The Defilement and Desecration of the Temple in Ezekiel 373 as commanded by God himself. Whereas all other Temple-defiling acts involve sins committed against the divine will, here defilement results from a divine command to commit murder in the Temple courtyard. The obvious question arises as to why and how God could require an act that defiles the Temple, whose sanctity he so strictly demands be maintained. One possible answer is that the Temple has already been defiled by the people’s acts, and the divine presence has thus already left (20). Alternatively, this execution might serve as a symbolic act, aimed at heralding the Temple’s impending destruction. Indeed, chapter 8 begins by relating that these events occurred “in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month”, and they therefore preceded the actual destruction, which occurred several years later, as chronicled in chapter 33: “It was in the twelfth year, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, of our exile, that a survivor from Jerusalem came to me, saying, ‘The city has fallen’” (v. 21) (21). This act should thus be seen merely as symbolic foreshadowing. Either way, God’s active defilement of the Temple demonstrates that it is no longer immune, as the divine presence has left it. Indeed, these chapters of Ezekiel describe the departure of the divine presence from the Temple. In any event, it emerges clearly from these verses that murderous acts in the Temple’s courtyard cause its defilement. 3. Ezek 23,38–39 In these verses, the Temple’s defilement occurs as a result of the sacrificial offering of children (22): “This, too (taz d/[) (23), they did to me: they defiled (wamf) my sanctuary on that day and they desecrated (wllj) my Sabbaths; namely, when they slaughtered their children to their idols they entered my sanctuary on that day (24) to desecrate it (wlljl). See, that is what they did inside my house!” (25) This type of Temple-defiling sin appears (20) See GREENBERG, Ezekiel 1–20 (AB; New York 1983) 177, where he compares this act to 2 Kgs 11,15 where, in order to preserve the purity of the Temple, Athaliah is removed from the sacred precinct prior to her execution. (21) The underlying conception here is that the prophecies found in Ezekiel 1–24 were delivered following the divine decision to destroy the Temple; consequently, they constitute an announcement, and not a warning. (22) This differs from passing children through fire to fetishes, which, according to Ezek 20,31, defiles the nation at large, and not merely the Temple. (23) The construction taz dw[ appears in the Bible four times, three times in Ezekiel (20,27; 23,38; 36,37) and once in 2 Sam (7,19). In all these cases, the phrase denotes an addition to the foregoing. (24) It should be noted that the phrase awhh μwyb is missing from the LXX in vv. 38 and 39, whereas all other instances of this phrase in Ezekiel appear there, as well. This can be explained by the redactor’s desire (MT) to emphasize that the idolatry and defilement of the Temple took place on that very day. This phrase, which appears fifteen times in Ezekiel, generally denotes that the events in question took place during a certain period, and more rarely, on that very day. (25) Ezek 23,37-39 addresses the manner in which the Temple becomes defiled. In v. 38, this status results from one’s arrival in the Temple after the sacrificial offering of his children, desecration of the Sabbath, or other unspecified acts that defile the sanctuary. The expression awhh μwyb appears in v. 39, as well, but as opposed to the previous verse, here the temporal component is explicit: μhylwlygl μhynb ta μfjçbw. Quite possibly, then, in this verse idol worship and the arrival in the Temple take place on the same day, and