Ezekiel 6:4

4 Your altars will be desolated and your incense altars smashed. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.^[a]

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 your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.

3 You are to say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God ! This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.

4 Your altars will be desolated and your incense altars smashed. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.

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

6 Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lv 26:30