to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
seen
הֲרָאִ֣יתָha.ra.'I.ta
H7200
to see · interrogative particle + verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
son
בֶןven-
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct
man
אָדָ֑ם'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · noun, common masculine singular absolute
turn
תָּשׁ֥וּבta.Shuv
H7725
to turn back (hence · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
see
תִּרְאֶ֛הtir.'Eh
H7200
to see · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
greater
גְּדֹל֖וֹתge.do.Lot
H1419
great (in any sense) · adjective, feminine plural absolute
abominations
תּוֹעֵב֥וֹתto.'e.Vot
H8441
properly · noun, common feminine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 8:6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that…
Ezekiel 8:9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
Ezekiel 8:12-13 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his i…
2 Timothy 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 8:13–end
Here we have,
I. More and greater abominations discovered to the prophet. He thought that what he had seen was bad enough and yet (Eze 8:13): Turn thyself again, and thou shalt see yet greater abominations, and greater still, Eze 8:15, as before, Eze 8:6. There are those who live in retirement who do no think what wickedness there is in this world; and the more we converse with it, and the further we go abroad into it, the more corrupt we see it. When we have seen that which is bad we may have our wonder at it made to cease by the discovery of that which, upon some account or other, is a great deal worse. We shall find it so in examining our own hearts and searching into them; there is a wor…
The next are "greater abominations," not in respect to the idolatry, but in respect to the place and persons committing it. In "the inner court," immediately before the door of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, where the priests advanced only on extraordinary occasions (Joe 2:17), twenty-five men (the leaders of the twenty-four courses or orders of the priests, Ch1 24:18-19, with the high priest, "the princes of the sanctuary," Isa 43:28), representing the whole priesthood, as the seventy elders represented the people, stood with their backs turned on the temple, and their faces towards the east, making obeisance to the rising sun (contrast Kg1 8:44). Sun-worship came f…
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 Adonrdes. 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 honor of this idol. Having for some time mourned him as dead, they then supposed him revivified and broke out…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 15, 16.) And he said to me: Surely you have seen, son of man: yet you will see even greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun in the east. We interpreted this vestibule to be near Symmachus, who placed the πρόπυλον, because the LXX and Theodotion translated the Hebrew word for it as Aelam (): Aquila's first edition, προστάδα: second edition, was interpreted as the Aelam of the temple, which we can express as the portico of the temple: or the covered courtyard that was between the temple and the altar. And as we read above, after the idol of Zeal, which appeared at the Northern Gate: You will still see even greater abominations; and the pictures of all the beasts that the seventy priests and Jezonias, son of Saphan, were worshiping were shown on the wall, with the censers in their hands. It is said a second time: You will still see even greater abominations, which these people do, because the women were sitting and mourning for Adonis; and after the third sin, it is said: You will still see even greater abominations than these. But what is the greatest abomination of the three previous sins? Namely, the fourth that follows: Behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the rising sun. They did this because they despised the Lord, that is, the Creator, and worshipped the sun, that is, the creature of the Lord, as the Lord Himself commanded through Moses (Deut. XII), that they should not worship God against the east in the manner of the Gentiles: but wherever they were in the world, whether to the east, or to the west, or to the south, or to the north, they should worship toward the temple, where it was believed the Lord dwelled in the Holy of Holies. Indeed, we read in Daniel (Dan. VI) that he did this in Babylon, who, with the windows of his upper room open, worshipped the Lord opposite the temple, which was in Jerusalem. That this was sacrilege according to the letter, no one doubts. According to…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Prayer, Answers To · Denied to those who: Are idolaters — Denied to those who: Are idolaters
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Then said he unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man?.... This shocking piece of idolatry, women weeping for Tammuz:
turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these; or, "great abominations besides these" (f).
(f) "abominationes magnas praeter istas", Calvin.
John Calvin on Ezekiel 8:15-16
Ezekiel 8:15-16
15. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
15. Et dixit mihi, Fili hominis, adhuc convertere, videbis abominationes magnas prae istis. [186]
16. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
16. Et deduxit me in Atrium doritos Iehovae interins: et ecce ad portam Templi Iehovae inter vestibulum et inter altare, circiter viginti qu…
Third Abomination: Worship of Thammuz
Eze 8:13. And He said to me, Thou shalt yet again see still greater abominations which they do. Eze 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. Eze 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 carry…
The third abomination was that women were . . . weeping for the god Tammuz at the north gate of the Lord’s Temple. This Babylonian ritual marked the death and descent into the underworld of the god Dumuzi (Tammuz). Every year, this deity was thought to lose his power and then regain it in a cycle that paralleled the annual rhythms of nature. Ritual mourning for Tammuz was intended to hasten the return of fertility to the natural order. Ritual lamentation for a false, dead god had thus been substituted for praise and worship of the true and living God.
Rashi on Ezekiel 8:14
to the entrance of the gate of the house of the Lord Within the inner space of the courtyard [that led] to the entrance of the heichal that is in the north, for the master [R. Jose the son] taught: Two wickets were in the Temple chamber for the knives, one in the north and one in the south (see Zev. 55b, 56a).
making the Tammuz weep There was an image that they would heat up from the inside, and its eyes, which were of lead, would melt from the heat of the fire, and it would appear as though it was weeping, and they would say, “It is asking for an offering.”
“Tammuz” is an expression of heating, like (Dan. 3:19): “more than it was wont to be heated (לְמֵזְיֵהּ)”; (ibid. 22), “and the furna…
