A cursory reading of Ezekiel chapter 5-7 gives the idea that Israel defiled the sanctuary of the Lord by bringing idols and altars into it. There is good evidence for this reading even in the next chapter.1 But can there also be more to it? Let’s look at the context briefly. Here is the account of the defilement.
““Thus says the Lord God, ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations, with lands around her. But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations and against My statutes more than the lands which surround her; for they have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.’ Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor observed My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,’ therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again. Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; for I will execute judgments on you and scatter all your remnant to every wind. So as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also withdraw, and My eye will have no pity and I will not spare.”
Ezekiel 5:5-11 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/ezk.5.5-11.NASB1995
Next notice what the Lord says, and Ezekiel chapter 6 about the judgment regarding that defilement:
“And the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them and say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, the hills, the ravines and the valleys: “Behold, I Myself am going to bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places. So your altars will become desolate and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols. I will also lay the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars. In all your dwellings, cities will become waste and the high places will be desolate, that your altars may become waste and desolate, your idols may be broken and brought to an end, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be blotted out. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the Lord. “However, I will leave a remnant, for you will have those who escaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered among the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations. Then they will know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would inflict this disaster on them.” ’”
Ezekiel 6:1-10 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/ezk.6.1-10.NASB1995
Here, the Lord speaks to the mountains, hills, valleys, ravines, which are locations for alters, high places, and altars of incense. All of these ritual locations that defiled the sanctuary that are listed here are entirely outside the temple.
The problem is, “how do cultic locations in the land defile the house of God?”
The answer has been discussed at length in the works of Jacob Milgrom, and Jonathan Klawans and relates to those defilements listed in Leviticus 18 through 20, those which Klawans terms “moral defilement”.2
As the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7 addressed those sins and defilements listed from Leviticus 11 through 15, so the Yom Kipper in Leviticus 16, and the blood on the altar in Leviticus 17 addressed those sins and defilements enumerated in Leviticus 18- 20.
The second set of sins dealt with by the Yom Kippur and the blood on the altar, are said to bring defilement on the land and the sanctuary. These sins are specifically grave sexual sin, blood sin (murder, unjust killing. eating or misuse of blood), and idolatry.3 Release from these sins and their defilements does not involve sprinkling of persons with blood. Rather, they require sprinkling of the tabernacle furnishings with blood. Continuing or not addressing this category of sin defiled the land resulting in the expulsion of God‘s people and defiles the sanctuary, resulting in the departure of God‘s presence from His people.
The letter to the Hebrews deals with these two issues: the people of God in the presence of God (Hebrews 9-10), and the people of God entering the land of God‘s rest (Hebrews 3-6). We are told that these can only be accomplished when the stains of humanity’s sins are washed from the furnishings of the heavenly Tabernacle (Hebrews 9:12-28).
This is the shortcoming Hebrews 10:1-4 describes regarding the Yom Kippur sacrifice. The sacrifices on Yom Kippur were of the same sort as the tamid and occasional sacrifices of Israel (blood of bulls and goats). In other words, the blood of sacrifices was continually applied to the altar of burnt offering, the altar of incense, and the curtains of the sanctuary and the Yom Kippur offering was more of the same sort of blood (Hebrews 9:6-10). Yom Kippur always promised a day in which the blood of all the previous sins would be washed away by better blood, but that better blood was yet to be provided. It awaited the day it could be offered in a better sanctuary by a better priest (Hebrews 9:11-14)
Hebrews nine and 10 argues that the blood that washes away all the history of sin and relieves creation from the burden, culpability and stains of that sin was provided once and for all at the end of time by the death of Jesus.
Footnotes:
- Ezekiel 8 gives such a vision, but by nature of Ezekiel’s unique entrance into the Temple in which he digs he way through the wall of the Jerusalem Temple from this location in the Babylonian exile, we are lift to wonder whether this vision is one of actual idols in hidden places of the Temple or idols in the hearts of those who are in the Temple to worship the LORD. More definite examples of physical cultic objects and altars in the Temple can be found in 2Kings. Massassah placed an Ashorah pole in the Temple which was later removed and destroyed by Josiah as recorded in 2Kings:6-16.
- See especially Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism, Oxford University Press, 2004)
- In Acts 15, the Jerusalem counsel sees the death of Christ as the resurrection of the Tabernacle of David in which the gentiles may now come and worship, so long as they abstain from these three defiling sins, sexual immorality, idolatry, and misuse of blood.