Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 20:32
And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.
32. The prophet regards the worship on the high-places as Canaanitish heathenism; but probably many of the exiles to whom he spoke were drifting into complete conformity with the nations among whom they were. Their minds were losing hold of their distinctiveness as the people of Jehovah. This practical assimilation to the heathen the prophet represents as a deliberate one, which in many cases it may have been cf. the answer of the exiles in Egypt to Jer 44:15-19, also Jer 2:25.
to serve wood and stone ] The service of the heathen is a service of wood and stone, Deu 4:28; Deu 28:36; Isa 37:19. The images were often of wood, plated with some precious metal (Isa 40:20; Jer 10:3; Isa 30:22), or of stone; often, however, of baser metal overlaid with gold or silver. It is the dead matter in opposition to Jehovah, the living God, that gives point to the antithesis. On “cometh into your mind” cf. Eze 11:5; Jer 7:31; Jer 19:5; Isa 10:7.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Gods future dealings with His people:
(1) in judgment Eze 20:32-38;
(2) in mercy Eze 20:39-44.
Eze 20:32
The inquirers had thought that if Jerusalem were taken, and the whole people became sojourners in a foreign land, they would cease to be a separate nation. In their love for idolatry some may have even desired this. But more probably they thought that this very consequence precluded the possibility of such a catastrophe. God answers that He will not allow them to become as the pagan, but this will only subject them to severer trial and stricter rule.
Eze 20:33
The expressions a mighty hand, stretched out arm carry back the thoughts to Egyptian bondage Deu 4:34; Deu 5:15; but then it was for deliverance, now for judgment with fury poured out.
Eze 20:35
The wilderness of the people – A time of probation will follow, as before in the wilderness of Sin, so in the wilderness of the nations among whom they will sojourn (not the Babylonians) after that captivity. This period of their probation is not over. The dispersion of the Jews did not cease with the return under Zerubbabel; but in our Saviours time they were living as a distinct people in all the principal places in the civilized world; and so they live now. God is yet pleading with them face to face, calling them personally to embrace those offers which as a nation they disregarded.
Eze 20:37
To pass under the rod – i. e., to be gathered into the flock Mic 7:14.
The bond – The shepherd collects the flock, and separates the sheep from the goats, which are rejected. Compare Rom 11:7-11.
Eze 20:39
Strong irony. Some prefer another rendering: Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, yet hereafter ye shall surely hearken unto me, and shall no more pollute My Holy Name etc. In this way, this verse is introductory to what follows.
Eze 20:40
This points to the consummation indicated by the vision of the temple.
In the mountain of the height – Or, Upon a very high mountain Eze 40:2. Compare Isa 2:2-3.
The house of Israel, all of them – All the separation between Israel and Judah shall cease. This points to times yet future, when in Messiahs kingdom Jews and Gentiles alike shall be gathered into one kingdom – the kingdom of Christ. Jerusalem is the Church of Christ Gal 4:26, into which the children of Israel shall at last be gathered, and so the prophecy shall be fulfilled Rev 21:2.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eze 20:32
We will be as the heathen.
The paganism of the heart
I. As an evil to which the godly are liable.
1. The force of early habits. The spirit of self-indulgence and sensualism was the first spirit that animated us all. Its death requires time. Hence in unguarded moods it comes up again.
2. The force of social influence. In our industries, recreations, our literature and institutions, the spirit of Paganism breathes in all, and it tends to possess us of itself.
3. The force of satanic agency. The devils great wish is that men should endeavour to get their bread–their happiness–out of stones.
II. As an evil against which the godly should struggle.
1. By the growth of heavenly sentiments.
2. By closer fellowship with the Divine.
3. By a moral conquest over spiritual foes.
4. By a translation into the heavenly world. (Homilist.)
A vain imagination
The Jewish people had grown tired of Jehovahs service. Whatever its advantages and its righteousness, it was irksome, tedious, and severe. Other nations had not the same restrictions and the same punishments. Look, they said, at the people who serve idols, they have no law to fetter their inclinations and limit their pleasures, while on every side we are hedged in and forbidden and punished heavily if we transgress. Let us give up Jehovahs service and be as other nations are, do as they do, and find the same freedom and enjoyment. All this is very natural, and is constantly recurring. Many feel as the Jews felt. Religions ways have become tiresome to them. They compare their lives with the lives of men of the world, and they seem to suffer from the comparison. We meet with the same thing in the realm of intellectual experience. Men give up religion, they tell us, to escape from the mental anxieties that have troubled them; to escape from the strife of sects, the clamour and conflict of opinions. The vanity of such a spirit and of such conduct is the subject of the text. It shall not be at all. Utter disappointment is almost inevitable. Why?
I. Because the thought of their minds is opposed to the principles of their nature and the facts of their history. The Jewish people spoke in denial and forgetfulness of their own condition. They assumed what was impossible, namely, that they could dismiss and annihilate all the past, and bow down before gods of wood and stone, and enter upon a course of unregulated enjoyment, with a satisfaction equal to theirs who had never known Jehovah and His holy law. It could not be. There is no river of forgetfulness in which men can bathe. We may think as they did, but it shall not be at all, for–
1. We have an enlightened conscience, and that will prevent it. What others call pleasure would be to us sin–sin against God.
2. We have the memory of better things, and that will prevent it. The heathen knew nothing better than his heathenism. The Jew could look back, was often compelled to look back, upon much that made his fallen position hateful. We turn from religion, but bitter memories remain to us.
