EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The prophet describes the sins of the generation that grew up in the desert.
Ezekiel 20:18. “But I said unto their children.” The second generation of the children of Israel in the wilderness. “To the ‘children’ belongs, among other things, the whole second lawgiving, with its impressive admonitions, as it was promulgated in Arboth-Moab, and is recorded in Deuteronomy” (Hengstenberg). “Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers.” “The ‘fathers’ in question are represented in their constant disobedience to the laws which Jehovah gave (which even necessitated their repetition and renewal in Deuteronomy), as in some sort law-givers according to their own ideas and on their own authority.”—(Lange.)
Ezekiel 20:21. “Notwithstanding the children rebelled against Me.” “The sons acted like their fathers in the wilderness. Historical proofs of this are furnished by the accounts of the Sabbath-breaker (Numbers 15:32, etc.), of the rebellion of the company of Korah, and of the murmuring of the whole congregation against Moses and Aaron after the destruction of Korah’s company (Numbers 16:17). In the last two cases God threatened that He would destroy the whole congregation (Numbers 16:21; Numbers 17:9-10), and on both occasions the Lord drew ba His hand at the intercession of Moses, and his actual intervention (Numbers 16:22; Numbers 17:11), and did not destroy the whole nation for His name’s sake. The statements in Ezekiel 20:21-22 rest upon these facts” (Keil.) God’s justice was slow to punish; for from the murmuring at Kadesh (B.C. 1453) to the date of this chapter (B.C. 593) was 860 years; being two cycles of 430 years.
Ezekiel 20:23. “Scatter them among the heathen.” Dispersion among the heathen is threatened to apostate Israel (Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 28:64). Nearly nine centuries had elapsed before this penalty was actually inflicted.
Ezekiel 20:24. “Their father’s idols.” They had been warned against these (Ezekiel 20:18). The vain traditions of their fathers had more authority with them than God’s own word (1 Peter 1:18.)
Ezekiel 20:25. “Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” This was a second retribution. We may compare here Romans 1:24, according to which God, in just retribution for their revolt, gave over the heathen to vile affections; Acts 7:42, where it is traced back to God, that the heathen served the host of heaven; and 2 Thessalonians 2:11, where God sends the apostates strong delusions. Grotius writes: “I have taken from them the understanding, that in despising my laws they may make for themselves hard and death-bearing laws.” (Hengstenberg.) “Various attempts have been made to get rid of the apparent incongruity of the language here employed by the Divine Being. Taken absolutely it would be flatly contradictory of the purity and rectitude of His character, as well as that of the laws which He actually gave to the Israelites (Deuteronomy 4:8; Nehemiah 9:13; Romans 7:12). The solution of the difficulty proposed by Manesseh Ben Israel, that the words should be read interrogatively, is altogether unsupported by the structure of the sentence, and is otherwise not borne out by Hebrew usage. I agree with those interpreters who are of opinion that the reference is to the idolatrous enactments of the heathen, and that the language may be best illustrated by comparison with Psalms 81:12; Hosea 8:11; Acts 7:42; Romans 1:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:11. Because the Hebrews cherished a propensity to indulge in idolatrous practices, God in His holy providence brought them into circumstances in which this propensity might be fully gratified, without His in any way imposing upon them the statutes of the Pagan ritual. On the contrary, He did all that was calculated in the way of moral influence to deter them from idolatry. Preferring, however, the rites and ceremonies of the heathen to His holy and righteous ordinances, they experienced not only that they were not good, but, as the language by meiosis imports, that they were most pernicious.”—(Henderson.)
Ezekiel 20:26. “And I polluted them in their own gifts.” “The language of this verse is quite in accordance with that of the preceding. The Holy One did not actually pollute the people; He only permitted them to pollute themselves, and pronounced them polluted when they had rendered themselves such. In the language of the Hebrews, and of the Orientials in general, God is frequently said to do that which He permits to be done.”—(Henderson.) “They caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb.” They followed the custom of the Canaanites in sacrificing their children to Moloch, in whose fiery arms they were destroyed. This was an awful perversion of God’s law which bade them consecrate their firstborn to Him as “living sacrifices” (Exodus 13:2), so that the whole nation might thereby be hallowed. They preferred to serve an imaginary malignant deity, whose commands were unnatural and cruel, to the one true God who gave them a righteous law. This was a sin which brought its own punishment in doing violence to the most sacred feelings of human nature. The repeated prohibition against offering children through the fire to Moloch is an evidence that this custom made its way among the Israelites (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 18:10). “To the end that they might know that I am the Lord.” “By which they might learn that their paternal God, whom they set at nought, is God in the full sense, whom to forsake is at once to fall into misery.”—(Hengstenberg.)
