Глава 8

Vision of idolatry in the church Having predicted the death of the capital, country and kingdom, the prophet now moves on to predicting the fate of the church. But the fate of the church, this mysterious seat of God on earth, could not be predicted as clearly, simply and briefly as everything before; For such a prediction, an exceptional form of revelation was also required - vision. Thus, the prophecy of Ezekiel, ever increasing in inspiration, moving from the silent facial expressions of ch. IV and calm speech ch. V in animated speech ch. VI and in the touching and angry cry of Jehovah over His land in ch. VII, in VIII-XI ch. reaches vision, the highest degree of prophetic inspiration. In Chapter VIII God leads the prophet throughout the temple and shows the pagan cults taking place there, numbering up to 4-5. It was in the church that God wanted to show the prophet all the types of idolatry that Israel indulged in, although some of these cults were performed not in the church, but each in his own room (v. 12); the church was the place where Israel had to worship God, and Israel’s falling away from God could not have been imagined stronger and more clearly, as through a series of successive pictures of the vile idolatry that took place in the church before the eyes of God. The description of these cults gives the impression “that they were performed in Judea then, and not earlier, for example, under Manasseh. That under Zedekiah pagan deities were revered is, despite the silence of Jeremiah and Jeremiah 44.18 of his book, and is self-evident, and does not contradict the fact that they then hoped for Jehovah’s help: syncretic views on religion dominated among the masses; if we have only random indications of this (but very strong, for example, Jer 11.13; 2 Chronicles 26.4; 2 Kings 24.19, etc.), then only because it was self-evident. The idols placed in the church by Manasseh and taken out by Josiah could have been restored by the reactionary party” (Smend). Ezek.8:1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, that I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, and the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. “In the sixth year (i.e., the captivity of Jeconiah and the prophet), in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month,” next. 413 days after the revelation in Ezekiel 3.16, if the 5th year of captivity was a simple year, and 439 days later if it was a leap year (there was a leap year out of 13 months every third year); in the second case, the real revelation occurred during the symbolic lying of the prophet, in the first - soon after; as stated in the explanation of Chapter IV, the heavy lying of the prophet, combined with severe fasting, could be a good preparation for the present mysterious openly, which, moreover, had a close connection with that lying: about the present vision, the prophet is transported in spirit to that city, to the drawing of which on the brick his face and his naked right hand were constantly turned (Ezek. 4.7). “Sixth month” – August-September; Greek not “at 6”; and “in the 5th month” is a reduction in the period, as well as the days of lying down. – “Sat” in the literal sense or in the sense of “was”, cf. Ezek.3.25. - “The Elders of the Jews.” In Ezekiel 11.25 they are already called simply “immigrants”; in Ezekiel 14:1, 20:1, 3 general: “Israelites”; but perhaps, if Judah lived in captivity in the same place as Israel, the former was more interested in the fate of Jerusalem and the church, which was what the present vision related to and what could be the subject of the visit and conversation of the elders. “The freedom which was given to the captives enabled them to settle in Babylonia wherever they wished; and it is most natural that individual surnames and clans stayed together; therefore, it is very likely that the elders in 4 places of Ezekiel are the heads of clans” (Seeseman, Die Aeltesten in A.T. 1895, 53). The visit of the prophet by the elders to his home shows how his influence had increased during the one year of his ministry. “The antagonism in which the aristocracy resettled with Jehoiachin stood with those who remained in Jerusalem (Ezek. 11:15, 7:12) brought her closer to the prophet who predicted the death of the city, and in turn Ezekiel began to place much more hope in them than in the inhabitants of the capital; and captivity henceforth appears to the prophet as a means by which Jehovah will arrange the conversion of Israel; and Ezekiel pins great hopes on this first response of the immigrants to his ministry (Ezek. 11.15 etc.; cf. Jer. 24.3); on the