3. We bring to it the knowledge of Divine truth, and that will prevent it. Truth once imparted and received cannot be wholly lost. It will live, and often present itself to trouble the soul. This applies specially to those who turn to superstitious courses. There is something significant in the expression to serve wood and stone. It seems to intimate that to the Jew, with his knowledge, the gods of heathenism could never be anything better. A man who loses his sight by disease or accident can never equal in cheerfulness and in free unembarrassed movement a man who was born blind. No more can those who have known religious truth and religious experiences be equal with those who have never risen above the world, and whose lives throughout have been shadowed by error and falsehood.
II. Because it is subject to the counteracting operations of the great God. There are two ways in which God defeats the thought of their minds.
1. By His correcting providences. The afflictions, losses, bereavements, sorrows of life.
2. By His pursuing love. By His Spirit making memory a living picture of the better past.
Learn–
1. The weakness and littleness of fallen human nature. Men who have tested the heavenly manna can yet turn from it to the coarsest food.
2. The safeguards against such a spirit. Ponder the truth here asserted. Patient, earnest work; the cultivation of a cheerful, joyous frame; the glorious future.
3. The folly and evil of such conduct. And if it has been yours, come back to Christ at once. (William Perkins.)
Men endeavouring to be like the heathen
I. The illustration of the text on the history of the people. The Israelites had the most distinguished privileges. No other nation had a history like theirs. It was the history of Divine interpositions, manifestations, and revelations. No other nation had such statutes and laws. They had heard the blast of the trumpet which no earthly lips could have blown. No other nation had such songs; they were the odes in which they rehearsed in their homes and in the sanctuary Gods wonderful dealings with their race, so that the history of the past was perpetuated. God had a local residence in their midst. He had His palace and His court. The symbol of the Divine presence dwelt between the outstretched wings of the cherubim, and as the worshipper bowed down he could almost see the veil of the temple wave, as if by the presence of Him who dwelt in the Holy of Holies. The God of Israel had His altars and sacrifices, His ministers and priests. Other nations had their gods, but they had never at any time heard their voice; there had been no manifestations of their power and glory. Others nations had their sacrifices, but no fire had ever come down from heaven on their altars. Idolatry was perpetuated by the heathen; they made no change in their gods. It mattered not how uncouth and grim the idol, it was not exchanged for another. It mattered not how revolting and debasing the superstition, it was perpetuated. The Israelites sought to extinguish the last ray of Divine light, to obliterate the last traces of the Divine law, to silence the faint echoes of the Divine voice which yet lingered around them. They sought to become as the heathen, and as the families of the countries, that worshipped wood and stone. But God said, That which cometh unto your mind shall not be at all. He interposed to prevent this fearful consummation. He visited them with chastisement upon chastisement. The Jews are the aristocracy of Scripture without their coronets. They are like a river running through the deep sea, but never mingling with its waters. They are yet separate and distinct, thus proving the truth of the text.
II. The application of the great principle contained in the text to yourselves. Our privileges are greater than those of the Israelites, so that we may even say that the past had no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth. There has been a manifestation of God; but it has been in the flesh. There has been a sacrifice for sin, of which all other sacrifices were but the prefiguration. There has been a diviner Pentecost; for the Holy Ghost rent the heavens and came down. There has been a more glorious Gospel; for we have a Gospel of facts. The truth is the highest and divinest power in the world, and has authority over men. All human laws and polities may change, the world may be burnt up to its last cinder, the heavens may pass away with a great noise; but the truth is eternal–it can never pass away. It is the light; it illumines or blinds: it is the fire; it softens or hardens: it is the power that saves or destroys; it is either life unto life or death unto death. Men cannot believe the truth if they have never heard it; but we cannot justify our unbelief through our want of acquaintance with the truth. With what authority it comes to us! The truth overawes you, and, unconsciously it may be, you do partial homage to it, but you have no true affinity with it; your heart returns no response to its voice; you do not want to believe. There is an awful power in man by which lie comes into collision with God, by which he puts an affront on the truth, and refuses to believe or obey it. Men would change all things, they would change the true into the untrue. The truth is as though it were untrue to them. They would have no law with its majestic sanctions and awful penalties. They would have no everlasting distinction between right and wrong. They would have no Gospel with its Saviour and its Cross–with its blessed words of promise and of hope for guilty men. Mans unbelief is his protest against truth. It is the manifestation of the disloyalty of his whole nature to the truth. Men may let go their hold on the truth, but the truth does not let go its hold on them. If a man has stood on an exceeding high mountain, and has seen the grand panorama unfold itself to his view, can he ever forget it? If he has seen the sea when the tempest has passed over it and the floods have lifted up their hands, can he ever forget it? And can a man who has heard the truth ever forget it? It is graven on his memory as in characters of eternal fire–he can never divest himself of the associations and recollections of truth. God interposes to prevent the utter apostasy of nations and of men. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, etc. We have been brought into the wilderness–into the scene of utter desolation–we have been stript of everything, and in fearful silence God has come to us and pleaded with us. And what has been the character of His pleadings? Has He upbraided us–has He threatened us with terrible punishment? We were silent, and we heard Him say, Come now, and let us reason together. We had no excuses, no arguments, but to our utter amazement He said, Though your sins be as scarlet, etc. Or we have been sent into captivity, a foe mightier than the Chaldean has led us away, and there in the deep degradation and fearful servitude of sin, our eyes have been opened to our folly and wickedness. We have thought of the past, and its remembrance has awakened the bitterest regrets. Our responsibilities are proportionate to our privileges. (H. J. Boris.)
