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And it came to pass, etc. We begin with a fresh date. One year and one month had passed since the vision of Chebar, and had been occupied partly by the acted, partly by the spoken, prophecies of the preceding chapters. In the mean time, things had gone from bad to worse in Jerusalem. In the absence of the higher priests, idolatry was more rampant, and had found its way even into the temple. It is probable that tidings of this had reached Ezekiel, as we know that frequent communications passed between the exiles and those they had left behind (Jer_29:1-3, Jer_29:9, Jer_29:25). Directly or indirectly, Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Genesisariah the son of Hilkiah. may have conveyed a message, orally or written, from Jeremiah himself. Some such report may have led to the visit from the elders of Judah, if we understand by that term the exiles of Tel-Abib. I venture, however, on the conjecture that possibly those who came to the prophet were actually visitors who had come from Judah. Elsewhere, as in Eze_14:1 and Eze_20:1, those who thus came are described as "elders of Israel," or the captives (Eze_1:1), "they of the Captivity" (Eze_3:15). In either case, the visions that follow gain a special significance. The prophet becomes the seer. It is given to him to know, in a manner which finds a spurious analogue in the alleged mental travelling of the clairvoyant of modern psychology, what is passing in the city from which the messengers had come—and to show that he knows it. With such facts before his eyes, what other answer can there be than that evil must meet its doom? And so we pass into the second series of prophecies which ends with Eze_13:23. It would seem as if the enquirers had kept silent as well as the prophet. We are not told that they asked anything. His look and manner, perhaps also attitude and gesture, forbade utterance. The hand of the Lord—the trance state—was in the act to fall on him (see notes on Eze_3:14, Eze_3:22). When the trance state was over, we may think of him as reporting and recording what he had thus seen in vision..
Eze_8:2
I beheld, and lo a likeness, etc. The vision opens with a theophany like that of Eze_1:1-28.; but here, as there, Ezekiel uses the word which emphasizes the fact that what he had seen was but a "likeness" of the ineffable glory, an image of the Unseen. (For "amber," see Eze_1:4, Eze_1:27.) In this case we note the absence of the cherubic figures. It is simply the "appearance of tile likeness of the glory of Jehovah," seen now in the glow of fire, without the milder, more hopeful brightness of the rainbow (Eze_1:28).
Eze_8:3
The form of an hand (comp. Eze_2:9; Dan_5:5). For the mode of transit, see Bel and the Dragon, verse 36. as probably a direct imitation. The touch of the "hand" was followed by the action of the Spirit, in visions which he knew to be more than dreams, visions that came from God (comp. Eze_1:1; Eze_40:2). The word is not the same as that commonly used by Daniel (chazon), and often by Ezekiel himself (Eze_7:13; Eze_12:22, Eze_12:23, et al.), but mareh, which implies a more direct act of intuition. The word appears again in Eze_11:24; Eze_43:3, and in Dan_8:26, Dan_8:27, et al. To the door of the gate, etc. From the first we trace the priest's familiarity with the structure of the temple. He is brought, as it were, after his journey in the spirit, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looketh towards the north (Revised Version). This is identified in Dan_8:5 with the "gate of the altar." It may probably also be identified with the "upper gate" of Eze_9:2; the "high gate" of Jer_20:2; the "higher gate" of 2Ki_15:35, built by Jotham; the "new gate" of Jer_36:10. Obviously it was one of the most conspicuous portions of the temple, where the people gathered in large numbers. And here the prophet sees what he calls the image of jealousy. The words that follow probably give his explanation of the strange phrase, not found elsewhere, though it might naturally be suggested by Deu_32:16, Deu_32:21; Psa_78:58. What this image was we can only conjecture. The word for "image" is a rare one, and is found only here and in Deu_4:16; 2Ch_33:7, 2Ch_33:15. It may have been the Asherah (the "grove" of the Authorized Version), or conical stone, such as Manasseh had made and placed, with an altar dedicated to it, in the house of the Lord (2Ki_21:3; 2Ch_33:3), or one of Baal, or of Ashtaroth, or even of Tammuz (see verse 14). As the word "grove" does not occur in Ezekiel, it may be sufficient to state that the Ashera was a pillar symbolical either of a goddess of the same name, or, as some think, of the Phoenician Astarte. The worship seems to have first become popular under Jezebel (1Ki_18:19), and took deep root both in Israel and Judah. The cultus, as in 2Ki_23:7, seems to have been connected with the foulest licence, like that of the Babylonian Mylitta (Herod; 1.199; Baruch 6:43). The work of Josiah had clearly had but a temporary success, and the people had gone back to the confluent polytheism of the reign of Manasseh. In such a state of things the worst was possible. For recent discussions on the Ashera, see Kuenen. 'Relig. Isr.' (Eng. transl.), 1.88; Schrader; Robertson Smith, 'Relig. of Semites,' p. 172; and T.K. Cheyne, in the Academy of December 14, 1889.
Eze_8:4, Eze_8:5
And, behold, etc. In appalling contrast with that "image of jealousy," Ezekiel saw what he had not seen, as he first became conscious that he was in the court of the temple—the vision of the Divine glory, such as he had seen it on the banks of Chebar (Eze_1:4-28). He was to look first on this picture and then on that, and the guilt of Judah was measured by that contrast.
