Chapter 20

A very lengthy chapter.  Titled "Israel's Continuing Rebellion"

I have a good note, that is a sort of key to this chapter.  In the TCR footnotes, it says the phrase "I swore", or in Hebrew "I lifted my hand", appears twice in vs 5, and also then in vss 6, 15, 23, 28, and 42.  That is, seven times.  Worth noting them all.

First, Ezekiel dates the events of this chapter to the day.  The setting is that a group of elders has come to Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord.

God gives the same response He did the last time we had this same setting:

3 "Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD, Is it to inquire of me that you come? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you. [Eze 20:3 ESV]

They lack the proper attitude, they have not changed at all since the last time we saw them.

The key phrase is used twice here.  God swore to Jacob's descendants, saying "...I am the Lord your God."  It started here - the relationship between God and the nation of Israel.

In vs 6, the third use of the phrase, God swore to bring them out of Egypt, into a land flowing with milk and honey, the "...most glorious of all lands."  In return - conditionally - God required them to "cast away" the idols of Egypt.  But they did not do so.  Reading on, this seems to be focused on the time they were still in captivity.  These verses confirm:

8 But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me. None of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. "Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. 9 But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt. [Eze 20:8-9 ESV]

I do not remember that God was about to destroy them while still in Egypt.  MSB has no note to remind me...

Though God could have justly destroyed them there, for the sake of His own name, He waited. 

2025 - In connection with the above, look at this verse:  7 And I said to them, 'Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.' [Eze 20:7 ESV].  We just don't ever get this part.  That movie, "The Ten Commandments", portrays Israel in Egypt as a godly bunch, oppressed by Pharoah.  But Ezekiel tells us here that in fact God was already angry - very angry - with them because they had turned away from the God that put Joseph in charge and gave them food through the famine and land to farm and run cattle - part of Egypt itself.  God had saved them from starvation - the entire whole family.  But over time, they had turned to Egypt's gods, and were worshiping idols.  In some way - we do not know whether prophets or the leading of the Holy Spirit or what - God had commanded them to STOP with the idol worship.  But they did not.  Even in Egypt, they did not "deserve" to be freed.  The implication is that they were not all that unhappy in Egypt, and when God asked them to do something hard - pack up all they had and walk out into the desert - they were inclined not to do it.  The wealth of Egypt might in fact be thought of as a bribe God gave them to get them to pack up and leave!  So of course they rebelled at every hardship, and they really did believe things had been better in Egypt than in doing for themselves and worshiping one God.  They refused to repent - that is the key word - either while in Egypt or in the desert.  Without repentance there is NO SALVATION, and so they died by the millions out there in the sand.  What a good message on salvation, on the consistency over time of God's requirements.  Repent, and from your heart do His will above your own.  That has forever been all he requires.

2023 - For the sake of his own name, in vs 9.  Here is the answer to why God put up with Israel for so very long, and indeed still puts up with them though they reject his son.  God does it "for the sake of my name".  It is to convey how merciful, how patient, how longsuffering "hesed" He is with those whom He has chosen.  Does he not extend that same hessed to us, still, in this Age of the Gentiles?

Good FB post using Ez 20:9

He tries again.  In the wilderness, God does this:

11 I gave them my statutes and made known to them my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live. [Eze 20:11 ESV]  A new covenant was proposed to them.  This covenant they accepted, asking God not to talk to them anymore because it scared them so, but to instead speak to them through Moses.  They had a choice here.  They consented to the covenant.  But they broke their bond.  Again they rebelled.  First in Egypt, then in the wilderness.  So again, God proposes to pour out His wrath on them, but He does not, for the sake of His name.  And I also believe Moses intervened for them at this point.

So in vs 15, the key phrase for the fourth time.  This time, God swears NOT to take them into the land.  This is about the 40 years of wandering, and the sad, useless, impotent end of the generation that God so powerfully delivered from Egypt in the sight of all the world.  They were pathetic, yet God did not destroy them.