other hand, with the removal of Jeconiah in Jerusalem, it apparently became even worse (Ezek. 10: 9, 14, etc.); hence the friendly tone which Ezekiel now never abandoned towards the immigrants; Wed Ezek.14.22 and etc. Ezek.20.30 and others.” (Smend). - “The hand of the Lord God descended on me there.” As explained in Ezekiel 1.3, the expression means that the prophet was in ecstasy, a frenzy, but here the expression has a more sensual meaning, as v. 3. Ezek.8:2. And I saw: and behold the likeness of [the man], as it were of fire, and from his loins and below was fire, and from his loins and above was as it were a radiance, like the light of a flame. "Similarity (of husband)". "Husband" only in LXX; although the further mention of loins makes us think of the image that appeared to the prophet as only human, but the omission here in Hebrew. i.e. the word “husband”, “man” distances the similarity of the seen image with a human one and makes one aware of its indescribability and mystery. The image that appeared to the prophet is identical with the image that sat on the throne in the vision of Chebar (see Ezek. 1.26), because it is described in the same way. But the whole phenomenon, in the form the prophet saw it there, was not repeated. It is not said about the human image itself whether he was sitting, standing or walking, no doubt because the prophet did not see this and he probably barely distinguished the very outlines of the image, as in Chapter I. (27th century). But he clearly sees here the hand of a human figure (v. 3), in which he in Chapter I. saw nothing but vague outlines. The nature of the radiance from the human figure is described, although close to Eze. 1.27, but not quite the same: the upper part of the figure there shines like fire and like “hashmal” (Slavic “ilectr”), here as “radiance” and as “hashmal” (Rus. “light of flame”, and in Eze. 1.27 Russian. the same word conveys: “flaming metal”). The first definition of "radiance" in Hebrew. expressed by the word zohar, found only in Dan 12.3, where it, compared with the radiance of the stars, should have approximately the meaning that the slavs assign to it. lane and some Greek codes: “dawn” (other Greek codes omit it; and in Dan the Slav. translates it “lordship of the firmament”). The Hebrew leaves it unknown in what relation these two definitions (Zohar and Hashmal) stood to each other: whether they were two heterogeneous radiances, as Slav suggests. trans., inserting “and” between them, or the second more closely defines the first (as the Vulgate suggests); in the first case, the clothes of the One who clothed him could shine like the dawn (“cover yourself in light like a robe”), and like hashmal, His face and body (in the indicated place of Daniel, the saints shine with the first light and the light of the stars). In any case, the upper part of the image was even lighter than the lower, fiery one. Ezek.8:3. And He stretched out, as it were, a hand, and took me by the hair of my head, and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem to the entrance of the inner gate facing the north, where the idol of jealousy was placed, arousing jealousy. “Like a hand.” The feature that distinguishes the real vision is the hand that takes the prophet “As if”, glory. more precisely, “likeness” (Hebrew tabnit, “structure,” “image”): the hand was barely visible; friend from Chapter I timid caution in describing the Divine image. - “He took me by the hair of my head, and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven.” The Prophet felt the trail. and physical touching the crown of the head and then floating in the air, although his body, apparently, did not leave the same place; the latter is warned about by the remark “by the spirit” and in the further sentence “in the visions of God,” and the prophet’s visitors do not leave him during this “rapture” (Ezek. 11.25). Nevertheless, the expression is too decisive to be understood only as a spiritual transfer to Jerusalem and the church; it is reminiscent of Ezek.3.12, 14, which talks about bodily movement. Here, as in Ezek.37.1 and Ezek.40.1-2, of course, there is probably some kind of half-physical transference, perhaps reminiscent of the phenomenon of duality, but not as sharply physical as in Dan 14.36, where the actor is not God, but an angel. The “Spirit” is obviously the same as in Ezek.2:2, 3:12, 14, identical, as we have seen, with the “spirit” of Ezek.1.12, i.e. the Holy Spirit; thus, this only more precisely designates the figure of the miraculous transfer of the prophet (Luke 11.20, more precisely designated in Matthew 12.28); in