Ezekiel 20:24

_BECAUSE THEY HAD NOT EXECUTED MY JUDGMENTS, BUT HAD DESPISED MY STATUTES, AND HAD POLLUTED MY SABBATHS, AND THEIR EYES WERE AFTER THEIR FATHERS' IDOLS._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

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....

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...

BECAUSE THEY HAD NOT EXECUTED MY JUDGMENTS,.... Had not done that which was right and just, as the Lord commanded them: BUT HAD DESPISED MY STATUTES, AND HAD POLLUTED MY SABBATHS; as their fathers had done: AND THEIR EYES WERE AFTER THEIR FATHERS' IDOLS; which they had learned to serve in Egypt, or brought with them from thence; these the eyes and the hearts of their children were after, as theirs find been; and they were more desirous, encouraged, and emboldened to serve them, because they were their fathers'; but this would not excuse their sin; yea, it was rather an aggravation of it, that they should follow them in such practices, for which they had been often reproved and punished....

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,

Review of the history of the fathers The principle that has ruled this history is that all through it Jehovah has acted for his name's sake. It is this principle that has given Israel a history, otherwise their sins would have cut them off. For his name's sake he spared the people in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:9), again in the wilderness (Ezekiel 20:14), and again the second generation there (Ezekiel 20:22). The history is reviewed in these divisions: Ezekiel 20:5 Israel in Egypt; Ezekiel 20:11 the people led out into the wilderness:...

C. Israel in the Wilderness 20:10-26 TRANSLATION (10) And I brought them out from the land of Egypt, and brought them unto the wilderness. (11) And I gave to them My statutes, and My ordinances I made known to them, which if a man do them, he shall live by them. (12) And also My sabbaths I gave to them to become a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctified them. (13) But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they did not walk in My statutes, and they spurned My ordinances, which if a man do them, he shall live by them. My sabbaths they profaned exceedingly, and I intended to pour out My wrath upon them in the wilderness to consume them. (14) But I took action for the sake of My name, that it might not be defiled before the nations before whom I brought them out. (15) And also I lifted up My hand to them in the wilderness, that I...

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF Some four years before the fall of Jerusalem the elders of Tel-abib again came to consult Ezekiel, who declared that God had no answer to give them. The reason was that their enquiry was insincere, and this passage is consequently an illustration of the principle of Ezekiel 14:3. The exiles were beginning to avow idolatrous tendencies (Ezekiel 20:32), with which the elders were in secret sympathy. Ezekiel recounted how God had dealt with Israel's idolatrous spirit in the past, and announced that He would deal in the same way with those who still cherished it. Israel had been idolatrous in Egypt and yet had been brought forth (Ezekiel 20:5). Suecessive generations had been idolatrous