Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 8

The elders of Judah sat before me.—It is plain from this that Ezekiel, as a priest, and now already known as a prophet, was held in consideration among the captives. It also appears that he lived in his own house. Judah is not used in contradistinction to Israel; but as the captives were chiefly of the tribe of Judah, so their elders were known as “the elders of Judah.”

A likeness as the appearance of fire. —This is not, as often supposed, a reappearance of the vision of Ezekiel 1. That vision bursts again on the prophet after he has been carried in the spirit to the Temple at Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8:4). This is not expressly described as a human form, but from the mention of the loins, and of the form of an hand, in Ezekiel 8:3 it is implied that it was so.

No further description is given, except that it was something bright and glorious like fire; and by the repetition of the words likeness, appearance, and the form of an hand, the prophet here, as in Ezekiel 1, takes pains to show that it was only a vision, not an outward reality. It is also to be remembered that this and the subsequent vision occurred while the elders were sitting before the prophet. They saw nothing themselves, but must have witnessed his ecstasy, and thus been prepared for his telling them at its close (Ezekiel 11:25) all the things that the Lord had showed him. The colour of amber is the same as in Ezekiel 1:4, where see the note on that verse.

Took me by a lock of mine head. —Not, of course, literally, in the body, but in vision. Ezekiel did not actually leave Chaldea at all, as is shown by Ezekiel 11:24.

The door of the inner gate. —This is one of the gates which led from the court of the people to the court of the priests, which was on a higher level. In the account of the building of the temple there is no mention of gates leading from one to the other, but they would naturally have been placed there, as we know they were in the later temple of Herod. The particular gate was the one which looketh toward the north, the one by which the priests went directly to the great altar.

The image of jealousy is explained in the following clause, which provoketh to jealousy. It is not necessary to consider “jealousy” as a proper name—the name of any particular heathen divinity—but rather as a descriptive name, an image which aroused the Divine indignation. It has even been thought that it is not meant to indicate any particular idol, but is only a picture to depict the prevailing idolatry. It is, however, very probable that at this time there actually were heathen idols set up in the temple, and nothing could give a more vivid picture of the corruption of priests and people alike than the mention of their presence.

Idolatry had been growing more general and more bold from the time of Solomon. He built places of worship for the various idols of his wives in the hill that is before Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7); but Ahaz, under the influence of the Assyrian king, had placed an idolatrous altar in the temple itself, removing the brazen altar to make room (2 Kings 16:10–16), and Manasseh afterwards did the same (2 Kings 21:4). All the subsequent kings of Judah, except Josiah, were wicked men, and although this particular sin is not distinctly recorded of Zedekiah, yet it seems very likely that he too made use of the temple for idolatrous worship, and that Ezekiel in vision now saw his idols standing in the court.

The glory of the God of Israel was there. Not the glory of the Lord filling the temple as in days of old, but the glory according to the vision that I saw in the plain—that is, the same vision which had previously appeared to the prophet, now in his vision—a vision within a vision—appeared to him again in the temple. The identity of the vision is again particularly mentioned in Ezekiel 10:15 and Ezekiel 10:22, and even without this would be clear from the description given of it in Ezekiel 10.

At the same time, various particulars are mentioned which were omitted in Ezekiel 1, and others are mentioned there which are omitted here, such as the cloud and the firmament (Ezekiel 1:4 and Ezekiel 1:22); and there are also some entirely new features introduced, such as six men and the man clothed in linen (Ezekiel 9:2), for which there was no need in the former vision. The God of Israel is emphatic: the God who had loved and chosen Israel, and whom Israel should have served, in contrast with the idol which they had placed in His temple.

The way toward the north. —This shows that Ezekiel in his vision was within the court of the priests, because otherwise he could not have looked toward the north to see the idol in the north gate. He had already seen this; but now his attention is directed to it particularly. It was not enough that he should see it; it was to be especially pointed out as a part of the reason for the Divine judgments. The expression, “Gate of the altar,” may find an additional explanation in the fact mentioned in 2 Kings 16:14, that Ahaz removed the altar towards the north, and thus would have placed it very near this gate.