Eze_8:6
That I should go far off, etc. The lesson taught was that already implied in the fact that the glorious vision and come to him from the north (Eze_1:4). The temple was already as a God-deserted shrine. His return to it now was but the coming of the Judge and the Destroyer. We are reminded of the Μεταβαίνωμεν ἔντευθεν , ("Let us depart hence"), which was heard in the darkness of the night before the later destruction of Jerusalem (Josephus, 'Bell. Jud.' 6.5.3) Bad begins, but worse remains behind. The prophet is led onward as through the successive stages of an inferno of idolatries.
Eze_8:7
To the door of the court. What follows suggests that the prophet was led to the gate that opened from the inner to the outer court. This gas surrounded by chambers or cells (Jer_35:4). The term for "wall" (kir) is that specially used for the wall which encloses a whole group of buildings (Num_35:4). Behold a hole in the wall. The fact was clearly significant. The worship here was more clandestine than that of the "image of jealousy." We are not warranted, perhaps, in insisting on minute consistency in the world of visions, but the question naturally arises—How did the worshippers enter the chamber if Ezekiel had to enlarge the hole in the wall in order to get in? We may surmise that the entrance from the temple court had been blocked up all but entirely in the days of Josiah, that the idolaters now entered it from without or through some other chamber, while Ezekiel thinks of himself as coming upon them like a spy in the dim distance of the covered passage through which he made his way.
Eze_8:10
Every form of creeping things. The words obviously paint the theriomorphic worship of Egypt, the scarabseus probably being prominent. The alliance between Jehoiakim and Pharaoh (2Ki_24:1-20 :33-35), and which Zedekiah was endeavouring to renew, would naturally bring about a revival of that cultus. Small chambers in rock or tomb filled with such pictured symbols were specially characteristic of it.
Eze_8:11
Seventy men, etc. The number was probably chosen with reference to the "elders" who had seen the Divine glory in Exo_24:9, Exo_24:10. The Sanhedrin, or council of seventy, did not exist till after the Captivity. The number can scarcely have been accidental, and may imply that the elders were formally representative. Another Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, appears in Jer_35:3; yet another, the son of Azur, in Eze_11:1. If the Shaphan mentioned is the scribe, the son of Azaliah, under Josiah (2Ki_22:3), the father of Ahikam (2Ki_22:12), of Elasah (Jer_29:3), and of Gemariah (Jer_36:10, Jer_36:11, Jer_36:12), and the grandfather of Gedaliah (Jer_39:14, et al.), all of whom were prominent in the reform movement under Josiah, or as friends of Jeremiah, and no other Shaphan appears in history, the fact that one of his sons is the leader of the idolatrous company must have had for Ezekiel a specially painful significance. He could scarcely have forgotten the meaning of his name, "The Lord is listening," and probably refers to it in verse 12. As the climax of this chamber of horrors, the seventy elders were all acting as priests, and were offering to their pictured idols the incense which none but the sons of Aaron had a right to use, and which they offered to Jehovah only.
Eze_8:12
Every man, etc. And this, after all, was but a sample of the prevalence of the Egyptian influence. Other elders had, in the dark, a like adytum, a like chamber of imagery, like the Latin lararium, filled. with a like cloud of incense. And though the name of the leader of the band might have warned them that the Lord was listening, they boasted, in their blindness, that Jehovah did not see them; he had forsaken the temple, and had fiche elsewhere. They thought of Jehovah as of a local deity who had abdicated. They were free to do as they liked without fear. The words are worth noting further as the first of a series of popular half proverbs, in which the thoughts of the people clothed themselves (see Eze_11:3; Eze_12:22; Eze_18:2, Eze_18:19; Eze_33:10; Eze_37:11). All these imply some personal knowledge of what was passing in Jerusalem.
Eze_8:14
Behold, there sat women wailing for Tammuz. The point of view is probably the same as that of Eze_8:3, but the women were apparently in the outer porch of it, as he has to be brought to the gate in order to see them. We are led to note two things:
(1) the general prominence of women in the later idolatry of Judah;
(2) the specific character of the Tammuz worship.
Under
(1) we have the women who wove hangings for the Ashera (2Ki_23:7), those who had burnt incense to other gods, especially to the queen of heaven (Jer_44:9, Jer_44:15-19), probably, i.e; to Ashtaroth.
(2) The name Tammuz does not meet us elsewhere in the Old Testament. All interpreters, however, agree that it answers to the Adonis of Greek mythology. So Jerome translates it, and expressly states (in loc.) that what Ezekiel saw corresponded to the Adonis festivals. It may be enough to state, without going into the details of the story, that Adonis, the beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite, was slain by a wild boar; that after his death he was allowed to spend six months of each year with her, while the other was passed with Persephone in Hades. The cultus thus became the symbol of the annual decay and revival of nature; but the legend rather than the inner meaning was in the thoughts of the worshippers. The emotions of women poured themselves out in lamentations over the waxen image of the beautiful dead youth who had perished in his prime, and in orgiastic joy over his return to life. Milton, deriving his knowledge, probably, from Selden's 'De Diis Syris,' has painted the whole atone in words which may well be quoted—
"Thammuz next came behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eyes surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah."
('Par. Lost,' 1:446, etc.)
