Ezekiel 8:7

And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) To the door of the court.—This is clearly a different place from that in which the prophet had hitherto been in his vision, and yet is not so described that its locality can be certainly fixed. He had been inside the inner court near its north gate; in Ezekiel 8:14 he is taken to the north gate of the outer enclosure of the temple precincts. It is probable, therefore, that this was between them. We do not know from the description of Solomon’s temple that there were any other than the inner and the outer courts; but as there were others in the temple of Herod built upon the same area, it is altogether likely that there was a further division, and that it was to such a dividing wall, with chambers attached, that the prophet was now brought. Here he finds a hole, or window, too small for entrance, and is directed to enlarge it that he may go in. Having done so, he finds a door which he is told to enter. The object of this part of the vision is to show the extreme secrecy of what he is now to see—a, secrecy made necessary by the connection of this idolatry with Egypt, the foe of Chaldæa. Any question in regard to the way the idolaters themselves entered is out of place, as all is only in vision.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 8:7-11. And he brought me to the door of the court — This, Dr. Lightfoot understands of the east gate of the inner court, called the gate of Nicanor, over which was the council chamber, where the sanhedrim used to meet, and in some of the rooms near it they secretly practised idolatry, as God discovered to the prophet, Ezekiel 8:11. Behold a hole in the wall — Through which I could look in, and see what abominations were committing there. Then he said, Dig now in the wall — This, and what follows, was done only by vision, during the prophet’s trance or ecstasy, while the elders sat before him. And when I had digged in the wall, behold a door — A private door, by which the elders entered into the chambers of their imagery, to perform idolatrous worship to the images. And he said unto me, Go in, &c. — To give me the fullest conviction, I not only looked through the hole, mentioned Ezekiel 8:7, but went into the very room where these idolatries were committed. Behold the abominations that they do here — Hebrew, are doing here: even under the approach of judgments, and under the walls of my temple. So I went in, and behold every form of creeping things — It is probable that they imitated the Egyptians in this kind of idolatry; for the Egyptians used to worship several kinds of beasts and reptiles. According to Diodorus Siculus, 50. 1. p. 59, edit. Wess., (referred to by Secker,) “round the room in Thebes, where the body of King Osymanduas seemed to be buried, a multitude of chambers were built, which had elegant paintings of all the beasts sacred in Egypt.” It is not unlikely they imagined they evaded the law against setting up any image to worship, by having them only portrayed, or painted, on the wall; or, at least, that it was not so great an offence; for the Jewish people in general seem to have had little regard to any thing but the strict letter of the law, not regarding the spirit of it. However, as to objects for worship, pictures were prohibited, as well as carved images, as appears from Numbers 33:52. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients, &c. — Heads of the tribes or families, or, at least, principal men, (according to the number of the sanhedrim,) who ought to have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry. By this the prophet was given to see, that it was not the vulgar, or the poor and ignorant only that were guilty of idolatry, but the leading men of the nation, and those of the greatest knowledge, power, and influence, who were superior to, and had the direction of the common people; so that it was properly a national guilt, and, as such, loudly called for national punishment. And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah — Probably a prince of the people; the son of Shaphan — Mentioned 2 Kings 22:9. Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah, and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:7-12 A secret place was, as it were, opened, where the prophet saw creatures painted on the walls, and a number of the elders of Israel worshipped before them. No superiority in worldly matters will preserve men from lust, or idolatries, when they are left to their own deceitful hearts; and those who are soon wearied in the service of God, often grudge no toil nor expense when following their superstitions. When hypocrites screen themselves behind the wall of an outward profession, there is some hole or other left in the wall, something that betrays them to those who look diligently. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the world. They think themselves out of God's sight. But those are ripe indeed for ruin, who lay the blame of their sins upon the Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The door of the court - The seer is brought to another spot. In Ezekiel's time there were various buildings on the space around the inner court which formed a court or courts, not improbably enclosed by a wall. The idolatries here were viewed as taking place in secret, and it is more in accordance with the temple arrangements to suppose that such chambers as would give room for those rites should belong to the outer than to the inner court. The seer is now outside the wall of the outer court, by the door which leads from it out of the temple-boundary. By breaking through the wall he enters into a chamber which stands in the outer court against the wall near the gate.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. door of the court—that is, of the inner court (Eze 8:3); the court of the priests and Levites, into which now others were admitted in violation of the law [Grotius].

hole in … wall—that is, an aperture or window in the wall of the priests' chambers, through which he could see into the various apartments, wherein was the idolatrous shrine.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The door; the second door, for there were two in the north side.

