For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you.
When ye make your sons to pass through the fire. As "the fire" is omitted in Ezekiel 20:26, Fairbairn represents the generation here referred to (namely, that of Ezekiel's day) as attaining the climax of guilt (see note, Ezekiel 20:26), in making their children pass through the fire, which that former generation did not. The reason, however, for the omission of "the fire" in Ezekiel 20:26 is, perhaps, that there it is implied the children only "passed through the fire" for purification, whereas here they are actually burnt to death before the idol; and therefore "the fire" is specified in the latter, not in the former case (cf. 2 Kings 3:26-27, "The king of Moab ... took his oldest son ... and offered him for a burnt offering").