Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 20:9

But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they [were], in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

9. for my name’s sake ] This idea, very common in this prophet, also in Isaiah 40-66, does not appear in the earlier prophets, except Isa 37:35. Cf. however, Deu 9:28-29; Jer 14:7; Jer 14:21; Isa 43:25; Isa 48:9; Isa 48:11. Jehovah’s name expresses that which he is, or has revealed himself to be, and the phrase does not differ from “for my own sake,” cf. ch. Eze 36:22; Eze 36:32.

should not be polluted ] Rather: profaned. The words explain, “for my name’s sake,” viz. lest it should be profaned among the nations. Deu 9:28-29 suggests one way in which the name of Jehovah might be profaned among the nations. To “profane” is the opposite of to “sanctify.” The one is to cherish any thoughts of Jehovah or to attribute any deed to him inconsistent with his being the one true God, or derogatory to him who is so. To “sanctify” him is to recognise him in thought and in act, particularly in worship, to be the one true God; to assign to him attributes and operations befitting his nature, and to live in such a way as those who are the people of Jehovah ought to live, for the manner of the people is reflected on the character of their God (Amo 2:7). This is the way, at least, in which Ezek., with the conception of Jehovah which in his age he had reached, uses the terms “profane” and “sanctify.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Eze 20:9

I wrought for My names sake.

The glory of God, His principle of action

It is an admitted axiom of all enlightened legislation, that with man as a moral agent human lawmakers have nothing to do; that they must overlook many considerations of natural infirmity and educational bias, to which due weight will nevertheless be given in the merciful estimate of Heaven, confining their attention solely to what will most uphold the majesty of the law, and thus secure the greatest good of the greatest number. Now with some difference in form, this is the very thing which takes place with the great rule of the Divine procedure. What the honour of the law is to earthly govermnents, the honour of His own great name is to Almighty God. Every decree that goes forth from the court of heaven is referred to this one rule.

I. Some reasons for this rule of the Divine procedure. The steps of the reasoning, whereby a moral necessity (as it were) is imposed upon God, to consult first the glory of His own name, as distinguished from anything He should see in His creatures, appear to us to be both simple and conclusive. For what is a part of God must have more glory than that which comes from God, seeing that the glory of the one is original and the glory of the other is derived. Another reason to be offered for this rule of the Divine procedure is, that God designs to show to us, that in all the deliverances He has hitherto wrought, or any which He may be expected hereafter to work, He could be influenced by no considerations foreign to Himself: to show that He would put forth or withdraw His arm, according as He did or did not apprehend dishonour would be charged upon the rectitude of His government, or His name be polluted in the sight of the heathen, from whom He brought them forth. We have yet another reason to urge why the glory of His own name should be chosen by God as the governing principle of His administration, in preference to seeking for that governing principle in anything that man does, or in anything that man is: that by so choosing He gives to men themselves the only security they can have, that the administration of heaven shall be free from all inconstancy, from all fluctuation, and from all change. It would not, however, we think, be sufficient that we should merely justify the principle laid down in our text, that in all which God hath done He hath wrought for His names sake; the solemnity and frequency with which we see it repeated seem to require from us a distinct recognition, that it is designed to exert some direct influence on our faith and practice. And this influence we take to be, that in all our judgments of His ways, and in all our petitions for His help, we should have a uniform regard to that end, which He avows to be the ruling principle of the heavenly administration, namely, the glory of His own name. It is good to give back something of glory, for what hath been so largely bestowed of grace; and on all occasions of perplexity and of doubt which may arise, it will ever afford us comfort in the retrospect, to have known that we acted neither from ourselves, nor for ourselves, but that we wrought for His names sake. There is, however, another reason why we think God so frequently insists on the glory of His own name, as being the ruling principle of His government; and that is, because He would teach us that what is to Him the rule of action should be to us both a measure and a plea of prayer.

II. A few observations in evidence of this.

1. God had an eye to His glory in the works of creation. It is obvious, that had the necessities of man been the only motive to the Divine beneficence, Deity might have provided for man a less noble theatre for the exercise of his powers, and a less gorgeous home for the place of his rest. His design in creation is to lead us from the seen to the unseen; from the measured to the infinite; from the top of heights, which sense would apprehend and scale, to the loftier pinnacle of His own eternal power and Godhead.

