Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: “Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. 4 Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. 5 And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. 6 In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. 7 The slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
8 “Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 9 Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.”
11 ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Pound your fists and stamp your feet, and say, ‘Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. 12 He who is far off shall die by the pestilence, he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus will I spend My fury upon them. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols. 14 So I will stretch out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” ’ ” Ezekiel 6 NKJV
Ezekiel 6: 1-7 Idolatrous Nation
…13He also removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother because she had made a detestable Asherah pole. Asa chopped down the pole and burned it in the Kidron Valley. 14The high places were not removed, but Asa’s heart was fully devoted to the LORD all his days. 15And he brought into the house of the LORD the silver and gold and other articles that he and his father had dedicated.… 1 Kings 15: 13-15
…42Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-five years. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi. 43And Jehoshaphat walked in all the ways of his father Asa; he did not turn away from them, but did what was right in the eyes of the LORD. The high places, however, were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. 44Jehoshaphat also made peace with the king of Israel.… 1 Kings 22: 42-44
…22And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and by the sins they committed they provoked Him to jealous anger more than all their fathers had done. 23They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. 24There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the abominations of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.… 1 Kings 14: 22-24
1-7. Set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them - I remember living in the mountains, it is a popular place to visit, and nothing wrong in them of themselves, truly they are a wonderful place to experience majesty, to gain perspective. Mountains do not cause men to sin, the beauty and light of the sun demands worship, but not of itself; they were created by God, they are to serve His purpose. When I lived in the Appalachians there was a lot of superstition surrounding the mountains, people who thought there were spiritual "nodes" there, places where they could tie into spiritual energy, find their Qi, worship mother nature or any of a hosts of other gods and goddesses of the forests, Druid or other. There was a draw for me and my young friends in that there were a lot of girls who were in to this, went to Rainbow gatherings, Grateful Dead concerts, collected crystals and most importantly subscribed to free "love" and open nudity. God had set up a system of true worship in Israel, designated the temple in Jerusalem, and even instituted the approach. When you read the scriptures above you can see that it doesn't take long, only a generation before what is forbidden becomes tolerated and eventually generally accepted, some don't even remember that there was a time when it was considered wrong.
A lot of this started with Solomon and his disobedience to the law unto kings, for he took many wives and they worshiped pagan gods, which Solomon entertained. Then their came the splitting of the kingdom after him, and a very pragmatic ruler in Jeroboam, who led the people to worship in a way that God did not ordain, all so he could keep them from returning to Jerusalem, for he feared he would lose control over them. Now every king after him, who allowed the apostate Judaism, worship of calves and the self styled or pagan influenced high places, was said to sin in the way of Jeroboam, what a legacy.
Thus says the Lord God to the mountains - Many of the high places were put in literally high places, atop mountains. The people that God had chased out of the land before them, they worshiped in these places, their cults gathered there. One of the first attempts of manmade religion, after the flood, was the building of a high tower, the tower of Babel. Some early historians (I think Josephus is one) believed this to be Nimrod and his wife's answer to God's judgment in the flood, that they could build a tower so tall that God could not bring justice like that against them again. Remember the rainbow?
“Probably in any part of Palestine at this time you would have found some mountain or hill crowned with an altar, one or two standing stones, a wooden pillar, and a clump of evergreen trees (Jer. 3.6-9); They were flourishing centres of the old Canaanite religion which should have been destroyed (Deut. 7.5).” (Wright)
To the hills - A not so high place. Many hills had orchards and vineyards, and with many of these false religions there was drunkenness, because it helped lessen inhibitions, which helped with their sexual worship. Many of these places had Asherah poles because Asherah was the Canaanite goddess who mothered the god Baal and at least 69 others, which says much to her fertility. Some of these poles were just special trees, others probably carved phallic symbols, since fertility was very important to these people, hence the drunken orgies. Now, however inviting or reasonable this behavior or worship was in their minds, God hated it. He called Israel out from among the peoples of the earth to worship in spirit and in truth. The hills didn't cause the people to sin, nor the trees or the wine, that was all in their hearts to begin with. I use to get drunk to lessen my inhibitions, to have something to blame when I used a corny line to get a girl to come back to my hotel room. We use to pick mushrooms in the field, buy LSD and ecstasy, and then relate those experiences to the "spiritual", thinking the more out of our minds and control, the more we were in the spirit. Sadly, one of the fruits of the spirit is self control, and faith came by hearing and hearing by the word of God which was inspired by the Spirit, yet we thought we could somehow bypass it with our own fire. How did that work for Nadab and Abihu, or for Ananias and Sapphira when they lied to the Holy Spirit?