Religious obligations irrevocable
It is taken for granted by many that persons are not under any obligation to act religiously if they do not profess to be religious. Some such thought as this came into the minds of the people to whom the text refers. They disliked the service of the God of Israel, and thought they should get free from it by laying aside the name and profession of Israelites, and by becoming like the heathen. What base ingratitude was this. The Lord had separated them, in order that they might be His own peculiar people; and as such He had wrought for them the greatest wonders, and enriched them with the highest privileges (Isa 5:1; Deu 4:32; Rom 9:4; Exo 4:22). The thought was ungrateful, deeply ungrateful; but it was as foolish as it was ungrateful. It was utterly vain, for it could not be realised. They could not reduce themselves to the exact level of the heathen; they might become idolaters; but it was impossible for them to be as the Gentiles in respect to their responsibilities. And should the like thought come into the mind of any Christian–should he wish to make no profession of religion, but to be on a level with a mere natural man, to have no higher calling, no greater duties, no mightier obligations; he must be taught the vanity of such a wish; he must be told that the thing cannot be. No, we are in covenant with Christ, bound by the terms of that covenant, and we cannot, if we would, free ourselves from them. We are members of His Church, and not mere natural men, left to the light of reason and the promptings of human passion; and therefore as members of His Church, and not as mere natural men, we shall be judged. And if such a thought on our part is as vain as it was on the part of the Jews, is it not on our part equally ungrateful? We can look back on a series of mercies, more wonderful than that which marked out the history of Israel. We have been redeemed at a more costly price than that which redeemed their lives from destruction in the land of Egypt; we have been baptized with a holier baptism than that which they received in the cloud and in the sea; more heavenly food has been offered for our support than the manna on which they fed in the wilderness; a richer stream follows us in our journey than that which flowed from the rock in Horeb; and a far more glorious inheritance awaits us than their promised land, which flowed with milk and honey. Is there nothing in all tiffs to bind us in willing subjection to our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ? (G. Bellett.)
The impossibility of becoming as the heathen
There is, perhaps, no subject on which has been lavished so much of lofty thought and splendid expression as on the immortality of the soul, considered as an article of what is called natural theology. And yet we must feel that these endeavours to establish the immortality of the soul apart from the Bible are at best unsatisfactory: they rather leave its immortality as a splendid conjecture than place it as an established fact. The soul may be capable of an immortality, but God may not choose to allow it to be immortal. He formed it; He can annihilate it. Who can tell? how can reason inform us whether He will be pleased to extinguish the soul at or after death, or whether He will permit and appoint it to burn forever as a spark from Himself? It is here that we are in darkness without the Bible; it is here that natural theology must give place to revealed. Reason shows us that the soul may live forever; Scripture alone certifies us that the soul shall live forever, even as Scripture alone instructs us how the soul may be happy forever. For a moment, and as introductory to our text, we would comment on one species of argument which has been freely adduced in support of the immortality of the soul, but which, however it may dazzle the imagination, possesses, we suspect, but little real strength. It is often confidently said that the soul shrinks from annihilation as from that which it instinctively abhors–that it loudly lifts up its voice against the notion of perishing with the body, and, by the earnestness with which it craves immortality, attests in a measure that it is not to die. We altogether question this. So far from a natural shrinking from annihilation, we believe that as to the great mass of men we might rather assert the natural wish for annihilation. I do not know why all men should shrink from the supposition of the souls perishing with the body; I see the strongest reasons why they should incline to the supposition, and wish even if they cannot prove it to be true. There are crowds of genuine Christians who virtually go far beyond the Israelites, whose wicked wish or purpose is recorded in our text. The Israelites longed to be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. The people, you see, had so sinned against God, and they held His service in such utter loathing, that they would have been glad to forget it altogether, and to diminish their responsibleness by lapsing into the ignorance of actual idolaters. But this it is which God assures them can never be. Having known the true God, it was impossible they could be dealt with as though they had never known any but the false god. Wilful ignorance can never put a man in the same position as unavoidable ignorance; and if you attend to the statements of Scripture you will see that we are to be reckoned with hereafter for every talent committed to our care. Whether we have misused it, or whether we have let it go idle, the mere fact that we had it is to constitute an important item in our future account. Born in a Christian country, baptized with Christian baptism, placed under a Christian ministry, we are all immeasurably removed from unavoidable ignorance. Take a number of colonists,–transfer them to some distant land, where there are no temples but those of false gods: the colony thus transplanted may learn the ways of the heathen, adopt their superstitions, and bow at their altars; but think ye that therefore the birth and the baptism and the Christian institutions retain no effect? The heathen may teach the colonists their vices, and even convert them to their superstitions, and men who left their own country with some sense of awe of the God of their fathers may utterly forget Him in the strange land to which they have wandered for a home, in place of endeavouring to make Him known to their new and ignorant associates; they may dishonour His name by even exceeding the heathen in licentiousness, teaching and being taught new forms and measures of iniquity; but this is the sum of the change which can be wrought; there is no possibility of the colony getting rid of that vast and portentous accountableness which has been fastened on itself by its adhesion to Christian privileges and Christian rites. Will you say there is nothing in this supposed case of a colony to touch your own case? You are never likely to desire or design, you may tell me, what has been imagined. Not so; for we would now observe that it is no uncommon hope, that of wilful ignorance passing for unavoidable ignorance, and no uncommon endeavour that of occupying the position of those who have fewer moral advantages