Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 36:25

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

25. Dogmatically, sprinkling with clean water might seem merely to express the idea of the forgiveness of past sins. The figure is taken from the washings by which ceremonial defilement was removed, and the figure is part of the idea. By their relation to the idols and service of them the people contracted uncleanness. And when the kind of service which this was is considered, the debasing forms which it took, and the immoralities which accompanied it or formed part of it (Hos 4:13-14), the depth of defilement will be understood and the strong figure Eze 36:17 will not appear too strong.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Ezekiel the priest has in view the purifying rites prescribed by the Law, the symbolic purport of which is exhibited in Heb 9:13-14; Heb 10:22. As the Levites were consecrated with sprinkling of water, so should the approved rite sprinkling of water thus prescribed by the Law and explained by the prophets, give occasion to the use of water at the admission of proselytes in later days, and so to its adoption by John in his baptism unto repentance. It was hallowed by our Lord when in His discourse with Nicodemus, referring, no doubt, to such passages as these, He showed their application to the Church of which He was about to be the Founder; and when He appointed Baptism as the sacrament of admission into that Church. In this sacrament the spiritual import of the legal ordinance is displayed – the second birth by water and the Spirit. As Israel throughout the prophecy of Ezekiel prefigures the visible Church of Christ, needing from time to time trim or purification – so does the renovated Israel represent Christs mystical Church Eph 5:26. The spiritual character of the renovation presumes a personal application of the prophets words, which is more thoroughly brought out under the new covenant (e. g., Heb 11:16). Thus the prophecy of Ezekiel furnishes a medium through which we pass from the congregation to the individual, from the letter to the spirit, from the Law to the Gospel, from Moses to Christ.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Eze 36:25-36

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you.

The new heart

All Gods bestowal of good must begin with cleansing. The black barrier of sin lies across the stream, and before His full goodness can reach us it must be broken and swept away. Experience teaches us that not only is sin the direct cause of many of our sorrows, but that it so clogs the heart that it keeps Gods love out, like an iron shutter which excludes the sunshine. Our deepest need, then, is to be delivered from sin, and all attempts to banish human sorrow which do not begin with grappling with sin must fail, as they have failed. They are like physicians who treat a patient for pimples when he is dying of cancer. To sprinkle clean water upon a person or thing which had become unclean by touching a dead body was part of the Mosaic ritual. That practice is probably the source of Ezekiels metaphor, as his priestly descent would familiarise him with it. In any case, the substance of the Divine promise is cleansing, and we must not narrow it down to forgiveness only. The difference between that first washing with clean water and the subsequent gift of a new heart and spirit is not so much that the one promises pardon and the other sanctifying, as that the one is mainly negative–the removal of sin, both in regard to its guilt and its tyranny; and the other is positive–the giving of a new nature. Forgiveness never comes alone, but hand in hand with its twin sister, purity. And such double cleansing from its guilt and power is a Divine prerogative. But more is needed than even these blessings. The past having been thus dealt with, the future remains to be provided for. Therefore the prophet holds forth a still brighter hope, and comes still nearer to the very heart of New Testament teaching, in his assurance of the gift of a new lifes centre and power, a heart of flesh, from which shall come issues of a God-pleasing and God-inspired life. Two forces act on us all, and our sensitiveness to the one measures our non-sensitiveness to the other. Either we are flesh towards God, and stone towards the world, impressible by and yielding to Him, and unaffected by earths temptations, or our hearts are soft and weak as flesh towards them, and hard as the nether millstone towards God. But Ezekiel was given a glimpse into still deeper and more wonderful abysses of Gods givings, when he learned that the new spirit to be given was My Spirit. Ezekiel may not have had any conscious dogma about the Spirit of God, but he had been taught by that Spirit at least this much–the possibility of a Divine spirit entering into a human spirit, and being there the motive power. We know more than he did. Do we feel as deeply as he felt, that the only way by which our spirits can be kept pure, and give forth pure streams, is by Gods Spirit being within us? But what is the end of all these Divine gifts? A life of obedience. We are forgiven, cleansed, made sensitive to Gods touch, inspired with His Spirit, for this purpose most chiefly, that we may shape our lives by His will. Not a correct creed, not blessed emotions, but a life which runs parallel with Gods will, should be the outcome of our religion. The result of obedience is abundance (verses 28-30). If there were anywhere a nation of people all obedient to Gods laws, no doubt it would be exempt from most of the ills that afflict our modern so-called civilisation. Suppose one of our great cities inhabited only by God-fearing men living by His law, most of the evils that make the scandal of our national profession of Christianity would die out, like a fire unfed by fuel. And if, individually, we ordered our footsteps by Gods word, we should find that even the rough ways became ways of pleasantness. It is forever true that godliness hath promise of the life that now is, even though its promise may not always be what the world calls good. The result of these lavish blessings within and without is deepened sense of unworthiness. The penitence that springs from experience of Gods love is far deeper than that which rises from dread of His wrath. When all fear of penal consequences is gone, and a new standard of judging ourselves is set up within by the indwelling Spirit, and when a flood of blessings has been poured on us, then we see, as never before, the sinfulness of sin against such a God. The higher a true Christian goes, the lower he lies. The more sure we are that God has forgiven us, the less can we forgive ourselves. The holiness and prosperity of the renewed Israel will reveal God to the world. The lives of men and communities, who are cleansed and blessed by God, proclaim Him to the world in His character of being able and willing to repair all the desolation of humanity, and build up our ruined nature in fairer shapes. Christian lives should be illustrated copies of the Gospel. Gardeners pick out their best plants for flower shows; would the great Gardener select us as specimens of what He can do? If not, it is not because His gift has been withheld, but because we have not taken, or not used, the things that are freely given to us of God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Man justified

I intend to set forth the means by which He, who is most willing to save sinners, accomplishes His generous and gracious purpose. I am now to show you that famous breach by which the soldiers of the Cross, pressing on behind their Captain, with banners flying and sword in hand, have taken the kingdom, and, trampling under foot the powers of sin, have entered heaven as by a holy violence.

I. Gods people are not chosen because they are holy. They are chosen that they may become holy, not because they have become so. It is after God elects that he justifies, as it is after He has justified that He sanctifies. This stands out very visibly in the terms of the text, then will I sprinkle clean water upon you. We do not hold good works cheap. We say that by them God is glorified; by them faith is justified; by them on the great day of judgment shall you, and I, and every man be tried. You are not to be justified by works, yet you are to be judged by works; the rule of that day being this–The tree is known by his fruit, and every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. The most important results often depend on the right adjustment of place and position. What a monster in nature, how hideous of aspect, and happily how brief its existence, were that body which should have its organs and members so arranged, that the hands occupied the place of the feet, and the heart palpitated in the cavity of the brain! And who, besides, does not know that the fruitfulness, the beauty, the very life of a tree depends not only on its having both roots and branches, but on these members being placed in their natural order? Well, if the order established in nature is of such consequence, I can confidently affirm that it is of as much consequence to abide by the order established in the kingdom of grace. It is not enough that you hold right doctrines, nay, hold all the doctrines. Each right doctrine must be in its own right place. Are any of you attempting to make yourselves more pure and more penitent, that you may get up some claim to Divine mercy? In that you are trying to weave ropes of sand; and he who has set you to a task so impracticable knows right well that by and by you will abandon it in despair; and then, perhaps, returning to your old sins, like a drunkard to his cups after an irksome season of sobriety, you shall furnish but another illustration of the saying, The last state of that man is worse than the first. I would endeavour to disabuse your minds of so great an error. For that purpose let me borrow an illustration from such an asylum as a ragged school. That institution, like the Gospel that it teaches, opens its loving arms to the outcast, and seeks to train up to God the poor, perishing children whom its piety and pity have adopted. On entering these blessed doors, the only gate of hope to many, your attention is caught by a child, who is supported thereby the bounty of some generous Christian. The boy now can spell his way through the Bible, once a sealed book to him; now he knows the name, and in tones that have melted our heart he now sings sweetly of a Saviour who said, Suffer little children to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. These little hands are now skilful to weave the net, or ply the shuttle, which once were alert only to steal, or held out in pitiful emaciation for oft-denied charity. And now there is such sharp intelligence in his once languid eye, and such an open air of honesty in his beaming face, and such attention to cleanliness in his dress and person, and such buoyancy in his whole bearing, as if hope hailed a bright future for him, that these bespeak your favour. But were these the childs passport to this asylum? Do you suppose that, when he wandered an outcast in the winter streets, shoeless among the snow, shivering in the cold, it was what now so interests you that caught the eye of pity? If you suppose that to these habits and accomplishments, acquired under a parental roof the child owed his adoption, how great is your mistake! This were to turn things upside down. He was adopted, not for the sake of these, but notwithstanding the want of them. It was his wretchedness that saved him. The clean hands and rosy cheek and eye lighted up with intelligence and decent habits and useful arts and Bible knowledge and all which now wins your regard, are the consequences of his adoption. They never were nor could be its cause Even so it is with holy habits and a holy heart in the matter of redemption; Ye have not chosen Me, lint I have chosen you, says God. Blessed truth!