the story about the transfer of St. Habakkuk by an angel to Babylon, it is noted that the angel carried the prophet “by the power of his spirit.” “To Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner gates facing the north,” that is, to the church, which, however, is not said - an omission that betrays the priest. The inner gates, otherwise the upper ones (Ezek.9.2; Jer. 20.2 etc.) were the gates in the fence that separated the outer courtyard from the inner one; in contrast to these gates, the gate of the outer court, through which one first entered the church, was simply called “the gate of the house of the Lord.” There were probably three of these and other gates: eastern (main), northern and southern, and the latter were intended only for kings (Ezek. 43.8), leading from the palace to the church. Of these three gates the second one is mentioned here, which in v. 5 are called the “gates of the altar”; they, it seems, are called “new” in Jeremiah 26.10. The prophet was placed at the entrance to these gates, it is not said which entrance - external (northern) or internal (southern); but from Art. 5 it is clear that it is internal, because, looking from his location to the north, he sees the idol gate from the north side. Consequently, the prophet was placed between the gate and the altar in the inner court or courtyard of the priests. From there, he sees in the church, first of all, the idol of jealousy, that is, the prophet explains “that arouses jealousy,” of course, from the Lord, the only owner of Israel (hence the addition LXX; “possessive”). God's wrath at Israel's idolatry is often depicted under the guise of jealousy, jealousy, not allowing other objects of veneration, God's love for Israel: Exodus 20.5; Deuteronomy 32.16, 21, etc. Therefore, any idol could be called an idol of jealousy. But such certainty in indicating the place where the idol stood, such an unusual name for the idol, taken from the area of ​​marital relations, and finally such an honorable and holy place in the church occupied by the idol - all this shows that this refers to a specific idol that stood at some time or then in the church. But from the Holy. books only definitely know about the placing of one idol in the church, this is precisely the idol of Astarte under Manasseh (2 Kings 21.7; 2 Chronicles 33.7, 15, where her idol is designated in the same way as here, by the word “semel”, used only in Deut. 4.16; glorified “pillar and image”); this idol also meets all the other data of this instruction: proximity to the altar (cf. Deut. 16.21–22) and understandably jealousy (femininity of the deity, depravity of the cult). Others mean Moloch, Baal, Adonis, Bel. Ezek.8:4. And behold, there was the glory of the God of Israel, like that which I saw in the field. In the church, the prophet finds the Glory of the Lord in the same form in which he saw it on the field, i.e. in the vicinity of Tel Aviv (Ezek. 3.23), which could be a sign either that the Glory of the Lord (God) was always present in the church in the same way as it appeared at Tel Aviv and on Chebar, or that God now came to the church in this special (amazing and terrible) way for some purpose similar and no less important than in those two cases of the appearance of glory; The purpose of the appearance of the glory of God here was the judgment of God over Jerusalem, the production of which is described in Chapters VIII-XI. and the proclamation of which was the chief purpose of the call to the prophecy of Ezekiel. “There” is not in the narrow sense of the place where Ezekiel stood in the church at the northern inner gate, but in the broad sense of the church. At what exact point in the vast space of the church the glory of the Lord stood is stated only in Ezekiel 10.3: she stood on the right, i.e., southern side of the church, and the prophet on the northern. The glory is called not simply “the Lord’s,” as elsewhere before, but the glory of “the God (Elohim, not Jehovah, as in Eze. 2.1, probably because the covenant was broken) of Israel” in contrast to the alien deity, whose idol was in the church. Ezek.8:5. And he said to me: Son of man! lift up your eyes to the north. And I lifted up my eyes to the north, and behold, on the north side at the gate of the altar, there was that idol of jealousy at the entrance. "At the Gate of the Altar". This was the name of the northern inner gate, perhaps because the sacrificial animals, which were supposed to be slaughtered on the northern side of the altar (Lev. 1.4, 11), had to be led into the inner, priestly courtyard through these very gates; maybe through these gates