Abominations in the Temple

Ezekiel 8:1-18 

1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there. 2 Then I looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire—from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward, like the appearance of brightness, like the color of amber. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the plain.

5 Then He said to me, "Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north." So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance.

6 Furthermore He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations." 7 So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. 8 Then He said to me, "Son of man, dig into the wall"; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door.

9 And He said to me, "Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there." 10 So I went in and saw, and there—every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls. 11 And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12 Then He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.'"

13 And He said to me, "Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing." 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD's house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

15 Then He said to me, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these." 16 So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.

17 And He said to me, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. 18 Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them."

Ezekiel had a vision while dining with the elders of God’s people.  God’s hand lifted him to a place between heaven and earth, much like Paul described in 2 Corinthians 12:2-3, 4 as a vision to talk with the LORD and receive that word of prophetic guidance.  He had a vision of the likeness of God’s glory in a spiritual representation as far as we can tell, just as John had in Revelation.  He took him by the hair and place Ezekiel in the spiritual representation of the temple’s inner court to see the image of jealousy which idolatrous Judah had placed there to worship.  Probably the image or idol of jealousy was one an Asherah, the Canaanite goddess of fertility set up in the temple by Manasseh (2 Kgs. 21:7; 2 Chr. 33:7,15) which was an abomination to the true and jealous God (Deuteronomy 4:24, 2 Corinthians 11:2, Hebrews 12:28-29).  Such abominations in that temple should warn us to keep the temples of our own bodies free from competition with worship of other things and defilement by idolatry of covetous desires and immortality.  Their idol worship defamed the first commandment (Exodus 20:3-5) by putting other false gods before Him and put the LORD out of His own place of worship made according to the heavenly pattern (Hebrews 8:5) this immortality of idolatry broke the covenant made with man by God as the condition to keep it (Leviticus 24:14-16).  The works to obey God according to his word in the covenant meant to obey all the Law, including the first commandment, which they despised by these actions and culminating in the idol placed in God’s house of worship and service.  This also is a warning to us not to desecrate the temple of our bodies by coveting other objects of worship and immortality to make the holy profane.  The vision to Ezekiel revealed how many other gods were worshiped by the leaders of God’s people in the temple as if hidden away in the wall behind closed doors!  God sees everything and everyone everywhere at all times.  He is not mocked not fooled as we often are.  He has not forsaken His people as the vision showed by the people’s accusations, but they left Him and diverted their worship to empty gods with no power of life or death.  They did not want accountability because it was impossible to keep all the law and so they stopped doing any of it and pursued the opposite (Deuteronomy 27:26, Galatians 3:10, Romans 7:7-8) instead of being instructed to pursue grace to be found later in the Messiah, Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:23-25) as we now know fully.  What was needed instead was repentance from dead works (Hebrews 9:14) which cannot save because they cannot be perfectly performed to save us through faith in God’s deliverance.  Before then they should have repented and sought yearly atonement through sacrifices in the temple instead of replacing confession and rep with idolatry.  This is a lesson for us to keep 1 John 1:7-9 in mind to keep sin confessed that it does not overtake us and corrupt our temples with immortality (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) and desiring other things leading us away from doing the will of God according to His word (1 John 2:15-17).  May we not worship the sun of eastern philosophy or religions as those of Judah did here in verse 16!  There is no part to integrate such into God’s house.  Such immortality and idolatry aroused God’s wrath against Judah and turned Him away from hearing them.  Sin obstructs prayer when left unconfessed and unrepentant.  May we not make the same mistakes of bringing abominations into these temples.