8:1–6 The chapter begins by setting the scene: the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year (of King Jehoiachin’s captivity), or September 18, 592 BC. Roughly fourteen months have passed since the opening vision of the book, most of which were taken up in performing the intervening sign acts. It will be another six years until the fall of Jerusalem, yet the prophet relays a vision confirming its inevitability to the elders of Judah with him in his house in exile.47 In a similar way the elders of Samaria used to gather and sit before Elisha (2 Kings 6:32), while the same scene forms the context for the oracles in Ezekiel 14; 20. The people are already beginning to recognize that a prophet is in their midst (cf. 2:5). They are perhaps hoping for some good news of an imminent return to Judah, but instead this section of the book describes in vivid, visionary terms the defilement and impending judgment of Jerusalem that chapter 7 had described through oracles.

While the leaders wait, Ezekiel experiences a revelation as the hand of God falls upon the prophet (8:1)—a stronger expression than the more usual “The hand of the Lord was upon me” (1:3; 3:22; 37:1; 40:1).48 Ezekiel’s experience reprises elements of his opening vision: he sees a fiery figure with the appearance of a man, shining like gleaming metal (cf. 1:26–27). The prophet is caught up and transported in the vision to Jerusalem,49 initially to the north-facing inner gateway of the city (8:3).50 There Ezekiel sees the first offensive scene: an “image of jealousy,” most likely a statue of the Canaanite goddess Asherah (v. 5).51 This is strategically located at the north entrance to the city to ward off danger from the direction from which most of Jerusalem’s enemies would come. This image is said to be an “image of jealousy” in the same way that the Lord describes himself as a jealous God in Exodus 34:14. Modern readers may find this description strange, being accustomed to thinking of jealousy as a sinful emotion. However, appropriate jealousy refuses to share things that ought not to be shared, such as one’s spouse. Since Israel is the Lord’s bride (cf. Ezekiel 16), her attachment to other gods or goddesses alongside the Lord appropriately stirs his jealous anger against her. Her divided loyalties are an abomination that will cause the Lord to pack his bags and leave his sanctuary, resulting in Jerusalem’s being undefended against her foes. In the next chapter the impotence of Asherah’s idol in protecting the city from the Babylonians will become abundantly clear. But this is not the greatest abomination; worse is to follow.

8:7–13 The first scene involves public sin, while the second is hidden away from scrutiny. The prophet sees the seventy elders of Israel, the leaders of the Jerusalem community, offering incense before a wall of carved animal figures (vv. 10–11). If the Asherah idol is of Canaanite origin, this scene owes more to Egyptian religion.52 The incense is designed to ward off the powers of demonic forces, though burning incense in a sanctuary would normally have been restricted to priests, not performed by laymen such as these elders. A shocking inclusion among these men is Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan (v. 11), a descendant of the family centrally involved in Josiah’s reforms a generation earlier (cf. 2 Kings 22:3–14). In the Pentateuch the seventy elders of Israel are allowed to see God and receive a portion of the Lord’s Spirit poured out on Moses (Ex. 24:1–11; Num. 11:16–30). In Ezekiel’s day this same leadership group is asserting that the Lord does not see—indeed, that he has already left the land of Israel (Ezek. 8:12). In reality, the Lord sees everything, as the opening image of the eye-covered throne chariot makes clear (1:18), and none of their actions are hidden from him. He has not yet left Jerusalem, but their idolatry is forcing the Lord out. Meanwhile, the idols to whom they are appealing cannot see, hear, or act.

8:14–15 Each scene gets worse as the prophet is brought closer to the center of Israel’s temple worship. The third scene takes place at the entrance of the temple’s northern gate. There the prophet sees women weeping for the Babylonian god Tammuz (Dumuzi; v. 14). Each year women would ritually mourn his death and descent into the underworld and then celebrate his return from the realm of death in a mythological cycle paralleling the annual seasonal course. The ritual act of mourning was an attempt to counteract the power of death and hasten the return of fertility by encouraging the speedy return of Tammuz. However, for Israel this means that the worship of a dead idol is now replacing the worship of the living God at the very entrance to his own house! But even this is not the peak of the abominations.

8:16–18 The final, climactic act of idolatry takes place at the very heart of the temple, where Ezekiel sees twenty-five elders (cf. 9:6; the same group is probably in view in 11:1 as well) turning their backs on the Lord and bowing down in reverence toward the rising sun (8:16). The leaders of Israel are worshiping the created order in place of the Creator within the inner court of the house dedicated to his name. This is reminiscent of the darkest days of Manasseh, who set up altars for the hosts of heaven within the temple (2 Kings 21:5).

In these four scenes the prophet describes the comprehensive nature of Jerusalem’s abominations. They encompass both men and women and even the leaders of the nation, who are depicted as involved in worship borrowed from all of the surrounding nations (Canaan, Egypt, and Babylon) and offered to all kinds of deities (human figures, representations of animals, and the sun). This is the ultimate multifaith worship service, but to the Lord it is simply a massive abomination. Religious idolatry is not the only issue either; it is combined with—and exceeded by—social injustice, summarized as “filling the land with violence” (Ezek. 8:17). These offenses against their fellow human beings make the people’s sins against God seem almost trivial in comparison. The whole thing is a monstrous provocation of divine wrath. In an obscure idiom it is described as “putting the branch to their nose” (v. 17). This may be an extremely insulting gesture of some kind (LXX translates as “turning up their noses” [myktērizontes], which is far too tame) or possibly a final act of idolatry.53 Those who take such a dismissive and offensive attitude to God can hardly be surprised when the Lord brings cataclysmic judgment upon his people without pity or mercy.