than ourselves. Take a very common instance. How many keep away from the sacrament of the Lords supper because secretly conscious that the receiving it pledges them to increased holiness of life, and certainly hoping that their sins will be more excusable whilst they do not partake of so solemn an ordinance! They neglect the holy communion, partly at least under the notion that the sins which they love and do not wish to abandon are less criminal and less dangerous in non-communicants than in those who obey Christs dying command–This do in remembrance of Me. But what is this, if not almost literally what was meditated by the Israelites in our text? Here is the hope, on the part of those who know of the sacrament, of being dealt with as those who never heard of the sacrament. Preposterous hope! It is the Israelite thinking that he may be as the heathen. He dies innocently who dies in actual want; he dies by suicide who starves himself with a meal within reach. That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen. There is, we believe, a yet more common endeavour to the getting rid of the responsibility which results from the possession of opportunities and advantages. Think ye not that many a man avoids reading the Bible, and putting himself in the way of knowing the exact truth in regard of his spiritual condition, under the impression, perhaps hardly acknowledged even to himself, that he is safer in his ignorance–that he shall escape with a lighter judgment if he remain uninformed as to his precise danger and duty? What gains he, what can he gain, by his wilful, his premeditated ignorance? Does he think–can he be so infatuated as to think–that truth, to which he shuts his eyes, is the same thing, the same in its accusing power, the same in its condemning power, as truth which has never been revealed? Does he think, can he think, that by living in a darkened room–a room which he has shut up and darkened of his own will and by his own act–he will have no more to answer for than those to whom God has never vouchsafed the beauty and the magnificence of the sunshine? Vain thoughts! vain thoughts! Know all of you, that live you may as those who shall perish at death, but judged you must be as those who were told their immortality. Live you may as pagans–judged you must be as Christians. Never can you pass the broad line of separation between the wilful and the unavoidable. Since, then, we must be judged as Christians, shall we not strive that we may be accepted as Christians? If an unimproved privilege must be an everlasting burden, here is fresh motive to the endeavouring so to use it that it may prove an everlasting blessing. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Our obligation to serve God
I. We cannot, if we would, escape from the service of God. We are now, as Israel of old, instructed in His will by His word. If we dislike what we there learn to be our duty, there is no help for it. It will continue to be our duty nevertheless; and we shall be made to answer for non-performance. We may, by carelessness, or obstinate rejection of the Word, very much confuse our recollection of what we already know, and shut ourselves out from the attainment of any further knowledge; but we shall never be able to make our minds quite like a sheet of blank paper, clear from any notion of religion. The behaviour and conversation of his neighbours, the very sight of the house of prayer, which he has studied Gods commandments, he knows well enough that he has offended against them in many and glaring instances. He may keep them at bay when he is in high health and spirits, when his affairs prosper, and when he is surrounded by companions, ready to encourage him in his impiety. But what will he do when infirmity or sickness comes upon him? when misfortune has deprived him of all the worldly goods wherein he trusted; and when his friends have either deserted him, or been taken from him by some such visitation as shall make him tremble for his own safety? In times like these he will feel that. God is ruling over him with fury poured out. It will be well if he has grace to seek for refuge from that wrath where refuge may be found, through faith, attended by repentance and amendment of life. Gods dispensations will all be good to those that use them rightly; they will all be evil to those that do not receive them as from His hand. His chastisements will become mercies to those who undergo them with a penitent and obedient heart; His gifts will be turned into curses to those that revel in them without acknowledging the Giver.
II. All these evils are entirely brought upon men by their own hardness of heart. Will it be said that men ought to have had a choice whether they would have a revelation made to them or no; and that, not having been allowed such a choice beforehand, they ought now to be permitted to renounce religion if they please, and become unbelievers? That would be to pronounce the most precious gift that God has ever made to mankind, a gift purchased by the blood of His Son, to be of no value. The very desire of such liberty is a sin of the deepest dye. It is a refusal of the advice and admonition of God, and amounts to charging Him with folly and tyranny, as though He gave us commands not calculated for our benefit. For if we believe that His laws are for our good, how can we doubt that it is good for us to know them and to de them? And nobody does doubt it, but they whose hearts are enslaved to sin, and alienated from all that is holy and upright and godly. The wish, then, to be released from the obligation of Gods laws is practical atheism.
III. The impossibility of withdrawing from the obligations which our Christian covenant imposes on us need not alarm any truly pious mind. God will judge the heathen as well as us His chosen people; and though He will require more of us than He will of them, in just proportion to our greater advantages, yet the knowledge and power communicated to us more than compensate for the greater perfection and precision of the work expected from us. We have served a regular apprenticeship of Christian education; the designs and will of God, our employer, are fully made known to us; and we may seek for instruction from Him at any time in His Word, and for assistance from His Holy Spirit. It is no more than justice that much should be required of us, to whom so much has been given. (J. Randall, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 32. And that which cometh into your mind] Ye wish to be naturalized among idolaters, and make a part of such nations. But this shall not be at all; you shall be preserved as a distinct people. Ye shall not be permitted to mingle yourselves with the people of those countries: even they, idolaters as they are, will despise and reject you. Besides, I will change your place, restore your captivity; yet not in mercy, but in fury poured out; and reserve you for sorer evils, Eze 20:34.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God by his prophet, to convince and recover them, tells them what they think and have purposed.
Shall not be at all; shall be quite frustrated.
Ye say; you have consulted and come to a resolution herein.
