THE FULL ARTICLE — from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), general editor James Orr — public domain, printed whole.

im'-aj-ri (maskith, "carved figure"): Only in Eze 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) (Le 26:1, the Revised Version (British and American) "figured stone"), "pictures" (Nu 33:52, the Revised Version (British and American) "figured stones"; Pr 25:11, the Revised Version (British and American) "network"); twice it means imagination, conceit, i.e. a mental picture (Ps 73:20; Pr 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