The court; Ezekiel 8:3. Some say it was the court into which the Levites only, not the people, might enter, and round about which were the chambers of the priests.

When I looked; probably being at the door of the court, he might espy such a hole in the opposite wall that was toward the temple, whereon were built the treasury chamber, and chambers for tithes, and for other necessaries about the temple worship, and for the priests’ lodgings, in which these abominations were acted.

A hole in the wall, or little blind window, through which he might see somewhat, though not much, of what was done within.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he brought me to the door of the court,.... Of the inner court, the court of the priests and Levites. Dr. Lightfoot (x) says this was the east gate, and most common way of entrance; and in that gate the sanhedrim used to sit in these times; and there the prophet sees their council chamber painted about with imagery:

and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall; of one of the chambers of the priests and Levites, where they lay.

(x) Prospect of the Temple, c. 28. p. 2018.

Geneva Study Bible

And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7–12. The secret idolatry of the Elders

7. the door of the court] i.e. the outside entrance of the gateway into the inner court. Placed at first near the entrance the prophet is now brought to the gateway itself, either unto some chamber within it or some building attached to it, cf. Ezekiel 40:44. In the wall of this building he observed a hole, through which he dug and entered a chamber, on the walls of which were portrayed all manner of creatures, and in the chamber were seventy elders offering incense to the imagery on the walls.

behold a hole] The symbolism is not very clear. The “hole” is meant to suggest that entrance into the chamber was obtained secretly by those who practised their rites there. The words are wanting in LXX.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - To the door of the court. What follows suggests that the prophet was led to the gate that opened from the inner to the outer court. This gas surrounded by chambers or cells (Jeremiah 35:4). The term for "wall" (kir) is that specially used for the wall which encloses a whole group of buildings (Numbers 35:4). Behold a hole in the wall. The fact was clearly significant. The worship here was more clandestine than that of the "image of jealousy." We are not warranted, perhaps, in insisting on minute consistency in the world of visions, but the question naturally arises - How did the worshippers enter the chamber if Ezekiel had to enlarge the hole in the wall in order to get in? We may surmise that the entrance from the temple court had been blocked up all but entirely in the days of Josiah, that the idolaters now entered it from without or through some other chamber, while Ezekiel thinks of himself as coming upon them like a spy in the dim distance of the covered passage through which he made his way. Ezekiel 8:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Second Abomination: Worship of Beasts

Ezekiel 8:7. And He brought me to the entrance of the court, and I saw, and behold there was a hole in the wall. Ezekiel 8:8. And He said to me, Son of man, break through the wall: and I broke through the wall, and behold there was a door. Ezekiel 8:9. And He said to me, Come and see the wicked abominations which they are doing here. Ezekiel 8:10. And I came and saw, and behold there were all kinds of figures of reptiles, and beasts, abominations, and all kinds of idols of the house of Israel, drawn on the wall round about. Ezekiel 8:11. And seventy men of the leaders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, stood in front, every man with his censer in his hand; and the smell of a cloud of incense arose. Ezekiel 8:12. And He said to me, Seest thou, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in his image-chambers? For they say: Jehovah doth not see us; Jehovah hath forsaken the land. - The entrance of the court to which Ezekiel was now transported cannot be the principal entrance to the outer court towards the east (Ewald). This would be at variance with the context, as we not only find the prophet at the northern entrance in Ezekiel 8:3 and Ezekiel 8:5, but at Ezekiel 8:14 we find him there still. If he had been taken to the eastern gate in the meantime, this would certainly have been mentioned. As that is not the case, the reference must be to that entrance to the court which lay between the entrance-gate of the inner court (Ezekiel 8:3) and the northern entrance-gate to the house of Jehovah (Ezekiel 8:14), or northern gate of the outer court, in other words, the northern entrance into the outer court. Thus the prophet was conducted out of the inner court through its northern gate into the outer court, and placed in front of the northern gate, which led out into the open air. There he saw a hole in the wall, and on breaking through the wall, by the command of God, he saw a door, and having entered it, he saw all kinds of figures of animals engraved on the wall round about, in front of which seventy of the elders of Israel were standing and paying reverence to the images of beasts with burning incense. According to Ezekiel 8:12, the prophet was thereby shown what the elders of Israel did in the dark, every one in his image-chamber. From this explanation on the part of God concerning the picture shown to the prophet, it is very evident that it had no reference to any idolatrous worship practised by the elders in one or more of the cells of the outer court of the temple. For even though the objection raised by Kliefoth to this view, namely, that it cannot be proved that there were halls with recesses in the outer court, is neither valid nor correct, since the existence of such halls is placed beyond the reach of doubt by Jeremiah 35:4; 2 Kings 23:11, and 1 Chronicles 28:12; such a supposition is decidedly precluded by the fact, that the cells and recesses at the gates cannot have been large enough to allow of seventy-one men taking part in a festive idolatrous service. The supposition that the seventy-one men were distributed in different chambers is at variance with the distinct words of the text. The prophet not only sees the seventy elders standing along with Jaazaniah, but he could not look through one door into a number of chambers at once, and see the pictures draw all round upon their walls. The assembling of the seventy elders in a secret cell by the northern gate of the outer temple to worship the idolatrous images engraved on the walls of the cell, is one feature in the visionary form given to the revelation of what the elders of the people were doing secretly throughout the whole land. To bring out more strikingly the secrecy of this idolatrous worship, the cell is so completely hidden in the wall, that the prophet is obliged to enlarge the hole by breaking through the wall before he can see the door which leads to the cell and gain a view of them and of the things it contains, and the things that are done therein.

