Ezekiel 8:2-4
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
2 I looked up and there was a figure that looked like a man.[a] Downward from what looked like his waist, there was fire; from his waist upward, like the brilliance of polished bronze.(A)
Vision of Abominations in the Temple. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand and seized me by the hair of my head. The spirit lifted me up[b] between earth and heaven and brought me in divine vision to Jerusalem(B) to the entrance of the inner gate facing north where the statue of jealousy that provokes jealousy stood. 4 There I saw the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision I had seen in the plain.(C)
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- 8:2 Looked like a man: the divine presence which accompanies Ezekiel in these visions. Cf. 40:3–4.
- 8:3 The spirit lifted me up: the prophet is transported in vision from Babylon to Jerusalem. Ezekiel may be drawing on his memory of the Temple from before his exile in 598 B.C. The statue of jealousy: the statue which provokes the Lord’s outrage against the insults of his own people; perhaps the statue of the goddess Asherah set up by Manasseh, king of Judah (cf. 2 Kgs 21:7; 2 Chr 33:7, 15). Although his successor, Josiah, had removed it (2 Kgs 23:6), the statue may have been set up again after his death.
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