The chief centre of the Tammuz-Adonis worship was Byblos, in Syria. but it spread widely over the shores of the Mediterranean and was fashionable both in Alexandria and Athens. One of the practices of the festival, that of planting flowers in vases for forced cultivation, has been perpetuated by Plato's allusion to "the gardens of Adonis" as the type of transitoriness. Cheyne, following Lagarde, finds a reference to the cultus in Isa_17:10; Isa_65:3 : Isa_66:17. The festival of Ishtar and Tammuz (or Tam-zi) at Babylon presented a marked parallel. Adonis is, with hardly a doubt, identical with the Hebrew Adonai (equivalent to "Lord"). Tammuz has been explained as meaning "victorious," or "disappearance," or "burning;" but all etymologies are conjectural. Lastly, it is not without interest to note
(1) that when Jerome wrote, the Cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem was overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz ('Ep. ad Paul.'); and
(2) that the later Jewish calendar included the month of Tammuz, which corresponded to July. The festival seems to have been celebrated at the summer solstice. The time of Ezekiel's vision was in the sixth month, sc. about the time of the autumnal equinox (see 'Dict. Bible,' art. "Tammuz"). Mr. Baring-Gould, treating the legend as a solar myth, finds the old Phoenician deity represented in the "St. George of Merrie England". An exhaustive monograph, "Tammuz Adonis," has been published by Liebrecht, in his 'Zur Volkskunde', reprinted from the Zeitschrift Deutschen Morgen-Gesellschaft, vol. 17. pp. 397, etc.
Eze_8:16
He brought me into the inner court. The last and the worst form of desecration follows. It was the "inner court" (Joe_2:17) which, after the exile, was entered only by the priests. During the monarchy, however, it seems to have been accessible to kings and other persons of importance, as in the case of Solomon (1Ki_8:22, 1Ki_8:64; 1Ki_9:25) in the revolution against Athaliah (2Ki_11:4-15), and Hezekiah (2Ki_19:14), and Josiah (2Ki_23:2). Ezekiel does not say that the men whom he saw were priests, though the number twenty-five suggests that they were taking the place of the high priest and the heads of the twenty-four courses of the priesthood (1Ch_24:4-19), and so symbolized the whole order of the priesthood as the seventy elders represented the laity. In 2Ch_36:14 the chief of the priests is spoken of as having been prominent in "polluting the house of the Lord." They were seen turning their backs to the temple of Jehovah, i.e. the sanctuary. The very act was symbolical of their apostasy (2Ch_29:6; Isa_1:4; Jer_7:24). And they did this in order that they might look to the east and worship the rising sun. That, and not the temple (Dan_6:10), was the Kiblah of their adoration. The sun worship here appears to have had a Persian character, as being offered to the sun itself, and not to Baal, as a solar god. Of such a worship we have traces in Deu_4:19; Deu_17:3; Job_31:26; 2Ki_23:5, 2Ki_23:11.
Eze_8:17
For returned read, with the Revised Version, turned again. The wind seems chosen with special reference to the attitude of the idol worshippers. It may be noted that even here the prophet speaks not only of the idolatry of Judah, but of its violence also, as bringing down the judgments of Jehovah. Lo, they put the branch to their nose. The opening word expresses the prophet's burning indignation. The act described probably finds its best explanation in the Persian ritual of the Avesta. When men prayed to the sun, they held in their left hands a bouquet of palm, pomegranate, and tamarisk twigs, while the priests for the same purpose held a veil before their mouth, so that the bright rays of the sun might not be polluted by human breath. And this was done in the very temple of Jehovah by those who were polluting the whole land by their violence. The LXX. gives, as an explanation, ὡς μυκτηρίζοντες , as though the act was one of scornful pride (comp. Isa_65:5), the sign of a temper like that of the Pharisee as he looked upon the publican (Luk_18:11). Lightfoot takes the "nose" as the symbol of anger, and looks on the phrase as proverbial: "They add the twig to their anger, fuel to the fire;" but this has little to commend it. The word for "branch" is used in Eze_15:2 and Num_13:23 for a vine branch.
Eze_8:18
The verse serves as a transition to Eze_9:1-11. The unpitying aspect of the Divine judgments is again prominent. Such sins deserved, and could only be expiated by, the judgments to which we now pass.
I. A VISION OF GOD. It is evidently a Divine appearance, a theophany, that is here portrayed. Not that man at any time can see God with the outward eye, for flesh cannot see spirit. But in vision and representative form God now manifests himself to Ezekiel.
1. The vision of God precedes the revelation of truth. It was usual for this great seer of visions, Ezekiel, to have a new series of revelations opened by some overwhelming manifestation of God's presence. The same occurred with St. John's visions in the Apocalypse. We must know God before we can understand Divine truth. The vision of God in the soul must come first. Then truth can be seen in his light.
2. The vision of God precedes the revelation of man. Ezekiel is about to see awful sights of sin. He must first behold the pure fire of God's presence. We cannot know man till we see him in the light of God. The Bible that gives us our highest knowledge of God also gives us our deepest insight into man. Vague ideas of God lead to light thoughts of sin. When about to visit the haunts of wickedness, the Christian should first come into communion with God. This will help him to see the horror of sin, to keep himself from contamination, and to feel the right commiseration for the fallen.
II. A VISION OF FIRE. The Divine manifestation seems to have been in a human shape, but in one of fire—burning flames below, brilliant radiance above.
1. The fire below suggests wrath against sin. "Our God is a consuming Fire" (Heb_12:29). Christ came to baptize with fire, and to burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Mat_3:11, Mat_3:12). There is a righteous indignation against sin, the lack of which would mean moral feebleness. God burns to consume all evil.
