Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations. The next are "greater abominations," not in respect to the idolatry, but in respect to the place and persons committing it. In "the inner court," immediately before the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, where the priests advanced only on extraordinary occasions; as, for instance, national fasts, on which the "ministers of the Lord wept between the porch and the altar" (Joel 2:17), twenty-five men (the leaders of the twenty-four courses or orders of the priests, 1 Chronicles 24:18-19, with the high priest at their head, "the princes of the sanctuary," Isaiah 43:28), representing the whole priesthood, as the 70 elders represented the people, stood with their backs turned on the temple, and their faces toward the east, making obeisance to the rising sun (contrast the words of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, 1 Kings 8:44). Sun-worship came from the Persians, who made the sun the eye of their god Ormuzd. It was afterward reformed by Zoroaster. It existed as early as Job (Job 31:26; cf. Deuteronomy 4:19). Josiah could only suspend it for the time of his reign 2 Kings 23:5; 2 Kings 23:11); it revived under his successors.
They worshipped ... toward the east - according to the usage of the Persians, who worshipped the sun at his rising in the east. In the Hebrew a corrupt form is used to express Ezekiel's sense of the foul corruption of such worship х mishtachªwiytem (H7812), for mishtchªwiym]. (Havernick.) But this seem a doubtful piece of ultra-refinement in interpretation. The choice lies between it and the supposition that the corrupt form is an error of the transcriber.