(Aside:  In vs 12, God says "...I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them...".  In 13, God says "...my Sabbaths they greatly profaned."  In 20, God seeks to make the Sabbaths a sign between Him and the children of the rebellious.  I have not seen the Sabbaths referred to in this way.  Honoring the Sabbath is a sign between God and man.  Think of Chic-Fil-A.  Think of Blue Laws - now fallen by the way.  Once the law of this whole country.  My conviction yesterday when I pulled into Rudy's parking lot, and repented of it.  But I had lunch from Hideaway yesterday.  There is a New Covenant in the NT.  There the law is within us.  And our conscience is our guide.  And mine surely said that supporting businesses that buy and sell on Sunday is something I need to avoid.  How to do so with the kids coming over?

2024 - There is more to this "I gave them my Sabbaths".  What that really means is that God gave them one day in seven to rest, and not have to work.  In those days, if a farmer rested that much, his crop was a lot more likely to come up short.  But God said if Israel would worship him that day, thank him, study him that one day, then he would not let it "cost them" the time.  God said he'd do 1/7 of the work they would have been doing if they'd just use the time to reverence him.  And they would not do it.  Greed made them refuse to take the time.  Greed overcame the blue laws.  I will very likely eventually overcome Chic-Fil-A.

In vs 18, God proposes yet another covenant with the children of that lost generation.  He tells them not to do as their fathers did.  But this generation also rebelled.  And God considered pouring out His anger against them.  But He did not, for his own sake.

Then we get to 23, the fifth use of the key phrase.  Instead of His wrath, God swore to scatter them among the nations.  To disperse them.  This because they wouldn't obey the rules.  So this far back we see the scattering of the Assyrian conquest, and then the Babylonian conquest.  God already knew that they wouldn't have their own country, they'd be all over everywhere, and persecuted where ever they were!  What they experience today is part of what the nation "earned" way back then.

2024 - These verses:

10 So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness.

11 I gave them my statutes and made known to them my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live.

12 Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.

13 But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes but rejected my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned... [Eze 20:10-13a ESV]

It seems to me that we need to interpret "statutes and rules" and "Sabbaths" as the Ten Commandments only, and not the rest of the Mosaic Law.  I say that because of this:

25 Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, [Eze 20:25 ESV]. 

Look at the stark contrast between the rules God gave them in 10-13 and what he says about statutes and rules in vs 25.  We are NOT talking about the same rules here.  I think the original 10 are all that would have been needed had Israel not risen up to play.  The 10 are far more like the New Covenant, when we strive to do God's will in the absence of direct commandments.  The Mosaic Law, on the other hand, sort of lays down the black and white for every situation.  Our brains don't even need to be engaged, we just read what it says.  That was never going to work.  That just proved we could NEVER EVER get it right!  The Law was to humble the people into realizing that God's own mercy was all that could save them, they could NEVER be good enough on their own.

But the main point is that the 10 are very distinct from the rest. 

Then this verse, that has previously escaped me:

25 Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, 26 and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the LORD. [Eze 20:25-26 ESV]  What in the world does this mean?  The MSB note is very unsatisfactory.  Says God allowed them to live in their sin.  That like all nations, Israel's history is one long story of rebellion.  I think it says much more than just this.  It implies to me that though God did not choose to destroy them in a heartbeat, they had crossed the line that nations must not cross, and from this point on - before they even entered the promised land as a nation - God had determined that they would fall.  God knew from here, before there was a David, that David's line would end...for a time...until God himself renews it at the Millennial.  And because they had already earned this wrath - the wrath being poured out in Ezekiel's time - God gives them rules to follow which only serve to increase their guilt, and to make them ever more deserving of the wrath that is set to come.  The law was not sent to save them, but to condemn them!!!!  This is what this is about!!!!    We see God do this.  He made the Assyrians a horror, so that after they were used to take down Israel, God would be more than justified in wiping them out.  He repeats this with the Chaldean's, per Habakkuk.  Implication is that God already knew before Joshua's first battle that Israel was doomed.  Yet still, they had chances.  The offer to Solomon - which he broke.  The history of broken covenants, rebellious kings, and idolatrous people just confirms that they rejected God countless times, over and over, as God already knew that they would.  So...the Holocaust....in this context, was just a fulfillment of God's "swearing" to scatter them among the nations?!  Their rejection of Messiah was just fuel on this fire that started with the generation after the wandering.  All of it, one relational interconnected march of history according to God's own word.