HOMILETICS
THE SIN OF THE SECOND GENERATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS. (Ezekiel 20:18-26)
I. They sinned after many warning examples. Their fathers had forsaken God’s ordinances and turned to their idols. The children are warned against their evil example (Ezekiel 20:18); yet though they saw the sad effects of transgression against God, they sinned after the same manner. They rebelled at Kadesh (Numbers 20:2); by the Gulf of Akaba (Numbers 21:5); and at Shittim, (Numbers 25:2-3). They had seen by sad experiment how rebellion against God must end, and yet they persisted in eating the grapes which had already set their father’s teeth on edge. They disregarded the lessons of history. Thus there was less excuse for them than for the first generation.
II. They sinned after renewed precepts.
1. Their relation to God was restated. “I am the Lord vour God” (Ezekiel 20:19).
2. Obedience was again commanded. They were ordered to walk in God’s statutes, to keep His judgments, and to observe the ordinance of the Sabbaths (Ezekiel 20:19).
III. Their punishment. They were to be scattered among the heathen, and dispersed through the countries (Ezekiel 20:23). A retributive providence was at work to bring this terrible infliction upon them.
1. God abandoned them to their own devices. “Wherefore I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live” (Ezekiel 20:25). These were the statutes of their fathers (Ezekiel 20:18). The meaning is, that God withdrew His providential restraint and permitted them to have what they were bent upon (Psalms 71:12; Acts 7:42; Romans 1:24). The parable of the prodigal son teaches us, that if a man thinks he can better himself elsewhere, God allows him to make the choice. It is a sad evil when the sinner is left to his own devices, when he casts off the authority of God and becomes his own master; “Lord of himself, that heritage of woe.”
2. God allowed their inward corruption to show itself. “And I polluted them in their own gifts” (Ezekiel 20:26). They felt that they must offer gifts to some invisible Power of which they were afraid. For they were conscious of impurity within; they felt the burden of sin, but they sought relief in will-worship until they became the victims of that awful infatuation which led them to offer up the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul (Micah 6:16). It is the saddest punishment when a man’s inward corruption is allowed to spread and grow unchecked.
3. Yet there was mercy in their punishment:—
1.—It was long delayed. In order that they might have space for repentance. They had been threatened long before with dispersion among the heathen (Leviticus 26:33), but nearly nine centuries had elapsed before that sentence was actually inflicted.
2.—It was for a gracious end. “To the end that they might know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 20:26). In the worst punishments of sinners God has a gracious end in view. Mercy, at length, rejoices over judgment.
IV. The lessons to be derived from their sin and punishment.
1. That the standard to which we ought to conform our lives should be the Word of God. This second generation of Israel in the wilderness forsook the direct commands of God and followed the vain traditions of their fathers. They received for doctrines the commandments of men. The truly righteous man looks to his God alone, and is governed not by human opinion, or by ancient custom, but by the revealed Word (Psalms 119:105).
2. That even Godlessness may become a law unto men. They had “statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live” (Ezekiel 20:25). Thus the world and the devil have also their statutes and ordinances.
3. That God punishes men through the very instruments of their sin. They had copied the heathen around them, had followed man’s doctrine, and it had brought them no rest or peace, nothing but sorrow and death.
4. That even the very errors of the heathen show man’s need of a religion. The fact that Israel sacrificed their children to a malignant deity shows that they felt the burden of sin and the need of forgiveness.
5. That the true reform of the Church of God must begin with youth. The law of God as to His statutes and ordinances was repeated unto “their children in the wilderness” (Ezekiel 20:18). When the Church is greatly polluted the only hope lies in the careful instruction of the younger generation.