Ezekiel 8:14

Tammuz. A deity worshiped by the Babylonians under the name Du’uzu, variously designated the brother or son, husband or lover, of the goddess Ishtar. Tammuz was the god of vegetation and pasture and the patron of flocks. According to ancient tradition he died annually and descended into the nether world. His passing was marked by the drying up of the crops, pastures, and streams by the summer’s heat. His departure was celebrated by public festivities of mourning and the singing of dirges in the 4th month of the Semitic year (Duzu or Tammuz, beginning in our June or July, see Vol. II, p. 116.) Annually, too, Ishtar was believed to descend into the underworld to awaken the dead god. His awakening and return were supposed to cause vegetation to flourish again. The Greeks preserved a similar account in their myth of Demeter and Persephone.

Tammuz was worshiped in Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. In Phoenicia, the cult took the form of the worship of Adonis (Semitic ’adon, “lord”), a local Phoenician deity, and the name Adonis was transmitted to the Greeks, whose myth of Venus and Adonis was passed on through the Romans. Although early tradition identified Tammuz with Adonis, actually the worship of Adonis was only one form of the widespread worship of Tammuz. When the cult was first adopted by the Jews is not known.

The fact that the Tammuz festival fell in the fourth month and not in the “sixth month,” the time of Ezekiel’s vision, presents no problem. The prophet saw it in vision and was doubtless shown representations of the wickedness practiced at various times in Jerusalem.