Ezekiel 8:3

And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
forth	וַיִּשְׁלַח֙ vai.yish.Lach	H7971	to send away · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
form	תַּבְנִ֣ית tav.Nit	H8403	structure · noun, common feminine singular construct
hand	יָ֔ד Yad	H3027	a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular absolute
took	וַיִּקָּחֵ֖נִי vai.yi.ka.Che.ni	H3947	to take (in the widest variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
lock	בְּצִיצִ֣ת be.tzi.Tzit	H6734	a floral or wing-like projection · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
head	רֹאשִׁ֑י ro.Shi	H7218	the head (as most easily shaken) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix

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

Deuteronomy 32:16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
Ezekiel 11:1 Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD’s house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of t…
Deuteronomy 5:9 Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upo…
Ezekiel 5:11 Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine…
Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon…
Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
Deuteronomy 6:15 (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the…
Deuteronomy 32:21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealo…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 8:1-6

Ezekiel was now in Babylon; but the messages of wrath he had delivered in the foregoing chapters related to Jerusalem, for in the peace or trouble thereof the captives looked upon themselves to have peace or trouble, and therefore here he has a vision of what was done at Jerusalem, and this vision is continued to the close of the 11th chapter. I. Here is the date of this vision. The first vision he had was in the fifth year of the captivity, in the fourth month and the fifth day of the month, Eze 1:1, Eze 1:2. This was just fourteen months after. Perhaps it was after he had lain 390 days on his left side, to bear the iniquity of Israel, and before he began the forty days on his right side, t…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ezekiel 8:3

Instead of prompting him to address directly the elders before him, the Spirit carried him away in vision (not in person bodily) to the temple at Jerusalem; he proceeds to report to them what he witnessed: his message thus falls into two parts: (1) The abominations reported in Eze. 8:1-18. (2) The dealings of judgment and mercy to be adopted towards the impenitent and penitent Israelites respectively (Eze. 9:1-11:25). The exiles looked hopefully towards Jerusalem and, so far from believing things there to be on the verge of ruin, expected a return in peace; while those left in Jerusalem eyed the exiles with contempt, as if cast away from the Lord, whereas they themselves were near God and en…

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Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 8:3

The image of jealousy - סמל הקנאה semel hakkinah. We do not know certainly of what form this image was, nor what god it represented. Some say it was the image of Baal, which was placed in the temple by Manasses; others, that it was the image of Mars; and others, that it was the image of Tammuz or Adonis. Calmet supports this opinion by the following reasons: - 1. The name agrees perfectly with him. He was represented as a beautiful youth, beloved by Venus; at which Mars, her paramour, being incensed and filled with jealousy, sent a large boar against Adonis, which killed him with his tusks. Hence it was the image of him who fell a victim to jealousy. 2. The prophet being returned towards th…

The Church Fathers

(Verse 3) And a reaching out likeness of a hand seized me by the lock of my head. LXX: And the likeness of a hand extended and took hold of me by the fringe of my crown. And this likeness of a hand, the hand itself does not extend, for there is nothing corporeal in God. And the hand appears as a member of the human body and familiar, it does not frighten the one who is being assumed and grasped. For if it had touched the prophet in the likeness of a serpent or any other beast, the dissimilarity of the limbs would have frightened the one assumed. And a part of the hair is included, because the human nature cannot bear the apprehension of the whole head. For a headband, the Seventy translated κράσπεδον, which means fringe: one of which is usually taken in the hair, the other in the clothes. And the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the sky. At first, he is grasped by the hand in a likeness; then he is lifted up by the spirit, which does not immediately raise him to the sky, but between the earth and the sky, so that, leaving the earthly things for a while, he hurries to the sky. And we can also say this, that because of good works, the prophet is grasped by the hand of God in a likeness, and because of knowledge of spiritual things, he is lifted up by the spirit.
— Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel

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

Jealousy, Image of — An idolatrous object, seen in vision by Ezekiel (Ezek. 8:3, 5), which stood in the priests’ or inner court of the temple. Probably identical with the statue of Astarte (2 Kings 21:7).
Lock — The Hebrews usually secured their doors by bars of wood or iron (Isa. 45:2; 1 Kings 4:3). These were the locks originally used, and were opened and shut by large keys applied through an opening in…
Image · .Of jealousy — .Of jealousy
Jealousy · Image of — Image of
Visions · Mentioned in scripture: To Ezekiel (See chapters 10, 40-48 of Ezekiel) — Mentioned in scripture: To Ezekiel (See chapters 10, 40-48 of Ezekiel)

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).

Ezekiel 8:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 8:1-6

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ezekiel 8:3

Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 8:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Ezekiel 8:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 8:1-6

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ezekiel 8:3

Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 8:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Gill on Ezekiel 8:3

John Calvin on Ezekiel 8:3

Keil & Delitzsch on Ezekiel 8:1-4

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Ezekiel 8:3-16

Rashi on Ezekiel 8:3