II. In redemption the saved are not justified by themselves, but by God. This is no recondite truth, one which we need to dig or dive for. The pearl lies in the hidden depths of the sea, but gold commonly near the surface of the earth; and like that precious ore gleaming from the naked rock, this truth shines on the face of my text. A childs eye can catch it there and a childs mind comprehend it. For how is a sinner made clean? but through the application of what is here called clean water; and by whom, according to the text, is that water applied? It is applied to the sinner, but not by the sinner. Observe what happens when the cry rises at sea–A man overboard! With all on deck you rush to the side; and, leaning over the bulwarks, with beating heart you watch the place where the rising air bells and boiling deep tell that he has gone down. Some moments of breathless anxiety, and you see his head emerge from the wave. Now, that man, I shall suppose, is no swimmer, he has never learned to breast the billows; yet, with the first breath he draws he begins to beat the water; with violent efforts he attempts to shake off the grasp of death, and, by the play of limbs and arms, keep his head from sinking. It may be that these struggles but exhaust his strength, and sink him all the sooner; nevertheless, that drowning one makes instinctive and convulsive efforts to save himself. So, when first brought to feel and cry. I perish, when the horrible conviction rushes into the soul that we are lost, when we feel ourselves going down beneath a load of guilt into the depths of the wrath of God, our first effort is to save ourselves. Like a drowning man, who clutches at straws and twigs, we seize on anything, however worthless, that promises salvation. Thus, alas! many poor souls toil and spend weary, unprofitable years in the attempt to establish a righteousness of their own, and find in the deeds of the law a protection from its curse. There was a time, no doubt, when man held his fortunes in his own hand. That time is gone. Our power passed away with our purity. Impotence has followed the loss of innocence, and nothing is left us but poverty and a proud spirit. How few, who have been accustomed to a high position in society, are able to reconcile themselves to a humble one! I have seen such an one, when he had lost his wealth, retain his vanity, and continue proud in spirit even when he had become poor in circumstances. So is it with us in our low and lost estate. Spiritually poor, we are spiritually proud, saying, I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing, while we are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Even when we are in some degree sensible of our poverty, and know we cannot pay, like the unjust steward we are ashamed to beg. Indulging a pride out of all keeping with filthy rags, we will not stoop to stand at Gods door, poor mendicants, who ask for mercy. No. We shall work out our own salvation, nor be beholden to another. Nor, ordinarily, till the sinner learns, by prolonged and painful and unsuccessful trials, that he cannot be his own saviour, does this proud heart allow us to stand suppliants at the gate of mercy; our plea for pardon not our own merits; nothing, nothing whatever but a Saviours merits and a sinners misery. Yet thus and there we must stand if we would be saved. Jesus is a Saviour of none but the lost. Now, to bring us down to this humbling conviction, to draw from our lips and hearts the cry, Lord, save me, I perish, God often leaves awakened sinners to try their hand at working out their own salvation. God, in fact, deals with them as Jesus did with Simon Peter. Impetuous, self-satisfied, puffed up with vanity, to parade his power and prove his superiority to the other disciples, he will walk the sea. His Master allows him to try it. Lord, save me, I perish. Painful but profitable lesson! His danger and failure have taught him his weakness. Now, to such a state, and confession, all who are to be saved must first be brought.

III. We are not justified or cleansed from the guilt of sin through the administration or efficacy of any outward ordinance. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. The question that we would urge on your most serious consideration does not concern the sign, but the thing signified. If you have got the living element, I care little, or nothing, through what church or by what channel it may flow. Have you got the living grace of God? In the words of an apostle, Have ye received the Holy Ghost?

IV. We are justified, or cleansed from the guilt of sin, by the blood of Christ. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission; and none, we may add, without its application. Where do we find this doctrine in the text? By what process of spiritual chemistry can this truth be extracted from it? There is water, and clean water, and sprinkling of water, it maybe said, but no word of blood; there is neither sign nor spot of blood upon the page, True, so it looks at first sight; but without the hand of Moses we shall see this water turned into blood. This at least is plain, that here, as elsewhere, water is but the sign of spiritual blessings. And a most expressive symbol we shall find it, if we but reflect on the important part that this element plays in the economy of nature. The circulation of this fluid is to the world what that of blood is to the body, or that of grace to the soul. It is its life. Withdraw it, and all that lives would expire; forests, fields, beasts, man himself would die. This world would become one vast grave; for water constitutes as much the life as the beauty of the landscape; and it is true, both in a spiritual and in an earthly sense, that the world lives because heaven weeps over it. It was Christs choicest figure of Himself. Turning the eyes of thousands on His own person, as on a perennial fountain, one never sealed by winters frost, nor dried by summer suns, free, full, patent to all, He stood up on the last and great day of the feast, and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. All the world use water for washing as well as drinking; and the reference in the text is to that solvent power, by virtue of which it removes impurities, turning white what is black, and cleansing whatever is foul. It stands here, therefore, the figure of that which cleanses. The object to be cleansed is the soul; the defilement to be cleansed away is sin; and we now therefore address ourselves to the all-important question–Of what is this water the figure? The key to that question lies in the epithet clean water. The water is such as the Jews understood by clean water; not merely free from impurity, and in itself clean, but that maketh clean; in the words of the ceremonial law, water of purifying. This was prepared according to a divinely appointed ritual. Look how it was prepared, and you shall see it reddening into blood. Gathering the lowing herds from their different pastures, they sought up and down among them, till a red heifer was found; red from head to tail, from horn to hoof, mottled by no other colour, but all red; and one also on whose free neck yoke of bondage had never lain. What was that heifer? Spotless and separated from the common herd, she is a type of Him who was without spot or blemish, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. With neck on which yoke had never lain, she is a type of Him who said, The prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me. Red in colour, she is a type of Him whose feet were dipped in the blood of His enemies, and who, as seen by the prophet on His way from Bozrah, was red in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of His might. And what is this public procession, which conducts the heifer without the camp, but a figure of the march to Calvary? And what is her bloody death, but a type of that which Jesus suffered amid the agonies of the Cross? And what are these fires that burn so fiercely, and consume the victim, but a flaming image of the wrath of God, under which His soul was withered like grass? And what is the water mingled with this heifers ashes, but a type of the righteousness, which, imputed by God, received by faith, and applied to sinners, makes sinners just? For, as the Jew over whom that water was sprinkled became ceremonially clean, so the guilt of original and actual sin, all guilt, is removed from him (much the happier man), whom God sprinkles with the blood of Jesus, and to whom sovereign mercy imputes a Saviours merits. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Cleansing: a covenant blessing

Sin, to the awakened sinner, is his burden, his misery, his horror. It is a nightmare which haunts him; he can never escape from it. Like David, he cries, My sin is ever before me. Even when sin is forgiven, the memory of it often makes a man go softly all his days. It is therefore a very blessed thought on the part of our God to make the covenant to bear so much ripen our sin and our sinfulness, and especially to make it open with this unconditional promise of infinite love, Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, etc.

