Ezekiel 8 explained: What Was Hidden in the Temple

Carried to Jerusalem (vv. 1-4)

Ezekiel is in Babylon, around 592 BC, with exiled leaders sitting in his house, when a fiery, shining figure like the one in his first vision lifts him by the hair and takes him, in a vision, to the Jerusalem temple. God's glory, the visible sign of his presence, is still there, which makes what follows more shocking.

An idol at the gate (vv. 5-6)

Near the gate leading to the altar stands an image that provokes God's jealousy, meaning it rivals him for the people's loyalty. Its exact identity is uncertain, though many think of a goddess image like the one King Manasseh once set up there, and God says such things will drive him from his own house.

Leaders in a secret room (vv. 7-13)

Through a hidden doorway, seventy of the nation's leaders burn incense before pictures of animals and idols painted on the walls, with Jaazaniah among them, possibly the son of the official Shaphan who served the reforming King Josiah. They act in the dark, saying the LORD does not see them and has abandoned the land.

Women mourning Tammuz (vv. 14-15)

Tammuz was a Mesopotamian god tied to the seasons and growing things, whose yearly death was marked with ritual weeping. Here that mourning is taking place at a gate of the LORD's own house.

Backs turned on God (vv. 16-18)

In the inner court, between the temple porch and the altar, about twenty five men turn their backs on the temple to bow to the rising sun, and God links this to the violence filling the land. No one is sure what putting a branch to the nose meant, perhaps a ritual or an insult, and the chapter ends bluntly with God saying he will not spare them or listen to their cries.

Key verse: Ezekiel 8:6

Something to think about

When people feel that God or life has abandoned them, what do they tend to reach for instead, and why?