Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 6:4
And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain [men] before your idols.
4. your images ] As marg., sun-images, i.e. symbols of the sun-god, probably in the shape of a pyramid or obelisk. They stood beside the altars. So again Eze 6:6.
your idols ] The term used is an opprobrious or contemptuous epithet, applied to idols, though its precise meaning is doubtful. Most probably it means block -gods; though others connect it with the word dung (ch. Eze 4:12) and render dung-gods, which is less probable. The term occurs in Ez. nearly 40 times, otherwise Lev 26:30; Deu 29:17; Jer 50:2; 1Ki 15:12; 1Ki 21:26 ; 2Ki 17:12; 2Ki 21:11; 2Ki 21:21 ; 2Ki 23:24. These idols were probably of Jehovah for the most part.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Images – See the margin and margin reference, and the Eze 8:16 note.
Idols – The Phoenicians were in the habit of setting up heaps or pillars of stone in honor of their gods, which renders the use of the word more appropriate.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. Your images shall be broken] Literally, your sun images; representations of the sun, which they worshipped. See the margin.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Your altars; Gods altar was only at Jerusalem, these were their altars.
Desolate; no priest to attend, no sacrifice offered, nor a votary come to them.
Images; statues, and perhaps the particular images made to the sun, as the Hebrew word including heat may signify. Or the open places on the tops of your houses, where you worshipped the sun, 2Ki 23:5; and Isa 27:9, mentions this piece of idolatry.
Broken; either torn down from their places to be carried captives, which was a part of heathen conquerors insolence, or torn in pieces in contempt, and to be destroyed.
I will cast down; my hand shall guide the pursuing enemy, who shall slay your men before the altars of those idols they worshipped formerly, and to whom, as senseless as the idols, they flee for refuge, as perhaps Sennacherib did, Isa 37:38.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. imagescalled so from aHebrew root, “to wax hot,” implying the mad ardorof Israel after idolatry [CALVIN].Others translate it, “sun images”; and so in Eze6:6 (see 2Ki 23:11; 2Ch 34:4;Isa 17:8, Margin).
cast your slain men beforeyour idolsThe foolish objects of their trust in the day ofevil should witness their ruin.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And your altars shall be desolate,…. Being pulled down; or because the priests and worshippers would now be slain, and there would be none to attend them:
and your images shall be broken; the “images of the sun” b. The word for images has its derivation from heat; and were so called, either from the heat of the sun, to whose worship they were devoted, or from the heat of the love and affections of their worshippers:
and I will cast down your slain [men] before your idols; before your dung, or your “dunghill gods” c; for the word used has the signification of dung, Eze 4:12. The Targum renders it,
“before the carcass of your idols;”
where they committed idolatry, there they should be slain; which points at the cause of their punishment.
b “simulacra vestra solis”, Pagninus; “solaria vestra”, Vatablus; “subdiales statuae vestrae”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus. c “coram stercoreis diis vestris”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus “coram stercoribus vestris”, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Hence it appears how greatly obedience pleases God, and how true it is that it is better than sacrifices. (1Sa 15:22; 1Kg 12:0.) For it is certain that the Israelites extolled their own fictions exorbitantly, as if they were worshipping God correctly In the beginning, indeed, Jeroboam cunningly devised those new rites, that he might alienate the ten tribes from the family of David, and at length the error spread, so that they thought that God approved that impious worship. But we see that God abominates them. We should always hold this principle, that although men think that they obey God when they thrust in their own fictions, yet they produce no other effect than to provoke the wrath of God against them. This vengeance, therefore, had not been taken against altars, unless God had been greatly offended with the impious mixture. Your altars, therefore, shall come to ruin and destruction, and then your idols shall be destroyed. Here some understand the idols of the sun, as the noun is taken from heat, which is afterwards repeated: but this divination seems to be too contracted Hence I do not doubt that the idols are so called on account of the mad love with which the worshippers were seized: for throughout the Prophets they are said to be like adulterers, and our Prophet also uses the same language. Idols therefore may very properly derive their name from heat, because their superstitious worshippers inflame themselves with love, and like adulterers run after harlots, as we shall again see. He afterwards uses another word, when he says, I will lay prostrate your slain before your idols: for they call idols גלולים, gelolim, on account of their foulness, nay even filth. We see then in the first place that the fury with which the Israelites were inflamed is condemned by the Prophet, since they perverted the pure and lawful worship of God: then he reproves their enormity because they willingly remained in filth and defilement. But here also we are taught how mightily God is angry with all superstitions, when he not only cites mankind to his tribunal because they profane true piety, but is angry with external instruments — as stones and wood, and, as it were, involves these instruments of idolatry with their authors. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Your images.The original word indicates, as is shown in the margin, that these were images used in connection with the worship of the sun. The whole verse is taken from Lev. 26:30. The same woes were there foretold by Moses in the contingency of the peoples disobedience; that contingency had now come to pass, the promised judgments had already begun, and Ezekiel declares that the fulfilment of them was close at hand.