2. God has never lest sight of this great end in the various departments of His providence. It may be true–it must be true–that seeing as we do only a part of our Makers ways, the mere fragments of the stupendous plan, the detached pieces of providence, we shall be prone to ask, Wherein is Gods name exalted here? But ye must wait to see these pieces of providence put together; ye must wait to see all the wheels and springs of the great Timepiece adjusted and fitted in; and then shall ye find that the most inscrutable act of the Divine administration formed one of the letters of His own great Name.

3. It was with a view to the glory of His own great name that the Creator of all the ends of the earth devised, effectuated, and wrought out the plan of mans redemption. (D. Moore, M. A.)

The Divine motive of action

The conception that Jehovah acts only for His own names sake, to sanctify His great name, is capable of being set in a repellent light. It seems to make the Divine Being egoistic, and His own sense of Himself the source of all His operations. The way too in which He brings the nations to know that He is Jehovah, through judgments mainly, invests the idea with additional harshness. The conception is not found in the earlier prophets, but is familiar in the age of Ezekiel. Perhaps two things, if considered, would help to explain the prophets idea. One is his lofty conception of Jehovah, God alone and over all, and his profound reverence before Him. The child of man cannot conceive the motive of Jehovahs operations to be found anywhere but in himself. But that name for whose sake he works is a great name (Eze 36:23) and a holy name (Eze 39:25), it is that of Him who is God. The prophet thinks of Jehovah as one of his predecessors did. For Jehovah your God is the God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and the terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward (Deu 10:17). And the second thing is this: the conception arose out of the conflicts of the times. There were antagonisms within Israel, and more powerful antagonisms without, between Israel and the nations. The conflicts on the stage of history were but the visible forms taken by a conflict of principles, of religions of Jehovah God with the idolatries of which the nations of the earth were the embodiments. The prophet could not help drawing up this antagonism into his conception of God; and not unnaturally he inflicted his own feeling upon the mind of God, and conceived Him thinking of Himself as he thought of Him. If it was but half a truth, it was perhaps the half needed for the age. When the fulness of time was come, the centre of Divine motive was shifted. God so loved the world, etc. Coming from the bosom of the Father, and knowing Him, the Sons mind was altogether absorbed in the positive truth the stream of which was so broad and deep that all antagonisms were buried beneath it. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 9. But I wrought for my name’s sake] I bare with them and did not punish them, lest the heathen, who had known my promises made to them, might suppose that I had either broken them through some caprice, or was not able to fulfil them.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I wrought, according to my promise, ny infinite mercy, and the hopes of those few that heard and obeyed.

For my names sake; for my glory: had you been used as you deserved, you had died slaves in Egypt, and there had been your graves; but the glory of Gods mercy and faithfulness is the motive of him sparing them.

Polluted; reproached, blasphemed, and lessened among the heathen.

The heathen, among whom they were; the Egyptians, amongst whom Israel had sojourned two hundred and fifteen years, in which time many of the children of Israel, no doubt, had discoursed of their hopes of going out of Egypt to the land promised to Abraham for them, and were apt to boast of their God, and that country; and, to render the thing credible in the eyes of the Egyptians, would speak of the mercy, power, faithfulness, and wisdom of the Lord to effect this, the glory of which would have been eclipsed, and the heathen blasphemed, if God had not brought them out; when it was thus God wrought for his names sake.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

But I wrought for my name’s sake,…. In a way of grace and mercy; did well by thorn, did what he promised to do; not for any merits of theirs, but for his own honour, and the glory of his name:

that it should not be polluted before the Heathen, among whom they [were]; be spoken evil of, which is a polluting it; saying, either that he was not true to his word, in not doing what he promised; or else that it was not in his power to perform; either of which would reflect dishonour on his name, and so defile it:

in whose sight I made myself known unto them; by the wonders he wrought; and who, by one means or another, became acquainted with the promises of God to Israel, that he would bring them out of Egypt, and settle them in the land of Canaan: wherefore for the honour of his name he exerted his power,

in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt; as he did, as follows:

