properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
אֱלֹהֵ֣י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֑לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
vision
כַּמַּרְאֶ֕הka.mar.'Eh
H4758
a view (the act of seeing) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
saw
רָאִ֖יתִיra.'I.ti
H7200
to see · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
plain
בַּבִּקְעָֽהba.bik.'Ah
H1237
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular 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 3:22-23 And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.
Ezekiel 1:26-28 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness…
Exodus 25:22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the a…
Exodus 40:34-35 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
Ezekiel 9:3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man cl…
Ezekiel 10:1-4 Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone,…
Ezekiel 11:22-23 Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.
Ezekiel 43:2-4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shin…
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…
The Shekinah cloud of Jehovah's glory, notwithstanding the provocation of the idol, still remains in the temple, like that which Ezekiel saw "in the plain" (Eze 3:22-23); not till Eze 10:4, Eze 10:18 did it leave the temple at Jerusalem, showing the long-suffering of God, which ought to move the Jews to repentance.
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 8:4
The vision that I saw in the plain - see the note on Eze 3:23 (note); see also Eze 1:3 (note).
John Gill on Ezekiel 8:4
And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there,.... In the temple, between the cherubim, where the Shechinah or the glory of the divine Majesty dwelt; for as yet he had not removed, though provoked to it, and as he afterwards did; or he was here to destroy the idols, and both city and temple, for the idolatry of the people; or this is here mentioned, to show the baseness and wickedness of the people, that they should place an idol where the Lord himself was:
according to the vision that I saw in the plain; it was the same glorious Person he saw in the temple whom he had before seen in the plain, Ezekiel 3:22; and that was the same he had seen in the vision by the river Chebar, Ezekie…
(Verse 4) And he brought me to Jerusalem in a vision of God, near the inner gate that faces north, where the idol of jealousy was set up to provoke jealousy. And behold, there the glory of the God of Israel was, as the vision that I had seen in the field. LXX: And he brought me to Jerusalem in a vision of God to the entrance of the gate that faces north, where the statue of the possessor was. And behold, the glory of the Lord God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the field. However, what is found in some codices. And in the statue is added the image of Zel, from Theodotion. The rest is similar. When he says 'he brought me to Jerusalem in a vision of God,' he shows that he was not transported in the body, but in the spirit. According to this vision, we can see both the heavens and the depths of the sea and the underworld, while we grasp the reasoning of each through contemplation. First, however, he comes to the vestibule that faces the North, so that he may see the statue of the idol Zel and provoke emulation; so that from that place he can penetrate the inner areas and see the rest, which are described afterwards. But the story tells of a statue of the idol Baal placed in the temple of God. It is beautifully called the idol of Zeal because it provokes emulation and zeal for the Lord, according to what is said in Deuteronomy: 'They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will provoke them to jealousy with those which are not a people' (Deut. 32). Moreover, because zeal and possession, which are called 'Cena' in Hebrew, are also called by the same name, the Seventy interpreters translated the statue of Zeal as the statue of the Possessor. Finally, when Cain was born, his parent said that he possessed a man through God (Gen. IV, 1), referring to the possession of a human being, giving Cain his name. And there was the glory of the God of Israel, not because he delighted in such proximity, but in order to destroy the idol of Zeal and its temple with his presence. Hence, the destruction of the city and temple followed shortly after. And in Isaiah it is written that a narrow bed cannot accommodate two, and a short cloak cannot cover both (Isa. XXVIII), with Scripture indicating what the Apostle said: What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? Temple of God…
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
Plains — This one term does duty in the Authorized Version for no less than seven distinct Hebrew words.
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).
John Calvin on Ezekiel 8:4
Ezekiel 8:4
4. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.
4. Et ecce illic gloria Dei Israel, secundum visionem quam videram in planicie. [175]
Now he only says that he saw God's glory as he had formerly beheld it near the bank of the river. This was as it were the seal of his prophecy: for the holy man ought to be so strengthened, that he should boldly restrain the furious audacity and obstinacy of the people. Hence he had to strive with hard heads, and God did not arm him in vain; and to this end again a new vision was offered. He knew that to be the glory of God. Hence he was again made more certain that the whole action was…
Abominations of the Idolatry of the House of Israel
Time and place of the divine revelation. - Eze 8:1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth (month), on the fifth (day) of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; there fell upon me the hand of the Lord Jehovah there. Eze 8:2. And I saw, and behold a figure like the look of fire, from the look of its loins downwards fire, and from its loins upwards like a look of brilliance, like the sight of red-hot brass. Eze 8:3. And he stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by the locks of my head, and wind carried me away between earth and heaven, and brought me to Jerusalem in visions of…
God showed Ezekiel four scenes of increasing abomination from the false worship that the people of Israel were performing in the Lord’s Temple. The comprehensiveness of Jerusalem’s defilement may be seen from the varied locations of their acts of idolatry, the kinds of people involved, the deities worshiped, and the varied cultures from which these deities had been imported. It was the ultimate eclectic worship service, with abomination piled upon abomination.
8:3-6 In the first abomination, the large idol was probably an image of the Canaanite goddess Asherah that had been placed at this gate to guard the city from attack. Most of Jerusalem’s historic enemies came against her from the nort…
by a lock of my hair Heb. צִיצִיתרֹאשִּׁי [lit. fringes of my head.] By the hair of my head, flozel in Old French, a lock of hair.
in the visions of God He showed me [a vision looking] as if He were carrying me and bringing me to Jerusalem.
the inner gate that faces north The gate to the court, which is within the Temple Mount, [and] which had gates to all its sides.
the image of jealousy The image of jealousy would make the Holy One, blessed be He, jealous and provoke Him, for they put it there to make the Holy One, blessed be He, jealous; to anger Him, and so did Jonathan render: the image of jealousy, which they provoked.