Dionysius then according to Greek mythology, spawned a religion, a religion of ecstasy, ekstasia, and emotionalism. And the Dionysian cult, this religion of ecstasy and emotionalism, this frenzied kind of religion saturated the Greek and Roman world. The Dionysian cult was a debauched form of worship and a popular, a dominate form. The worshipers committed atrocities with human organs. They engaged in orgies of sexual perversion along with music and dancing and feasting. But there was one common element to all of the Dionysian debacle and that was drunkenness. Drunkenness. In fact, if you ever circulate in the Middle East or in the ancient Roman world, you will see Dionysius associated with grapes, when there is a statue of a tribute to Dionysius, some monument to Dionysius it is always marked out by clusters of grapes, because he became known as the god of wine. The Greek name of Dionysius became in the roman language, Latin, Bacchus. And Bacchus is the Roman God of wine, when people engaged in these unbelievable drunken brawls, they were called Bacchanalian feasts and if you have studied any of that, that’s a familiar term. Even today. Take your dictionary out and look up Bacchanalia and it will say a drunken orgy. The key element then, the key element in pagan worship was drunkenness. That’s how they got their inhibitions out. That’s how they dealt with their normal restraint. That’s how they dealt with normal feelings of guilt. That’s how they dull their sense sufficiently to quiet their conscious. That’s how they dispel their anxiety and fear and guilt over such vial behavior as they engaged in. - From J Mac series "A Plan For Your Family: God's vs. the Worlds"
…17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord,… Ephesians 5: 17-19
To the ravines - In some cultures, Egypt being one very familiar to Israel, they had the worship of things in the underworld, and this persists today. Adolph Hitler and many of his minions, including a very strange order of Buddhists monks looked for places that were considered gateways to the underworld. This may be the reference to ravines.
To the valleys - It is no secret what when on in the valley of Hinnom. This is where they would pass their children through the fire, a thing that God was expressly against.
Hebrew uses the word toph for "drum". This was another name for the valley of Hinnom, an east-west valley at the south end of Jerusalem where, when children were burned in sacrifice to idols, drums were beaten to drown their cries. - J Mac Study Bible
I even I - They weren't good at self governance and justice still had to be carried out.
Your altars...your incense altars - This is of special note because many who sought to worship the true God did so in an unacceptable manner, like Jeroboam. He didn't call it another religion, but he violated God's altar by making his own and creating idols. God is saying these aren't My altars, they belong to you.
…3You shall have no other gods before Me. 4You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,… Exodus 20: 3-5
I will scatter your bones - It was already defiled in it's birth, superstitious, gross practice, against the God of decency and order.
“The ‘scattering of bones’ is a phrase used for judgment in which uncleanness and shame are conveyed (cf. Pss 53:5; 141:7). The bones would be those of the Israelites who had become engrossed in these pagan practices.” (Alexander)
The high places shall be desolate - He would crush the altars, remove the priests.
You shall know that I am the Lord - Since the fall, the calling back is always consistent with bringing men to this first truth from which all else comes.
“This so-called recognition formula, which occurs some sixty times in the book, captures the theme of this prophet. God’s motive in all that he does is that he might be recognized as the only God.” (Smith)
…3Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you. 4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. 5And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.… Deuteronomy 6: 3-5
…57Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?” 58“Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59At this, they picked up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple area.… John 8: 57-59
5“Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”… John 14: 5-7
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