I. God begins to deal with His people while they are yet in sin. He does not make promises of purification to them upon condition that they cleanse themselves; but He comes to them according to the riches of His grace, even when they are dead in trespasses and sins. He finds them in all their defilement, rebellion, and iniquity, and He deals with them just as they are. His grace stoops to the ruin of the fall and lifts us up from it. If the covenant of grace did not deal with sinners as sinners I should be afraid to come to Christ; but because it opens its mouth wide to me while I am yet unclean and polluted by sin, I feel that it meets my case. You may notice in the text, or gather it therefrom by clear inference–that these people with whom God dealt were not only unclean, but they could not cleanse themselves, lit Is a rule with miracles, as well miracles of the Spirit as miracles of the body, that God never does what others can do. Cleansing cannot come from any other place, therefore seek it of the Lord, who says, I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. If you go about through heaven, and earth, and hell, you shall find no other detergent that shall take away sin but the precious blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God. More than that, when God begins to deal with His people many of them have a special filthiness. From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. The heathen of old once reported that ours was the religion of the most abandoned. They laughed at Christianity, for they said it was like the building of Rome, when Romulus received everybody that was in debt and discontented, and all the criminals from all the towns round about came to make the city of Rome. There is much truth in the statement; it is a very good figure, though meant to be a slander. The Lord does receive the devils runaways.

II. God provides for the cleansing of those to whom He comes in sovereign grace. Where could this clean water be found by mortal man? God has provided a system of cleansing men, perfect in itself, and just, and right, and effectual. When under the old Mosaic law they took water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the unclean therewith, he was cleansed ceremonially; and now under the Gospel God has provided a wondrous way by which, being Himself perfectly pure, He can put away the impurities of our nature, and the iniquities of our lives.

1. It is a righteous way. Sin must not go unpunished; it would be ruinous that such a thing should be. Therefore the Lord took sin and laid it on His Son, that His Son might bear what was due for our transgressions. This the Lord Jesus did as our substitute and Saviour. In addition to that, God has given the Holy Ghost as a gift of Christ on His ascension; and that Holy Spirit is here to renew men in their hearts, to take away from them the love of sin, to give them a new life, to create in them a new heart and a right spirit, and so to change their inward longings and desires that their outward conduct shall become altogether different from what it was before.

2. And what a simple way it is, as well as clean! The wisdom of God made the rite by which the leper was cleansed under the law very simple; but even more simple is the act by which God applies the merit of His dear Son to us.

3. It is a way of universal adaptation, too; for wherever there is a soul on whom God has looked with love He can apply to that soul the blood of sprinkling.

4. It is a way of unfailing efficacy, for He says, From all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. He does not only attempt the cleansing, but He accomplishes it. What though your heart be like the Augean stable, the labours of Hercules shall be outdone by the wonders of Jesus.

III. God Himself applies this means of cleansing. Some of you remember when first the Lord revealed to you how much you needed to be cleansed: that discovery was a great part of the cleansing. Then did it not seem to you impossible that you could be cleansed from so much defilement? It seemed to me–I dare say it did to you–the most extraordinary thing in the world to believe in Jesus. I could not make it out. How could I get to Christ? I could see that He was a Saviour. I could see that He saved others, and I was glad that He did; but the thing was, how could I ever come to be personally a partaker of His power to save? I heard about that woman touching the hem of the garment; and I felt that if Christ were before me, I would touch the hem of His garment with my finger; but I could not understand how I was to touch Him spiritually. To this day the simplest thing under heaven is perverted by our evil hearts into difficulty and mystery. Despite the simplicity of faith, no man ever would have savingly believed in Jesus Christ if the Lord had not guided him, and led him into faith. Oh yes, the clean water is provided, but the clean water must be sprinkled by another hand than ours if we are to be cleansed. And all the way through the rest of life it is just the same. All things are of God.

IV. The Lord effectually cleanses all His people. First, He cleanses them from all their filthiness. Oh, what a vast all that is! All the filthiness of your birth sin; all the filthiness of your natural temperament and constitution and disposition. All the filthiness that came out of you in your childhood, that was developed in you in your youth, that still has vexed your manhood, and perhaps even now dishonours your old age. From all your actual filthiness, as well as from all your original filthiness, will I cleanse you. From all your secret filthiness, and from all your public filthiness; from everything that was wrong in the family; from everything that was wrong in the business; from everything that was wrong in your own heart–From all your filthiness will I cleanse you. And then it is added that we shall be cleansed from all our idols. We are all of us idolaters by nature and by practice. If there is anything that has our love more than God, it is an idol, and we must be purged from it. This is not a threatening but a promise: it is a great blessing to have our images of jealousy put away. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 25. Then – at the time of this great restoration – will I sprinkle clean water upon you – the truly cleansing water; the influences of the HOLY SPIRIT typified by water, whose property it is to cleanse, whiten, purify, refresh, render healthy and fruitful.

From all your filthiness] From every sort of external and internal abomination and pollution.

And from all your idols] False gods, false worship, false opinions, and false hopes.

Will I cleanse you.] Entirely separate you.

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

He alludes to the sprinklings under the law, perhaps to that Num 19:9, which was for purification of sin; and Eze 36:19,20. So God will purify them from their guilt. Clean water: some think it may refer to baptismal water; if so, it is to the blood of Christ, signified by it, and this, say the best expositors, is here intended, and this is

the blood of sprinkling, Heb 12:24.

Ye shall be clean; when sin is remitted, the person is indeed clean, both in the account of God and Christ.

From all your filthiness; though they have been many of all sorts, and among all ranks of men, yet multitude of sins shall not hinder me from pardoning.

From all your idols; that notorious great abomination, your multiplied idolatry, I will pardon that also, that ye may be clean. Thus remission of sin is promised.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

25. The externalrestoration must be preceded by an internal one. The change intheir condition must not be superficial, but must be based on aradical renewal of the heart. Then the heathen, understanding fromthe regenerated lives of God’s people how holy God is, would perceiveIsrael’s past troubles to have been only the necessary vindicationsof His righteousness. Thus God’s name would be “sanctified”before the heathen, and God’s people be prepared for outwardblessings.

sprinkle . . .waterphraseology taken from the law; namely, the water mixedwith the ashes of a heifer sprinkled with a hyssop on the unclean (Nu19:9-18); the thing signified being the cleansing blood of Christsprinkled on the conscience and heart (Heb 9:13;Heb 9:14; Heb 10:22;compare Jer 33:8; Eph 5:26).

from all your idolsLiteralidolatry has ceased among the Jews ever since the captivity; so far,the prophecy has been already fulfilled; but “cleansing from alltheir idols,” for example, covetousness, prejudices againstJesus of Nazareth, is yet future.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you,…. Not baptismal water, as Jerom; an ordinance indeed of the Gospel, and to which the Jews will submit when converted; and which is performed by water, but not by sprinkling, nor does it cleanse from sin; and is administered by men, and is not an operation of God, as this is: rather the regenerating grace of the Spirit; though this does not purify from all sin, and besides is intended in the next verse: it seems best to understand it of the blood of Christ, the blood of sprinkling, and of justification from sin, and pardon of it by it; so Kimchi and Jarchi interpret of purification by atonement; and the Targum is,

“I will forgive your sins, as one is cleansed by the water of sprinkling, and the ashes of a heifer, which is for a sin offering:”

and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you; the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin; by it men are justified from all things, and are made perfectly pure and spotless in the sight of God; they are cleansed from original sin, the pollution of their nature; from all actual sins and transgressions, which are very defiling; from sins of heart, lip, and life; even from such as are idols, set up in the heart, and served.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Promise of a New Heart; The Promise of Sanctifying Grace; Promised Blessings Must Be Prayed for.