there was also an ordinary passage (cf. Eze. 40.35, 37) to the altar (if the eastern gate, as one might think on the basis of Eze. 46.1, etc., was usually kept closed, opening perhaps only for solemn processions, and the southern one was the royal passage). Others explain the name “gate of the altar” by the fact that they had the altar of Solomon, which was moved from its central place in the courtyard by Ahaz (2 Kings 16.14). The “idol of jealousy,” being “on the northern side” of these gates at their entrance, thus should have stood in the outer courtyard at the northernmost gate to the inner courtyard, perhaps because this was the most crowded and accessible place in the church (more crowded, in any case, than the priestly courtyard). LXX is a little different: “north of the eastern gate at the entrance” (their? or a regular trip to the church? in the latter case, the topographical indication LXX does not differ from the Hebrew). Ezek.8:6. And He said to me: Son of man! do you see what they are doing? great abominations, which the house of Israel commit here, that I may depart from my sanctuary? but turn, and you will see even greater abominations. "That I may depart from My sanctuary." An unintended consequence is presented, with some bitter irony, as an intended one. The prophet is explained in advance what he will see in Ezek.11.23. But LXX is meant to be subject to this impersonal in Heb. the text of the sentence “house of Israel”: “to depart from my holy things.” - “You will see even greater abominations.” It is difficult to understand why the idolatry described later (vv. 7-12) was worse than the first, especially if the first was the immoral cult of Asherah; it must be according to its participants, from whom, as the best people in Israel, one could least of all expect betrayal of the faith. Wed. Below is an explanation. to Art. 13. Maybe the expression is just a rhetorical turn. Ezek.8:7. And he brought me to the entrance to the courtyard, and I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. Ezek.8:8. And he said to me: Son of man! dig through the wall; and I dug through the wall, and there was some kind of door. Ezek.8:9. And he said to me: Come in and see the disgusting abominations that they are doing here. "And brought me". Deliberate omission of the subject, as in Eze. 2.1 (see there) and here v. 3, 5, 6. Wed. explain Ezek.9.4. “To the entrance to the courtyard,” that is, to the courtyard in general, to the church courtyard, but either from the city, from the square, or from the inner courtyard to the outer one at the inner northern gate, through the passage of which the prophet was led; in the first case, the wall mentioned below was the outer wall of the church, in the second - the partition of the inner courtyard. In this wall the prophet sees a hole and, as can be seen from what follows, not a random or small hole or crack, but such a large depression that, slightly expanded, a person could pass through it (bending) and reach a secret door further into the depths of the wall. The prophet, perhaps, would have been able to make his way through the well and in its original form to the secret door and through it to enter the room, as the people in it apparently entered the room, but God tells the prophet to widen the recess in the wall, dismantling part of the brick in it (“dig through the wall”) in order to reveal the hidden door and thereby reveal the secret of the visitors to the room. The room into which this door led was obviously located in the church wall, occupying perhaps only its thickness; and since the prophet stood near one of the church gates, then with this description the prophet’s mind was probably presented with one of a number of rooms located in the huge structures of each of the church gates and, at least in the church of Ezekiel, distinguished by significant size (Ezek. 40.44). The room, by the very nature of its structure - a secret passage - indicated its purpose - to serve for some kind of mysterious religious meetings, with which one must diligently (out of jealous guarding of secrets or from involuntary shame at the obvious meaninglessness of the rituals being performed) to hide from the uninitiated, i.e. it obviously served for mysteries (Bertolet). Ezek.8:10. And I entered, and I saw, and behold, all kinds of images of creeping things and unclean animals, and all kinds of idols of the house of Israel, written on the walls all around. All ("all around") the walls of the room were painted with images of pagan deities, of which the prophet was first of all caught by their comparative abundance or by the