Do you put a twig to the nose? Ezekiel 7-12

Ezekiel 8:16-17 (NASBStr)

Then He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty- five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun. He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me repeatedly? For behold, they are putting the twig to their nose.

In the middle of chapter 18 we see God use an expression in His conversation with Ezekiel that is somewhat unfamiliar to most.   God has taken Ezekiel to several places thus far in this chapter for the purpose of showing Ezekiel, and us, the wickedness of Judah and therefore the reason for God's judgment that was about to come.  God is taking Ezekiel on a tour of their depravity.   In this verse, in particular, God is pointing out that the nation has "turned their backs" to the temple and are, rather, worshipping the sun.   In Romans 1 Paul tells us that it is the depravity of man that makes him worship the created rather than the creator.   In this worship of the sun, the twenty-five men mentioned, would bow their faces to the ground; prostrated before the sun.   What God says was they would be putting the twig (on the ground) to their nose.   The is a pagan worship practice of places twigs from the ground between your eyes and the glare of the sun in the worship .... the twigs would act as a veil for the worshipper.   God's complaint here is that the nation had taken up practices of the world both in what they worshipped and how they worshipped.   There might be a duplicate message in the phrase, putting the twig to the nose, however.   The Hebrew word for nose is sometimes translated "anger" because when a person is angry his/her nose flares ... like snorting.   An additional meaning for our text could be that as they worshipped the sun and putting twigs to their nose in reverence for the sun, they were also putting a twig to God's nose and enticing His wrath.  God is not pleased with false worship and will always punish it.  We can't turn our backs on true worship (Spirit and truth) and expect God to ignore it.   We can't practice pagan ways to worship and not expect to flare the nostrils of God.  Our worship needs to be done in Spirit and in Truth through Christ.  We ought not worship the mirror, the shinning thing we own, the occupation we have or the bank account that occupation builds.   This flares the nose of God.