Ezekiel 5.1 : Ezekiel Sees the Temple
 
 


Now let’s get stuck into Ezekiel and the Departure of God from the temple on Mount Zion and planet earth

The first few chapters of the book of Ezekiel contain a prophecy about God leaving the temple in Jerusalem on planet earth and going off to heaven.
Ezekiel was a Jewish exile in Babylon in the years following 600 BCE, about the time the prophet Jeremiah was telling the Jews they would remain there for seventy years and buying back the family’s land to demonstrate God’s intention to redeem them after that period of atonement. 












Ezekiel had a vision similar to that experienced by John in chapter 3 of the book of Revelation. God was sitting on his throne surrounded by angels. Ezekiel was sitting down “by the rivers of Babylon” but in his vision he was transported to the temple in Jerusalem. It was not a very holy place. In fact God showed to him the evil that was being perpetrated within its precincts











But it was not just the temple that had been made unholy by the actions of the people who visited it. 
They will drive me far from here, from my sanctuary
But things yet more detestable you will see”
It was those people themselves that were polluting what should have been the holy courts of the temple. Ezekiel was given an insight into their depraved minds – he was told to dig through a hole in the wall – to gaze upon the libidinous subconscious cravings and lusting of the priests and leaders of Israel.  

The vicious mindsets of the people who should be teaching God’s ways and laws to the people of Jerusalem – the unholy shepherds of God’s flock - were made manifest in the way they had corrupted the worship of God. They had degraded it into a form of idolatry. The women worshiped Astarte – the fertility cult of the seasonal nature goddess and her son whose death they mourn at the end of summer, and whose return they celebrate in spring. The men worship the sun.  

Then the glory of Jehovah spoke of worse things, yet at hand

Ezekiel_please_explain.html
Kicking back on my living room
Saw a form like to a man, I was in swoon
Waist down he was like flaming fire
But he turned to molten metal, as you looked higher




Reached out and took me by the hair To the north gate of the temple – it was Satan’s lair
To the desolating sacrilege that I did see
Then the glory of Jehovah it spoke to me
Saying, “Envy, jealousy radiate
In the evil that my people here do perpetrate
They will drive me far from here, from my sanctuary
But things yet more detestable you will see”

Then he brought me to the entrance of the outer court
To a hole in the wall, at least that’s what I thought
Said, “Dig still further til you come unto a door,
Enter through that portal, tell me what you saw”
So I came into a room with murals all around
There were creping things, and monsters and idols there I found
There were hypercritic holy men with censers wafting clouds
They were worshipping the idols in the dark that did enshroud
There were reaching out for comfort in the sirens empty charms Finding loneliness and loathing in cold, unloving arms                Seeking not the holy presence, soon departing from the land        



Ezekiel takes a trip to the temple in Zion