Ezekiel 20:32-37 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And that which cometh into your mind— By all this it appears, that this rebellious people were not anxious to avoid their approaching captivity, denounced and threatened by all the prophets. What they wanted was, a light and easy servitude, which might enable them to mingle with, and at last to be lost among the nations; like the ten tribes which had gone before them. Against the vileness of these hopes is this part of the prophesy directed. God assures them, that he will bring them out of the Assyrian captivity, as he had done out of the Egyptian; but not in mercy, as was that deliverance, but in judgment, and with fury poured out: and as he had brought their fathers into the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so would he bring them into the wilderness of the people, that is, the land of Canaan, which, they would find on their return to it, was become desert and uninhabited, and therefore elegantly called the wilderness of the people. But what now was to be their reception, on their second possession of the Promised Land? A very different welcome from the first. God, indeed, leads them here again with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm; and it was to take possession; but not, as at first, of a land flowing with milk and honey, but of a prison, a house of correction, where they were to pass under the rod, and to remain in bonds. I will cause you, says God, Ezekiel 20:37 to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: words, which strongly and elegantly express subjection to a ritual law, after the extraordinary providence which so much alleviated the yoke of it was withdrawn; and we find it withdrawn soon after their return from the captivity. See Div. Leg. as before.