Your slain men before your idols.Their idols should be worshipped no longer by the living, but by the prostrate bodies of their dead worshippers. In this and the following verse a kind of poetic justice is described. There was nothing so utterly defiling under the Mosaic law as the touch of a dead body. (See Num. 9:6-10; 2Ki. 23:14; 2Ki. 23:16.) The Israelites had defiled the land with idols, now the idols themselves should be defiled with their dead bodies.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Images Sun images, dedicated to Baal (2Ch 34:4). These were usually pillars or obelisks which were set up close to the altar or in front of the temple doors.
Idols Rather, idol blocks or doll images, possibly dung gods. (See also Eze 6:6; Eze 6:9; Eze 6:13.) This is a favorite term with Ezekiel, and it is the most contemptuous epithet possible. The prophet had the utmost scorn of idols and satirized them without mercy. (See Isa 40:19; Isa 44:9-17.) This word for idols is used in “Ezekiel’s favorite text-books” (Lev 26:30; Deu 29:17).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eze 6:4 And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain [men] before your idols.
Ver. 4. Your images shall be broken down. ] Heb., Your sun images, whence also Jupiter Hammon had his name, which Macrobius a saith was the same with the sun. See 2Ch 23:5 .
And I will cast down your slain men.
Before your idols.
a Lib. i. Sat., cap. 23.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
images = sun = images. Ref, to Pentateuch (Lev 26:30). App-92. Compare 2Ch 14:5; 2Ch 34:4, 2Ch 34:7, Isa 17:8; Isa 27:9.
idols = manufactured gods.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Eze 6:4-7
Eze 6:4-7
“And your altars shall become desolate, and your sun-images shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay down the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling-places, the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your sun-images may be hewn down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am Jehovah.”
Here is a prophecy of God’s total destruction of the system of worship into which apostate Israel had fallen.
“Your slain men before your idols …” (Eze 6:4). Bruce tells us that the Hebrew word here rendered as idols, “Is a derogatory term frequently found in Ezekiel, meaning something like `dungheaps.'” Feinberg thought that Ezekiel might have coined this word; “He used it 39 times.”
“Your sun-images …” (Eze 6:4). “These were pillars or obelisks connected with the worship of Baal, the sun god, and they were found standing near his altars.” Some scholars have identified them as phallic symbols.
“These high places were connected with Canaanite fertility rites, an orgiastic worship embodying drunkenness and cultic prostitution. Associated with such high places were idols, sacred stones, pillars, sacred trees, etc.”
The presence of dead bodies and bones around the altars and idols of the high places had two purposes, “(1) It defiled the idols with corpses; and (2) it showed the helplessness of the idols.”
“And ye shall know that I am Jehovah …” (Eze 6:7). This expression is found some sixty times in Ezekiel and was the customary way of concluding an oracle or a section of an oracle throughout the prophecy. One finds it in Exo 7:5; Exo 14:4; Exo 14:18, again demonstrating the familiarity of Ezekiel with the Book of Moses. “The motive for most of God’s actions was to bring about the acknowledgment by the nations of his sole power and deity.”
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
images: or, sun-images, and so, Eze 6:6, 2Ch 14:5, 2Ch 34:4, Jer 43:13, *marg.
and I: Eze 6:5, Eze 6:13, Lev 26:30, 1Ki 13:2, 2Ki 23:14, 2Ki 23:16-20, 2Ch 34:5, Jer 8:1, Jer 8:2
Reciprocal: 1Sa 5:4 – the head
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 6:4. The altars and idols were literally destroyed as the nation went down in captivity. But that fact may well be regarded as a sign of the complete cure from idolatry that was brought about by the exile in the land of Babylon. See the historical note at Isa 1:25 in volume 3 of this Commentary.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
6:4 And your altars shall be desolate, and your {b} images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain [men] before your idols.
(b) Read 2Ki 23:14 .