2. The brightness above suggests the supreme glory of God. The crowning characteristic of God is nut wrath. Above the fire is the serene radiance. There is terror in the holiness of God when this touches the sin of man. Yet God himself is supremely calm and beautiful. If we can rise from the flaming wrath about his feet, and behold the beauty of his countenance, we shall see on it the expression of eternal goodness.
Eze_8:3
I. GOD IS JUSTLY JEALOUS. The Old Testament idea of the jealousy of God has been grossly misapprehended. It has been taken as meaning that God was regarded as narrow, self-seeking, harsh. Such criticisms reveal a total misapprehension of the Old Testament position, according to which the jealousy of God is a necessity of his nature and righteousness.
1. A necessity of God's nature. There is but one God who fills all things. When he is represented as jealous, thin cannot be because he grudges a certain amount of honour to a rival—as Zeus might be jealous of Apollo—for God has no possible rivals. The supposed rivals are not gods at all. The worship of them is the worship of empty names. God is calling men back from delusion to fact when he is jealous of heathenish worship.
2. A necessity of righteousness. Forsaking Jehovah for false gods is not merely leaving one deity for another, nor even only turning aside to vanity and a delusion. It is turning from holiness to sin. The worship of God involves purity of heart and life; idolatry means a lower moral life. For the sake of holiness God cannot endure the lower worship. It might be said that God could be worshipped under various names as "Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." But if the lower forms of worship involve false thoughts of God and evil practices in morals, they are degrading and unendurable.
II. AN IDOL PROVOKES THE JEALOUSY OF GOD. The idol takes the place of God, sits on his throne, defiles his temple, usurps his Name and authority and worship. Anything that works in this way is an idol, and needs to be visited with the just indignation of God. Let us note some of these "images of jealousy."
1. Pleasure. If men set pleasure first, guiding their lives by its gaudy radiance, pleasure presides over the altar of their souls. "Love not pleasure, love God," says Carlyle; for the supreme love of the one excludes the supreme love of the other.
2. Money. This idol of gold is the modern representative of Nebuchadnezzar's statue on the plain of Shinar—a hard, helpless idol, which the man who lives for money enshrines in the temple of his soul.
3. Earthly love. God does not require us to abandon human affection; on the contrary, we cannot love God unless we love man, and we]earn to love God best through the exercise of human affections (1Jn_4:20). But when a human affection is supreme and will not yield in submission to the will of God, the object of it becomes an "image of jealousy."
4. Self-will. We may think we serve God and yet we may refuse to obey him, only working according to our own will. This also is idolatry.
5. Fixed opinions. Instead of loving truth, we are tempted to love our own ideas; wishing them to be true, we are led to regard them as such, and so to shut our minds against the correcting voice of Divine revelation. All these images of jealousy are just so many embodiments of self, the monster idol of the soul and rival of God. To cast out these images we need the true Image of the invisible God, Jesus Christ, to come and take possession of our hearts.
Eze_8:12
I. EVERY MAN HAS A CHAMBER OF IMAGERY IN HIS OWN HEART. Children and poets are possessed of the most Powerful imagination; but even the dullest, most prosaic person is haunted with visionary presences, though of the most common place order. When we retire into ourselves, we unlock the door of our chamber of imagery and look at its ghostly scenes. There hang the portraits of the past, some blurred by the dust of years, others as clear as when they were first painted by the flash of a keen experience; some distorted into painful, impossible ugliness, others rounded into equally impossible perfection. There, too, are vague shadows of the future. But the most important images are designs and wishes, favourite fancies and pet ideas. These we embrace as friends; before some of them, perhaps, we prostrate ourselves in idolatrous worship. But happily we may also find there inspiring images of noble deeds, the ideals we would strive to copy in actual life. We may have left them too long in the dim chamber of imagery. We should bring them forth and clothe them with the flesh and blood of living deeds, while the bad images had better be crushed before they reach the doorway of utterance.
II. THERE ARE DEEDS DONE IN THE CHAMBER OF IMAGERY. Lust is there, and adultery, covetousness, theft, hatred, and murder. So long as a man restrains his utterance he is tempted to believe that it matters not what he imagines. No greater delusion can be possible; for the true life is that which is lived within. While in his chamber of imagery, a man is his true self divested of the cloak of semblance which he wears when about in the world. What images does he there delight to gaze upon? The true character of the man will be determined by the answer to that question. Certainly evil images may come there unsought and unloved as painful temptations, and it is the duty of one who loves holiness to turn aside from such. But the images delighted in reveal the true self. The wickedness there planned and gloated over in evil thought is sin—a deed of the soul. Ultimately it must come out in the life, for the imagination of the heart colours the external conduct, Shakespeare says—
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons,
Which, at the first, are scarce found to distaste,
But, with a little act upon the blood,
Burn like the mines of sulphur."
III. IT IS A DELUSION TO SUPPOSE THAT GOD IS INDIFFERENT TO WHAT HAPPENS IN THE CHAMBER OF IMAGERY. The old men of Jerusalem comforted themselves with the notion that God did not see them, that he had forsaken the earth. This Ezekiel knew to be a monstrous delusion.
1. God looks into the chamber of imagery. There is a window in every soul, through which the eye of God gazes right down to the bottom of its most secret thoughts. He knows us better than we know ourselves. The cloak of hypocrisy is not as the thinnest veil between us and God. Now, this is of supreme interest, because, while it does not very much matter what our fellow men may think about us, God's thought of us is all-important.
2. God will judge us for deeds done in the chamber of imagery. Knowing all, he will not judge only by what the world sees. Sins of the heart will be noted by God, and will bring down upon us his just wrath, even though the hands have been clean from iniquity.
