‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, set your face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them, and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, “Behold I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places, and your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.” '
‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying.' This introduces a new passage which is not necessarily directly connected with what has gone before. It indicates the reception of a new prophetic message.
‘Son of man, set your face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them.' To set the face meant taking up an attitude of opposition (see also Ezekiel 13:17; Ezekiel 21:2; Ezekiel 25:2; Ezekiel 28:21; Ezekiel 38:2). It may however be that he also did it literally, turning towards Jerusalem. Later pious Jews would turn towards Jerusalem to pray (see Daniel 6:10).
Here Ezekiel had to prophesy to ‘the mountains of Israel', (a phrase found only in Ezekiel (12 times) apart from Joshua 11:21) but in so doing he spoke to his own people in Babylonia. The mountains were Israel's strength and protection, and God's gift to His people. They were the backbone of the land of Israel. They were the inheritance of Yahweh (Isaiah 65:9; Exodus 15:17; Psalms 78:54; Isaiah 57:13). But they were also the site of terrible abominations carried on at the high places, as the context here demonstrates. God's gift had been bastardised.
‘To the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys.' The watercourse and the valleys owed their existence to the mountains and hills. Thus in addressing the mountains He was addressing them all.
‘I will bring a sword on you.' The invading armies would penetrate the mountains and hills and would destroy their high places, their incense altars and their idols, and would slay the worshippers around them and offer them in disdain to their gods who had been able to do nothing for them. These high places were the continual bain of the prophets and of the good kings of Israel and Judah. They had largely been Canaanite shrines and were so popular that few kings dared to touch them (the exceptions were Hezekiah and Josiah. But they were quickly restored once they had died). At them men often professed to worship Yahweh, but they incorporated naturism, and fertility rites, and idolatry, with all their sexual connotations. They represented at their best debased Yahwism and at their worst the full abominations of the Canaanites, including perverted sex and possibly child sacrifices and ancestor worship.
‘And I will lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.' In pointed irony God likens what will happen, to human sacrifices being offered. Their carcases will be offered ‘before their own idols' (compare Leviticus 26:30), and with regard to their bones being scattered it was the bones of sacrifices that were scattered around altars. What they have done to their children in sacrificing them will be done to them. But in Israelite terms this scattering of bones would then pollute the altars (Numbers 19:16).
The incense altars (hammanim) are known from excavations and the word actually appears on one found in Palmyra, in Syria. The word rendered ‘idols' is a contemptuous one (gillulim) expressing Ezekiel's disdain. It may have been concocted from a word for ‘dung' (gel, gelalo) whose consonants are similar, interspersed with the vowels of a word which means ‘detestable thing' (siqqus), or it may be connected with Akkadian galalu which means a stone slab.
Excursus on High Places.
The use of high places by loyal Yahwists before the Temple was built is documented in 1 Samuel 9:13; 1 Samuel 9:19; 1Sa 9:25; 1 Samuel 10:5; 1 Kings 3:2 (contrast Deuteronomy 12:2-3). They were local shrines, in earliest times established on hills, but later found elsewhere in towns (2 Kings 17:9), and in valleys where child sacrifices were offered (Jeremiah 7:31), possibly to Melek (Molech - the regular recipient of child sacrifices), but see Jeremiah 19:5 where it was said to be to Baal. This may have been the result of syncretism. Gibeon became known as the Great High Place (1 Kings 3:4) and the Tabernacle was at one stage pitched there (1 Chronicles 21:29).
The use of these high places was not approved of by 1 Kings 3:3 which suggests that David did not worship at high places, unless the Tabernacle was there (1 Chronicles 21:29). Such high places might incorporate an altar for sacrifice, an idol, an Asherah image, an incense altar and a small building. No doubt the one used by Samuel had been purified by the removal of unwanted material. The fact that he did use one when the Tabernacle was elsewhere reveals that the central sanctuary was not at that time seen as the only place to offer sacrifices (it may in fact not have been in use, having been dismantled as a result ot he destuction of Shiloh by the Philistines). This may well have been due to ignorance or a softening down of the Law, but it must be considered possible that at the high place used by Samuel there had been a theophany which would legitimise it (Exodus 20:24).
The danger of the high places is apparent. They turned men's thoughts to the old religion of Canaan and often resulted in the restoration of Canaanite worship with all its perverted sexual tendencies, fertility rites, ancestor worship and idolatry, and even sometimes child sacrifice. For this reason they were condemned by the prophets. Their approval or otherwise became a test of the genuineness of the faith in Yahweh of Judah's kings.
End of excursus.