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Ezekiel sees women wailing for Tammuz at the Temple gate and calls it abomination. Tammuz is the Akkadian name of Dumuzi, the dying god lamented in Ishtar’s Descent to the Netherworld.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ishtar’s Descent 135
Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld
Ancient Near East
If she does not give you a substitute for herself, bring her back! Bathe Tammuz, the lover of her youth, in pure water, anoint him with sweet oil, dress him in a red garment, let him play the lapis lazuli pipe [...]! Let prostitutes amuse his mind. Belili lifted up her jewelry, her lap was filled with eyestones. When she heard the wailing of her brother, Belili smote the jewelry of her body, the eyestones which covered the front of the cow. “Do not rob me of my only brother! When Tammuz rises (to me), the lapis lazuli pipe and the carnelian ring will rise with him (to me),
Date: 2300 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Ezekiel 8:14
Hebrew Bible
13 He said to me, “You will see them practicing even greater abominations!” 14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house. I noticed women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see even greater abominations than these!”
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Notes and References
"... Laments for Dumuzi are, of course, absent from the Bible as such, but Ezekiel’s condemnation of the women who sat at the gate of the Temple ‘wailing for the Tammuz’ (Ezekiel 8:14) shows not only that the practice was known in the exilic period, but that it was so widely accepted that Tammuz, the Akkadian name of Dumuzi, had become a generic noun in Israel. Of laments for kings, the outstanding Biblical example is David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan, who perished in battle against the Philistines (II Samuel 1:17-27). It belongs to a genre (the qînâ) whose special meter has been linked to the peculiar dance accompanying a wake. ..."
Hallo, William W.
Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions
(pp. 239-240) E.J. Brill, 1996
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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