Ezekiel 4:3

4:3 Then for your part take an iron frying pan ¹  and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it. It is to be under siege; you are to besiege it. This is a sign ²  for the house of Israel.

Ezekiel 8:3

8:3 He stretched out the form ³  of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head. Then a wind ⁴  lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem ⁵  by means of divine visions, to the door of the inner gate which faces north where the statue ⁶  which provokes to jealousy was located.

Ezekiel 8:16

8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there ⁷  at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, ⁸  were about twenty-five ⁹  men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, ¹⁰  facing east – they were worshiping the sun ¹¹  toward the east!

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¹ tn Or “a griddle,” that is, some sort of plate for cooking.

² tn That is, a symbolic object lesson.

³ tn The Hebrew term is normally used as an architectural term in describing the pattern of the tabernacle or temple or a representation of it (see Exod 25:8; 1 Chr 28:11).

⁴ tn Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in 2:2.

⁵ map For the location of Jerusalem see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁶ tn Or “image.”

⁷ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

⁸ sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).

⁹ tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.

tn Or “exactly twenty-five.”

¹⁰ sn The temple faced east.

¹¹ tn Or “the sun god.”

sn The worship of astral entities may have begun during the reign of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:5).