Ezekiel 8:15-16. Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations — These latter wickednesses may be accounted greater, because they were acted in a more sacred place. And he brought me into the inner court — The court next the temple, namely, that of the priests. And, behold, at the door of the temple — At that door through which there was an entrance into the porch of the temple, from the altar of burnt- sacrifices. Before, he saw the abominations committed in the gates of the courts, now he is come to the very house itself. Were about five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple, &c. — In contempt of God and his worship they turned their backs toward his sanctuary, and their faces toward the sun; according to the custom of the Chaldeans, Persians, and other eastern nations who worshipped the sun. Lowth thinks Hezekiah might allude to some idolatrous practice of this kind, in that confession of his, recorded 2 Chronicles 29:6, Our fathers have forsaken him, and turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs. They turned their back to God, and not the face, as Jeremiah expresses their contempt toward him, Jeremiah 2:27. To prevent even the appearance of this, the people were commanded to come into the courts of the temple at the north or southern gates when they came to worship, that they might not, at their return, turn their backs upon God: see Ezekiel 46:9. God ordered the holy of holies, in his temple, to be placed toward the west, in opposition to this species of heathen idolatry, which consisted in worshipping the rising sun. And the pious Jews always turned their faces toward the temple when they worshipped.

8:13-18 The yearly lamenting for Tammuz was attended with infamous practices; and the worshippers of the sun here described, are supposed to have been priests. The Lord appeals to the prophet concerning the heinousness of the crime; and lo, they put the branch to their nose, denoting some custom used by idolaters in honour of the idols they served. The more we examine human nature and our own hearts, the more abominations we shall discover; and the longer the believer searches himself, the more he will humble himself before God, and the more will he value the fountain open for sin, and seek to wash therein.The seer is now brought back to the same gate as in Ezekiel 8:3.

It is not certain that this verse refers to any special act of Tammuz-worship. The month in which the vision was seen, the sixth month (September), was not the month of the Tammuz-rites. But that such rites had been performed in Jerusalem there can be little doubt. Women are mentioned as employed in the service of idols in Jeremiah 7:18. There is some reason for believing that the weeping of women for Tammuz passed into Syria and Palestine from Babylonia, Tammuz being identified with Duv-zi, whose loss was lamented by the goddess Istar. The festival was identical with the Greek "Adoniacs." The worship of Adonis had its headquarters at Byblos, where at certain periods of the year the stream, becoming stained by mountain floods, was popularly said to be red with the blood of Adonis. From Byblos it spread widely over the east and was thence carried to Greece. The contact of Zedekiah with pagan nations Jeremiah 32:3 may very well have led to the introduction of an idolatry which at this time was especially popular among the eastern nations.

This solemnity was of a twofold character, first, that of mourning, in which the death of Adonis was bewailed with extravagant sorrow; and then, after a few days, the mourning gave place to wild rejoicings for his restoration to life. This was a revival of nature-worship under another form - the death of Adonis symbolized the suspension of the productive powers of nature, which were in due time revived. Accordingly, the time of this festival was the summer solstice, when in the east nature seems to wither and die under the scorching heat of the sun, to burst forth again into life at the due season. At the same time there was a connection between this and the sun-worship, in that the decline of the sun and the decline of nature might be alike represented by the death of Adonis. The excitement attendant upon these extravagances of alternate wailing and exultation were in complete accordance with the character of nature-worship, which for this reason was so popular in the east, especially with women, and led by inevitable consequence to unbridled license and excess. Such was in Ezekiel's day one of the most detestable forms of idolatry.

15, 16. The next are "greater abominations," not in respect to the idolatry, but in respect to the place and persons committing it. In "the inner court," immediately before the door of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, where the priests advanced only on extraordinary occasions (Joe 2:17), twenty-five men (the leaders of the twenty-four courses or orders of the priests, 1Ch 24:18, 19, with the high priest, "the princes of the sanctuary," Isa 43:28), representing the whole priesthood, as the seventy elders represented the people, stood with their backs turned on the temple, and their faces towards the east, making obeisance to the rising sun (contrast 1Ki 8:44). Sun-worship came from the Persians, who made the sun the eye of their god Ormuzd. It existed as early as Job (Job 31:26; compare De 4:19). Josiah could only suspend it for the time of his reign (2Ki 23:5, 11); it revived under his successors. Besides these thou hast seen, thou shalt again see great abominations. Or if the expression be strictly comparative, then these latter wickednesses may be accounted greater, because acted in a more sacred place.

Then said he unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man?.... This shocking piece of idolatry, women weeping for Tammuz:

turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these; or, "great abominations besides these" (f).

(f) "abominationes magnas praeter istas", Calvin.

Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.