unexpectedness of their appearance here - images of reptiles of various breeds (glorified: "every likeness of a creeping thing"), then animals, not excluding unclean ones, and all sorts of other idols already familiar to the house of Israel. Judging by the predominant position of animals and in particular reptiles between these images, it is thought that this refers to the Egyptian cult, in which crocodiles, snakes, beetles, as well as cats, jackals, bulls were revered, and the influence of which on the Jews, starting with the calves of Jeroboam, could intensify after the invasion of Necho, thanks to calculations for the possible help of Egypt against Babylon (cf. Eze. 17:15, 23:8, 19). Belzoni at the beginning of the 19th century. discovered in the rocks on the banks of the Nile many underground rooms that served for the burial of nobles, the walls of which are uniformly decorated with images, among other things, of religious objects; to top off the similarity, Belzoni entered there through a recess in the wall, which did not at all look like a proper entrance; Ammonia Marcelan also speaks about caves of this kind (XXII, 15. Trochon). If this refers to the Egyptian cult, and in particular, the Egyptian mysteries (the mysteries are aimed mainly at communication with the afterlife), then before the gaze of the prophet now passes a picture of a second foreign cult after the Canaanite cult of Astarte (probably meant in vv. 3-6) and a cult of a completely different nature; Accordingly, in Art. 13–14 describes the most characteristic of the Assyro-Babylonian cults, and 16 – the Persian ones. But it is possible that it is not the Egyptian cult that is meant here: in the Old Testament there are no clear traces of the influence of this cult; Ezekiel 23.14 speaks for the Chaldean origin of all kinds of images on the walls of the Jews; the influence of Babylon should have increased at that time on all aspects of life, especially among the aristocracy, which is a participant in a real cult; and in Babylon at that time the cult of demons, depicted in the form of scorpions, snakes, etc., was widespread. Ezek.8:11. And seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel stood before them, and Jezeniah the son of Shaphan was among them; and each one has his own censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense rises upward. The performers of the described cult are not the mass of the people, but some of the elders, the number of which the prophet designates with the undoubtedly symbolic and large number “70”, a number of exhaustive completeness and plurality, especially in relation to any representation of power (70 judges under Moses, subsequently 70 members of the Sanhedrin, to which, as a post-exilic institution, of course, one cannot see any indication here), cf. also Court. 1.7; 2 Kings 10.1. Without a doubt, the meaning of “noble” for the word “elders” here is not only sufficient, but also more suitable than “chiefs of clans” (as in v. 1); for it is not clear why only the leaders of the clans, and precisely 70 in number, had to gather together for idolatry (as representatives of the whole nation?); here we are most likely talking about aristocrats; birth and position could unite these people (Ceesemann, o. p. 49). Among the elders, the prophet recognized one even by sight: Jezania the son of Saphonov, therefore, another person with Jezania Eze. 11.1 son of Azurov. The name, which includes, which is significant for that apostate time (syncretism), the word Jehovah, means: “the one whom God hears” (glorified “Jezaniah”, but in the eleventh chapter already “Jechoniah”, as here in Greek: Ιεχονιας). “If he was the son of the so often mentioned Shaphan, the chancellor of Josin (2 Kings 22.3 and Jer 29:3, 36:10), then he was not like his noble father (cf. Jer XXXIX), and if Ezekiel had more examples of this kind, then it is all the easier to understand how he came to the provisions of Ezek. 18.20 and the like.” (Bert.) - The idolatry itself consisted of abundant censing in front of images, which played an important role in the Egyptian cult and in the mysteries in general helps to bring adherents into ecstasy. “A thick cloud of incense” denotes prayer, because smoking is like an embodied prayer, cf. Rev 5:8, 8:3–4. Ezek.8:12. And he said to me: Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each one in his painted room? for they say: “The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken this land.” "In the Dark". The room of idolatry could be dark: Egyptian idolatry loved dark sanctuaries (Plutarch, De Isocr. 