Once they entered the promised land, this generation, they continued to bring the wrath upon themselves - not just through the rules God gave them to increase their sin, which I suspect they largely ignored anyway - but by worshiping and giving offerings on every "high hill" to false gods.  They just continued to openly and directly insult God.  This sixth use of "I swore", in verse 28, is just a reference back to verse 6.  This is not really a new promise from God.

All this is described as God's answer to the inquiring elders as to why He will not be inquired of by them.  They are detestable to God.  And their proposal to Ezekiel was apparently going to be a deal offered to God.  They would forego His promises to them if he would let them just be another nation, like all the others, worshiping wood and stone.  Of course, they wanted God to forgo the final destruction of Jerusalem in the bargain also.  Hmm...MSB does not talk about this.  I could be really wrong, but that's what it seems to me.

2020-So this whole idolatry thing that Israel fell into had started while they were in Egypt.  They had been there a long time and mostly forgotten God, and they had become like the Egyptians, worshiping multiple deities (polytheism again) and offering sacrifices up to and including children.  God tried to get them to turn away from those false gods while they were in Egypt, and possibly before Moses' time.  They refused.  Perhaps - certainly - a few turned to God, a remnant did, but mostly they did not.  God leads them out anyway.  Sinai happens.  New rules to establish a new relationship between God and Israel.  But even as He offers these rules, they rebel and rise up to play, and make new idols of their very own and worship them in the very shadow of the mountain of God.  And I believe now that God decided right then and there that Israel was going to suffer under his wrath for thousands of years.  God planned right then that the Davidic line would rise...and then stop with Babylon.  God continued to give them rules that He knew they could never keep, especially en masse.  Moses continued to get new rules for a long time after playtime.  Impossible rules.  These were to highlight the continued rebellion of a rebellious and cast off people.  Moses knew.  He knew. 

True to form, they continually rebelled in the desert.  Whiny, stiff-necked, yearning for their former wooden and metal gods who required so little of them in real life.  Because they were not real.  That's what was going on.  It wasn't really about the great food and healthy work they'd had in Egypt.  It was about less demanding gods!  These rebellions were all about the idols of Egypt.  So that first generation, raised as they were in Egypt and taught from childhood to worship Egypt's gods, were prevented from entering the promised land.  They failed miserably at the new start they were offered. 

I don't have a verse for this, but it might be a good FB post from Ez 20.  Why did ancient peoples worship idols?  Because idols were easy to serve!  Idols don't set the bar low, they don't set bars at all.  All the rebellion in the US right now is about not living up to the image of God in which we are created!

Then the second generation went in.  First thing that happened is that what's his name buried some of the idols of Jericho in his own tent, bringing condemnation immediately on this new generation that God gave yet another chance.  But they intermarried almost immediately, they brought home the gods of their new wives, and they turned back to the idolatry they'd learned in Egypt.  And the gods worshiped by the Canaanites were even worse than the gods of Egypt.  These gods wanted children sacrificed and the people did it.  Still the bond with idols that Israel suffered from was not broken, even in the face of this horror.

So the timeline continued, Israel rose and then she fell, and she is still fallen, she still suffers, she still misses out on the best things that God has to offer.  She is a vine on top of a mountain, hanging on supernaturally because God made promises that he will keep, but still suffering from His wrath for their sin and idolatry and rebellion.  As a nation, they suffer more and longer than any nation ever has, yet they are preserved for a better time.  A nation can "serve out their sentence" and be restored.  A person who dies in sin is done for eternity.

vs 33 moves on from these things, from the history of how Israel got here, and God says this:

33 "As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out I will be king over you. [Eze 20:33 ESV]

God's promises will be fulfilled with or without their cooperation.  As history shows, it has been almost exclusively without.  This is now a Millennial prophecy of Jesus coming reign as King from the line of David.   He will bring them home, as prophesied in so many places.

