Ezekiel 8:7-11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And he brought me to the door of the court This, Dr. Lightfoot understands of the east gate of the inner court, called the gate of Nicanor, over which was the council chamber, where the sanhedrim used to meet, and in some of the rooms near it they secretly practised idolatry, as God discovered to the prophet, Ezekiel 8:11. Behold a hole in the wall Through which I could look in, and see what abominations were committing there. Then he said, Dig now in the wall This, and what follows, was done only by vision, during the prophet's trance or ecstasy, while the elders sat before him. And when I had digged in the wall, behold a door A private door, by which the elders entered into the chambers of their imagery, to perform idolatrous worship to the images. And he said unto me, Go in, &c. To give me the fullest conviction, I not only looked through the hole, mentioned Ezekiel 8:7, but went into the very room where these idolatries were committed. Behold the abominations that they do here Hebrew, are doing here: even under the approach of judgments, and under the walls of my temple. So I went in, and behold every form of creeping things It is probable that they imitated the Egyptians in this kind of idolatry; for the Egyptians used to worship several kinds of beasts and reptiles. According to Diodorus Siculus, 50. 1. p. 59, edit. Wess., (referred to by Secker,) “round the room in Thebes, where the body of King Osymanduas seemed to be buried, a multitude of chambers were built, which had elegant paintings of all the beasts sacred in Egypt.” It is not unlikely they imagined they evaded the law against setting up any image to worship, by having them only portrayed, or painted, on the wall; or, at least, that it was not so great an offence; for the Jewish people in general seem to have had little regard to any thing but the strict letter of the law, not regarding the spirit of it. However, as to objects for worship, pictures were prohibited, as well as carved images, as appears from Numbers 33:52. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients, &c. Heads of the tribes or families, or, at least, principal men, (according to the number of the sanhedrim,) who ought to have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry. By this the prophet was given to see, that it was not the vulgar, or the poor and ignorant only that were guilty of idolatry, but the leading men of the nation, and those of the greatest knowledge, power, and influence, who were superior to, and had the direction of the common people; so that it was properly a national guilt, and, as such, loudly called for national punishment. And in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah Probably a prince of the people; the son of Shaphan Mentioned 2 Kings 22:9. Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah, and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God.