Ezekiel 6, Idolatry as Adultery

When I used to work with young adults at my church, we took an annual pilgrimage to Pinnacle Mountain in Little Rock, Arkansas. We would hike to the top and spend time worshiping God there. Something about being up that high made God seem closer. Many have sought the heights to worship God. It was typical of idol worshipers and it became typical of Israel, even though God had told them this was wrong.

1 The word of Yahweh came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them 3 and say: ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Yahweh. This is what the Sovereign Yahweh says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. 4 Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will slay your people in front of your idols. 5 I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. 6 Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out. 7 Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.

The Hebrew word for high place used here is bāmâ. The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the Old Testament (ZIBBCOT) notes:

The Hebrews undoubtedly borrowed the word bāmâ (“high place”) from the Canaanites together with the idolatrous practices performed on it. It was a sort of “cultic platform” that was usually, though not always, situated on the wooded heights of a hill or mountain. Biblical references (e.g., Lev. 26:30; Num. 33:52; Deut. 12:2; 1 Kings 14:23) help us to identify the essential features of a typical bāmâ. On the raised cultic complex where different rituals were performed, one often found standing stones or “stela” (maṣṣēbâ), symbolic of both male and female divinities. The worshiper anointed such stones by pouring oil on them, believing that the spirit of the divinity inhabited such stones.

8 “‘But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations. 9 Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. 10 And they will know that I am Yahweh; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them.

God will spare a remnant of the people of Israel because He is faithful to His covenant with them and will not totally destroy them. This is why Israel is still a nation today. But at this time Israel has become guilty of spiritual adultery, worshiping other gods, being unfaithful to Yahweh. They have lusted after idols. ZIBBCOT notes:

The term gillûlîm used here is one of the key terms in Ezekiel and merits particular attention. It is one of the terms the prophet favors in order to designate pagan gods or idols. Out of its forty-nine occurrences in the Old Testament, it occurs thirty-nine times in Ezekiel. Since the time of the rabbinic commentator Ibn Ezra (1089 – 1164 C.E.), the term has had a particularly opprobrious and scatological connotation. He explained it in connection with Ezekiel 4:12, 15, mentioning “human excrement,” where the same root occurs. According to Ibn Ezra, the term represents an outrageous manner of designating pagan idols as dung. It seems to be a specially coined term of derision treating pagan idols as “dung-gods.”

11 “‘This is what the Sovereign Yahweh says: Strike your hands together and stamp your feet and cry out “Alas!” because of all the wicked and detestable practices of the people of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine and plague. 12 One who is far away will die of the plague, and one who is near will fall by the sword, and anyone who survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I pour out my wrath on them. 13 And they will know that I am Yahweh, when their people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak—places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols. 14 And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah—wherever they live. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’” (Ezekiel 6)

ZIBBCOT once again notes:

The Israelites who practice idolatry have incurred God’s wrath and are denied proper burial. The exposure of the corpses in the open space around the altars implies an invitation to vultures and other scavenging creatures. In the ancient Near East one finds the curse of throwing bodies out in the open as punishment for broken treaties.

God is not messing around with Israel. He will bring His people to repentance so that they may know that He is Yahweh, the only true God, the One who has made covenant with them.