He brought me into the inner court. The last and the worst form of desecration follows. It was the "inner court" (Joel 2:17) which, after the exile, was entered only by the priests. During the monarchy, however, it seems to have been accessible to kings and other persons of importance, as in the case of Solomon (1 Kings 8:22, 1 Kings 8:64; 1 Kings 9:25) in the revolution against Athaliah (2 Kings 11:4-15), and Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:14), and Josiah (2 Kings 23:2).
Ezekiel does not say that the men whom he saw were priests, though the number twenty-five suggests that they were taking the place of the high priest and the heads of the twenty-four courses of the priesthood (1 Chronicles 24:4-19), and so symbolized the whole order of the priesthood as the seventy elders represented the laity.
In 2 Chronicles 36:14 the chief of the priests is spoken of as having been prominent in "polluting the house of the Lord." They were seen turning their backs to the temple of Jehovah, i.e. the sanctuary.
The very act was symbolical of their apostasy (2 Chronicles 29:6; Isaiah 1:4; Jeremiah 7:24). And they did this in order that they might look to the east and worship the rising sun. That, and not the temple (Daniel 6:10), was the Kiblah of their adoration.
The sun worship here appears to have had a Persian character, as being offered to the sun itself, and not to Baal, as a solar god. Of such a worship we have traces in Deuteronomy 4:19; Deuteronomy 17:3; Job 31:26; 2 Kings 23:5, 2 Kings 23:11.