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Here God signifies that he was restrained for one reason only from entirely blotting out so ungrateful and wicked a nation, namely, since he saw his own sacred name would be exposed to the Gentiles as a laughing-stock. He teaches, therefore, that he spared them, and suspended his rigor for the time, rather through being induced by regard to his own glory than by pity to them. Hence, by the word I did it, we ought to understand what will be more clearly explained. The sense is, that he abstained from the final act of vengeance for his name’s sake, that it should not be profaned among the Gentiles. Although God here pronounces that he had respect rather to himself than to them, yet there is no doubt that he spared them, because he saw that they could not be otherwise preserved than by his pardoning them even in such hardness and obstinacy; and certainly God’s glory and the salvation of the Church are things almost inseparably united. When I speak of the salvation of the Church, I do not comprehend all those who profess to be its members, but I mean only the elect. Since, therefore, God had adopted that nation, he must preserve the remnant in safety, otherwise his truth would have failed, and thus his name would have been much more severely profaned. Hence we may gather, whenever God pardons us, though he regards himself, and wishes in this way to exercise his clemency, yet his pity towards us is another reason for his pardoning us: but when he says that he has withdrawn his hand from vengeance through regard for His own glory, he in this way prostrates still more the pride of this nation, since, whenever he had pity on them, they thought it a concession to their own worthiness and merits. The Prophet therefore shows here that they were snatched from destruction, while they were remaining in the land of Egypt, for no other reason than this, that God was unwilling to expose his name to the contempt of the nations. He says, therefore, in the eyes of the Gentiles, among whom they were, regarding not the Egyptians only, but others.

Yet the question arises, in what sense, he adds by and by, that he was known to them? for as yet he had given no specimen of his power among the Gentiles. He had borne witness by two miracles that Moses should be the agent in their redemption, (Exo 4:2, and following:) afterwards Moses approached Pharaoh himself: there God put forth the signs of his power, which deservedly frightened all the Egyptians; but his fame had not yet reached other nations. But this knowledge ought not to be simply restricted to past time; for God only means that he had already begun to show, by certain and remarkable proofs, that Moses was chosen, by whose hand he wished to redeem his own people. Since, therefore, God had. already come forward with those remarkable signs, he says, that he was known to those nations, not that his fame had reached them, but because he had gone there himself, so that the event could not be in obscurity, and all must know that miracles had been performed by the hand of Moses, by which it was evident that he wished to claim the Israelites as his own. Now, therefore, we understand in what sense Ezekiel says that God was known. Some explain this relatively thus: I was known to them, meaning the Israelites, in their eyes, meaning the Gentiles: but this sense seems to me forced; for in my opinion this one word “their,” in the Prophet’s language, is superfluous. He simply means that God was manifested in the eyes of all the nations in leading them forth. This clause shows the kind of knowledge intended, since God showed his power in liberating the people by remarkable miracles. It follows —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(9) For my names sake.This is the express ground of Moses pleading for the people in the passage just referred to, and again in Exo. 32:12; Deu. 9:28; and it is repeatedly given, as in Deu. 32:27-28, as the ground on which the Lord spared His rebellious people. Had they been treated according to their deserts, and destroyed for their sins, the heathen would have said that God was unable to deliver them.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

9. I wrought for my name’s sake The destruction of the Jewish state came from the same motive as its origination Jehovah’s regard to his own name. His “name” stands for all he had been revealed to be: “merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, yet; by no means clearing the guilty” (Exo 34:5-7). Not to punish sin would pollute (literally, profane) and stain the reputation of Jehovah for justice and holiness among the nations. Besides this, the people of Israel were so identified with Jehovah in the thought of the nations that no doubt the evil acts and unholy rites of the Jerusalem worship were thought of as having Jehovah’s sanction.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

“But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.”

God had acted to protect His own ‘name’ and reputation (compare Psa 106:8; Isa 48:9; Jer 14:7; Jer 14:21). The name in the ancient world indicated all that someone was. To see God’s glory was the same as knowing His name (Exo 33:18-19). So instead of punishing Israel He had delivered them so that the nations would see what kind of a God He was, and would not be able to decry His great power and ability to deliver.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Eze 20:9. But I wrought for my name’s sake This in other parts of Scripture is assigned as the reason why God did not punish the Israelites as they deserved; namely, because it would turn to the dishonour of the Almighty in the judgment of the heathen world, as if he was not able to make good the gracious promises which he had given them. We see throughout the whole Scripture this jealousy, this zeal in the Lord to preserve the honour of his name, and to put to silence the insults and reproaches of unbelievers. Sea Calmet, and Lowth.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eze 20:9 But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they [were], in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

Ver. 9. But I wrought for my name’s sake.] Lest the heathens should say to my dishonour, Me non voluisse aut valuisse eos educere, that I either would not, or could not, bring them out of the house of bondage. Ergo quod nomen suum in nobis servandis asserat, sperandum est. It is also well to be hoped that God will deal favourably with the reformed churches, though ill deserving, for the dishonour that else would redound to himself. Fiat, fiat.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)