20), like all mysteries; but the expression may also indicate the secrecy of the cult. - “Everyone in his own painted room.” With this remark, the reader is first of all warned that the gathering of all idolaters in one room has only a symbolic meaning (of the community and widespread prevalence of the cult): in fact, this idolatry is performed by everyone in his own room (which of course does not improve the situation, but rather worsens), and this room is carefully painted (cf. Eze. 23.14) with idolatrous images. But the question is whether everyone had these rooms of idolatry in his home or in the church. The prophet may have been shown actual idolatry (like others) in the church room for symbolic purposes (Keil), and may have been shown there because it was actually performed in the church rooms. “We are in the inner courtyard, where Ezekiel does not want to allow the laity at all, just as he does not want to allow them to take possession of various kinds of church rooms: in the future they will belong to the priests alone (Ezek. 40.44 et seq.). Even if we do not assume that each of the 70 had such a room in the church, then the expression can nevertheless say that many laymen like Jezania had such; this is confirmed by Jer 36.10; The laity could do many things in these rooms that outraged the priests: 2 Kings 23.11 "(Smend). Slav.: “each of them in his secret bed” speaks, apparently, not about censing, but about some new rite, which may be difficult to convey. “The speeches of the adherents of this alien cult are also worthy of attention: people of their trend rarely speak out in the Old Testament” (Bert.). The first phrase expresses doubt in the omniscience of God; the expression “the Lord has forsaken this land” could be relative and fair; it probably became a common phrase from 597 (cf. Ezek. 9.9); for how could the Lord allow over 10,000 of the chosen people to be carried away into captivity? Perhaps the phrase had a connection with the disappearance of the Ark (cf. Jer 3.16 and Jer 12.7). Ezekiel generally preserved a number of such popular judgments: Ezek.11:3, 15, 12:22, 18:2, 13, 33:10, 37:11. Ezek.8:13. And he said to me: turn around, and you will see even greater abominations that they are doing. The lament for Tammuz could be called a greater abomination than the previous cult, because its performers were women who stood aside from religion at that time, which indicated the widespread dissemination of the cult. As in 6 tbsp. the expression may simply be a rhetorical turn of phrase. Ezek.8:14. And he brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of the Lord, which is on the north, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz, “The gates of the house of the Lord,” as in Ezek.11.1, can only mean the outer gates, in the outer wall, because 1) they led to the church as a whole; 2) the inner gate is always placed with this definition or some other one, for example, “upper”, as in Ezek.9:2-3) at the outer gate of the church is the most suitable place for women; It was there, near the outer wall of the church, that a special courtyard for women was subsequently built. Thus, the prophet continues to move from the internal parts of the church to the external, and in v. 16. comes back. "Women" in Hebrew with a member, next famous, certain women, maybe church, or even professional mourners; according to Bertholet, the member puts them in relation to the previously mentioned “husbands.” - “Sitting”, i.e. on the ground as a sign of grief: cf. Job 2.8; Lamentations 2.10; Isa 3:25, 47:1; Nehemiah 1.4; Ps 1.1; Matthew 27.61; and now Jews mourn by sitting on the floor. "Weeping for Tammuzah". Fammuz, according to Blessed. Jerome, “the Hebrew and Syriac name for Adonis; according to popular legend, in the month of June, the lover of Venus, the most beautiful young man, juvenis, was killed and came to life again, from which the month received its name; In honor of this, an annual festival is celebrated, at which women mourn him as dead and then sing of his resurrection.” Therefore blessed. Jerome put the name of Adonis in the translation of the Vulgate, the Cult of Adonis is undoubtedly of Eastern origin. Byblos, where the waters of the Adonis River turned red in summer from the melting snows of Lebanon, was the main place of worship of Tammuz. In the mythological fragments of Akkad, Astarte's lover Duuzu or Dumuzu is mentioned, which name means “son of life”, or “eternal child”; this is a chthonic (underground) god; Every year in June, which was called Luzu in his honor (hence the later Aramaic name of this month Fammuz), he descends into hell and remains there until the coming