The Pulpit Commentary on Ezekiel 20:18-26

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

The memory of the wilderness of the wanderings.

At this point the transition is made from the generation who received the Law at Sinai to the generation which followed, and to whom another probation was afforded.

I. THE DIVINE LAW WAS REPUBLISHED.

II. THE REBELLION AND IDOLATRY OF THE PEOPLE WERE RENEWED.

III. THE MOST FLAGRANT FORMS OF IDOLATROUS PRACTICE WERE ADDED TO WHAT HAD PRECEDED, In Ezekiel 20:26 mention is made of the causing the firstborn to pass through the fire in the service of Moloch.

IV. ADDITIONAL AND SEVERER THREATS WERE UTTERED. In Ezekiel 20:23 threats of scattering and dispersion among the heathen were added to the more general denunciations.

V. STATUTES AND JUDGMENTS WERE TURNED TO THE CONDEMNATION OF THE REBELLIOUS.

VI. SPARING MERCY WAS AGAIN EXERCISED TO PRESERVE THE NATION FROM DESTRUCTION.

APPLICATION. The lesson is very impressively taught in this passage that repentance and amendment by no means follow as a matter of course upon either punishment or forbearance. The discipline through which Israel passed partook of both characters; yet it left the people, as a people, still disposed to rebellion against God, and to contempt of his Law. It is the spirit in which God's dealings with us are received which determines whether or not they shall issue in our highest good.?봗.

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