Commentary - Ezekiel 8:14-15

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Ezekiel's vision, the prophet is being given a guided tour of the abominations that have thoroughly corrupted the temple in Jerusalem. This is not a random collection of sins; it is a systematic, escalating revelation of Judah's covenant unfaithfulness, demonstrating precisely why God's glory is about to depart and His judgment is about to fall. God is building his legal case against His people. After showing Ezekiel the "image of jealousy" at the gate and the secret reptile-worship of the elders in a hidden chamber, He brings him to a third, more public, and yet deeply perverse scene of idolatry. Here, at a key entrance to the Lord's house, the women of Judah are openly participating in a pagan fertility cult, weeping for a foreign god. This passage reveals the emotional and sentimental core of idolatry, showing how apostasy is not just a matter of incorrect doctrine but of disordered affections. The Lord's rhetorical question to Ezekiel underscores the shocking nature of this spiritual adultery and prepares him for the fact that, as bad as this is, the corruption goes even deeper.

The scene is a stark illustration of syncretism. This is not happening in some far-off pagan grove, but at the very gate of Yahweh's house. The people have not simply abandoned the true God; they have attempted to blend His worship with the sensual, emotionally-driven cults of their neighbors. This is always the way of idolatry. It domesticates the transcendent God and supplements His worship with rituals that cater to fallen human appetites. The weeping for Tammuz represents a complete rejection of Yahweh as the source of life and blessing, turning instead to a pathetic, dying-and-rising vegetation god. It is a profound insult to the Creator, and God wants Ezekiel, and by extension all of Israel, to see it in its full, abominable reality.

Outline

Context In Ezekiel

Ezekiel chapter 8 is a pivotal moment in the book. Ezekiel, a priest in exile in Babylon, is transported by the Spirit in a vision back to Jerusalem to see the spiritual state of the temple he was forced to leave. This vision, which runs from chapter 8 to 11, serves as the theological justification for the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which Ezekiel will later prophesy in detail. The central theme is that God is not abandoning His people arbitrarily. He is leaving His own house because His own people have thoroughly defiled it, turning it into a grotesque museum of pagan idols. The "abominations" are presented in a sequence of escalating gravity, moving from the outer court inward, and from the general populace to the elders and finally the priests. This particular scene with the women weeping for Tammuz is the third of four abominations, each punctuated by God's declaration, "You will see still greater abominations." This structure emphasizes the depth and breadth of the apostasy. It has captured every segment of society, from the political leaders to the common women, and has penetrated every part of the sacred space.

Key Issues

Sentimental Apostasy

We often think of idolatry in stark, intellectual terms, as a simple breaking of the first two commandments. But here, God shows Ezekiel that idolatry has a powerful emotional and sentimental pull. The women are not just bowing to a statue; they are weeping. They are emotionally invested in this pagan drama. Tammuz was a Mesopotamian vegetation god, a pretty-boy deity whose myth involved an annual death and a subsequent return from the underworld, mirroring the agricultural cycle. His cult was a nature religion, full of pathos and sensual appeal. The weeping was a ritual lament designed to coax him back to life, and by extension, to bring back the rains and the green shoots.

What we have here is a religion of the tear ducts. It is a faith based on feeling and experience, one that mistakes a good cry for genuine piety. By weeping for Tammuz, these women were rejecting Yahweh, the Lord of the covenant, the God of history who acts in righteousness and judgment, and replacing Him with a god who was essentially a projection of their own emotional needs and agricultural anxieties. This is the essence of all paganism. It trades the transcendent, objective God who commands us for an immanent, subjective god who serves us, a god we can manipulate with our tears. This is a profound warning against any form of Christianity that prizes emotional experience over biblical truth and sentimentalism over genuine repentance.

Verse by Verse Commentary

14 Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of Yahweh which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

The geography here is significant. God leads Ezekiel from the secret, hidden chamber of the elders out into a more public space, the entrance of the gate of the house of Yahweh. This is not some fringe activity happening out in the hills; this is mainstream apostasy, happening right on the front porch of God's dwelling place. The north gate was a principal entrance, a place of high traffic. The abomination is not being hidden; it is brazen. And notice who is committing it: women were sitting there. In many ancient fertility cults, women took the lead in the rituals, and this was no exception. Their natural, God-given capacity for nurture and empathy was being horribly perverted into a ritual of mourning for a false god. They were weeping for a phantom. Tammuz, the Babylonian Adonis, was a dying-and-rising god of vegetation. His worship was a cycle of sentimental grief followed by licentious joy. These women were pouring out their God-given emotions on a fiction, a cheap knock-off of the true story of redemption. They were looking to the creature to provide what only the Creator can give: life from death. To do this at the gate of Yahweh's house was to slap Him in the face, to declare that He was insufficient to ensure the harvest or to heal their land.

15 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these.”

God's question to Ezekiel is heavy with divine pathos and judicial gravity. "Do you see this, son of man?" Of course Ezekiel sees it, but God wants him to truly comprehend the outrage. He is forcing His prophet to be an eyewitness, to bear the weight of what has become of God's people and God's house. This is not just a breach of protocol; it is cosmic treason. The question serves as a formal marker in the indictment God is building. And just when Ezekiel must have thought it could not get any worse, God tells him to brace himself. "Yet you will see still greater abominations than these." This is a recurring refrain in the chapter, and it functions like a descent into the spiraling depths of a sewer. Each new scene is fouler than the last. The sin of the elders in secret was grievous. This public display of pagan sentimentality by the women is worse. But the worst is yet to come, when Ezekiel will be shown the ultimate apostasy of the priests themselves, right between the porch and the altar. This escalating structure teaches us that sin is never static. Compromise always leads to greater compromise. Once you let a little paganism in the door, it will not be content until it has taken over the entire house and seated itself in the holy of holies.

Application

It is easy for us to read a passage like this and thank God that we are not like those benighted women, weeping for some ridiculous Mesopotamian pretty-boy god. We don't have statues of Tammuz at our church doors. But the temptation to weep for Tammuz is a perennial one, because the spirit of Tammuz is the spirit of sentimental, man-centered religion. Whenever we elevate emotional experience over doctrinal truth, we are weeping for Tammuz. Whenever we seek a god who will serve our therapeutic needs instead of the God who commands our absolute obedience, we are weeping for Tammuz. Whenever our worship is designed to produce a certain feeling in us rather than to ascribe glory to the thrice-holy God, we are weeping for Tammuz.

The modern church is filled with the worship of Tammuz. It can be found in worship songs with vapid, repetitive lyrics designed to create an emotional high. It can be found in preaching that offers self-help tips instead of the sharp, two-edged sword of the Word. It can be found in a version of Christianity that is all about our "felt needs" and has nothing to say about God's holiness and our sin. The women at the gate were weeping because their god was dead and they wanted him back. They were mourning a loss of blessing, a loss of fertility, a loss of prosperity. Their religion was entirely about what they could get out of their god. The gospel calls us to a different kind of weeping. It calls us to weep over our sin, the very sin that nailed the true Lord of life to the cross. But this weeping is not a dead end. It is a godly sorrow that leads to repentance, and repentance leads to life. We do not weep to manipulate a dead god into coming back to life. We rejoice because our God, the Lord Jesus Christ, went into death and the grave, and on the third day He rose again, having conquered death forever. He is not the pathetic, cyclical god of the seasons. He is the Lord of history, the Alpha and the Omega, and He gives life, not because of our tears, but because of His triumphant grace.