Ezekiel 6:13

6:13 Then you will know that I am the Lord – when their dead lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and all the mountaintops, under every green tree and every leafy oak, ¹  the places where they have offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

Ezekiel 8:16

8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there ²  at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, ³  were about twenty-five ⁴  men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, ⁵  facing east – they were worshiping the sun ⁶  toward the east!

Ezekiel 14:7

14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

Ezekiel 17:24

17:24 All the trees of the field will know that I am the Lord.

I make the high tree low; I raise up the low tree.

I make the green tree wither, and I make the dry tree sprout.

I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it!’”

Ezekiel 20:8

20:8 But they rebelled against me, and refused to listen to me; no one got rid of their detestable idols, ⁷  nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt. Then I decided to pour out ⁸  my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

Ezekiel 43:7

43:7 He said to me: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne ⁹  and the place for the soles of my feet, ¹⁰  where I will live among the people of Israel forever. The house of Israel will no longer profane my holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their spiritual prostitution or by the pillars of their kings set up when they die. ¹¹ 

Ezekiel 44:5

44:5 The Lord said to me: “Son of man, pay attention, ¹²  watch closely and listen carefully to ¹³  everything I tell you concerning all the statutes of the Lord’s house and all its laws. Pay attention to the entrances ¹⁴  to the temple with all the exits of the sanctuary.

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¹ sn By referring to every high hill…all the mountaintops…under every green tree and every leafy oak Ezekiel may be expanding on the phraseology of Deut 12:2 (see 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; 17:10; Jer 2:20; 3:6, 13; 2 Chr 28:4).

² tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

³ 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).

⁴ 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.”

⁵ sn The temple faced east.

⁶ tn Or “the sun god.”

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

⁷ tn Heb “each one, the detestable things of their eyes did not throw away.”

⁸ tn Heb “and I said/thought to pour out.”

⁹ sn God’s throne is mentioned in Isa 6:1; Jer 3:17.

¹⁰ sn See 1 Chr 28:2; Ps 99:5; 132:7; Isa 60:13; Lam 2:1.

¹¹ tn Heb “by their corpses in their death.” But the term normally translated “corpses” is better understood here as a reference to funeral pillars or funerary offerings. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:583-85, and L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:257.

¹² tn Heb “set your heart” (so also in the latter part of the verse).

¹³ tn Heb “Set your mind, look with your eyes, and with your ears hear.”

¹⁴ tc The Syriac, Vulgate, and Targum read the plural. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:618.