Ezekiel 8:14

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which [was] towards the north,.... By "the Lord's house" no doubt is meant the temple, which the Targum here calls the house of the

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house ... toward the north.

He brought me, not by real and corporal change of place, but in vision and by representation. Of the gate of the outer court, or court of the women, so called because they were allowed to come into it, as were all the laity of the Jews: but it is more likely the gate of the inner court, the court of the priests, next to the house of God, whither none save priests might come; but in this very great corruption of the state others were admitted into it, which makes this sin the greater. Towards the north; he enters at first by the north gate, and so passeth on to what places were next to the temple on that side. There sat women: contrary to the law were they come thither, led by their blindest, because the vilest and most impudent, superstition, and waiting (expressed by sitting) ready to commit most lewd wickednesses, as part of their obscene and beastly rites. Weeping: this is the only part which is specified of their irreligious religion, commemorating with tears an infamously lustful and unclean whoremonger, or votary of Venus, snatched from her by an unhappy wound of a boar, say some; this weeping implieth all the beastly rites of that idol. Tammuz; a magician, say some; a handsome young man, but notorious for love of women, say others; an adulterer (say some) slain by his brother, king of Egypt, and mangled in pieces, whose torn members were thrown into the river, but gathered up by the fond adulteresses, and rites of worship fitted to so lewd an idol; whose adulteries, lascivious practices, and immodest gestures these she priests acted over before the idol with men of like lewdness, of whom what they received, as rewards of their prostituting themselves, was offered to Venus. By this means God’ s temple was turned into a lewd stews.

Ezekiel 8:14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’ S house which [was] toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.Ver. 14. And, behold, there sat women.] These were priests of Isis, whose impious and most impudent kind of worship is largely described by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Eusebius, as celebrated with very unseemly ceremonies, worse, if it might be, than those of Priapus. But who would ever have looked for such immodest doings among God’ s professed people? See 1 Corinthians 5:1. Weeping for Tammuz,] i.e., For Osiris, king of Egypt, and idolatrously adoring his image, which his wife Isis had advanced.

(14) Women weeping for Tammuz.—The prophet is now taken to the north gate of the outer enclosure of the Temple courts, and there sees a new and exceedingly corrupt form of idolatry. Tammuz is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture, but is identified by ancient tradition (incorporated into the Vulg.) with the Greek Adonis, the beloved of Venus. The name Adonis could not well have been used, because in its Hebrew form it means Lord, and is frequently used of God. His worship is first heard of in Phoenicia, and was wide-spread throughout Syria and the adjacent countries. As the creature worship before mentioned was undoubtedly connected with political reasons, while aid was being sought from Egypt, so the worship of Adonis may have been affected by the league which Zedekiah attempted to form (Jeremiah 27:1-11) with the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Philistines against Nebuchadnezzar. The annual feast of Adonis consisted of a mourning by the women for his death, followed by a rejoicing over his return to life, and was accompanied by great abominations and licentiousness. The myth of Adonis was also closely associated with the worship of nature. This festival did not fall in the “sixth month,” but the description is not necessarily of what was actually occurring at the moment; there is brought before the prophet’s vision a representation of the wickedness practised at various times in Jerusalem. Women engaged in the service of idolatry near the Temple are mentioned in 2 Kings 23:7. (Comp. Jeremiah 7:18.) Thus far, the prophet has seen in the different courts of the Temple the general image worship of the people, then the creature worship of their elders, and now the corrupt and debasing rites of their women.

Verse 14. There sat women weeping for Tammuz.] This was Adonis, as we have already seen; and so the Vulgate here translates. My old MS. Bible reads, There saten women, mornynge a mawmete of lecherye that is cleped Adonydes. He is fabled to have been a beautiful youth beloved by Venus, and killed by a wild boar in Mount Lebanon, whence springs the river Adonis, which was fabled to run blood at his festival in August. The women of Phoenicia, Assyria, and Judea worshipped him as dead, with deep lamentation, wearing priapi and other obscene images all the while, and they prostituted themselves in honour of this idol. Having for some time mourned him as dead, they then supposed him revivified and broke out into the most extravagant rejoicings. Of the appearance of the river at this season, Mr. Maundrell thus speaks: "We had the good fortune to see what is the foundation of the opinion which Lucian relates, viz., that this stream at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody colour, proceeding from a kind of sympathy, as the heathens imagined, for the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the mountain out of which this stream issues. Something like this we saw actually come to pass, for the water was stained to a surprising redness; and, as we observed in travelling, had stained the sea a great way into a reddish hue." This was no doubt occasioned by a red ochre, over which the river ran with violence at this time of its increase. Milton works all this up in these fine lines: - "Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, In amorous ditties all a summer's day; While smooth Adonis, from his native rock, Ran purple to the sea, suffused with blood Of Thammuz, yearly wounded. The love tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat: Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah." Par. Lost, b. i. 446. Tammuz signifies hidden or obscure, and hence the worship of his image was in some secret place.

14. The women bewailing Tammuz 14. gate of the Lord’s house] i.e. outside the whole temple buildings to the north gate of the outer court; cf. ch. Ezekiel 10:19, Ezekiel 11:1. The term “house” embraces all the temple buildings (Jeremiah 35:4). The women may have been seen sitting outside the gate, or they may have been in some of the chambers of the outer gateway. Of course the temple building in Ezekiel’s time did not quite correspond to his ideal sketch in ch. 40 seq., but there were no doubt chambers at that time connected with both gateways (Jeremiah 35:2; Jeremiah 35:4; Jeremiah 36:10; Jeremiah 36:12; Jeremiah 36:20-21; cf. Jeremiah 26:10; 2 Kings 23:11). Tammuz is identical with Adonis. The latter name, Adon, “Lord,” is not a proper name, being applicable to any great god, but when the myth found its way to Greece, the word became a proper name. The name Tammuz is Babylonian Dumu-zi, Dûzi, said to signify “son of life,” and to indicate the eternal youth of the sun-god (cf. Fried. Del. in Baer’s Ezek.; Schrader, KAT. on Ezekiel 8:14; Sayce, Hibbert Lect. IV). The story of the death of Tammuz is said to be a solar myth, having reference to the death of the sun-god. The explanations given by Assyrian scholars are not very clear. Sometimes the death is said to be that which he undergoes each night, sometimes that which he undergoes when he expires before the touch of winter, and sometimes the death is that of the lusty, life-giving vernal god, who perishes along with all life on earth amidst the summer fires which he himself has kindled. The town of Gebal or Byblos, eight miles north of Beirut, was the great seat of the Adonis worship in Phenicia. It is possible that the cult passed westward from Babylonia, but it may be that in Syria the rites had an independent origin and a different meaning, and that it was not till later that they were interpreted in the sense of the Babylonian myth (W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, index under Adonis). It was probably from Phenicia that the worship entered Judæa. Milton’s interpretation of the rites may not quite exhaust their meaning: the love tale Infected Zion’s daughters with like heat; Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw. Such myths may originally be only beautiful nature poetry, but we are so allied to nature that we see our feelings reflected in her, as on the other hand her moods repeat themselves in us. Particularly in times of decay and loss the sadder aspects of nature intensify our own feeling by presenting to our minds a universal decay in which we and all things are involved. It is only the sorrowful side of the Tammuz rite that the prophet refers to.

The seer is now brought back to the same gate as in Ezekiel 8:3. It is not certain that this verse refers to any special act of Tammuz-worship.

14. Women weeping for Tammuz — Women were very prominent in idolatrous worship (2 Kings 23:7; Jeremiah 44:9; Jeremiah 44:15-19).