I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 5-8.

    I had commented on Jeremiah’s use of physical symbols and acting out his prophecies. Ezekiel took this even further. In chapter 4, he spent 390 days lying on his side in front of a model of Jerusalem under siege. In chapter 5, at the end of that time he shaved his head and beard. He took a third of the hair and burned it in the middle of his model of Jerusalem. Another third he chopped up with his sword (or, at least laid it on the ground and chopped at it with his sword). The final third of his hair he scattered to the wind. All of this was to indicate what would happen to the people of Israel still left in Jerusalem. All of this, Ezekiel said, would happen because of the sins of the people.

    Some time after this (the dates are given, but I don’t think they are relevant to what I am going to write today), Ezekiel had another vision from God. This one occurred while some of the leaders of the Exile community were visiting his house. In this vision he sees three separate forms of idolatry being committed by the people of Jerusalem. The first was an idol in the Temple courtyard. Several sources I found suggest that this idol was a statue of Astarte (also known as Ishtar). Several things I have read suggest that this may have actually been an amalgamation of Astarte and Asherah. In any case, it would have been a goddess which the people of Jerusalem placed as God’s equivalent (possibly even higher than God) and possibly as His consort. It is likely that Ezekiel is referring to the worship of the Queen of Heaven mentioned in Jeremiah. Then Ezekiel is taken to witness leaders of the people worshiping what are likely Egyptian gods in secret. From there he is taken back out to the north gate where he witnesses some women weeping over the god Tammuz, a fertility god associated with Astarte and the seasonal rebirth cycle. Finally, Ezekiel sees 25 men with their backs to God’s altar worshiping the sun.
    As I was reading this, and writing about it, it struck me that all of this represents the people of Jerusalem worshiping various, incompatible gods rather than remaining faithful to God. In many ways I see similarities to our society today, in that there was no unifying worship of a single deity. Everyone took their own interpretation of proper worship. There were those who worshiped Astarte in the form of a fertility goddess, where the focus was on sexual desire. Then there were those who worshiped other gods more secretively, where the focus was on power. Then we had those who worshiped Astarte and Tammuz, where sexual desire took a darker turn with the sacrifice of children. Finally, there were those who turned their back on God to worship nature in the form of the sun. I will leave you to your own thoughts about how these might connect to modern idolatry. We need to ask ourselves if we are guilty of any of these forms of idolatry.