Ezekiel 20:25

Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; WHEREFORE I GAVE THEM ALSO STATUTES ... NOT GOOD - since they would not follow my statutes, that were good, "I gave them" their own (), and their fathers' statutes, "which were not good" - statutes spiritually corrupting, and finally, as the consequence, destroying them. Righteous retribution (; ; ; ). proves this view to be correct (cf....

Here God announces that he had taken vengeance upon people so hard and obstinate, by permitting them to endure another yoke, since they would not be ruled by the doctrine of the law; for we saw that, when God imposed the law upon the Israelites, they would have been extremely happy, had they only considered how honorable it was to be in covenant with God, who deigned to bind them to himself in mutual fidelity. This was a remarkable honor and privilege, since God not only showed them what was right, but promised them a reward which he by no means owed them. But what was the conduct of that unteachable nation? It threw off the yoke of the law; hence it deserved to experience a different government. _God_, therefore, _gave them laws that were not good, _when he suffered them to be miserably subjected to an immense heap of errors: such laws as these were not good. Some writers have violently...

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 20:25. _I GAVE THEM ALSO STATUTES_ THAT WERE _NOT GOOD_] What a foolish noise has been made about this verse by _critics_, believers and infidels! How is it that God can be said "to give a people statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they could not live?" I answer, in _their sense_ of the words, God never gave any such, at any time, to any people. Let any man produce _an example_ of this kind if he can; or show even the _fragment_ of such a law, sanctioned by the Most High! The simple meaning of this place and all such places is, that when they had rebelled against the Lord, despised his statutes, and polluted his Sabbaths - in effect cast him off, and given themselves wholly to their idols, then he _abandoned_ them, and they abandoned themselves to the customs and ordinances of the heathen. That this is the meani...

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...

WHEREFORE I GAVE THEM ALSO STATUTES [THAT WERE] NOT GOOD,.... Yea, were very bad; not the moral law, and the statutes of it; for that is holy, just, and good, though the killing letter and ministration of condemnation and death to the transgressors of it; indeed those laws were both good and bad to different persons, as Abendana observes; good to those that observed them, but not good to those that transgressed them, the issue of which was death: rather these were the statutes and rites of the ceremonial law, which were not in their own nature good; nor did they arise from the nature and holiness of God, but from his will; and though very good and useful under the legal dispensation, until the Messiah came, especially when attended to by faith, and with a view to him; yet had the sanction of death to many of them, that a man could not live by them: but it may be, the punishments inflicte...

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 GAVE THEM ALSO STATUTES, its. In Hebrew idiom. I suffered others to give them statutes, it,: i.e. in their captivity. Active verbs in Hebrew were used to express not only the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do. The verb _nathan,_ to give, is therefore often rendered _to suffer_ in this sense. See Genesis 31:7; Judges 15:1; 1 Samuel 24:7; 2 Samuel 21:10. Where not so actually rendered it means _permission._ Compare Ezekiel 14:9...