Ezekiel 20:18

But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: BUT I SAID UNTO THEIR CHILDREN - being unwilling to speak anymore to the fathers, as being incorrigible. WALK YE NOT IN THE STATUTES OF YOUR FATHERS. The traditions of the fathers are to be carefully weighed, not indiscriminately followed. He forbids the imitation of not only their gross sins, but even their plausible statutes (Calvin)....

After God has shown that the obstinate wickedness of the people was such that they profited by neither rigor nor clemency, he now says that the sons were altogether like their fathers. For when he says that he turned his discourse to their sons, he obliquely indicates that he was so broken down by their disgust, that he is unwilling to address the deaf. _I said_, therefore, _to their sons_: why not to themselves? because they had become obdurate in their impiety, and gave no hope of repentance. Since then God had experienced their utmost obstinacy, he says _that he turned his discourse to their sons; Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, and do not observe their judgments. _Here God does not speak of bad examples and of plain and palpable crimes, but he uses words seemingly favorable — _judgments and statutes_. If he had simply said that their fathers were wicked, and hence the so...

10-26. The history of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the new Testament as well as in the Old, for warning. God did great things for them. He gave them the law, and revived the ancient keeping of the sabbath day. Sabbaths are privileges; they are signs of our being his people. If we do the duty of the day, we shall find, to our comfort, it is the Lord that makes us holy, that is, truly happy, here; and prepares us to be happy, that is, perfectly holy, hereafter. The Israelites rebelled, and were left to the judgments they brought upon themselves. God sometimes makes sin to be its own punishment, yet he is not the Author of sin: there needs no more to make men miserable, than to give them up to their own evil desires and passions....

Verse Ezekiel 20:18. _BUT I SAID UNTO THEIR CHILDREN_] These I chose in their fathers' stead; and to them I purposed to give the inheritance which their fathers by disobedience lost....

The probation in the wilderness. The promise was forfeited by those to whom it was first conditionally made, but was renewed to their children. Ezekiel 20:11 The “statutes” were given on Mount Sinai, and repeated by Moses before his death (Exodus 20:1 ff; Deuteronomy 4:8). IN THEM - Or, through them: and in Ezekiel 20:13. Ezekiel 20:12 See...

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 20:1 A new date is given, and includes what follows to Ezekiel 23:49. The last note of time was in Ezekiel 8:1, and eleven months and five days had passed, during which the prophecies of the intervening chapters had been written or spoken. We may note further that it was two years one month and five days after the prophet's call to his work (Ezekiel 1:1.), and two years and five months before the Chaldeans besieged Jerusalem (Ezekiel 24:1). The immediate occasion here, as in...

BUT I SAID UNTO THEIR CHILDREN IN THE WILDERNESS,.... Or, "then I said" k; his judgments and statutes being neglected and despised by them, and good instructions and kind providences being of no use unto them, the Lord turns to their posterity while yet in the wilderness: what follows seems to refer to those directions, instructions, and exhortations given in the book of Deuteronomy by Moses, in the plains of Moab, a little before the children of Israel went over Jordan into the land of Canaan: WALK YE NOT IN THE STATUTES OF YOUR FATHERS, NEITHER OBSERVE THEIR JUDGMENTS; they were not only not to imitate their parents in their open sins and transgressions of God's law; but they were not to follow them in the observance of such rules of worship, which were of their own devising, and they had formed into a law: this makes greatly against such who think it a very heinous sin to relinquish...

CHAPTER S 20-24 Further and Final Predictions Concerning the judgment of Jerusalem _ 1. Jehovah rehearses His mercies bestowed upon Israel (Ezekiel 20:1) _ 2. The impending judgment announced (Ezekiel 21:1) 3. Jerusalem's sins and whoredom (Ezekiel 22:1; Ezekiel 23:1) 4. The parable of the boiling pot and the last word (Ezekiel 24:1) Ezekiel 20:1. The chapter contains a divine retrospect and an arraignment of th

EZEKIEL 20. THE WICKED PAST AND THE BLESSED FUTURE. Ezekiel 20:1. A Sketch of Israel's Early Idolatries. It is now 590 B.C. Almost a year has elapsed since the last incident that was dated (Ezekiel 8:1): and as the doom draws nearer, the prophet grows fiercer. This lurid sketch of Israel's ancient sins, which partly recalls ch. 16, was occasioned by a visit of some elders (_cf. Ezekiel 8:1_, Ezekiel 14:1), who put to him a question which though not recorded, may perhaps be inferred from Ezekiel 20:32. It seems probable that, in disgust and despair,

I SAID, &c. Reference to Pentateuch, (Numbers 14:32; Numbers 14:33; Numbers 32:13.Deuteronomy 4:3; Deuteronomy 4:3), App-92. CHILDREN. sons. STATUTES, JUDGMENTS. Like those of Omri (Micah 6:16). Compare Jeremiah 16:13,...