As the heathen; unite in habitation, covenants, marriages, commerce, and religion too; and then ye shall be more safe among them, thrive with them, and all the displeasure they have against you will cease: these are your imaginations and contrivances of you at the court of Zedekiah in Jerusalem. But I tell you that this shall not be at all. This designed apostacy to Gentilism, if you do act it, shall not prosper with you, or help you, ye blind, hardened, senseless atheists.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
32. We will be as the heathenandso escape the odium to which we are exposed, of having a peculiar Godand law of our own. “We shall live on better terms with them byhaving a similar worship. Besides, we get from God nothing butthreats and calamities, whereas the heathen, Chaldeans, &c., getriches and power from their idols.” How literally God’s wordshere (“that . . . shall not be at all”) are fulfilled inthe modern Jews! Though the Jews seemed so likely (had Ezekiel spokenas an uninspired man) to have blended with the rest of mankind andlaid aside their distinctive peculiarities, as was their wish at thattime, yet they have remained for eighteen centuries dispersed amongall nations and without a home, but still distinct: a standingwitness for the truth of the prophecy given so long ago.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all,…. What they had contrived in their own breasts, and laid a plan of, and would gladly have brought about, should be frustrated, take no effect, and come to nothing:
that ye say, we will be as the Heathen; live without God; not be in subjection to him, or under his government, or be called by his name, or attend to his word, worship, and ordinances; but join ourselves to them; enter into alliance, and intermarry with them; carry on trade and commerce with them, and embrace the same religion; and then we shall prosper as they do, as well as no more incur the reproach of singularity or preciseness in religion:
as the families of the countries: being incorporated into them, dwelling with them, and joining with them in the same exercises of religious worship:
to serve wood and stone; images made of wood and stone. Strange! that a people that had a revelation from God, and such an experience of his power and goodness, should ever form such a scheme, or once think of entering into such measures, so grossly absurd and scandalous.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Judgment Awaiting Israel of Purification among the Heathen
Eze 20:32. And that which riseth up in your mind shall not come to pass, in that ye say, We will be like the heathen, like the families of the lands, to serve wood and stone. Eze 20:33. As I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, with strong hand and with outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, will I rule over you. Eze 20:34. And I will bring you out of the nations, and gather you out of the lands in which ye have been scattered, with strong hand and with outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, Eze 20:35. And will bring you into the desert of the nations, and contend with you there face to face. Eze 20:36. As I contended with your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt, so will I contend with you, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 20:37. And I will cause you to pass through under the rod, and bring you into the bond of the covenant. Eze 20:38. And I will separate from you the rebellious, and those who are apostates from me; out of the land of their sojourning will I lead them out, but into the land of Israel shall they not come; that ye may know that I am Jehovah. – , that which rises up in the spirit, is the thought that springs up in the mind. What this thought was is shown in Eze 20:32, viz., we will be like the heathen in the lands of the earth, to serve wood and stone; that is to say, we will become idolaters like the heathen, pass into heathenism. This shall not take place; on the contrary, God will rule over them as King with strong arm and fury. The words, “with strong hand and stretched-out arm,” are a standing expression in the Pentateuch for the mighty acts by which Jehovah liberated His people from the power of the Egyptians, and led them out of Egypt (cf. Exo 6:1, Exo 6:6 with ). Here, on the contrary, they are connected with , and are used in Eze 20:33 with reference to the government of God over Israel, whilst in Eze 20:34 they are applied to the bringing out of Israel from the midst of the heathen. By the introduction of the clause “with fury poured out,” the manifestation of the omnipotence of God which Israel experience in its dispersion, and which it was still to experience among the heathen, is described as an emanation of the divine wrath, a severe and wrathful judgment. The leading and gathering of Israel out of the nations (Eze 20:34) is neither their restoration from the existing captivity in Babylon, nor their future restoration to Canaan on the conversion of the people who were still hardened, and therefore rejected by God. The former assumption would be decidedly at variance with both and , since Israel was dispersed only throughout one land and among one people at the time of the Babylonian captivity. Moreover, neither of the assumptions is reconcilable with the context, more especially with Eze 20:35. According to the context, this leading out is an act of divine anger, which Israel is to feel in connection therewith; and this cannot be affirmed of either the redemption of the people out of the captivity in Babylon, or the future gathering of Israel from its dispersion. According to Eze 20:35, God will conduct those who are brought out from the nations and gathered together out of the lands into the desert of the nations, and contend with them there. The “desert of the nations” is not the desert lying between Babylonia and Palestine, on the coastlands of the Mediterranean, through which the Israelites would have to pass on their way home from Babylon (Rosenmller, Hitzig, and others). For there is no imaginable reason why this should be called the desert of the nations in distinction from the desert of Arabia, which also touched the borders of several nations. The expression is doubtless a typical one, the future guidance of Israel being depicted as a repetition of the earlier guidance of the people from Egypt to Canaan; as it also is in Hos 2:16. All the separate features in the description indicate this, more especially Eze 20:36 and Eze 20:37, where it is impossible to overlook the allusion to the guidance of Israel in the time of Moses.
