Ezekiel 43:8

Eze 43:8 In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger.

Ver. 8. In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds.] By broaching falsehoods for truth, and setting human devices in competition with the good Word of God. That detestable decree of the Council of Trent is well known, whereby the Apocrypha is set cheek by jowl, as they say, with the holy canon; the Vulgate translation with the original; traditions with Scriptures, and unwritten verities with those that are written. This is intolerable presumption. Jews and Turks do the like in their Talmud and Koran; that I speak not of our sect masters, who boldly obtrude their placits without just reproof, and require to be believed.

And the wall between me and them.] Which they have wretchedly set up by their sins, to their singular disadvantage; {Isa 59:2} or, They have come under my nose, as it were, to provoke me; or, The nearer they were to Church, the farther from God.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 8. In their setting of their threshold] They had even gone so far as to set up their idol altars by those of Jehovah; so that their abominable idols were found in the very house of God! therefore, "he consumed them in his anger."

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(8) And the wall between.—The sense is given in the margin: there was only a wall between me and them.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. Ref. is to the fact that the royal palace and the first temple stood virtually within the same enclosure and were one ensemble of edifice. See the sketch in W. R. Smith’s Art. Temple, Encyc. Brit.

and the wall between] with but the wall between me and them; and they defiled.…

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In their setting of their threshold by my threshold,.... The threshold is the way of entrance into the house; when men open any other way of entrance into the house of God than he has directed, it is setting up their threshold by his: the Gospel way of entrance into the church of Christ is Christ himself, and faith in him, and a profession of it, and submission to the ordinance of baptism, Joh 10:1, Act 2:41 but when men make carnal descent, religious education, mere morality and civility, the way of entrance into church communion; this is opposite to God's way, and is resented by him; this shall not be hereafter:

and their post by my post; which is done when the ordinances of men are substituted in the room of the ordinances of God, or set upon a level with them; when the ordinances of God are changed and altered, or that brought into his worship which he has not commanded; and the commandments of men are taught for the doctrines of God: so the Pharisees set up the traditions of the elders as equal to the written word, and, made it of no effect by them; as the Papists do, by setting up their traditions, under the name of the traditions of the apostles, and of the church, upon a level with the Scriptures; and the same is done when men set up their own doctrines, concerning the Persons in the Godhead, concerning the power and purity of human nature, and the way of redemption; and oppose their own works to the grace of God, in justification, pardon, and salvation; the allusion is to the setting up of altars and idols in the house of the Lord, by his altar, Kg2 21:4,

and the wall between me and them; that these sins and abominable practices were a wall of separation between God and them, and caused him to hide himself from them, withdraw his presence, and deny them communion with him, Isa 49:2, some render it, "for" or "so that there was but a wall between me and them" (s); so near were their thresholds, posts, and altars, to his:

they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: by their false doctrines, idolatrous worship, and immoral lives; such abominations as before mentioned:

wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger; as the Jews are now, and all the antichristian states will be.

(s) "ita ut paries tantum esset inter me et illos", Piscator.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Wall. The kings of Juda had a door communicating with the temple, by which they entered on the west. It was guarded by Levites, 1 Paralipomenon xxvi. 16. Ezechiel places no door on that side. Yet in Herod’s temple we find one leading to the adjacent palace, and three others into the town. (Josephus, Antiquities xv. 14.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The idolatrous kings of Judah and Israel built, temples and altars for their idols, and these are called their thresholds. The Jews, or people of Judah, and their kings, erected these in the courts, or near the courts., of the temple, and so ill local nearness their threshold was by God’s thresholds, and their posts by his, that they were a nuisance to him. And there was but a wall between me and them, that under my eye, and within my hearing, they have with greatest presumption defiled my name.

Defiled my holy name; despised my ordinances, corrupted my worship, or forsaken it, used me as if I were neither great nor holy.

Abominations; abominable idolatries, and wickednesses not to be named.

Committed; acted boldly and openly, against precept, threat, and admonitions.

Wherefore I have consumed them; for which sins I brought destruction upon them. The Chaldeans ruined them, but they were the rod of God’s anger.

In mine anger; in great displeasure and wrath, i.e. in my provoked justice, as Eze 20:13; 22:31.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds etc. The first "their" can only refer to "the house of Israel and their kings;" the second "their" may also allude to these, but is best taken as pointing to the "idols," whose thresholds or temples, according to the view adopted of the preceding verse, were set up in the court of Jehovah"s temple, and so close to the latter that nothing stood between them except the temple wall Smend, who favors the second view of the preceding verse, considers this verse as a complaint against the kings for having erected their royal residence on Mount Zion, in the immediate vicinity of the temple; but as David"s palace was older than the temple, it is not likely Ezekiel was guilty of perverting history in the manner this hypothesis would imply.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Their threshold - The kings of Judah and Israel, built temples and altars for their idols, and these are called their thresholds. They erected these in the courts, or near the courts of the temple. Abominations - Idolatries, and wickednesses not to be named.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

and I destroyed [Heb. וָאַכַל,] like וָאֲכַלֶה, [equivalent to] וְכִלִיתִי, and I destroyed.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.