8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there 1 at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, 2 were about twenty-five 3 men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, 4 facing east – they were worshiping the sun 5 toward the east!
43:18 Then he said to me: “Son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: These are the statutes of the altar: On the day it is built to offer up burnt offerings on it and to sprinkle blood on it, 10
47:1 Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple. I noticed 11 that water was flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from under the right side of the temple, from south of the altar.
1 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.
2 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).
3 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.”
4 sn The temple faced east.
5 tn Or “the sun god.”
sn The worship of astral entities may have begun during the reign of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:5).
6 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.
7 sn The six men plus the scribe would equal seven, which was believed by the Babylonians to be the number of planetary deities.
8 sn The upper gate was built by Jotham (2 Kgs 15:35).
9 tn Or “a scribe’s inkhorn.” The Hebrew term occurs in the OT only in Ezek 9 and is believed to be an Egyptian loanword.
10 sn For the “sprinkling of blood,” see Lev 1:5, 11; 8:19; 9:12.
11 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.