Ezekiel 36:20 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

When they entered; when they were come into Babylon, and entered into familiarity with the inhabitants as neighbours. Profaned my holy name; did profanely sin against those precepts of my law, which heathens did know, venerate, and observe better than the Jews; or it may include the misery their sins had brought them to, which misery reflected upon their God in the opinion of the heathen. They said, their heathen neighbours, to them, the miserable and profane Jews, These are the people of the Lord; with taunt and cutting reprimand. These, these captive slaves, that are most forlorn of men, will have it that their God is the Lord, the mighty and the good God, the true and faithful One, that gave them the land out of which they are driven. If he be good, as they boast, how comes it to pass his people are in such ill state? Or is he not able to better their state? Was he weak, and could not keep them in their own land? or doth he falsify his word? You miserable Jews, say what this meaneth. But by their impure life they opened the mouths of the heathen more to blaspheme, and call the holiness of God into question; when they saw his people so unholy, they concluded. As is the people so is their God; and this, as it was a great offence and scandal to the heathen, so it was a great dishonour to God.