehovah to reassure them. In the mind of Ezekiel, however, the problem took another form. To him a return to the old Jerusalem had no meaning; neither buyer nor seller should have cause to congratulate himself on his position. The possession of the land of Israel belonged to those in whom Jehovah’s ideal of the new Israel was realised, and the only question of religious importance was, Where is the germ of this new Israel to be found? Amongst those who survive the judgment in the old land, or amongst those who have experienced it in the form of banishment? On this point the prophet receives an explicit revelation in answer to his intercession for "the remnant of Israel." "Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, thy fellow-captives, and the whole house of Israel of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, They are far from Jehovah: to us it is given-the land for an inheritance! Because I have removed them far among the nations, and have scattered them among the lands, and have been to them but little of a sanctuary in the lands where they have gone, therefore say, Thus saith Jehovah, so will I gather you from the peoples, and bring you from the lands where ye have been scattered, and will give you the land of Israel." The difficult expression "I have been but little of a sanctuary" refers to the curtailment of religious privileges and means of access to Jehovah which was a necessary consequence of exile. It implies, however, that Israel in banishment had learned in some measure to preserve that separation from other peoples and that peculiar relation to Jehovah which constituted its national holiness. Religion perhaps perishes sooner from the overgrowth of ritual than from its deficiency. It is a historical fact that the very meagreness of the religion which could be practised in exile was the means of strengthening the more spiritual and permanent elements which constitute the essence of religion. The observances which could be maintained apart from the Temple acquired an importance which they never afterwards lost; and although some of these, such as circumcision, the Passover, the abstinence from forbidden food, were purely ceremonial, others, such as prayer, reading of the Scriptures, and the common worship of the synagogue, represent the purest and most indispensable forms in which communion with God can find expression. That Jehovah Himself became even in small measure what the word "sanctuary" denotes indicates an enrichment of the religious consciousness of which perhaps Ezekiel himself did not perceive the full import. The great lesson which Ezekiel’s message seeks to impress on his hearers is that the tenure of the land of Israel depends on religious conditions. The land is Jehovah’s, and He bestows it on those who are prepared to use it as His holiness demands. A pure land inhabited by a pure people is the ideal that underlies all Ezekiel’s visions of the future. It is evident that in such a conception of the relation between God and His people ceremonial conditions must occupy a conspicuous place. The sanctity of the land is necessarily of a ceremonial order, and so the sanctity of the people must consist partly in a scrupulous regard for ceremonial requirements. But after all the condition of the land with respect to purity or uncleanness only reflects the character of the nation whose home it is. The things that defile a land are such things as idols and other emblems of heathenism, innocent blood unavenged, and unnatural crimes of various kinds. These things derive their whole significance from the state of mind and heart which they embody; they are the plain and palpable emblems of human sin. It is conceivable that to some minds the outward emblems may have seemed the true seat of evil, and their removal an end in itself apart from the direction of the will by which it was brought about. But it would be a mistake to charge Ezekiel with any such obliquity of moral vision. Although he conceives sin as a defilement that leaves its mark on the material world, he clearly teaches that its essence lies in the opposition of the human will to the will of God. The ceremonial purity required of every Israelite is only the expression of certain aspects of Jehovah’s holy nature, the bearing of which on man’s spiritual life may have been obscure to the prophet, and is still more obscure to us. And the truly valuable element in compliance with such rules was the obedience to Jehovah’s expressed will which flowed from a nature in sympathy wi