B. C. 587.

      25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.   26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.   27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.   28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.   29 I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.   30 And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.   31 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.   32 Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.   33 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded.   34 And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.   35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.   36 Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.   37 Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.   38 As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

      The people of God might be discouraged in their hopes of a restoration by the sense not only of their unworthiness of such a favour (which was answered, in the foregoing verses, with this, that God, in doing it, would have an eye to his own glory, not to their worthiness), but of their unfitness for such a favour, being still corrupt and sinful; and that is answered in these verses, with a promise that God would by his grace prepare and qualify them for the mercy and then bestow it on them. And this was in part fulfilled in that wonderful effect which the captivity in Babylon had upon the Jews there, that it effectually cured them of their inclination to idolatry. But it is further intended as a draught of the covenant of grace, and a specimen of those spiritual blessings with which we are blessed in heavenly things by that covenant. As (ch. xxxiv.) after a promise of their return the prophecy insensibly slid into a promise of the coming of Christ, the great Shepherd, so here it insensibly slides into a promise of the Spirit, and his gracious influences and operations, which we have as much need of for our sanctification as we have of Christ’s merit for our justification.

      I. God here promises that he will work a good work in them, to qualify them for the good work he intended to bring about for them, v. 25-27. We had promises to the same purport, ch. xi. 18-20. 1. That God would cleanse them from the pollutions of sin (v. 25): I will sprinkle clean water upon you, which signifies both the book of Christ sprinkled upon the conscience to purify that and to take away the sense of guilt (as those that were sprinkled with the water of purification were thereby discharged from their ceremonial uncleanness) and the grace of the Spirit sprinkled on the whole soul to purify it from all corrupt inclinations and dispositions, as Naaman was cleansed from his leprosy by dipping in Jordan. Christ was himself clean, else his blood could not have been cleansing to us; and it is a Holy Spirit that makes us holy: From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. And (v. 29) I will save you from all your uncleannesses. Sin is defiling, idolatry particularly is so; it renders sinners odious to God and burdensome to themselves. When guilt is pardoned, and the corrupt nature sanctified, then we are cleansed from our filthiness, and there is no other way of being saved from it. This God promises his people here, in order to his being sanctified in them, v. 23. We cannot sanctify God’s name unless he sanctify our hearts, nor live to his glory, but by his grace. 2. That God would give them a new heart, a disposition of mind excellent in itself and vastly different from what it was before. God will work an inward change in order to a universal change. Note, All that have an interest in the new covenant, and a title to the new Jerusalem, have a new heart and a new spirit, and these are necessary in order to their walking in newness of life. This is that divine nature which believers are by the promises made partakers of. 3. That, instead of a heart of stone, insensible and inflexible, unapt to receive any divine impressions and to return any devout affections, God would give a heart of flesh, a soft and tender heart, that has spiritual senses exercised, conscious to itself of spiritual pains and pleasures, and complying in every thing with the will of God. Note, Renewing grace works as great a change in the soul as the turning of a dead stone into living flesh. 4. That since, besides our inclination to sin, we complain of an inability to do our duty, God will cause them to walk in his statutes, will not only show them the way of his statutes before them, but incline them to walk in it, and thoroughly furnish them with wisdom and will, and active powers, for every good work. In order to this he will put his Spirit within them, as a teacher, guide, and sanctifier. Note, God does not force men to walk in his statutes by external violence, but causes them to walk in his statutes by an internal principle. And observe what use we ought to make of this gracious power and principle promised us, and put within us: You shall keep my judgments. If God will do his part according to the promise, we must do ours according to the precept. Note, The promise of God’s grace to enable us for our duty should engage and quicken our constant care and endeavour to do our duty. God’s promises must drive us to his precepts as our rule, and then his precepts must send us back to his promises for strength, for without his grace we can do nothing.

      II. God here promises that he will take them into covenant with himself. The sum of the covenant of grace we have, v. 28. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. It is not, “If you will be my people, I will be your God” (though it is very true that we cannot expect to have God to be to us a God unless we be to him a people), but he has chosen us, and loved us, first, not we him; therefore the condition is of grace, is by promise, as well as the reward; not of merit, not of works: “You shall be my people; I will make you so; I will give you the nature and spirit of my people, and then I will be your God.” And this is the foundation and top-stone of a believer’s happiness; it is heaven itself, Rev 21:3; Rev 21:7.

      III. He promises that he will bring about all that good for them which the exigence of their case calls for. When they are thus prepared for mercy, 1. Then they shall return to their possessions and be settled again in them (v. 28): You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. God will, in bringing them back to it, have an eye not to any merit of theirs, but to the promise made to the fathers; for therefore he gave it to them at first, Deu 7:7; Deu 7:8. Therefore he is gracious, because he has said that he will be so. This shall follow upon the blessed reformation God would work among them (v. 33): “In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, and so shall have made you meet for the inheritance, I will cause you to dwell in the cities, and so put you in possession of the inheritance.” This is God’s method of mercy indeed, first to part men from their sins, and then to restore them to their comforts. 2. Then they shall enjoy a plenty of all good things. When they are saved from their uncleanness, from their sins which kept good things from them, then I will call for the corn and will increase it, v. 29. Plenty comes at God’s call, and the plenty he calls for shall be still growing; and when he speaks the word the fruit both of the tree and of the field shall multiply. As the inhabitants multiply the productions shall multiply for their maintenance; for he that sends mouths will send meat. Famine was one of the judgments which they had laboured under, and it had been as much as any a reproach to them, that they should be starved in a land so famed for fruitfulness. But now I will lay no famine upon you; and none are under that rod without having it laid on by him. Then they shall receive no more reproach of famine, shall never be again upbraided with that, nor shall it ever be said that God is a Master that keeps his servants to short allowance. Nay, they shall not only be cleared from the reproach of famine, but they shall have the credit of abundance. The land that had long lain desolate in the sight of all that passed by, that looked upon it, some with contempt and some with compassion, shall again be tilled (v. 34), and, having long lain fallow, it will now be the more fruitful. Observe, God will call for the corn and yet they must till the ground for it. Note, Even promised mercies must be laboured for; for the promise is not to supersede, but to quicken and encourage our industry and endeavour. And such a blessing will God command on the hand of the diligent that all who pass by shall take notice of it, with wonder, v. 35. They shall say, “See what a blessed change here is, how this land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, the desert turned again into a paradise,” Note, God has honours in reserve for his people to be crowned with sufficient to counterbalance the contempt they are now loaded with, and in them he will be honoured. This wonderful increase both of the people of the land and of its products is compared (v. 38) to the large flocks of cattle that are brought to Jerusalem, to be sacrificed at one of the solemn feasts. Even the cities that now lie waste shall be filled with flocks of men, not like the flocks with which the pastures are covered over (Ps. lxvi. 13), but like the holy flock which is brought to the courts of the Lord’s house. Note, Then the increase of the numbers of a people is honourable and comfortable indeed when they are all dedicated to God as a holy flock, to be presented to him for living sacrifices. Crowds are a lovely sight in God’s temple.

