Context No. 2729 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Ezekiel 8:1-5: in context

1In the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, the Lord GOD’s hand fell on me there. 2Then I saw, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of fire—from the appearance of his waist and downward, fire, and from his waist and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as it were glowing metal. 3He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north, where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy. 4Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the appearance that I saw in the plain. 5Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

Ezekiel is sitting in exile with the elders of Judah when the hand of the Lord falls on him, and the Spirit lifts him in a vision back to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner temple gate. There, right at the entrance, he is shown the image of jealousy, an idol planted in the house of God, provoking the Lord to jealousy. The glory of the God of Israel is still present, and yet the idol stands there too.

The vision is meant to show Ezekiel what is really going on inside the temple everyone assumed was fine. From a distance it looked like the house of God; up close there is a rival set up at the very door. God's jealousy here is not small or possessive. It is the jealousy of a covenant love that will not quietly share its own sanctuary with an idol.

If God lifted me for a close look at the temple of my own heart, what would he find set up near the door?

Sources

Ezekiel 8:6: "Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary."
Exodus 20:5: "For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God."
1 Corinthians 3:16: "Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?"