The more precise explanation of the words must depend, however, upon the sense in which we are to understand the expression, “desert of the land of Egypt.” Here also the supposition that the Arabian desert is referred to, because it touched the border of Egypt, does not furnish a sufficient explanation. It touched the border of Canaan as well. Why then did not Ezekiel name it after the land of Canaan? Evidently for no other reason than that the time spent by the Israelites in the Arabian desert resembled their sojourn in Egypt much more closely than their settlement in Canaan, because, while there, they were still receiving their training for their entrance into Canaan, and their possession and enjoyment of its benefits, just as much as in the land of Egypt. And in a manner corresponding to this, the “desert of the nations” is a figurative expression applied to the world of nations, from whom they were indeed spiritually distinct, whilst outwardly they were still in the midst of them, and had to suffer from their oppression. Consequently the leading of Israel out of the nations (Eze 20:34) is not a local and corporeal deliverance out of heathen lands, but a spiritual severance from the heathen world, in order that they might not be absorbed into it or become inseparably blended with the heathen. God will accomplish this by means of severe chastisements, by contending with them as He formerly contended with their fathers in the Arabian desert. God contends with His people when He charges them with their sin and guilt, not merely in words, but also with deeds, i.e., through chastening and punishments. The words “face to face” point back to Deu 5:4: “Jehovah talked with you face to face in the mount, out of the midst of the fire.” Just as at Sinai the Lord talked directly with Israel, and made know to it the devouring fire of His own holy nature, in so terrible a manner that all the people trembled and entreated Moses to act the part of a mediator between them, promising at the same time obedience to him (Exo 20:19); so will the Lord make Himself known to Israel in the desert of the world of nations with the burning zeal of His anger, that it may learn to fear Him. This contending is more precisely defined in Eze 20:37 and Eze 20:38. I will cause you to pass through under the (shepherd’s) rod. A shepherd lets his sheep pass through under his rod for the purpose of counting them, and seeing whether they are in good condition or not (vid., Jer 33:13). The figure is here applied to God. Like a shepherd, He will cause His flock, the Israelites, to pass through under His rod, i.e., take them into His special care, and bring them “into the bond of the covenant” ( , not from Raschi, but from , for , a fetter); that is to say, not “I will bind myself to you and you to me by a new covenant” (Bochart, Hieroz. I. p. 508), for this is opposed to the context, but, as the Syriac version has rendered it, b – marduta ( in disciplina ), “the discipline of the covenant.” By this we are not merely to understand the covenant punishments, with which transgressors of the law are threatened, as Hvernick does, but the covenant promises must also be included. For not only the threats of the covenant, but the promises of the covenant, are bonds by which God trains His people; and is not only applied to burdensome and crushing fetters, but to the bonds of love as well (vid., Son 7:6). Kliefoth understands by the fetter of the covenant the Mosaic law, as being the means employed by God to preserve the Israelites from mixing with the nations while placed in the midst of them, and to keep them to Himself, and adds the following explanation, – ”this law, through which they should have been able to live, they have now to wear as a fetter, and to feel the chastisement thereof.” But however correct the latter thought may be in itself, it is hardly contained in the words, “lead them into the fetter (band) of the law.” Moreover, although the law did indeed preserve Israel from becoming absorbed into the world of nations, the fact that the Jews were bound to the law did not bring them to the knowledge of the truth, or bring to pass the purging of the rebellious from among the people, to which Eze 20:38 refers. All that the law accomplished in this respect in the case of those who lived among the heathen was effected by its threatenings and its promises, and not by its statutes and their faithful observance. This discipline will secure the purification of the people, by severing from the nation the rebellious and apostate. God will bring them forth out of the land of this pilgrimage, but will not bring them into the land of Israel. is the standing epithet applied in the Pentateuch to the land of Canaan, in which the patriarchs lived as pilgrims, without coming into actual possession of the land (cf. Gen 17:8; Gen 28:4; Gen 36:7; Exo 6:4). This epithet Ezekiel has transferred to the lands of Israel’s exile, in which it was to lead a pilgrim-life until it was ripe for entering Canaan. , to lead out, is used here for clearing out by extermination, as the following clause, “into the land of Israel shall they not come,” plainly shows. The singular is used distributively: not one of the rebels will enter.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Now God discloses what those old men had in their minds who, as well as the rest of the captives, came to the Prophet for the purpose of inquiry, namely, a feeling of despair, since they thought nothing would be more useful to themselves than to revolt utterly from God, and to form themselves after the manner and rites of the Gentiles; for they found themselves specially hated by the profane nations, because they worshipped a peculiar God. Since, therefore, the law separated them from all the rest of the world, that they might escape that hatred and envy, they encouraged the perverse intention of deserting God’s worship and passing over to the Gentiles. For they hoped that those who had been formerly hostile would have shown themselves favor-able. Now God not only announces that he would not suffer it, but he asserts with an oath, what you are thinking of shall not come to pass, since I will draw you back with a strong hand, and with an extended arm, and poured out wrath. The meaning is, that although those miserable captives desired to throw off God’s yoke and to mingle themselves with the profane nations, yet God would have respect to his covenant and not suffer them to be snatched away from him, just as a master fetches back his fugitive slave; or like a prince who might destroy the perfidious and rebellious, yet only chastises them that they may groan under a hard slavery: this is the complete sense.