      IV. He shows what shall be the happy effects of this blessed change. 1. It shall have a happy effect upon the people of God themselves, for it shall bring them to an ingenuous repentance for their sins (v. 31): Then shall you remember your own evil ways and shall loathe yourselves. See here what sin is; it is an abomination, a loathsome thing, that abominable thing which the Lord hates. See what is the first step towards repentance; it is remembering our own evil ways, reflecting seriously upon the sins we have committed and being particular in recapitulating them. We must remember against ourselves not only our gross enormities, our own evil ways, but our defects and infirmities, our doings that were not good, not so good as they should have been; not only our direct violations of the law, but our coming short of it. See what is evermore a companion of true repentance, and that is self-loathing, a holy shame and confusion of face: “You shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, seeing how loathsome you have made yourselves in the sight of God.” Self-love is at the bottom of sin, which we cannot but blush to see the absurdity of; but our quarrelling with ourselves is in order to our being, upon good grounds, reconciled to ourselves. And, lastly, see what is the most powerful inducement to an evangelical repentance, and that is a sense of the mercy of God; when God settles them in the midst of plenty, then they shall loathe themselves for their iniquities. Note, The goodness of God should overcome our badness and lead us to repentance. The more we see of God’s readiness to receive us into favour upon our repentance the more reason we shall see to be ashamed of ourselves that we could ever sin against so much love. That heart is hard indeed that will not be thus melted. 2. It shall have a happy effect upon their neighbours, for it shall bring them to a more clear knowledge of God (v. 36): “Then the heathen that are left round about you, that spoke ignorantly of God (for so all those do that speak ill of him) when they saw the land of Israel desolate, shall begin to know better, and to speak more intelligently of God, being convinced that he is able to rebuild the most desolate cities and to replant the most desolate countries, and that, though the course of his favours to his people may be obstructed for a time, they shall not be cut off for ever.” They shall be made to know the truth of divine revelation by the exact agreement which they shall discern between God’s word which he has spoken to Israel and his works which he has done for them: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. With us saying and doing are two things, but they are not so with God.

      V. He proposes these things to them, not as the recompence of their merits, but as the return of their prayers.

      1. Let them not think that they have deserved it: Not for your sakes do I this, be it known to you (Eze 36:22; Eze 36:32); no, be you ashamed and confounded for your own ways. God is doing this, all this which he has promised; it is as sure to be done as if it were done already, and present events have a tendency towards it. But then, (1.) They must renounce the merit of their own good works, and be brought to acknowledge that it is not for their sakes that it is done; so, when God brought Israel into Canaan the first time, an express caveat was entered against this thought. Deut. ix. 4-6, It is not for thy righteousness. It is not for the sake of any of their good qualities or good deeds, not because God had any need of them, or expected any benefit by them. No, in showing mercy he acts by prerogative, not for our deserts, but for his own honour. See how emphatically this is expressed: Be it known to you, it is not for your sakes, which intimates that we are apt to entertain a high conceit of our own merits and are with difficulty persuaded to disclaim a confidence in them. But, one way or other, God will make all his favourites to know and own that it is his grace, and not their goodness, his mercy, and not their merit, that made them so; and that therefore not unto them, not unto them, but unto him, is all the glory due. (2.) They must repent of the sin of their own evil ways. They must own that the mercies they receive from God are not only not merited, but that they are a thousand times forfeited; and therefore they must be so far from boasting of their good works that they must be ashamed and confounded for their evil ways, and then they are best prepared for mercy.

      2. Yet let them know that they must desire and expect it (v. 37): I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel. God has spoken, and he will do it, and he will be sought unto for it. He requires that his people should seek unto him, and he will incline their hearts to do it, when he is coming towards them in ways of mercy. (1.) They must pray for it, for by prayer God is sought unto, and enquired after. What is the matter of God’s promises must be the matter of our prayers. By asking for the mercy promised we must give glory to the donor, express a value for the gift, own our dependence, and put honour upon prayer which God has put honour upon. Christ himself must ask, and then God will give him the heathen for his inheritance, must pray the Father, and then he will send the Comforter; much more must we ask that we may receive. (2.) They must consult the oracles of God, and thus also God is sought unto and enquired after. The mercy must be, not an act of providence only, but a child of promise; and therefore the promise must be looked at, and prayer made for it with an eye of faith fastened upon the promise, which must be both the guide and the ground of our expectations. Both these ways we find God enquired of by Daniel, in the name of the house of Israel, when he was about to do those great things for them; he consulted the oracles of God, for he understood by books, the book of the prophet Jeremiah, both what was to be expected and when; and then he set his face to seek God by prayer, Dan 9:2; Dan 9:3. Note, Our communion with God must be kept up by the word and prayer in all the operations of his providence concerning us and in both he must be enquired of.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

(25) Sprinkle clean water.Comp. Heb. 9:13; Heb. 10:22. Ezekiel, the priest, here refers to those manifold purifications of the Law (e.g., Num. 8:7; Num. 19:9; Num. 19:17; Lev. 14:5-7; Lev. 14:9, &c.) which were performed by means of water; yet he refers to these as a whole, in their symbolical signification, rather than to any one of them in particular. He speaks primarily of the cleansing from idolatry and such gross outward sins, and he treats of the people collectively; yet this purification, as the following verses show, must necessarily extend much farther, and be applied to them individually. It was the same symbolism which led in later ages to the use of baptism in the admission of proselytes to the Jewish Church, a practice adopted by the forerunner of our Lord in the preparation of the people for His coming. Baptism is also alluded to by our Lord Himself in His conversation with Nicodemus (Joh. 3:5.) and afterwards established by Him as the initiatory sacrament of the Christian Church. (Comp. Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5; Heb. 10:22.)

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

25. Clean water Not merely which was itself clean, but that which makes clean and “purgeth from sin” (Num 8:7; Num 8:21; Num 19:11; Num 19:13; Num 19:19; Num 19:21; compare Heb 10:22). In some instances this “water of purifying” was mixed with blood, as in the case of leprosy, the most striking physical symbol of loathsome sin (Lev 14:5-8; Lev 14:50; Lev 14:52; compare Guthrie, Gospel in Ezekiel, p. 256). This legal cleansing (the removal of impurity) is as closely associated here with the renewing and transformation of the moral nature as justification and pardon with regeneration and sanctification in the New Testament. (Compare Psa 51:9-12; Tit 3:5; Tit 3:7.)

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

“And I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. From all your filthiness and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”

Let us first consider what was here on offer. ‘Clean water’ is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible. The ancients did not think in terms of clean water and dirty water. The only clean water could be caught in the falling mountain springs, and was comparatively rare, and they mostly bathed and drank with what we would call dirty water, but which they saw as relatively clean. Thus this description must be seen as having a special significance, and that significance was that it was ‘cleansed water’, water that had been (at least theoretically) made clean through sacrifice, sprinkled with blood or with the ashes of a heiffer.

In Leviticus the cleansing of a defiled house required sprinkling with a mixture of blood and ‘living’ water, the bird having been slain over the water (Lev 14:51), and in Num 8:7; Num 19:2-22 the ‘water of separation’ (Num 19:9; Num 19:20 – this was also called ‘living water’ – Num 9:17) is mentioned. It was water that had been sprinkled with the ashes of a red heiffer (Num 19:2), and was kept aside for the purifying by sprinkling of those who had touched a dead body. Thus in both cases the water had been cleansed by sacrifice and the shedding of blood.

So when the priestly Ezekiel spoke of ‘clean water’ he had in mind water that had been cleansed by sacrifice. And indeed this was the only kind of water that was ever sprinkled. Thus the cleansing was to be through the blood of sacrifice, applied through the sprinkled water. This was probably also what the Psalmist had in mind in Psa 51:7 (note the parallel phrase).

But this water was here to be sprinkled by God Himself acting as the high priest. Before anything else the people need to be cleansed, by the divine water of separation sprinkled on them by God, from their defilement brought on them by their sinful ways and their idolatry. There is no cleansing without the shedding of blood. This pointed forward to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness (Zec 13:1), and its efficacy depended on the One Who would be slain as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, Whose benefit reached backwards to ‘sins done aforetime’ (Rom 3:25).

