Ezekiel 6:4

4 All your altars will be demolished, and your places of worship will be destroyed. I will kill your people in front of your idols.

Ezekiel 6:4 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 6:4

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" ^F2. 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" ^F3; for the word used has the signification of dung, ( Ezekiel 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 (Mkynmx) "simulacra vestra solis", Pagninus; "solaria vestra", Vatablus; "subdiales statuae vestrae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus.
F3 (Mkylwlg ynpl) "coram stercoreis diis vestris", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus; "coram stercoribus vestris", Cocceius.

Ezekiel 6:4 In-Context

2 “Son of man, turn and face the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.

3 Proclaim this message from the Sovereign LORD against the mountains of Israel. This is what the Sovereign LORD says to the mountains and hills and to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring war upon you, and I will smash your pagan shrines.

4 All your altars will be demolished, and your places of worship will be destroyed. I will kill your people in front of your idols.

5 I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and scatter your bones around your altars.

6 Wherever you live there will be desolation, and I will destroy your pagan shrines. Your altars will be demolished, your idols will be smashed, your places of worship will be torn down, and all the religious objects you have made will be destroyed.

Footnotes

• [a]. The Hebrew term (literally round things ) probably alludes to dung; also in 6:5, 6, 9, 13 .