Ezekiel 8

Elul is the sixth month on the Hebrew lunar calendar. It falls between late August and early September. Ezekiel reports many dates like this that are crosschecked with ancient Babylonian records. Babylonian invaders from what is now Iraq exiled the king in 597 BC. For that reason, scholars tend to date this event to 592 BC, half a dozen years before Babylon finished what it started. They would level Jerusalem in 586 BC and deport all but the poorest and the lucky.

Respectfully, this could mean he fell asleep. Prophets in the Bible sometimes called vivid dreams “visions of the night.” Many people in ancient times—Jews, Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, and others—seemed to believe that dreams were clues to the future. Many taught that God or gods often communicated to people in dreams. Dream interpreters even wrote handbooks about how to interpret dreams. Parts of one Egyptian dream book from the 1200’s BC, roughly the time some scholars say Moses lived, showed up in the cemetery at Deir el-Medina. That’s at Thebes, a little more than 300 miles (480 km) upriver from Cairo, as the crow flies along the Nile. Written on papyrus, it lists bad dreams (written in red ink) and good dreams. Example of a bad dream: bed catches on fire. It means you’re driving your wife away. Good dream: burial of an old man. It means you’re coming into money. Or, perhaps, sheep—possibly from inheritance.

The distance to Jerusalem from Ezekiel’s home in exile by the Chebar Canal was roughly 900 miles (1400 km), following the caravan routes by water sources. The irrigation canal was near the city of Nippur in Babylon. Or the trip could have been about 580 miles (950 km) straight west, across the desert. More likely, some scholars say, Ezekiel didn’t physically go there. Instead, he went there in a dream-vision or a trance or some might say an out-of-body experience.

Ezekiel 1:28.

The location is a guess, one of many possibilities reflected by scholars, as evidenced by the many different translations in Bibles and commentaries. It’s unclear which walled entrance Ezekiel was talking about. Was it an entrance into the city, the outer Temple courtyard, the inner Temple courtyard where the altar was kept? What becomes clear is that God is taking Ezekiel on a tour of idolatry on the sacred grounds of the Temple, the only place Jews were allowed to worship God with sacrifices and offerings. This tour becomes an explanation for why God will vacate the Temple and allow invaders to erase the Temple and Jerusalem from the map.

“Idol of jealousy” seems to be a gentle way of saying the idol made God angry and jealous because people worshiped it instead of him. In doing this, the people broke the first two of the Ten Commandments: don’t worship other gods; don’t make idols (Exodus 20:3-4).

Ezekiel doesn’t disgust us with the details. He leaves that to scholars who can only guess based on Israel’s previous history. Worst of all, there was child sacrifice, practiced by at least two kings: Ahaz and his grandson Manasseh (2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6). There were meals in which the meat was dedicated to idols, and sex followed (Numbers 25). Bible writers report or at least suggest other practices, too: sex in worship center (often known today as cult prostitution); self-mutilation such as castration and cutting oneself as a way of pleading by bleeding; and occult practices such as sorcery and chatting up the dead.

For lists of nonkosher animals, see Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Ancient Israelites were most famous for worshiping a golden bull calf. Idols from Bible times were also portrayed as dogs, lions, snakes, cats, frogs, baboons, and birds of prey such as the falcon.

The most common guess about this man’s identity is that he was the son of a top official for godly King Josiah. That Shaphan is the man who read the sacred, rediscovered Book of Jewish laws to King Josiah. That prodded the king to launch a crusade, forcing people to give up their idols and return to worshiping God (2 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 34). Bible writers say Shaphan had three sons, and Jaazaniah wasn’t one of them. He could have come later. These things happen from time to time.

It’s unclear what dark rooms he’s talking about. There weren’t any on record. Perhaps they added them to Solomon’s Temple later. Or maybe the rooms were just a metaphor, and a way of showing what Judah’s leaders were doing to encourage idolatry. The implication here is sex. In a dark room, what else is a guy going to do? Hide-and-seek with a glowstick? Give the guy a priestess/prostitute and a few minutes. Some people seemed to believe that sexual rites in devotion to gods such as Baal, entertained them. And in return, the gods would answer prayers for rain, health, and anything else the men wanted.

Tammuz was about to die. That was the myth. Tammuz was a god of the seasons of agriculture and the cycles of life. He died each fall, with the crops, and descended into the underworld. The women would celebrate in the spring when Tammuz returned.

“They’re all in” is a wild guess. A more literal, but vexing translation: “They’re putting a branch to the nose.” Scholars in ancient times said they read “nose” as code for words the Bible writers didn’t want to include in the story. Scholars in ancient times have guessed that the nose was a coded reference to the pop of gaseous hypertension or to a penis, both of which sound more like the popular obsession of kindergarten kids rather than grownup Jewish priests. Scholars today remind us that some pictures of people at worship show them holding flowers and other plants in front of their faces, perhaps as part of a worship ritual. So perhaps Ezekiel was talking about someone bringing a plant as an offering. Wild guess. You could keep going: They got snooty. Stuck their nose where it didn’t belong. Didn’t keep their nose clean. Turned their nose up at God. One more guess: everybody got it wrong. There’s some stuff we don’t know.