3. The only effectual salvation must be ore that cleanses the chamber of imagery. "Create in me a clean heart, O God," cries David, in the depth of his penitence, knowing that the outward sins he had committed have sprung from the evil of his imagination. Therefore nothing short of the new birth which Christ brings can save our souls.
Eze_8:15
I. SIN IS FOUND IN VARIOUS DEGREES OF ABOMINATION. The patristic statement that all sin is infinite, because it is an offence against the infinite God, is not found in Scripture, nor is it borne out by observation or experience. The Bible refers to various degrees of guilt; e.g. Joh_19:11. Peter's denial of Christ was a sin; but Judas's betrayal was a vastly greater sin. We are conscious of degrees of guilt in our own lives. It looks as though the sink of iniquity must be a bottomless pit. There are even deeper, blacker, more frightful and damnable sins yet to be reached by an abandoned soul that plunges down an unchecked descent of iniquity. No one is so bad that he can say, "I can do nothing worse than I have done."
II. THE VARIOUS DEGREES OR ABOMINATION CANNOT BE MEASURED BY EXTERNAL STANDARDS. They are not to be determined by any graduated code of formal morality. What is a weakness in one man may be a crime in another. The father of a starving family who steals a loaf—like the hero of Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables'—is not to be judged as the respectable promoter of rotten investments, who grows rich on the ruin of thousands of helpless people. The miserable child of the London thief, whose training has been at a school of crime, cannot be justly put into comparison with the son of a happy, prosperous Christian home. There are hereditary tendencies to evil and peculiar circumstances of temptation which beset certain people more than others. The degree of guilt varies accordingly. We cannot weigh all these conditions. Hence the advice, "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
III. ALL SIN TENDS TO AN AGGRAVATION OF ITS ABOMINATION. As Ezekiel went from one chamber to another, he came upon a continually descending series of scenes of wickedness. The worst were last. Sin is never at a standstill. It is a dark and turbid torrent that swells and blackens as it flows. The man who begins with a slight lapse from virtue is on the road to greater abominations. Herein is the danger, the fatal insidiousness of evil. If the sinner saw the whole course of his future from the first and at once—like Hogarth's pictures of the 'Rake's Progress'—he would start back with horror. Yet while he lingers and toys with sin it is silently coiling about him with more and more direful entanglements.
IV. THE EXISTENCE OF VARIOUS DEGREES OF ABOMINATION IS A REASON FOR SPEEDY REPENTANCE.
1. All sin is abominable. One sin may be a greater abomination than another, but the standard of measurement is not the depth below, but the height above. The question is—How far have we fallen? not—How much further may we yet sink away from the light? A man's sin is not one whit the less because his brother's sin is greater in guilt.
2. The sooner we repent the easier it is to return. Sin hardens as it becomes more aggravated in evil. While the light of God is waning, the way of recovery is becoming more obscure. "Today is the accepted time."
3. It is possible for the greatest abomination to be forgiven. The obstacle is only on one side. Christ can save the worst of sinners.
Eze_8:16
I. SUN WORSHIP IS MOST FASCINATING. This was the most common, and perhaps also the most primitive, heathen cult. It was very prominent in the ancient Egyptian religion—the rising, the midday, and the setting sun being honoured with separate names and rites; it was the essential idea of the Canaanite Baal worship, as well as of the Babylonian religion; and it lies at the heart of the Aryan mythology in Sanscrit, Greek, and Teutonic forms. If any material object should be selected for worship, it is natural that the earth's great source of light, power, and life should be the universal favourite. Our modern idolatries do not reach this material form, but they contain the same ideas.
1. The worship of light. This takes two forms.
(1) AEstheticism. Grace of form and tone are set up as supreme objects of admiration, to the neglect of moral goodness.
(2) Science. This is put on a pinnacle as lord of all thought and life. Now, knowledge is good, and all truth, which is the subject of science, is in itself pure, and should be pursued by men. But the exclusive cult of science is idolatry, because it is placing knowledge above obedience.
2. The worship of power. The sun is the great motive power of the universe. Latent sun heat in coal drives our steam engines. Direct sun heat lifts the water from the sea, that afterwards descends in avalanches and mountain torrents. We do not prostrate ourselves before the sun, the source of all this force, but we do magnify the virtue of the power itself. Yet material resources are not the highest good.
3. The worship of life. The sun is the great fertilizing influence of nature. The return of its warm rays awakens nature from the death of winter, and creates the new life of spring; its great heat makes the tropics to teem with swift growing vegetable and insect life. The most modern idolatry is the deification of the vital powers—the idea that, as all natural instinct is pure, the indulgence of naturalism is commendable. This is just the old Canaanite abomination.
4. The worship of the future. The sun worshipper turned to the east and hailed the sunrise. There is something fascinating and exhilarating in this anticipation of the morning. Christianity consecrates hope. But it is a mistake to believe in the future as in a fate of coming good. The future can only be good because God is in it, and blesses it.
II. SUN WORSHIP IS MOST ABOMINABLE. It includes many evil things.
1. Departure from God. The sun worshippers stood with their backs turned towards the temple. Their attitude was most significant. All idolatry must be practised with the back turned towards the truly Divine. We cannot serve the false and the true at one and the same time.