But this passage is worthy of observation, since in the present day the same thought makes many anxious; for the name of sincere piety distresses them, and so they consult their love of ease, and satisfy both themselves and others by uniting with the rest of the world, and avoiding the hatred of mankind in consequence of their religion. Others again desire to escape in any way from God, because they feel him hostile to them, for the condition of the Church seems to them much worse than that of the world at large. And truly as God takes special care of it, so he chastises its faults more severely. We see then how he spares unbelievers and foreigners, as if he connived at their crimes: meanwhile his hand is always extended to chastise all who profess to be in the number of the pious. But some would desire to bid farewell to God, if they could choose for themselves. Hence I said we must observe this passage. The Israelites thought that nothing would be better than to be joined to the Gentiles and to become in all respects like them, since they imagined that in this way they would enjoy relaxation, since God was more lenient to the Gentiles than he had been to them, and because they perceived themselves exposed to many dangers and troubles, harassed by assaults and subject to daily threats. Hence that perverse deliberation which is here reproved; — what arises in your mind, says he, shall not come to pass, because you say we shall be as the nations and the families of the earth. But we must also consider the end, because the people’s folly was so great that they thought they would be free from God’s chastisements, if they utterly rejected all religion. God therefore denies that he would suffer it. Now a clearer explanation follows: As I live, says he, if I will not rule over you with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm; in this sense — when they had removed all refuges he would yet be an avenger of his rights and empire, so as to compel them to return to him, as we have said, and thus violently to bring back the fugitives. We now see the great stupidity of the people in thinking the only remedy for their troubles to be in declining from true piety. Let us then be careful that we do not harden ourselves when God chastises us, and desire to withdraw from his power and dominion. Meanwhile God shows that he will rule, but in some other way; because we know with what humanity he treated his people, and what patience he exercised towards them, when they so often provoked his wrath. He now announces that he would be the Lord, but with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm, since he would forget his former clemency and subject them to perverse bondage. As when a master sees that he cannot obtain voluntary obedience from his slaves, he compels them to the galleys, or other laborious works, until they become half dead. God denounces that such will be the condemnation which he will use against them, since they never profited by either clemency or pardon. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(32) As the heathen.The desire to be like the nations that are round about, had long been a ruling ambition with the Israelites, as shown in their original desire for a king (1Sa. 8:5; 1Sa. 8:20), and this desire, as shown in the text, had been one chief reason for their tendency to idolatry.
The second part of this prophecy extends from Eze. 20:33 to Eze. 20:44, where the chapter closes in the Hebrew, and it would have been better if the same division had been observed in the English, as the fresh prophecy of Eze. 20:45-49 is more closely connected with the following chapter. The object of this concluding part of the prophecy is to declare the mingled severity and goodness with which God is about to deal with His people to wean them from their sins, and prepare them to receive His abundant blessing.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
32. We will be as the heathen Even while claiming Jehovah as their national God and expecting him to preserve them as a nation they had practically apostatized by also giving honor to other deities (Jer 2:25; Jer 44:15-19), and now perhaps they felt that if the temple were snatched away nothing was left for them but to accept the worship of their conquerors. But Ezekiel declares that they cannot be as the heathen. Their sin and punishment had been peculiar and their deliverance should be equally and startlingly peculiar. On the wood and stone idols of the heathen see Deu 4:28; Deu 28:36; Isa 37:19.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eze 20:32-37. And that which cometh into your mind By all this it appears, that this rebellious people were not anxious to avoid their approaching captivity, denounced and threatened by all the prophets. What they wanted was, a light and easy servitude, which might enable them to mingle with, and at last to be lost among the nations; like the ten tribes which had gone before them. Against the vileness of these hopes is this part of the prophesy directed. God assures them, that he will bring them out of the Assyrian captivity, as he had done out of the Egyptian; but not in mercy, as was that deliverance, but in judgment, and with fury poured out: and as he had brought their fathers into the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so would he bring them into the wilderness of the people, that is, the land of Canaan, which, they would find on their return to it, was become desert and uninhabited, and therefore elegantly called the wilderness of the people. But what now was to be their reception, on their second possession of the Promised Land? A very different welcome from the first. God, indeed, leads them here again with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm; and it was to take possession; but not, as at first, of a land flowing with milk and honey, but of a prison, a house of correction, where they were to pass under the rod, and to remain in bonds. I will cause you, says God, Eze 20:37 to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: words, which strongly and elegantly express subjection to a ritual law, after the extraordinary providence which so much alleviated the yoke of it was withdrawn; and we find it withdrawn soon after their return from the captivity. See Div. Leg. as before.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 20:32 And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.
Ver. 32. And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all. ] You are laying a plot for an accommodation with the Babylonish idolaters, a compliance with them, and thereby you think to ingratiate, to get their favour and friendship. But please not yourselves in such a project; it will never be. So, no peace with Rome. The Moderater, Sancta Clara, and other such as sought to bring us together, made a pretty show, saith one, if there had been no Bible. Such carnal professors are not unlike these in the text, as seeing the wicked’s full cups, and their own harder condition, are ready to revolt, that “waters of a full cup may be wrung out to them” also. Psa 73:10
We will be as the heathen.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
mind = spirit. Hebrew. ruach. App-9.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
that which: Eze 11:5, Eze 38:10, Psa 139:2, Pro 19:21, Lam 3:37
We will: 1Sa 8:5, Jer 44:17, Jer 44:29, Rom 12:2
to serve: Deu 4:28, Deu 28:36, Deu 28:64, Deu 29:17, Isa 37:19, Dan 5:4, Rev 9:20
Reciprocal: Deu 12:30 – How did Deu 28:65 – shalt thou Jer 10:2 – Learn Jer 23:23 – General Jer 44:24 – all Judah Hos 2:7 – she shall follow Hos 3:4 – without teraphim Hos 9:1 – as
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE ISOLATION OF PRIVILEGE
That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you.
Eze 20:32-33
These words imply a desire on the part of the Jewish people to shake off utterly the yoke of God. At first sight this seems almost incredible.
The difference between the chosen race, the specially favoured and endowed, and the common idolatrous mass of menas it was not of their appointing, so it could not be by them wiped out. Into idolatry, into sensuality, into whatever iniquity they yielded to, they would bring a reproving conscience and a knowledge of better things. For while God left those others to a kind of impunity, He warns the Jews that they shall not thus be leftHe will rule over them against their will, and it shall be with a mighty hand, and a stretched out arm, and fury poured forth. They could not wipe out the fact that in covenant relation, in Gods claim and right to them especially, beside His common right to all men, and in the gratitude they owed Him for all their privilegestheir case was special: their guilt was special, and their punishment might well be special too.
