Context No. 3466 of 4322 · Ezekiel
Context · Reflection
Ezekiel 8:12-18: in context
12Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, ‘The LORD doesn’t see us. The LORD has forsaken the land.’” 13He said also to me, “You will again see more of the great abominations which they do.” 14Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’s house which was toward the north; and I saw the women sit there weeping for Tammuz. 15Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? You will again see yet greater abominations than these.” 16He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house; and I saw at the door of the LORD’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the LORD’s temple and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east. 17Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger. Behold, they put the branch to their nose. 18Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.”
God shows Ezekiel the hidden idolatry going on in the temple itself: the elders worshiping images in the dark, women weeping for a pagan god, men with their backs to the temple bowing to the sun. And he reveals the elders' telling excuse: the LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.
That lie is the root of secret sin, the belief that God does not see, that what we do in the dark goes unobserved. But of course God did see; he was showing Ezekiel the very things the elders thought were hidden. Nothing is done in a darkness God cannot see into. Their idolatry was worse for being secret and self-justified, carried on in the confidence that no divine eye was watching. There is a searching warning here: the sins we commit in secret, telling ourselves that no one sees, are fully known to God, before whom no darkness is dark. What we do believing that God does not see is fully open before him.
Do I live as though God sees everything, even what I do in secret, rather than deceiving myself that what is hidden from others is hidden from him?
Sources
- Ezekiel 8:12: "Have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark...? For they say, The LORD doesn't see us."
- Ezekiel 8:18: "Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won't spare, neither will I have pity."
- Psalm 139:12: "Even the darkness doesn't hide from you, but the night shines as the day."