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Ezekiel 8:3 · World English Bible

Ezekiel 8:3 Meaning He Stretched Out the Form

He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

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What does Ezekiel 8:3 mean?

In a vision a man feels himself carried inward, past all the outer rooms, into the most private and sacred center of himself. And there, in the very place he thought was holy, he finds something shameful set up like an idol.

From the Psychoanalysis reading below.

Ezekiel 8:3 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

PSYCHOANALYSIS

Psychoanalysis

In a vision a man feels himself carried inward, past all the outer rooms, into the most private and sacred center of himself. And there, in the very place he thought was holy, he finds something shameful set up like an idol.

This is one of the hardest discoveries a person can make. We imagine our core is pure and that the trouble lies out at the edges, in our circumstances or in other people. The inner journey shows otherwise. Right at the center, where we least want to look, sits the thing we have been feeding without admitting it, some old resentment or craving we have quietly made into a god. Only once he sees it clearly can he stop feeding it, and slowly it loses its power over him.

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Psychoanalysis lens

Live Ezekiel 8:3 today

  1. Think of the grudge or the craving you rehearse when you are alone, in the shower, in the car, at two in the morning. Name it once, out loud, as plainly as you can. Not to fix it today, just to admit it has an address.
  2. Next time you catch yourself explaining to someone why a certain person is the problem, stop halfway and ask yourself what you get out of that story. There is usually something, and it is usually worth knowing.
  3. When you are criticized today and feel the heat rise, look for the half of it that is true before you answer. That half is pointing at the thing you have been feeding.

What do you defend the hardest, and why does it need defending?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · Dhammapada

The real enemy is not out in the world. It is the craving set up quietly inside, and no one else can pull it down for you.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

He reminds himself that the fault is almost never in the event but in his own judgment about it, and that the judgment lives in the one place he keeps claiming is sound.

Sufism · al-Ghazali

The heart is described as a mirror meant to reflect truth, and the work is scraping off what has quietly filmed over it. The idol most people serve is not carved from wood, it is their own standing.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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