Thus slighted and despised by the fathers, the Lord looked to their children, that the rising generation might not be rebellious as their fathers had been. But the sin of rebellion, like a chain of many links, the Lord found to run alike in father and son. The Lord therefore gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. This could not refer to the law of God given, on Mount Sinai, for the Apostle saith, that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good. Romans 7:12. Nevertheless, in one sense, (and so the Apostle considers it), such was and is the nature of the law, that no man could live by it or have life from it. But by the law is the knowledge of sin; and the knowledge of sin loudly proclaims Christ. Reader! it will be a blessed improvement of this scripture, if, from the perusal of it, such effects are wrought in our hearts to lead us to Christ.
Ezekiel 20:18-26
18 But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:
19 I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;
20 And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.
21 Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
22 Nevertheless I withdrew mine hand, and wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth.
23 I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries;
24 Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;
26 And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.