Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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.
31. For when ye pollute ] Interrogatively: and when do ye pollute yourselves unto this day?
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 31. Ye pollute yourselves] This shows the sense in which God says, Eze 20:26, “I polluted them in their own gifts.” They chose to pollute themselves, and I permitted them to do so. See on Eze 20:25-26.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Your gifts: see Eze 20:26.
All your idols; it seems they took a compendious way to increase sin and wrath; they worshipped many idols at once; and this they did still to Ezekiels time, to that very day. Are you fit to come and ask counsel of me, whom you have so shamelessly, so obstinately forsaken and reproached? Can you expect I should answer you? My prophet knew you not to be hypocrites, but his God, who knows you, and all your abominations, hath put the answer into his mouth, which you must be content with. I will answer you as little as you regard me. So God refuseth them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
31. through the fireAs “thefire” is omitted in Eze20:26, FAIRBAIRNrepresents the generation here referred to (namely, that of Ezekiel’sday) as attaining the climax of guilt (see on Eze20:26), in making their children pass through the fire, whichthat former generation did not. The reason, however, for the omissionof “the fire” in Eze20:26 is, perhaps, that there it is implied the children only”passed through the fire” for purification, whereashere they are actually burnt to death before the idol; andtherefore “the fire” is specified in the latter, not in theformer case (compare 2Ki 3:27).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For when ye offer your gifts,…. And sacrifices to idols. The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it,
the firstfruits of your gifts; it may design their firstborn; see
Eze 20:26 as the following clause seems to explain it:
when ye make your sons to pass through the fire; or between two fires to Moloch, as their fathers had done before them;
ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day; by worshipping idols, or dunghill gods, as the word signifies, as often observed; they defiled themselves with those filthy things, which they continued to do to that very day, and so became more and more polluted; and were as their fathers had been, and therefore must expect to be used in like manner:
and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? can you think that I will suffer you to come and inquire of me or to make your requests to me? or can you hope to have an answer from me; at least a favourable one, such as you could wish for?
as I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you; so confirming again with an oath what he had before declared, Eze 20:3, wherefore they might assure themselves that they would not be acceptable to him, neither their persons nor petitions, or be regarded by him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He follows up the same sentiment, that it was a monstrous sin that they so perniciously remained fixed in the perverse imitation of their fathers: for they had been drawn off from their lusts by God’s numerous chastisements, and then they pretended to be afterwards disposed to obedience: God therefore here says, why, then, by offering your gifts, do you make your sons pass through the fire, and pollute yourselves with all your idols even to this day? For this question concerns what is quite incredible and worthy of the greatest surprise, since there was no way of reconciling the sufferings of the Israelites in exile with their remaining obstinate in their wickedness. But the Prophet here again deprives them of that vain pretense with which they covered themselves in offering their gifts: he concedes to them what was true, yet, at the same time, he objects, that they passed their sons through the fire, and were polluted in all their idols. He adds, at length, shall I be inquired of by you? I have elsewhere explained that clause, which is now for the third time repeated. Many take it in a different sense, that God will not deign to answer them any more: but, in my opinion, he simply reproaches their perfidy, because, when they approached the Prophet, they wished to blind his eyes. Shall I, says he, be inquired of you? For דרש, deresh, means to seek, and to attain the end of our search, when the person asked answers, and the person sought presents himself. But here God simply shows that they do not come in a right mind, and that nothing else was imposed on them except seeking him. But because that was almost incredible, hence he swears that they were merely hypocritical in pretending to true piety in suppliantly applying to the Prophet for an answer in God’s name, and then wantonly deriding it, and impiously and wickedly using his name, and thus profaning it.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(31) I will not be enquired of by you.This takes up the refrain of Eze. 20:3, and with the following verse fitly closes this portion of the prophecy which was introduced by the coming of the elders to enquire.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE SONS HAVE FOLLOWED THE EXAMPLES OF THEIR FATHERS; YET JEHOVAH STILL RULES, AND THE FUTURE, AS THE PAST, SHALL DISPLAY HIS POWER AND GOODNESS AND HIS NAME SHALL BE GLORIFIED, Eze 20:30-44.
31. Shall I be inquired of by you These who have so polluted themselves (Eze 20:30) have no claim upon Jehovah’s wisdom. He will not reveal to them what they wish to know of the future, but he will rehearse to them their national iniquities in the past and show that the same principles of divine government which sentenced the nation to chastisement then explains their present calamity.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will not be enquired of by you, and that which comes into your mind will not be at all, in that you say, ‘we will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.’ ”
They would have neither the one thing nor the other. They had lost their right to learn from Yahweh, but they would also not be allowed to continue in their idolatrous ways. It is always man’s desire to fit in with his environment and be like others and ‘accepted’. But God’s people are not to be like that, indeed will not finally be allowed to be like that. Note the contemptuous ‘serve wood and stone’. This is in contrast with worshipping the living, invisible God.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 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 enquired of by you, O house of Israel? [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will not be enquired of by you.
Ver. 31. And shall I be inquired of by you? ] Is it ever likely to do well, think you? Of witches’ good prayers, as some call them, one saith well: Si magicae, Deus non vult tales: si piae, non per tales. See Jer 7:9-10 . See Trapp on “ Jer 7:9 “ See Trapp on “ Jer 7:10 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
your sons. Some codices, with two early printed editions, read “your sons and your daughters”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
ye offer: Eze 20:26, Deu 18:10-12, Psa 106:37-39, Jer 7:31, Jer 19:5
and shall: Eze 20:3, Eze 14:3, Eze 14:4, 1Sa 28:5, 1Sa 28:6, 2Ki 3:13, 2Ki 3:14, Job 27:8, Job 27:10, Psa 66:18, Pro 1:27, Pro 1:28, Pro 28:9, Isa 1:15, Jer 14:12, Zec 7:13, Mat 25:11, Mat 25:12, Jam 4:1-3
Reciprocal: Gen 25:22 – inquire Lev 18:21 – pass through Lev 20:2 – giveth Deu 12:31 – even their sons 2Ki 16:3 – made his son 2Ki 17:17 – they caused 2Ki 23:10 – might make Psa 106:39 – defiled Isa 57:5 – slaying Jer 2:34 – Also Eze 11:21 – I will Eze 16:20 – and these Eze 23:37 – have also Eze 36:37 – I will yet Act 15:20 – from pollutions
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 20:31. With all these pollutions clinging to these people they were in no position to come to God for information. They had already be littled the instruction that was offered them in their law, hence it would be inconsistent for them to approach the Lord as sincere inquirers.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
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 to this day: and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, {p} I will not be enquired of by you.
(p) He shows that the ingratitude of the people deserves that God should cut them off, and that they should not have the comfort of his word.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
They were defiling themselves by practicing child sacrifice. For this reason the Lord would not give them the answers to the questions that they brought to him (cf. Eze 20:1; Eze 20:3).