October 21, 2020: Day 60 – Ezekiel 8

The prophet is led by God to witness a whole slew of abominations, some of which might have been toned down, but were probably in the original fairly obscene.  Ezekiel is taken from his place in exile in Babylon and transported to the temple in Jerusalem by the locks of his hair.  Remember the locks represented his faithfulness to God in that not a razor would go to his head in his devotion to God.  It is in the temple where he experiences and witnesses the abominations that come in a form of three.

The first that he witnesses is the jealousy that the people of Israel were experiencing because the nations around them had idols that were tangible and able to be seen and touched and so they also wanted that.  They made the steps to worship idols so that their jealousy could be sated.  Be careful of wanting what others have when you know what you have is what God wants you to have.  Those idols are described as creeping things that are visible through a hole in the wall.  The elders of Israel were worshiping them on their own time and in secret hoping that God would not notice.  As if…

We then see women weeping for Tamuz…, who is Tamuz?  Well, as you might have guessed, Tamuz is a god from Mesopotamia who is said to have descended into the underworld.  They were weeping for a false god who had no impact on their lives.  This is how far they had come.  Finally, we see the people of Israel with their backs to the temple as they worshiped the sun.  They were prostrated toward the sun on the east as an act of worship and reverence.  But it gets worse.  Look at the end of vs.17 where you have this quixotical reference to the branch to their nose.  It is thought that this is considered a vulgar reference to show, again, how far the people of Israel had sunk.  Things are pretty bad now in the times of Ezekiel.