It should be recognised and acknowledged that to the priest Ezekiel there could be no entry back into the promised land, now cleansed from defilement by time, without such a cleansing. Otherwise what purpose in the exile?

(We should note that washing with ordinary water never cleansed. It was only preparatory, and was regularly followed by the phrase ‘and will not be clean until the evening’. It only represented the washing away of ‘earthiness’ preparatory to cleansing (see Eze 44:18). It did not itself cleanse).

Then they were to receive a new heart and a new spirit, indeed God’s Spirit (Eze 36:27). The heart included the mind, the will and the emotions, it was the whole of the inner man. The spirit was the life principle within, the inner impulse, and while it could include the activities of heart, mind and will, it was also that which was Godward (Ecc 3:21; Ecc 12:7), and was affected by God’s Spirit. So the idea here is of the renewing of the whole inner man, and of awakening towards God.

Its effect is then described. ‘And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.’ Instead of hardness there would be tenderness, instead of obduracy there would be yielding, instead of coldness there would be warmness, instead of disobedience there would be obedience. The law would be put in their inward parts and in their hearts, and they would ‘know Yahweh’ individually through the new covenant (compare Jer 31:33-34).

These wonderful words must not be restricted to any particular moment in time, important though Pentecost was. This is the nature of Biblical prophecy. We need not doubt that it began on the first returning exiles, and it continued in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, when God worked through His Spirit in the life of Zerubbabel (Zec 4:6). It was continually on offer to His people (Eze 18:31). But it certainly had a full expression at and after Pentecost (2Co 5:17), and through the ministry of Jesus (Joh 3:1-6; Joh 4:10-14; Joh 4:24; Joh 6:63; Joh 7:37-38; Joh 20:22), and continues today and will continue to the end. What began to be fulfilled at the return from exile has continued through the ages. The cleansing is constantly needed.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Eze 36:25. Then will I sprinkle clean water, &c. The prophets generally borrow their images from the ceremonies of the Jewish religion, to convey an idea either of the detestable wickedness of the Jews, or of their amendment, as in this passage. Hence likewise the Jews derived their opinion of the Messiah; that one of his offices should be to sprinkle or baptize. Agreeably to which, when they suspected that John the Baptist was the Messiah, they expressly asked him why he baptized, if he were not the Christ? See Isa 52:15. Joh 19:21 and Bishop Chandler’s Defence. It is in the church of Christ, says Calmet, that we behold the real and perfect accomplishment of the prophesy in the remaining part of this chapter. But it undoubtedly has also reference to the final restoration of the Jews.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eze 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

Ver. 25. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you. ] He alludeth to the legal purifications, especially that made by the ashes of a red cow mixed with running water, wherewith the people were sprinkled, and so cleansed from legal defilement. Num 19:17-19 Semblably the saints, sprinkled with Christ’s blood from an evil conscience by the hyssop bunch of faith, and so washed with clean water Heb 10:22 in baptism, the saving virtue whereof is permanent, 1Pe 3:21 are justified and sanctified. 1Co 6:11 This blessed sprinkling David prayeth for. Psa 51:2 The Baptist also, and others, sprinkled those whom they baptized, both to answer the types of the law and this prediction of the prophet, understood by Jerome a of baptism, which is a visible sign and seal of our being washed from the filth of sin by the merit and Spirit of Jesus Christ. Tit 3:5

a Epist. 83.

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

Ezekiel

THE HOLY NATION

Eze 36:25 – Eze 36:38 .

This great prophecy had but a partial fulfilment, though a real one, in the restored Israel. The land was given back, the nation was multiplied, fertility again blessed the smiling fields and vineyards, and, best of all, the people were cleansed ‘from all their idols’ by the furnace of affliction. Nothing is more remarkable than the transformation effected by the captivity, in regard to the idolatrous propensities of the people. Whereas before it they were always hankering after the gods of the nations, they came back from Babylon the resolute champions of monotheism, and never thereafter showed the smallest inclination for what had before been so irresistible.

But the fulness of Ezekiel’s prophecy is not realised until Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant is brought to pass. Nor does the state of the militant church on earth exhaust it. Future glories gleam through the words. They have a ‘springing accomplishment’ in the Israel of the restoration, a fuller in the New Testament church, and their ultimate realisation in the New Jerusalem, which shall yet descend to be the bride, the Lamb’s wife. The principles involved in the prophecy belong to the region of purely spiritual religion, and are worth pondering, apart from any question of the place and manner of fulfilment.

First comes the great truth that the foundation, so far as concerns the history of a soul or of a community, of all other good is divine forgiveness Eze 36:25. Ezekiel, the priest, casts the promise into ceremonial form, and points to the sprinklings of the polluted under the law, or to the ritual of consecration to the priesthood. That cleansing is the removal of already contracted defilement, especially of the guilt of idolatry. It is clearly distinguished from the operation on the inward nature which follows; that is to say, it is the promise of forgiveness, or of justification, not of sanctification.

From what deep fountains in the divine nature that ‘clean water’ was to flow, Ezekiel does not know; but we have learned that a more precious fluid than water is needed, and have to think of Him ‘who came not by water only, but by water and blood,’ in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. But the central idea of this first promise is that it must be God’s hand which sprinkles from an evil conscience. Forgiveness is a divine prerogative. He only can, and He will, cleanse from all filthiness. His pardon is universal. The most ingrained sins cannot be too black to melt away from the soul. The dye-stuffs of sin are very strong, but there is one solvent which they cannot resist. There are no ‘fast colours’ which God’s ‘clean water’ cannot move. This cleansing of pardon underlies all the rest of the blessings. It is ever the first thing needful when a soul returns to God.

Then follows an equally exclusively divine act, the impartation of a new nature, which shall secure future obedience Eze 36:26 – Eze 36:27. Who can thrust his hand into the depths of man’s being, and withdraw one life-principle and enshrine another, while yet the individuality of the man remains untouched? God only. How profound the consciousness of universal obstinacy and insensibility which regards human nature, apart from such renewal, as possessing but a ‘heart of stone’! There are no sentimental illusions about the grim facts of humanity here. Superficial views of sin and rose-tinted fancies about human nature will not admit the truth of the Scripture doctrine of sinfulness, alienation from God. They diagnose the disease superficially, and therefore do not know how to cure it. The Bible can venture to give full weight to the gravity of the sickness, because it knows the remedy. No surgery but God’s can perform that operation of extracting the stony heart and inserting a heart of flesh. No system which cannot do that can do what men want. The gospel alone deals thoroughly with man’s ills.

And how does it effect that great miracle? ‘I will put My Spirit within you.’ The new life-principle is the effluence of the Spirit of God. The promise does not merely offer the influence of a divine spirit, working on men as from without, or coming down upon them as an afflatus, but the actual planting of God’s Spirit in the deep places of theirs. We fail to apprehend the most characteristic blessing of the gospel if we do not give full prominence to that great gift of an indwelling Spirit, the life of our lives. Cleansing is much, but is incomplete without a new life-principle which shall keep us clean; and that can only be God’s Spirit, enshrined and operative within us; for only thus shall we ‘walk in His statutes, and keep His judgments.’ When the Lawgiver dwells in our hearts, the law will be our delight; and keeping it will be the natural outcome and expression of our life, which is His life.

