Ezekiel 8:16

Ezekiel 8:16 f. Sun Worship.— The next scene is a group of sun-worshippers with their backs significantly turned towards the Temple. This also points to Babylonian influence. Sun worship, abolished by Josiah ( 2 Kings 23:11) had apparently been reintroduced. What the more abominable thing, alluded to in Ezekiel 8:17, may have been, we do not know, as the phrase “ they put the branch to their nose” is obscure: some imagine it conceals a reference to a definitely immoral worship. [But see J. H. Moulton’ s Early Zoroastrianism, pp. x, 189– 191. He says, referring to the Magi. “ The earliest evidence of their activity as a sacred tribe is in Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 8:17), where they are found at Jerusalem, in or before 591 B.C., worshipping the sun, and holding to their face a branch, which is the predecessor of the later barsom” (p. x). Of the barsom he says that Parsi priests still hold it “ to the face as they minister before the sacred fire” (p. 190). J. G. Frazer, with reference to Strabo’ s account of Zoroastrianism in Cappadocia, says: “ The perpetual fire burnt on an altar, surrounded by a heap of ashes, in the middle of the temple; and the priests daily chanted their liturgy before it, holding in their hands a bundle of myrtle rods and wearing on their heads tall felt caps with cheek-pieces which covered their lips, lest they should defile the sacred flame with their breath.”— Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3 i. 191.— A.S. P.] At any rate, after so many references to ritual sin, it is refreshing to find Ezekiel ending the indictment which justified the doom with a definite charge of wrong-doing: “ they have filled the land with violence.”