spring, and this disappearance is celebrated with a sacrificial libation and lamentation (in Babylonian “bikitu” cf. Heb. “mebakot”, “crying”); in hell Istarta cries over him, and with his shepherd’s pipe he drains the kingdom of the dead and returns the shadows to life. Maybe this Babylonian myth was the primary source for the Syriac and Greek. Ezekiel may have more likely had the Babylonian cult in mind here. Hebrew-Aramaic Fammuz from the root "mazaz", or "masas", "to rot" a sound adaptation of a Chaldean word; the name Adonis probably comes from the Semitic “adon”, “Lord”: “son of Adon”. In the myth about this god and his cult, which had a correspondence in the Egyptian cult of Osiris and Isis, in which, according to Pausanias (II, 20, 5), the crying of women also played a large role, the effect of the sun on vegetation, which freezes in winter and comes to life in spring, is honored. The time of the vision of the prophet Ezekiel did not correspond to the time of the festivals in honor of Tammuz (August-June); but this, of course, could not prevent this holiday from being shown to the prophet in a vision; when reading the LXX date of Ezek.8.1, the difference is only 1 month. Ezek.8:15. and he said to me: Do you see, son of man? turn around, and you will see greater abominations. See art. 6 and 13. Described in Art. 16. idolatry could be worse than all the previous ones, in terms of the place where it was performed, which was very sacred, because it was performed backwards to the church and because its performers must have been priests (see v. 16), but not in terms of subject matter, because the worship of the sun cannot in any way be recognized as worse than the cult of Astarte or Zoolatria, but rather higher than them. Thus, the ranking list of cults in Ezekiel is compiled not according to their essence and comparative merit, but according to extraneous considerations; this is because, in essence, every pagan cult for him is something worse than which nothing at all can be: betrayal of Jehovah, like adultery, cannot be greater or lesser. Ezek.8:16. And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and behold, at the door of the church of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, about twenty-five men stood with their backs to the church of the Lord, and with their faces to the east, and bowed to the east to the sun. "Into the courtyard". Consequently, the prophet returns to where he was before, although perhaps not to the same place in the vast courtyard, at least he observes a different part of it. - “At the door of the church.” "Church" Heb. "hekal" - the building of the sanctuary. - “Between the porch,” i.e., the entrance portico of the church (LXX rewrites the Hebrew “Elam”) “and the altar” - on the most holy place (Joel 2.17), which, without a doubt, was chosen for idolatry because of this, a circumstance that especially aggravated the sin. - “About twenty-five husbands.” Judging by the place where these idolaters stood, and which could only be accessible to priests, interpreters previously thought that they were priests: the prophet does not call them priests, as if out of horror at what they do; they could even be the heads of 24 priestly orders (1 Chronicles 26.5 etc.) headed by the high priest, i.e., just as 70 elders (v. 11) are representatives of the idolatry of the entire people, so these 25 people are the priestly class. The newest interpreters reject this assumption, mainly on the grounds that the prophet does not call them priests, that the inner court was then accessible to the laity (the grounds, as we see, are weak), that in Eze. 9.6 these persons are called elders, and on the basis of the approximate nature of their number (in Greek even 20). - “They stand with their backs to the church,” a position forced by the need to bow to the sun, etc. unintentional, although expressing all the contempt of the idolaters for Jehovah, in Heb. language “to turn your back” meant to abandon someone completely and with contempt (2 Chronicles 29.6; Isa 1.4; Jer 7.24). The idolaters literally did what the Lord complained about through Jeremiah: “they turned their backs to Me, and not their faces” (Jer 2.27; Jer 32.33). “They face the east and bow to the east to the sun.” Consequently, idolaters bowed to the rising sun, like the Persians (Herodotus, Hist. IV, 15, 1; Tacitus, Hist. III, 24) and partly the Essenes (Flavius, De bello judaico 2:8, 4). Thus, here it is possible that we are talking about the Persian cult of the sun, which may have been first introduced by Manasseh (2 Kings 23.11); Until the time of Josiah, horses were kept