Then follows the picture of the blessed effects of obedience Eze 36:28 – Eze 36:30. These are cast into the form appropriate to the immediate purpose of the prophecy, and received fulfilment in the actual restoration to the land, which fulfilment, however, was imperfect, inasmuch as the obedience and renewal of the people’s hearts were incomplete. These can only be complete under the gospel, and, in the fullest sense, only in another order than the present. When men fully keep God’s judgments, they shall dwell permanently in a good land. Israel’s hold on its country was its obedience, not its prowess. Our real hold on even earthly good is the choosing of God for our supreme good. In the measure in which we can say ‘Thy law is within my heart,’ all things are ours; and we may possess all things while having nothing in the vulgar world’s sense of having. Similarly that obedience, which is the fruit of the new life of God’s Spirit in our spirits, is the condition of close mutual possession in the blessed reciprocity of trust and faithfulness, love bestowing and love receiving, by which the quiet heart knows that God is its, and it is God’s. If stains and interruptions still sometimes break the perfectness of obedience and continuity of reciprocal ownership, there will be a further cleansing for such sins. ‘If we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin’ Eze 36:29.

The lovely picture of the blessed dwellers in their good land is closed by the promise of abundant harvests from corn and fruit-tree; that is, all that nourishes or delights. The deepest truth taught thereby is that he who lives in God has no unsatisfied desires, but finds in Him all that can sustain, strengthen, and minister to growth, and all that can give gladness and delight. If we make God our heritage, we dwell secure in a good land; and ‘the dust of that land is gold,’ and its harvests ever plenteous.

Very profoundly and beautifully does Ezekiel put as the last trait in his picture, and as the upshot of all this cornucopia of blessings, the penitent remembrance of past evils. Undeserved mercies steal into the heart like the breath of the south wind, and melt the ice. The more we advance in holiness and consequent blessed communion with God, the more clearly shall we see the evil of our past. Forgiven sin looks far blacker because it is forgiven. When we are not afraid of sin’s consequences, we see more plainly its sinfulness. When we have tasted God’s sweetness, we think with more shame of our ingratitude and folly. If God forgets, the more reason for us to remember our transgressions. The man who ‘has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins’ is in danger of finding out that he is not purged from them. There is no gnawing of conscience, nor any fearful looking for of judgment in such remembrance, but a wholesome humility passing into thankful wonder that such sin is pardoned, and such a sinner made God’s friend.

The deep foundation of all the blessedness is finally laid bare Eze 36:32 as being God’s undeserved mercy. ‘For Mine holy name’ Eze 36:22 is God’s reason. He is His own motive, and He wills that the world should know His name,-that is, His manifested character,-and understand how loving and long-suffering He is. So He wills, not because such knowledge adds to His glory, but because it satisfies His love, since it will make the men who know His name blessed. The truth that God’s motive is His own name’s sake may be so put as to be hideous and repellent; but it really proclaims that He is love, and that His motive is His poor creatures’ blessing.

To this great outline of the blessings of the restored nations are appended two subsidiary prophecies, marked by the recurring ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ The former of these Eze 36:33 – Eze 36:36 deals principally with the new beauty that was to clothe the land. The day in which the inhabitants were cleansed from their sins was to be the day in which the land was to be raised from its ruin. Cities are to be rebuilt, the ground that had lain fallow and tangled with briers and thorns is to be tilled, and to bloom like Eden, a restored paradise. How far the fulfilment has halted behind the promise, the melancholy condition of Palestine to-day may remind us. Whether the literal fulfilment is to be anticipated or no seems less important than to note that the experience of forgiveness and of the consequent blessings described above is the precursor of this fair picture. Therefore, the Church’s condition of growth and prosperity is its realisation in the persons of its individual members, of pardon, the renewal of the inner man by the indwelling Spirit, faithful obedience, communion with God, and lowly remembrance of past sins. Where churches are marked by such characteristics, they will grow. If they are not, all their ‘evangelistic efforts’ will be as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

The second appended prophecy Eze 36:37 – Eze 36:38 is that of increase of population. The picture of the flocks of sheep for sacrifice, which thronged Jerusalem at the feasts, is given as a likeness of the swarms of inhabitants in the ‘waste cities.’ The point of comparison is chiefly the number. One knows how closely a flock huddles and seems to fill the road in endless procession. But the destination as well as the number comes into view. All these patient creatures, crowding the ways, are meant for sacrifices. So the inhabitants of the land then shall all yield themselves to God, living sacrifices. The first words of our text point to the priesthood of all believers; the last words point to the sacrifice of themselves which they have to offer.

‘For this moreover will I be inquired of by the house of Israel.’ The blessings promised do not depend on our merits, as we have heard, but yet they will not be given without our co-operation in prayer. God promises, and that promise is not a reason for our not asking the gifts from Him, but for our asking. Faith keeps within the lines of God’s promise, and prayers which do not foot themselves on a promise are the offspring of presumption, not of faith. God ‘lets Himself be inquired of’ for that which is in accordance with His will; and, accordant with His will though it be, He will not ‘do it for them,’ unless His flock ask of Him the accomplishment of His own word.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

Then. Note the time for the fulfilment of this prophecy. Not now, among the Gentiles; not now, in the Church of God; but, when Israel shall be brought back “into their own land” (verses: Eze 36:16-24). Note the “you . . . ye . . . your”, &c., of verses: Eze 36:25-29. Observe the importance of this word “Then” in other passages. See notes on Exo 17:8. Mal 3:4, Mal 3:16. Mat 25:1. 1Th 4:17, &c.

sprinkle = throw. See Lev 1:5

water. See Isa 44:3.

you . . . ye . . . your. The same People referred to Isa 44:25-29 as in or Eze 16:17. See the Structure, p. 1167.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Eze 36:25. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

You would not cleanse yourselves; you even went back to your idols again, and so defiled yourselves still more; but I will cleanse you. I have a wondrous stream, such as no river or spring on earth can ever produce. It wells up from the heart of Jesus; and this shall cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.

Eze 36:26-27. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

The old covenant told us what to do, and commanded us to do it; but the new covenant enables us to do it; yea, it works in us that obedience which we never could have rendered to the old law, but which the new covenant gives to us.

Eze 36:28-31. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loath yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

How sweetly the mercy of God melts the human heart! How graciously the goodness of God produces repentance! That blessed result was never produced by the terrors of the law; but it is continually being brought forth by the lovingkindness of the Lord as manifested in the covenant of his grace.

Eze 36:32. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the LORD GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.

The covenant is all of grace, you see; mercy is shown to the unworthy,- not for their own sakes, but for Gods own glorys sake. Oh, how sweet it is to have a share in this blessed covenant! Now turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 8th chapter, and 7th verse, where you have still more concerning the new covenant.

This exposition consisted of readings from Jer 31:31-34; Eze 36:25-32; and EBREWS 8:7-13

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Eze 36:25-31

Eze 36:25-31

“And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stoney heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will save you from your uncleanness: and I will call for the grain, and will multiply it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the vine, and the increase of the field, that ye may receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations. Then shall ye remember your evil ways, and your doings that were not good; and ye shall loathe yourselves in you own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.”

THE SPIRITUAL CLEANSING OF ISRAEL

“Ye shall be clean from your filthiness … a new heart will I give you … I will put my Spirit within you …” (Eze 36:25-27). As Pearson analyzed this cleansing of Israel, it consisted of three steps: “(1) the forgiveness of sins; (2) regeneration; and (3) the reception of the Holy Spirit.” Significantly, none of these was available under the Law of Moses. Only under the gracious terms of the New Covenant has there ever been available to mortal men such blessings as these. There was no forgiveness of sins under Moses; there was no Holy Spirit within all the people; there was no regeneration.

Conservative scholars have no trouble at all with this passage. The cleansing of Israel will take place in the kingdom of Messiah established by the First Advent of the Son of God. Just as the terms of Israel’s peace, prosperity, and security in regard to their possession of Canaan were conditional; so also are the promises here with regard to their forgiveness, their regeneration, and their receiving the Spirit of God.

The double tragedy is that Israel’s hardening and rebellion against God hindered their return to Palestine and greatly reduced the blessings; and the second phase of it was that, for the vast majority of them, they rejected the Christ, preferring to die in their sins.

