Ezekiel 8:7 - Meaning and Application

Here we have a fuller uncovering of the terrible sins being committed in Jerusalem, even inside the temple area. Notice first how God showed this to Ezekiel. In the vision, he was brought to the door of the outer court, along the sides where the priests lived. God could have taken him straight into the rooms of hidden evil, but instead he led him there step by step. This gave Ezekiel a chance to search out the secret wickedness, and it also showed how carefully those idolaters tried to hide their sin.

Before the priests’ rooms, they had built a wall to make the place more private. That was a clear sign they were doing something they were ashamed of. Evil people hate the light. They did not want anyone who saw them in God’s house to see what they did in private, because then their public religion and private life would clash.

But there was a hole in the wall (Ezekiel 8:7), like a spy-hole. Through it, one could begin to see enough to suspect what was going on. When hypocrites hide behind an outward show of religion, they often think they have covered their sins from everyone. Yet some crack always remains, some clue gives them away to those who look carefully, because they are not truly what they claim to be. Like the ass’s ears in the fable, something betrays the disguise.

Ezekiel made the hole wider, and then he saw a door (Ezekiel 8:8). He went through it into the treasury, or one of the priests’ rooms, and there he saw the wicked things they were doing (Ezekiel 8:9). Those who want to uncover sin in others, or even in themselves, must search carefully. Satan has his tricks, deep schemes, and clever devices, and we should not be unaware of them. The human heart is deceitful above all things, so we must examine it very closely.

What Ezekiel found was deeply sad. First, he saw a room covered with idolatrous pictures (Ezekiel 8:10). All the idols of the house of Israel, borrowed from nearby nations, were painted on the walls all around. Even the most disgusting ones were there, including the forms of crawling things and unclean beasts. These were creatures they treated as gods. It was like a collection of all their idols in one place. Even if the second commandment speaks of carved images, painted images are just as wrong and just as dangerous.

Second, he saw the room full of idol worshipers (Ezekiel 8:11). Seventy of the elders of Israel, the nation’s leaders, were burning incense to these painted idols. A large number of idolaters were strengthening one another in evil. Even though they met in a private room and worked hard to keep it hidden, there were still seventy men involved. These were likely the same kind of men as those sitting before the prophet in Babylon (Ezekiel 8:1), and they seem to have been the great council, the chief rulers of the nation. They were the elders of Israel not only in age, but in office. They should have restrained idolatry, punished it, and destroyed every false image they found. Instead, they worshiped these idols in secret, while in public they claimed to support the true religion only because it protected their positions.

Each man had his censer in his hand, which shows how eager they were for this false worship. They were willing to act as their own priests, and they used a great deal of incense in honor of these images. Thick clouds of smoke filled the room. It would be good if the zeal of these idolaters could shame the true worshipers of God out of their coldness and carelessness. Ezekiel also noticed one man he knew, standing in the middle of the group as their leader or chief. He was perhaps the one presiding over the council or the one most active in this evil. It is no wonder the people were corrupt when the elders were like this. The sins of leaders lead others into sin.

Then God spoke to Ezekiel and said, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Could Ezekiel have imagined such wickedness? Several things are made clear here. It was done in the dark, because sinful deeds belong to the darkness. They hid it so they would not lose their offices, or at least their reputation. Much secret wickedness is in the world, but the day will reveal it, the day when God’s righteous judgment is shown.

This one idolatrous room was only a sample of many such rooms. They came together here to worship their images together, but it seems each man had his own room of imagery besides, a place in his own house for this purpose. There each man pleased himself with the pictures he liked best. Idolaters had household gods and private family worship, which is a shame to those who call themselves Christians yet have no church in their home and no worship of God in their families. If they had rooms of imagery, should we not have rooms of prayer and devotion?

At the root of their idolatry was unbelief. They worshiped these images in secret, the images of the gods of other nations, and said, “The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the land” (Ezekiel 8:12). They thought that because the matter was so hidden that other people could not discover it, God also could not see it. As if there were any darkness where evil workers could hide from him. A practical denial of God’s full knowledge lies behind our unfaithful turning away from him. The church rightly answers this charge in the case of idolatry: if we have forgotten God’s name and stretched out our hands to a strange god, will not God search this out? Yes, he surely will (Psalm 44:20-21).

They also thought they were out of God’s care. They imagined that he had left the earth and no longer watched over its affairs. If that were true, they reasoned, they might as well worship another god. Or they thought he had left their land to its enemies, so they should look for some other god to protect them.

“Our one God cannot, or will not, save us, so let us have many.” This was a blasphemous attack on God, as if he had abandoned them first, and that was why they abandoned him. Such people are truly ripe for ruin when they become so shameless that they blame God himself for their sins.