‘Then he said to me, “Son of man, you have seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his own chambers of imagery, for they say, “Yahweh does not see us. Yahweh has forsaken the earth.” '
Here we get the impression that each of the elders has his own ‘chamber of imagery', a room with engravings of graven images on the walls, where they secretly worshipped in the dark. The fact that it was ‘in the dark' may indicate attempts to contact evil forces through the occult. This reinforces the idea that what Ezekiel saw was a vision which indicated practises occurring throughout Jerusalem, in vision depicted as connected with a secret chamber in the Temple symbolising their connection with the Temple. We must remember that they saw Jerusalem as ‘the holy city' and thus that what went on there was very much connected with the Temple.
Others have suggested that their worship was performed in secret as the gods being worshipped were Egyptian gods because these men were in secret alliance with Egypt. If so there may be the hint that once again ‘the seventy' have gone down into Egypt (Genesis 46:27), returning to bondage.
‘For they say, “Yahweh does not see us. Yahweh has forsaken the earth.” ' This cry from the heart might support an Egyptian connection. They needed help against Assyria, and as Yahweh had in their eyes forsaken them and was no longer bothering about events on earth (which Ezekiel's presence there disproves), where else were they to obtain it? This would be a particular insult to God. They blamed Yahweh for deserting them, rather than the other way round.