Such is the plain meaning of our verse; and we have only to ask what lessons it conveys to us.
I. Can we fall into this wickedness, or need this warning?Clearly we are in no danger of plunging into any form of idolatry, or perhaps of open apostacy. And yet we have heard of miserable men who took up infidel ideas, and denied God, Christ, eternity, the soul, and whatever else raises us above the level of the brute, not from any rational delusion, but simply to share the freedom from restraint, the recklessness, and the guilt of the unbeliever.
But even far short of this, the apostacy of these Jews may be imitated still; and perhaps is imitated to an extent that some of us do not suspect. I would ask young men and young women, has this temptation never crossed your mind? Have you never said or thoughtSince I cannot be happy in religion, let me make myself happy as I can; and look to frivolity, to dissipation, to the pleasures that are just on this side of actual sin, and to the pleasures just on the other side of it, for such gifts as they have to bestow? Let me, says many a young man who has known better things, let me ask the billiard-room, and the public-house, and the betting-list, and the lewd song with the questionable meaning, and the play, and the dancing-saloon, what they can give; or, if not these, let me plunge deep into the whirl of active life, make myself indispensable, and push myself onnot for duty, but for happiness. And you can always point to the example of some who seem, at least, to be well-enough satisfied. And many a young woman has sought her bliss in stimulants just as mischievous as thesein giddy sentiment, in admiration and vanity, in show, and fashion, and frivolity. And many who scorn all these, have inflicted upon their sad souls the same ruinous error, striving to develop and indulge the intellect as a drug to the complaining of the heart. We will be as those around us, to serve wood and stone, said Gods people of old. Is it any better to say, We will be as those around us, to serve the world and the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life?
II. Let every one who ever felt one pulse of purer spiritual feeling, ever longed for purity, ever knelt in prayer that was not a mockeryevery one who has waited for God as men who wait for the morning, let every such man be warned.You cannot be as the disciples of pleasure, or as the idolaters of gain. If you will give yourselves up to these, so be it; but they shall not yield their sweetness to your taste, nor their fragrance to your smell. Such as these are, they are not for you. The desire of holiness may gradually die away; but the inner loathing and abhorrence of sin shall not die; the sense of dishonour and degradation shall still live; the shame of your illtreatment of your Benefactor shall linger on. And you shall not be able to forget death nor eternity; you shall see, as it were, the clear, deep eye that beholds and tries the children of men.
Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice,
And to thee shall night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun,
Which shall make thee wish it done.
For better or worse, with your consent or without it, you are a marked, peculiar people. Gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
III. But, then, surely there is injustice here.Why should one people be marked out for this government in fury? Why should you or I be debarred from consolations, wretched at best, in which other sinners take refuge? Because it is not for such a fate you are marked out. You, like Israel, are called to special privileges and prosperity and bliss; and it is only the rejection and neglect of these that can darken your sky with denser and blacker cloud, as the fiercest tempests rage in the splendid climates of the south. The nations might have seen Israel, and envied him, and said, Surely this great people is a wise and understanding people; for what nation is there so great, that hath God so nigh unto them? And so God offers Himself, with special clearness and urgency and frequency, to us who gather, week by week, to worship and praise and hear of Him. Christ stands at our door and knocks, and if there is deadly woe for them who keep Him out, that is only the counterpoise of the ineffable bliss of those who open their door and welcome Him. It may be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for us. But, on the other hand, the ten talents well invested may give us ten cities to rule in glory.
Bishop Chadwick.
Illustration
How often has the thought expressed in this come into the heart of men, who have borne the name of Christ, but have been caught in the snare of some unholy fascination: Why can we not live as we like, and do as the heathen, that give themselves up to lust and sin, without the grave consequences which are threatened to us? Ah, but that shall not be at all. The former relationship in which we walked with God counts for something. The other party to it has a right to speak. A wife cannot do as the unmarried.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Eze 20:32. They had determined in their own mind to be as the heathen who served false gods that were made of wood and stone. They were foolish enough to think they could succeed and continue as a nation while relying on such false gods. But this verse informs them that such a Lhing shall not he at all.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
20:32 And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and {q} stone.
(q) He declares that man by nature is wholly enemy to God, and to his own salvation, and therefore God calls him to the right way, partly by chastising but chiefly by his mercy in forgiving his rebellion and wickedness.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The Lord would not allow them to become like the idolaters all around them who served wood and stone. He would be their king, He swore, and bring judgment on them. But He would re-gather them to their land from the distant countries where He had scattered them (cf. Eze 36:14-38; Eze 37:21-23; Deu 30:1-10; Isa 11:11-16; Isa 49:17-23; Isaiah 60; Isa 61:4-9; Jer 23:1-8; Amo 9:11-15; Zec 10:8-12; et al.). The descriptions of God doing this with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm recall the terms used of His liberation of the Israelites from Egypt (Exo 6:6; Exo 32:11; cf. Deu 4:34; Deu 5:15; Deu 7:19; Deu 11:2; Psa 136:12). A second exodus is in view. He would bring them into another type of wilderness, a wilderness full of people, and there He would personally judge them. This probably refers to the present worldwide dispersion of the Jews that began in A.D. 70 when the Jews had to leave the Promised Land again. [Note: See Louis A. Barbieri Jr., "The Future for Israel in God’s Plan," in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, pp. 163-79, for a concise survey of this large subject.]