Reflections on Ezekiel 8

Ezekiel 08 (Contemporary English Version)
1. Six years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, the leaders of Judah were meeting with me in my house. On the fifth day of the sixth month, the LORD God suddenly took control of me,
   
2. and I saw something in the shape of a human. This figure was like fire from the waist down, and it was bright as polished metal from the waist up.
   
3. It reached out what seemed to be a hand and grabbed my hair. Then in my vision the LORD's Spirit lifted me into the sky and carried me to Jerusalem. The Spirit took me to the north gate of the temple's inner courtyard, where there was an idol that disgusted the LORD and made him furious.
   
4. Then I saw the brightness of the glory of the God of Israel, just as I had seen it near the Chebar River.
   
5. God said to me, "Ezekiel, son of man, look north." And when I did, I saw that disgusting idol by the altar near the gate.
   
6. God then said, "Do you see the terrible sins of the people of Israel? Their sins are making my holy temple unfit as a place to worship me. Yet you will see even worse things than this."
   
7. Next, I was taken to the entrance of the courtyard, where I saw a hole in the wall.
   
8. God said, "Make this hole bigger." And when I did, I realized it was a doorway.
   
9. "Go in," God said, "and see what horrible and evil things the people are doing."
   
10. Inside, I saw that the walls were covered with pictures of reptiles and disgusting, unclean animals, as well as with idols that the Israelites were worshiping.
    
11. Seventy Israelite leaders were standing there, including Jaazaniah son of Shaphan. Each of these leaders was holding an incense burner, and the smell of incense filled the room.
    
12. God said, "Ezekiel, do you see what horrible things Israel's leaders are doing in secret? They have filled their rooms with idols. And they say I can't see them, because they think I have already deserted Israel.
    
13. But I will show you something even worse than this."
    
14. He took me to the north gate of the temple, where I saw women mourning for the god Tammuz.
    
15. God asked me, "Can you believe what these women are doing? But now I want to show you something worse."
    
16. I was then led into the temple's inner courtyard, where I saw about twenty-five men standing near the entrance, between the porch and the altar. Their backs were to the LORD's temple, and they were bowing down to the rising sun.
    
17. God said, "Ezekiel, it's bad enough that the people of Judah are doing these disgusting things. But they have also spread violence and injustice everywhere in Israel and have made me very angry. They have disgraced and insulted me in the worst possible way.
    
18. So in my fierce anger, I will punish them without mercy and refuse to help them when they cry out to me."
    
    

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    To be a leader is a huge responsibility. Those who aspire to be leaders are often driven by the acclaim that comes with leadership but sometimes fail to also acknowledge this huge responsibility that also comes with leadership. When disaster comes no leader wants to be held responsible for the disaster, but instead to be seen as one who rescues his people from disaster.
    
    Ezekiel is seen in this chapter sitting in his house with men sitting around him who had been leaders in Judah. Now all of them were exiles in Babylon, though Jerusalem had not yet fallen to the Babylonians. They were all early captives of the Babylonians. These leaders, or elders, had apparently come to Ezekiel for a word concerning the fate of Jerusalem. While they were sitting around Ezekiel, the Lord gave Ezekiel a vision that would vividly portray Jerusalem's fate to these elders. What they would see was a total disaster for Jerusalem that their leadership failed to avert. Rather than avert it, these leaders had helped bring on the disaster.
    
    In the vision, Ezekiel was lifted up "between earth and heaven and carried . . . to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north." (8:3) That is, he was carried from Babylon to Jerusalem to the entrance of the temple. What he saw there at the temple entrance was "the offensive statue that provokes jealousy." (8:3) From this point in the vision Ezekiel was led in his vision through a series of scenes that were each more repulsive than the one before. This first scene was of the "offensive statue" that stood at the entrance to the temple. Ezekiel referred to it as the statue that "provokes jealousy." It provoked God's jealousy against His people because they were giving homage to a foreign god that should be given to Him. And to make the offense more blatant, the statue had been placed at the entrance to the Lord's temple.
    
    Then Ezekiel was taken in his vision to the entrance of the temple court where he saw a hole in the wall. God told him to dig through the wall, which he did. What he saw on the other side of the wall was described as "terrible abominations" that were being committed there. (8:9) Seventy elders of Israel were standing around the walls of the room on which were engraved "every form of detestable thing." (8:10) Each elder had an incense burner in his hand and was apparently worshipping the images on the walls. These elders justified what they were doing by claiming that "The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the land." (8:12) Granted, the Babylonian army was literally pounding on the walls of Jerusalem and to this point God had not stopped them. But they had turned to these other gods long before the Babylonians had come on the scene. Indeed, it was because they had turned to other gods that the Babylonians were now breathing down their necks.
    
    Next, Ezekiel was taken to the "entrance of the north gate of the LORD's house." (8:14) He was told that he would see even greater abominations there. What he saw was "women sitting there weeping for Tammuz." Tammuz was the deity of spring vegetation. According to mythology, the hot, dry summer months were caused by Tammuz' death. His followers would weep, mourning his death, and he would return in the spring to bring with him the spring rains. Ezekiel saw these women sitting at the north gate of the temple worshipping the god Tammuz. But he had not yet seen the worse. He was then taken to the inner court of the temple where he saw 25 men "between the portico and the altar, with their backs to the LORD's temple and their faces turned to the east. They were bowing to the east in worship of the sun." Not only were these men worshipping the sun, but they had turned their backs to the Lord - they had turned away from Him.
    
    The temple was full of every kind of worship except worship of the One for Whom it was built. Though these elders sitting around Ezekiel were in Babylon and not in Jerusalem, they were as responsible for what Ezekiel saw in the vision as were those in the vision. They had not long before been in Jerusalem responsible for this activity. And it was because of their leadership that the Lord was now saying " I will respond with wrath. I will not show pity or spare them. Though they cry out in My ears with a loud voice, I will not listen to them." (8:18)