Then he brought me to the door which was toward the north Dr. Lightfoot distinguishes this door from that mentioned Ezekiel 8:5; this, he says, was the upper north gate, and that the lower; this being just over against the temple itself; whereas that was opposite the altar. Behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz “The prophet here refers to a Phœnician or Syrian superstition. Tammuz was an idol of Chaldee extraction, as is plain from his name; which also is used for the tenth month, reckoning from the autumnal equinox, that is, the month of June; and Tammuz, as the object of worship, expresses the solar light in its perfection, as in the summer solstice. The Vulgate renders Tammuz, by Adonis; and that Adonis, according to the physical theology of the heathen, was the same as the sun, there is no question. Macrobius expressly affirms it, Saturnal., lib. 1. cap. 21, and says, that the tradition of Adonis being killed by a boar, means the diminution of the sun's light and heat by winter. This departure of Adonis, or the sun, was lamented in the most frantic ceremonies of grief by the Phœnician and Assyrian women, who, on these occasions, used to prostitute themselves in honour of his vivifying power; and thus the Jewish women are described by our prophet, weeping for Tammuz, on the fifth day of the sixth month, that is, of August; at which time his death, by the winter boar, was drawing on apace. Tammuz was supposed to have been killed by a wild boar in mount Lebanon, whence flows the river Adonis, concerning which Lucian relates an opinion prevailing in these parts, that its stream, at certain seasons of the year, is of a bloody colour, which the heathen considered as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for his death: see Parkhurst and Uni. Hist., vol. 1. p. 342. Milton has touched upon each of these particulars in the following elegant lines:
“ Tammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, In am'rous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis, from his native rock, Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Tammuz, 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 survey'd the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah.” PARADISE LOST b. 1. 5:446.