Imagery

IMAGERY im'-aj-ri (maskith, "carved figure"):

Only in Ezekiel 8:12, "every man in his chambers of imagery," i.e. dark chambers on whose walls were pictures in relief representing all kinds of reptiles and vermin, worshipped by elders of Israel. Some maintain that the cult was of foreign origin, either Egyptian (Bertholet, Commentary on Ezekiel), or Babylonian (Redpath, Westminster Commentary on Ezekiel); others that it was the revival of ancient superstitions of a totemistic kind which had survived in obscure circles in Israel (W.R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, revised edition, 357). The word here rendered "imagery" is elsewhere in the King James Version translated "image" (of stone) (Leviticus 26:1, the Revised Version (British and American) "figured stone"), "pictures" (Numbers 33:52, the Revised Version (British and American) "figured stones"; Proverbs 25:11, the Revised Version (British and American) "network"); twice it means imagination, conceit, i.e. a mental picture (Psalms 73:20; Proverbs 18:11). "Imagery" occurs once in Apocrypha (Sirach 38:27 the King James Version, eis homoiosai zographian, the Revised Version (British and American) "to preserve likeness in his portraiture").

D. Miall Edwards

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Bibliography Information

Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'IMAGERY'".  "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia".  1915.