Ezekiel 8:16

About twenty-five men in the inner court turn their backs to the temple and worship the rising sun. It is the climactic abomination, open idolatry at the heart of God's house.

Cross-references · 20

• Deut 4:19and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
• Deut 17:3and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded;
• Jer 32:33They have turned to me the back, and not the face: and though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.
• Jer 2:27who tell wood, ‘You are my father;’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me:’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us.’
• Ezek 11:1Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of Yahweh’s house, which looks eastward: and see, at the door of the gate twenty-five men; and I saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
• Job 31:26–28if I have seen the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in splendor,
• Ezek 43:5The Spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and behold, Yahweh’s glory filled the house.
• Joel 2:17Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
• Jer 44:17But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil.
• Acts 7:42–43But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
• Ezek 45:19The priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it on the door posts of the house, and on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the posts of the gate of the inner court.
• 2 Kgs 23:11He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of Yahweh’s house, by the room of Nathan Melech the officer, who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
• Ezek 10:3Now the cherubim stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court.
• 2 Chr 29:6For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs.
• 1 Kgs 8:29that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there;’ to listen to the prayer which your servant prays toward this place.
• Ezek 40:28Then he brought me to the inner court by the south gate: and he measured the south gate according to these measurements;
• Ezek 23:35“Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’”
• 2 Kgs 23:5He got rid of the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky.
• 2 Kgs 16:14The bronze altar, which was before Yahweh, he brought from the front of the house, from between his altar and Yahweh’s house, and put it on the north side of his altar.
• 2 Chr 7:7Moreover Solomon made the middle of the court that was before Yahweh’s house holy; for there he offered the burnt offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the fat.

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