2. The degradation of God's greatest works. The more beautiful and powerful and fruitful the sun is seen to be, the more shameful is it that men should degrade their thought of it into idolatry. When we abuse God's best gifts by idolizing them, we turn what should occasion our deepest gratitude and admiration for God's goodness into an occasion for departing from him.
3. The consecration of sin. Sun worship began in adoration of the lord of day. But it descended into gross licentiousness, through the selection of the fertilizing power of sun heat as a special object of adoration. Thus sun worship became the worship of lust. This will be the inevitable effect of naturalism regarded as a religion. The worship of nature powers pure and simple involves the consecration of the lowest of those powers, so that what should be kept down as a slave claims to rule as a master, with obscene effrontery.
CONCLUSION. The rescue from nature worship—modern as well as ancient—is to be found in the revelation of One infinitely greater than nature. No wonder men who had no vision of the spiritual God selected the sun—so powerful in his southern splendour—as the greatest object of adoration. But we have "the Sun of Righteousness," before whose glory all physical brightness grows pale and fades away.
Eze_8:17
1. As an attempt to excuse the sinner. This, of course, is the most obvious and palpable reason why many people try to minimize their own sin. The prisoner pleads "Not guilty" simply to save himself. The same is done even before the private bar of a man's own conscience; for we wish to excuse ourselves to ourselves. Thus there may be no conscious deception, no hypocrisy. We may really persuade ourselves that we are not so bad as we seem to be. The wish is father to the thought.
2. By the force of habit. We grow accustomed to the worst companions if we are much with them, as we scarcely notice the ugliness of what is constantly with us, though strangers would be struck with their first sight of it. So while we become familiar with our sins, their supreme and most dreadful wickedness ceases to affect us, as the fearful sight of mutilated bodies ceases to affect hospital surgeons. The horror dies out of the aspect of wickedness, and a look of familiarity takes its place.
3. Through the influence of example. If a man stood alone in his sin, he would he appalled at the singular horror of it. But he sees it reflected in the lives of his neighbours, and, judging himself by the average standard of society, instead of taking the Law of God for his measure, he passes an easy sentence.
4. In the deadening of conscience. This is the worst and the most dangerous effect of sin. The sense for perceiving its guilt is blunted. Until conscience is reawakened by the Spirit of God, no man truly appreciates his own guilt.
II. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO MAKE LIGHT OF SIN.
1. He sees it as it truly is. God is not deceived by our excuses. He sees into the true nature of our thought and conduct with an all-searching eye, and he is perfectly true and just to judge according to fact.
2. God measures it by the law of holiness. He knows our weakness, our ignorance, our temptation; and he does not judge men as he would judge angels—of that we may be sure; for "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" But according as we have light he will estimate our conduct, measuring it against that light, and not against the darkness of our neighbours. God cannot endure iniquity. In his sight it is hideous and hateful and utterly deserving of condemnation. Let us remember that we shall not be judged by man's standards of conventionality, but by God's pure law of righteousness.
3. If God forgives sin, he does not make light of it. Forgiveness is not excusing evil. It recognizes the whole black guilt of it. Jesus who brought free forgiveness denounced sin itself as no stern Hebrew prophet had ventured to denounce it. In pardoning the penitent he carefully hotel that her sins were "many" (Luk_7:47). The publican is commended for his humiliation in the confession of sin (Luk_18:13). We can only judge of God's horror of sin by the darkness and agony of Gethsemane and Calvary. God forgives sin at the cost of his own Son. The great atonement of Christ was rendered necessary because God could not make light of sin, though he desired to save the sinner. We can be saved from our sin, not by making light of it, but when we fully confess its whole guilt and shame.
I. THE GLORY OF THE GOD OF ISRAEL. The prophet beheld an appearance of splendour, such as he had previously beheld in the plain, and had described in an earlier passage of iris prophecies.
1. This appearance was emblematical of the Divine attributes; alike of God's power to punish and to save, and of his moral excellences, justice and truth, mercy and love.
2. This appearance was peculiarly suitable to the place where it was discerned: the temple of Jehovah was his dwelling place, and the scene of his peculiar presence, who giveth not his glory to another.
3. This appearance was a reminder that for the Jewish people there was one, and only one, proper Object of adoration and worship.
II. THE IDOLATROUS IMAGE.
1. This was doubtless a figure of one of the false gods worshipped by one of the nations in the neighbourhood of Palestine, by whom Judah had been corrupted and seduced. Which of the several idols was at that time worshipped by the Jews we are not told; and, indeed, this does not signify.
2. Whatever this imaginary deity may have been, it is certain that the attributes assigned to it were opposed to those belonging to Jehovah. Cruelty and impurity were certainly qualities attributed to this false god.
3. Thus moral degradation was involved in the worship of this image; degradation all the more signal because the Jews forsook a God of righteousness and clemency, and fashioned or accepted an imaginary deity embodying their own worst faults and vices.
III. THE INDIGNATION WITH WHICH JEHOVAH REGARDED JUDAH'S PREFERENCE. The image was an "image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy." The reasons why the idol should be so designated, why such should be the way in which it was regarded, are obvious enough.
1. Jehovah had enjoined upon the posterity of Abraham abstinence from the idolatries from which the great forefather of the chosen people had been delivered. Monotheism was the very stamp and seal of their election.
2. The very first and second commandments of the first table of the moral Law prohibited idolatry.
3. The history of Israel had been one long rebuke of idolatry, and one long warning against falling into this seductive snare.
4. The ordinances and institutions of the nation were expressly designed to act as a check and dissuasive against the sin of the surrounding and heathen nations.