in the church for this cult; the present passage (cf. Job 31.26 etc.) shows that after its destruction by Josiah, this cult was restored during the time of Ezekiel (so strong was the turn back after this king). The sun in the person of the god “Samas” (in Hebrew the sun “shemesh”) enjoyed special veneration both among the Assyro-Babylonians (as in the ancient Canaanite religions - see explanation to Ezek. 6.4) and under Zedekiah, a vassal prince in relation to Babylon, his cult could penetrate into Jerusalem. Ezek.8:17. And he said to me: Do you see, son of man? Is it enough for the house of Judah to do such abominations as they do here? but they have still filled the earth with wickedness, and are especially angering Me; and behold, they bring the branches to their noses. Not content with desecrating the church (“here”), the house of Judah (in v. 6 and 11 “Israel,” because perhaps the cults of the kingdom of Israel are also meant) defiles the entire country with “wickedness,” lit. “violence”, “insult” (“Hamas”); which is explained in Ezek.9.9: “the land is full of blood and the city of unrighteousness” (see there). - “And so they bring the branches to their noses.” A very mysterious expression. According to the most accepted explanation, it proves the description of the cult of the sun, indicating, perhaps, that feature in it that appeared recently and thus constituted a particularly indignant step forward in comparison with the times of Manasseh; they think that here we are talking about the custom of sun worshipers in Persia to hold a bunch of branches of dates, pomegranates and tamarisks, called “baresma”, near their mouths during prayer, either to protect their mouths from demons, or so as not to desecrate the sanctuary with their breath; for the same purposes, the priests covered their mouths with a special veil during the service (Strabo XV, 733. Hyde, De relig. Pers. ed. 2, 350, etc.). Although the Hebrew word translated branch here - "zemorah" - means the actual branch of the vine (glor. “vine”), but it is believed that it could have been attached to other branches, not to mention the fact that it can be considered damaged or aramized by baresma. True, such an understanding is not reconciled with the context: the latter makes us expect here not an indication of a new rite of worship, but an explanation of how Judas, with his lawlessness, arouses the wrath of God. Then could the prophet consider this custom, which in the sin of sun worship is only one particular, so terrible that next to it the sin of sun worship would seem less significant? Finally, it is unlikely that at that time the Persian cult penetrated Palestine with such trifles, when in the book of Ezekiel the Persians appear as harmless barbarians barely known to him (Ezek.27.10; Ezek.38.5). But all other explanations of this expression are even more arbitrary, and some are indecent. Reading the word “branch” a little differently, they get the meaning: “they bring a sickle to their noses,” there should be a proverb: they are preparing their own destruction. According to the rabbinic explanation of “zamora” - crepitus ventris, and “to your noses” is one of the 18 amendments of the scribes (“tikkun soferin”) instead of “to my nose,” and (according to Kretschmar) this refers to sacrificial smoke from the heights, which constitutes a stench for the Lord. According to Bertolet - with the same correction of the last word (“my nose”), “zemora”, “branch” has an obscene meaning here (Levy, Neuehebrach. Worterbuch I, 544), and we are talking about a depraved cult, denounced by Isaiah in Isaiah 57.8, which was carried out from house to house and therefore filled the whole country with filth, in contrast to the previously indicated cults, which desecrated only the church. Both realisms would probably offend the ears of even the ancient Jew and would hardly be worthy of a divinely inspired writer. Others see the expression as a proverb with lost meaning; but could the prophet have used such a short-lived proverb? Ezek.8:18. For this reason I will begin to act with rage; My eye will not spare, neither will I have mercy; and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them. “Even though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.” A new thought in those repetitions of the previous one that makes up the verse, and strengthening them. But the sentence represents a literal (rationalists: “unpleasant”) coincidence with the beginning of the next chapter, which is why they doubt the authenticity of the expression; the sentence is not found in most Greek codes. You might be interested in: