Ezekiel 20:31

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 , Fairbairn represents the generation here referred to (namely, that of Ezekiel's day) as attaining the climax of guilt (see note, ), in making their children pass through the fire, which that former generation did not. The reason, however, for the omission of "the fire" in 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. , "The king of Moab ... took his oldest son ... and offered him for a burnt offering").