APPLICATION. Apostasy from the service of the one living and true God is rendered inexcusable, and is worthy of severe condemnation, when, as in the case of Judah, and in our case, light is clear, privileges are many, and opportunities and inducements abound to be faithful and diligent in the practice of pure religion.—T.
Eze_8:10
I. THE CHARACTER OF THIS IDOLATRY.
1. It was the worship of living creatures.
2. And of the lowest forms of life. This we know to have been especially characteristic of the religion of ancient Egypt.
II. THE VILENESS AND ABSURDITY OF THIS IDOLATRY.
1. It was the elevation of the creature above the Creator.
2. It was the glorification of animal in preference to spiritual life.
3. It manifested itself in the most irrational and indefensible forms which so called religion could possibly assume.
4. It lowered the worshippers to a moral level of degradation below which it was scarcely possible to sink.
III. THE GUILT OF THE JEWS IN PRACTISING THIS IDOLATRY.
1. They forsook the pure and elevating worship of the living and true God, preferring the vile to the precious, the disgusting to the sublime.
2. They acted in a manner contrary to all the lessons of their past history.
3. They rebelled against the authoritative admonitions of the Lord's faithful prophets. In all these respects the Hebrew people were far more blamable than the surrounding nations who had been trained in idolatrous practices, and had never declined from a purer and nobler faith and worship.—T.
Eze_8:12
I. THE ELEMENTS OF ATHEISM. There are many who are not professedly and openly atheists, who are such in reality. They may not cast aside the Name of God, they may not openly repudiate the Law of God; but in their hearts they believe not in him. There may be recognized on their part:
1. Disbelief in the Lord's omniscient observation of men. "They say, The Lord seeth us not."
2. Disbelief in the Lord's presence and activity. "They say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth." Whoever they may be who make these assertions, and whatever their standing among their fellow men, they are practically and really atheistic.
II. THE OPERATION OF ATHEISM. It is impossible that such disbelief as that described should be without influence upon the moral nature and conduct.
1. Atheism removes the restraints from sin which belief in the Divine presence imposes. This is not the highest view to take of the question, but it is a just one; and many natures are largely influenced by the knowledge that an all-seeing God regards all their ways and thoughts.
2. Atheism removes the inspiration to goodness which belief in the Divine presence furnishes. The knowledge that a holy and omnipotent Father is ever with us, is ever ready to encourage and assist us in all our endeavours to realize our highest ideal, must needs be a factor of great importance in our spiritual life. Let this be withheld or contradicted, and how much that is best must be withdrawn along with it!
III. THE FRUITS OF ATHEISM.
1. Among these Jews at Jerusalem disbelief in Jehovah led to superstition and idolatry—no unusual conjunction.
2. Very generally, atheism leads to self-indulgence and vice.
3. And it is destructive of all higher national life. Fidelity to God is fidelity to principle, fidelity to society, fidelity to the highest conception formed of human life. Infidelity to God involves the opposite of all these virtues, and abandonment to the life of interest, of ease, of pleasure; it gives power to every temptation to sin, to every evil tendency of society. Under its influence man sinks to the merely animal life, and to such mental activity as subserves that life.
APPLICATION. We are sometimes told that in speculative atheism there is no great harm; that without belief in God men may be good citizens, and may discharge honourably the several relationships of life. Without denying that, in certain instances, the influence of Christianity may for a time abide after Christianity itself has been abandoned, we have yet to look at the proper and inevitable consequences of a general abandonment of belief in God. We shall find these so terrible, that we may well watch and pray against the first loosenings of belief in the most fundamental and precious of all truths.—T.
Eze_8:14
I. THAT IT SUBSTITUTED FICTION FOR TRUTH.
II. THAT IT CONCENTRATED ATTENTION UPON NATURE INSTEAD OF UPON THE AUTHOR OF NATURE.
III. THAT IT SUBSTITUTED AN IMAGINATIVE AND FANCIFUL FOR A REAL AND LEGITIMATE CAUSE OF EMOTION.
IV. THAT IT PROMOTED VICE INSTEAD OF MORAL PURITY.
V. THAT IT CONSEQUENTLY DEGRADED THE NATION THAT SUFFERED ITSELF TO BE SEDUCED BY IT.
APPLICATION. No nation and no individual is superior to the necessity of watchfulness against the contaminating influence of neighbours upon a lower moral platform, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." instead of the good leavening the evil, and so purifying the mass, the contrary may happen, and the defiling influence of error and impurity may spread. In this case there is every likelihood of the fulfilment of the proverb, "The companion of fools shall be destroyed."—T.
Eze_8:16
I. THE SUN WORSHIP ITSELF. Of this it is enough to say that it is creature worship, and is therefore dishonouring to the Creator who kindled the sun in the firmament, and who is himself the eternal, uncreated Light.
II. THE SUN WORSHIPPERS.
1. They included the priesthood; for the five and twenty here mentioned were doubtless the heads of the twenty-four courses, with the high priest presiding over them.
2. Their attitude was indicative of profanity and defection; they are depicted as turning their backs towards the temple of Jehovah that they might face the sun as he rose in the east.
III. THE EFFECTS OF SUN WORSHIP.
1. This superstition estranged the minds of those who practised it from the God who is Light, and in whom is no darkness at all; it rendered them indifferent to the Divine Law, and inattentive to the Divine service and worship.
2. It was the means of filling the land with abominations and violence, and this was especially the case when conjoined with the worship of the Phoenician sun god.