“This prophecy teaches that this cleansing of Israel would be through the New Covenant, as in Jer 31:31-34. This would follow the return of Israel to Canaan, where, in time, the people would accept the Messiah as their Saviour through whose death sin would be forgiven; their former iniquity would be remembered no more; they would despise themselves for their former sins; and in possession of a new heart and the Spirit of God, they would lead righteous lives.

The new Testament reveals that this projection was frustrated, although not completely, by the apostate and rebellious Israel. That “righteous remnant” mentioned ages previously in the writings of the great prophets of God persevered in their devotion to the kingdom of heaven. The relatively small group who were faithful to the Word of God rallied around the holy apostles of Jesus Christ, forming the nucleus of the New Israel of God, under whose leadership virtually the whole world were turned to Christianity. There is nothing in all history to compare with this.

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you …” (Eze 36:25). This metaphor probably came from the Mosaic law which prescribed the sprinkling of water mingled with ashes of a red heifer in the ceremonial cleansing of certain guilt. However, since the whole passage speaks of the New Covenant, it appears that Heb 10:22; Joh 3:5; Eph 5:25-26; Tit 3:5, etc. provide the true anti-type of which the Levitical sprinkling was only a symbol.

“It is clear enough in this passage that the physical return of Israel to Canaan does not hold the center of the stage; this was only a preliminary to the bestowal of salvation upon all men.

“I will call for the grain, and multiply it …” (Eze 36:29). It is strange that commentators do not make more of the fact that the rich and abundant places of the earth today are precisely those lands which operate under Christian principles, and where, although imperfectly, God through Jesus Christ is worshipped continually by vast numbers of the people.

In the last dozen years, the United States alone has been feeding half of the vast empire of the Russians, where Christianity has been outlawed for three generations. Does this tell us anything? We believe that it does. Where are the vast populations of earth suffering from famine and starvation? It is precisely in those places where there is the least evidence of any knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May our beloved nation never forget the source of their bounty, attributing it to themselves, their system of government, their economic system, or anything else except Almighty God “from whom all blessings flow!.”

Cook has wisely noted that in Ezekiel we have a shift of emphasis from the nation or the country to the individual, “From congregation to the individual, from the letter to the spirit, from the Law to the Gospel, and from Moses to Christ. To this we would add, “from the Old Israel to the New Israel.”

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

will I: Lev 14:5-7, Num 8:7, Num 19:13-20, Psa 51:7, Isa 52:15, Joh 3:5, Tit 3:5, Tit 3:6, Heb 9:13, Heb 9:14, Heb 9:19, Heb 10:22, 1Jo 5:6

filthiness: Eze 36:17, Eze 36:29, Eze 37:23, Psa 51:2, Pro 30:12, Isa 4:4, Jer 33:8, Zec 13:1, Act 22:16, 1Co 6:11, 2Co 7:1, Eph 5:26, Eph 5:27, Tit 2:14, 1Jo 1:7, Rev 1:5, Rev 7:14

from all your idols: Isa 2:18-20, Isa 17:7, Isa 17:8, Jer 3:22, Jer 3:23, Hos 14:3, Hos 14:8, Zec 13:2

Reciprocal: Gen 35:2 – clean Exo 24:8 – sprinkled Exo 29:4 – wash them Exo 40:30 – General Lev 1:5 – sprinkle Lev 7:2 – and the Lev 8:6 – washed Lev 8:11 – General Lev 11:40 – eateth Lev 14:7 – sprinkle Lev 15:5 – General Lev 15:13 – wash Lev 15:27 – General Lev 16:30 – General Num 15:41 – General Num 19:12 – He shall purify Num 19:18 – General Deu 23:11 – wash himself Deu 26:18 – And the 1Ki 18:37 – thou hast turned 2Ch 29:5 – sanctify the house Ezr 6:21 – all such Ezr 9:11 – the filthiness Psa 14:3 – filthy Psa 51:10 – clean Psa 53:3 – filthy Isa 26:12 – for Isa 30:23 – shall he Isa 31:7 – in that Isa 59:21 – this Isa 65:16 – because Jer 13:27 – wilt Jer 31:33 – I will Lam 5:21 – Turn Eze 14:3 – these men Eze 14:11 – neither Eze 16:9 – washed Eze 16:36 – Because Eze 23:48 – I cause Eze 24:11 – that the filthiness Eze 39:29 – for Dan 12:10 – shall be Hos 6:3 – as the rain Hos 14:2 – away Joe 3:21 – will Mic 5:13 – graven Mic 7:19 – subdue Zep 3:13 – not Zec 3:4 – Take Mat 1:21 – for Mat 3:6 – were Mat 5:8 – are Mar 1:8 – he shall Luk 3:16 – he shall Luk 5:13 – I will Joh 3:10 – and knowest Joh 13:5 – poureth Joh 13:8 – If Joh 14:21 – that hath Joh 19:34 – came Act 2:17 – I will Act 2:38 – and ye Act 3:26 – in Act 5:31 – to give Act 8:36 – See Act 11:16 – but Rom 5:5 – shed Rom 5:20 – But Rom 11:27 – when 1Co 12:13 – by 2Co 3:3 – but 2Co 6:16 – what Heb 12:10 – partakers Jam 1:21 – filthiness Jam 4:8 – purify 1Pe 3:21 – the putting 2Pe 1:4 – are given 1Jo 1:9 – and to Rev 17:4 – filthiness

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Eze 36:25. This verse pertains to the same people and conditions referred to in the preceding one, not to anyone of our day. Gods people had been corrupted by the false worship of the heathen among whom they had been living for 70 years. It was required of tlie Jews that if they came in contact witli something that was sinful and unclean, they should be purified by the use of a solution called wafer of separation (Numbers 19). In allusion to that ceremony the Lord promises to cleanse his people from their pollutions obtained from contact with idolatrous nations. Since the prediction was to be fulfilled upon the whole Israelite nation living at the end of the captivity, and also since a full record of that great purifying event Is in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we know the sprinkling o clean water on them was figurative. The result of their entire experience was to cleanse or cure them from idolatry. See the historical note on this subject at Isa 1:25 in volume. 3 of this Commentary.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Eze 36:25. I will sprinkle clean water upon you The expression here alludes to those legal purifications which were made by sprinkling water upon the unclean persons: see Num 8:7; Num 19:13. But the cleansing intended is plainly that of the soul, by the blood of Christ sprinkled upon mens consciences to take away their guilt, (see Heb 9:14; Heb 12:24,) and by the grace of the Holy Spirit sprinkled on the whole soul, to purify it from all corrupt inclinations and dispositions; both which blessings are received by faith in Christ, and in the promises of God made through him: see Gal 2:16; Gal 3:14; Act 15:9. From all your filthiness Filthiness, as the apostle expresses it, of flesh and spirit; from all unhallowed appetites, passions, and dispositions; from all impurity of heart and life; from every thing contrary to the mind of Christ, the image of God, or the divine nature; and from all your idols will I cleanse you From all internal as well as external idolatry; from putting that trust in the work of your own hands, or in any creature, which you ought to put only in your Creator; or from setting your affections on any person or thing in preference to him, who is your Redeemer and Saviour, your Friend and Father, your portion and treasure, your God, and your all. Observe, reader, sin is of a defiling nature; idolatry particularly is so; it renders sinners odious to God, and unhappy in themselves; but when our guilt is pardoned, and our corrupt nature sanctified, then we are cleansed from this filthiness; and there is no other way of being saved from it. This God promises to his people here, in order to his being sanctified in them, Eze 36:23. We cannot sanctify Gods name, unless he sanctify our hearts, nor live to his glory, but by his grace.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean {n} water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

(n) That is, his spirit by which he reforms the heart and regenerates his. See Geneva “Isa 44:3”

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes