Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’” Ezekiel 8:12
God, in a vision, brought Ezekiel to the door of the Outer Court, along the sides where the priests’ lodgings were. God brought him step by step, from place to place, to show Ezekiel what care and caution the priests took to conceal their idolatry. The priests had constructed a wall to conceal their lodgings and to ensure that they were more private. We could also speculate that the priests did not want to lie open to the observation of those who passed by—a shrewd sign that they knew they were doing something which they had reason to be ashamed of.
This was what Ezekiel saw:
1) He saw a chamber with idolatrous pictures (Ezek. 8:10): All the idols which they had borrowed from the neighboring nations were portrayed upon the wall of the chamber. They were in the forms of creeping things and beasts, including those that were abominable, poisonous and venomous.
2) He saw a chamber filled with idolatrous worshippers (8:11): There were seventy men of the elders of Israel offering incense to these painted idols. These seventy men could well be the Sanhedrin, or chief council of the nation. They were the elders of Israel, and their duty was to restrain and punish idolatry and to destroy and abolish all superstitious images in the land of Israel. See how far they had fallen in the folly of their sin? God describes these acts as works done in the dark (8:12); for sinful works are works of darkness. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the world, which will be declared in the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. God said that what happened in that idolatrous chamber was a specimen of many others like them.
And they think that God does not see them. They imagine that just because men could not discover it, nor did any of their neighbors suspect them to be idolaters, that therefore it was hidden from the eye of God. Psalm 44:20-21 says, “If we had forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.” It is foolish for us to think that God does not see us when we sin. If we want to have wisdom and success in life, we need to choose the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:29). Let’s learn to be like Jesus. Isaiah prophesied that His delight is in the fear of the Lord (Is. 11:3). Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”
God, in a vision, brought Ezekiel to the door of the Outer Court, along the sides where the priests’ lodgings were. God brought him step by step, from place to place, to show Ezekiel what care and caution the priests took to conceal their idolatry. The priests had constructed a wall to conceal their lodgings and to ensure that they were more private. We could also speculate that the priests did not want to lie open to the observation of those who passed by—a shrewd sign that they knew they were doing something which they had reason to be ashamed of.
This was what Ezekiel saw:
1) He saw a chamber with idolatrous pictures (Ezek. 8:10): All the idols which they had borrowed from the neighboring nations were portrayed upon the wall of the chamber. They were in the forms of creeping things and beasts, including those that were abominable, poisonous and venomous.
2) He saw a chamber filled with idolatrous worshippers (8:11): There were seventy men of the elders of Israel offering incense to these painted idols. These seventy men could well be the Sanhedrin, or chief council of the nation. They were the elders of Israel, and their duty was to restrain and punish idolatry and to destroy and abolish all superstitious images in the land of Israel. See how far they had fallen in the folly of their sin? God describes these acts as works done in the dark (8:12); for sinful works are works of darkness. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the world, which will be declared in the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. God said that what happened in that idolatrous chamber was a specimen of many others like them.
And they think that God does not see them. They imagine that just because men could not discover it, nor did any of their neighbors suspect them to be idolaters, that therefore it was hidden from the eye of God. Psalm 44:20-21 says, “If we had forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.” It is foolish for us to think that God does not see us when we sin. If we want to have wisdom and success in life, we need to choose the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:29). Let’s learn to be like Jesus. Isaiah prophesied that His delight is in the fear of the Lord (Is. 11:3). Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”
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