Ezekiel 8:13

He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In the dark - Hidden in the secret places which the seer dug through the wall to discover.

Chambers of his imagery - i. e., chambers painted with images.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. every man in … chambers of … imagery—The elders ("ancients") are here the representatives of the people, rather than to be regarded literally. Mostly, the leaders of heathen superstitions laughed at them secretly, while publicly professing them in order to keep the people in subjection. Here what is meant is that the people generally addicted themselves to secret idolatry, led on by their elders; there is no doubt, also, allusion to the mysteries, as in the worship of Isis in Egypt, the Eleusinian in Greece, &c., to which the initiated alone were admitted. "The chambers of imagery" are their own perverse imaginations, answering to the priests' chambers in the vision, whereon the pictures were portrayed (Eze 8:10).

Lord … forsaken … earth—They infer this because God has left them to their miseries, without succoring them, so that they seek help from other gods. Instead of repenting, as they ought, they bite the curb [Calvin].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou shalt see, represented in this vision,

greater abominations; either because added to all the rest, or because some circumstances in these make them more abominable than what before was represented. Or it may be taken for very great, as when the word is applied to cities, Deu 1:28 6 10 9:1; to stones, Joshua 10:11,27 1 Kings 7:10; David’s wars, 1 Chronicles 22:8; kingdoms, Jeremiah 28:8; and to the marvellous works of God, Job 5:9 9:10 Psalm 136:4; and generally our version keeps to the positive degree, though here they render it by the comparative, and in the 6th verse of this chapter the very selfsame expression is rendered great (not greater) abominations. We need not then perplex our reader with a long discourse, to show wherein these latter sins are greater than the former mentioned; they are all very great.

They do; now they are doing these things; instead of worshipping the true God on the sabbath, as he required all his people, the leaders of the people are on the sabbath of the Lord offering incense to their detestable idols.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He said also unto me, turn thee yet again,.... Towards the north, as before; See Gill on Ezekiel 8:6;

and thou shall see greater abominations that they do; or: "the great abominations"; for so the words may be strictly rendered; nor does it appear that what follows, though great abominations, were greater than the creeping things, four footed beasts, and other idols, or dunghill gods, portrayed upon the walls, which the elders of Israel burnt incense to.

Geneva Study Bible

He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Turn thee yet again] See Ezekiel 8:6.

Ezekiel 8:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Third Abomination: Worship of Thammuz

Ezekiel 8:13. And He said to me, Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations which they do. Ezekiel 8:14. And He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of Jehovah, which is towards the north, and behold there sat the women, weeping for Thammuz. Ezekiel 8:15. And He said to me, Dost thou see it, O son of man? Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations than these. - The prophet is taken from the entrance into the court to the entrance of the gate of the temple, to see the women sitting there weeping for Thammuz. The article in הנּשׁים is used generically. Whilst the men of the nation, represented by the seventy elders, were secretly carrying on their idolatrous worship, the women were sitting at the temple gate, and indulging in public lamentation for Thammuz. Under the weeping for Thammuz, Jerome (with Melito of Sardis and all the Greek Fathers) has correctly recognised the worship of Adonis. "תּמּוּז, Θαμμούζ or Θαμμούς," says Jerome, "whom we have interpreted as Adonis, is called Thamuz both in Hebrew and Syriac; and because, according to the heathen legend, this lover of Venus and most beautiful youth is said to have been slain in the month of June and then restored to life again, they call this month of June by the same name, and keep an annual festival in his honour, at which he is lamented by women as though he were dead, and then afterwards celebrated in songs as having come to life again." This view has not been shaken even by the objections raised by Chwolson in his Ssaabins (II. 27. 202ff.), his relics of early Babylonian literature (p. 101), and his Tammuz and human-worship among the ancient Babylonians. For the myth of Thammuz, mentioned in the Nabataean writings as a man who was put to death by the king of Babylon, whom he had commanded to introduce the worship of the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac, and who was exalted to a god after his death, and honoured with a mourning festival, is nothing more than a refined interpretation of the very ancient nature-worship which spread over the whole of Hither Asia, and in which the power of the sun over the vegetation of the year was celebrated. The etymology of the word Tammuz is doubtful. It is probably a contraction of תּמזוּז, from מזז equals מסס, so that it denotes the decay of the force of nature, and corresponds to the Greek ἀφανισμὸς ̓Αδώνιδος (see Hvernick in loc.).