3. It thus became one of the many occasions for the arousing of the anger of God, and led to the retributions and chastenings which speedily came upon the ungrateful, unspiritual, and apostate people.—T.
I. THE OCCASION. The occasion arose out of a visit made to Ezekiel by the elders of Israel. Genuine inquiry on the part of men is always pleasing to God. If men ask after truth from righteous motive, God is prepared to meet them. The response from heaven may not be in the mode men expect, yet some response there will be. On this occasion, too, God was honoured in the person of his messenger. It becomes us to use those channels for information which God has opened. If we are at our Sovereign's footstool, we shall not have long to wait.
II. GOD'S GRACIOUS MANIFESTATION. It was an act of grace that God should reveal himself to his prophet, so that through the prophet he might reveal himself to the elders. In every age God has chosen the most fitting agencies through which to manifest himself to men.
1. It was an exact repetition of a former appearance. This was to intimate that God's designs had in no respect changed. There were the same splendours of majesty—the unchangeable glory—of Jehovah; there was the same appearance of radiant fire in the loins and feet, to indicate that he was about to march through the land in righteous indignation. "Verily, a fire goeth before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about." "For he cometh to judge the earth."
2. A mighty energy was put forth. There was the form of a hand, by which the prophet was lifted up. From first to last we need Divine assistance. So feeble is human nature, that at every step we need gracious succour, both to learn and to do God's will. We must be separated from earthly scenes—have elevation of mind—if we would see things as God sees them.
3. Personal effort. There was place and scope for the prophet's exertion. Man must cooperate with God. "I beheld." Ezekiel must use his eyes. In that state of ecstasy to which he had been raised there is need for special activity. Human nature at present cannot long endure the ecstatic state. Golden opportunities such as these are brief. Therefore note well the precious lessons.
III. THE GRADUAL DISCLOSURES OF ISRAEL'S GUILT. The glory of God was manifest in the temple.
1. In the clear light of Jehovah's presence we see the real character of sin. The eye of man needs the medium of light through which to discern objects; and a special revelation of God is required in which to discover the turpitude of sin. It was when God came near to Job that this exemplary man exclaimed, "I abhor myself." It was when Christ first revealed his glory to Peter that he put up the prayer, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
2. All forms of idolatry provoke God's jealous anger. We take this "image of jealousy" as an allegorical representation of the many sided idolatry of Israel. Whatever forms their idolatries assumed, they all had this in common—they usurped Jehovah's place; they supplanted his authority. In stupendous condescension, God speaks to us after the manner of a man. As the strongest passion which fallen man knows is jealousy, so God represents this as the picture of indignant sentiment in his own breast. He sets high value on our human love. It is the most precious thing we can give him. Hence, we wound him in the tenderest part when we erect a rival in his place. This is a root sin.
3. Sin becomes most heinous of all sin when committed in the temple. God's dwelling place on earth is designed to be a fount, whence streams of blessing may flow to every province of our human life. To defile this fount is to send a stream of pollution into the domestic, commercial, and political life of the nation. If there be idolatry in the temple, there will be idolatry in the home; there will be disorder everywhere. The sanctuary will always be a source of life or of death to the whole empire.
4. God's disclosures of our sin are gradual. This method has two advantages:
(1) It gives us a clearer conception of the magnitude and the degrees of sin.
(2) It serves to deepen impression, while it does not overwhelm us with despair. If we desire to know the truth respecting our sin, God's Spirit will lead us from point to point, so that we may have an ever-deepening sense of our iniquity.
IV. THE HEINOUSNESS OF ISRAEL'S OFFENCE.
1. Its secrecy. The prophet had to break through the wall in order to discover it. Men will often indulge secretly in sins which they are ashamed to commit openly. The censure of our fellow men is often a useful deterrent. The opinion of others is a mirror, in which we see ourselves. Every man has his "chamber of imagery" within. Idolatry in the heart precedes the idolatry of temple worship. Can we not find some image of evil painted on the wails of our imagination—some form of mammon, or pleasure, or self? Therefore "keep thy heart with all diligence."
2. The deceitfulness of sin. It had blinded men's eyes to the fact of God's presence—to the fact of certain discovery and certain retribution. A growing acquaintance with sin convinces us of its many wiles to deceive. Few men venture to sin until they forget God's omniscience; and the habit of forgetfulness leads swiftly to atheism.
3. The sin was spread by most pernicious example. The men who ought to have been beacons and bulwarks against idolatry were pioneers in iniquity. Men holding high rank, whether in Church or in state, cannot sin as others do. Their influence is enormous, and it is inevitable that they lead others to heaven or to hell. Every station has its responsibilities. If, in Israel, the princes and elders had set a high example of pious obedience, in all likelihood the fortunes of the nation had been retrieved. If the helmsman be blind, there is small chance for the safety of the ship.
4. This sin is seminal; it soon produces a brood of other sins. Idolatry blossomed into sensual lust—into vice, disorder, and violence. The idolatries of the heathen suited the popular taste, because they did not curb natural inclination; gave a dangerous licence to every sensual and selfish passion. They who have driven from the heart the love of God are soon filled with every vile affection. They who have ceased to fear God soon cease to have any regard for others' weal. Sin rapidly generates a swarm noxious vices. The women who wept for Tammuz at the door of the temple were, without doubt, living in shameless prostitution. To depart from God is to run into every excess of iniquity. The more we examine the matter, the mor