(Note: "Because the whole is exhibited pictorially and figuratively, he says that he saw one hole in a wall, and was directed to dig through and make it larger, that he might enter as if through an open door, and see the things which he could not possibly have seen while stationed outside." - Jerome.)

And the number of the persons assembled there suggests the idea of a symbolical representation, as well as the secrecy of the cell. The seventy elders represent the whole nation; and the number is taken from Exodus 24:1. and Numbers 11:16; Numbers 24:25, where Moses, by the command of God, chooses seventy of the elders to represent the whole congregation at the making of the covenant, and afterwards to support his authority. This representation of the congregation was not a permanent institution, as we may see from the fact that in Numbers 11 seventy other men are said to have been chosen for the purpose named. The high council, consisting of seventy members, the so-called Sanhedrim, was formed after the captivity on the basis of these Mosaic types. In the midst of the seventy was Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, a different man therefore from the Jaazaniah mentioned in Ezekiel 11:1. Shaphan is probably the person mentioned as a man of distinction in 2 Kings 22:3.; Jeremiah 29:3; Jeremiah 36:10; Jeremiah 39:14. It is impossible to decide on what ground Jaazaniah is specially mentioned by name; but it can hardly be on account of the meaning of the name he bore, "Jehovah heard," as Hvernick supposes. It is probable that he held a prominent position among the elders of the nation, so that he is mentioned here by name as the leader of this national representation.

On the wall of the chamber round about there were drawn all kinds of figures of רמשׂ וּבהמה, reptiles and quadrupeds (see Genesis 1:24). שׁקץ is in apposition not only to בּהמה, but also to רמשׂ, and therefore, as belonging to both, is not to be connected with בּהמה in the construct state. The drawing of reptiles and quadrupeds became a sheqetz, or abomination, from the fact that the pictures had been drawn for the purpose of religious worship. The following clause, "and all the idols of the house of Israel," is co-ordinate with 'כּל־תּבנית וגו. Besides the animals drawn on the walls, there were idols of other kinds in the chamber. The drawing of reptiles and quadrupeds naturally suggests the thought of the animal-worship of Egypt. We must not limit the words to this, however, since the worship of animals is met with in the nature-worship of other heathen nations, and the expression כּל־תּבנית, "all kinds of figures," as well as the clause, "all kinds of idols of the house of Israel," points to every possible form of idol-worship as spread abroad in Israel. עתר, according to the Aramaean usage, signifies suffimentum, perfume, בּחשׁך, in the dark, i.e., in secret, like בּסּתר in 2 Samuel 12:12; not in the sacred darkness of the cloud of incense (Hvernick). חדרי משׂכּית, image-chambers, is the term applied to the rooms or closets in the dwelling-houses of the people in which idolatrous images were set up and secretly worshipped. משׂכּית signifies idolatrous figures, as in Leviticus 26:1 and Numbers 33:52. This idolatry was justified by the elders, under the delusion that "Jehovah seeth us not;" that is to say, not: "He does not trouble Himself about us," but He does not see what we do, because He is not omniscient (cf. Isaiah 29:15); and He has forsaken the land, withdrawn His presence and His help. Thus they deny both the omniscience and omnipresence of God (cf. Ezekiel 9:9).