Through vs 38 seems to be a reference to the Millennial, when only faithful Jews will remain, and they will worship God as He has always wanted them to do.  God will bring this about, not man.

Vs 39 turns back to the present...no...I think we're still talking about the Millennial in these verses.  Well...I can't really tell.  He is talking to those elders that are sitting there, proposing their evil proposal for God to just leave them alone forever and let them worship their idols.  They say this even as they are captives in Babylon!   God tells them to worship as they will, but their choice will no longer accrue against God.  From here on, all nations will know that the fate of Israel is their own doing, their own bad choices.  They will not be "His" anymore, until the regathering in the Millennial.

2025 - So beginning in vs 33 - I think - we move on to the Millennial.  In vs 35 God says he will judge them "face to face".  This has not happened since Babylon, so it must be still future.  God will bring  home all the Jews - all of them, but good and bad.  And he will judge them.  I suspect that phrase "pass under the rod" is an indication of individual, one by one judgment.  This is the pre-Millennial judgment, the sheep and goat.  They are all "the flock" but only the true sheep of Israel will enter the Millennial with Jesus, and the rest will go straight into hell.  Even then, God will  NOT save all Israel and these verses make that very clear.  This is the DEFINITIVE description of that judgment.  It is a judgment of the living and judgment will be pronounced by Jesus.  Just look at this verse:  38 I will purge out the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD. [Eze 20:38 ESV]!  This is a purge of the rebellious spirit that has plagued Israel almost from day 1.  These are Jews brought home, and purged down to those who worship God.  This is God judging Israel face to face. 

2025 - Oh my!  Look what this one says!!!  Remember, we are in the Millennial here:  40 "For on my holy mountain, the mountain height of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, there all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve me in the land. There I will accept them, and there I will require your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your sacred offerings. 41 As a pleasing aroma I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations. 42 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel, the country that I swore to give to your fathers. [Eze 20:40-42 ESV].  Guess where Ezekiel's Temple is going to be!?!?!  It will be on Mt. Horeb/Sinai.  That is where the Pre-Millennial judgment will be, and that judgment will be followed by a second march - directly this time - from Horeb to Israel.  They will go in, with King Jesus in charge, and they will finally inherit the Land with God's full approval, and no sin hanging over their heads.

2025 - And in the meantime?  This one:  39 "As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD: Go serve every one of you his idols, now and hereafter, if you will not listen to me; but my holy name you shall no more profane with your gifts and your idols. [Eze 20:39 ESV].  He DOES NOT CARE what they do.  This is today.  This is now.  In those days, He told them that the Temple was going to be forever destroyed, so that He did not have to put up with their hypocrisy and rules and self-promotion.  That is why we had 70 AD.  And we know that from all the way back here.

Vs 43 has the seventh use of the key phrase.  It again refers to the land.  So three of the seven are references to the same promise.  That God will give Israel the land of promise.  Yet the nations that surround Israel today still believe they can annihilate the Jews from the planet.

The chapter finishes up with an address to the "forests of the Negeb".  Which...as I look at a current map...do not exist.  And indeed that's what God says.  He will burn that forest, and it will cease to exist, and this will be a sign that all the world recognizes as God's work.

2025 - An ever present physical confirmation of this chapter in Ezekiel, and we all refuse to see it.  What must that place once have been like?

Then the last line of the chapter is this, from Ezekiel:

49 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! They are saying of me, 'Is he not a maker of parables?'" [Eze 20:49 ESV]

MSB says this last means the elders still refused to hear the clear message.  Instead, they chose to look at it as allegory.  Not at all as actual fact about to descend on them with a vengeance.

10/30/19 - I can't get this chapter out of my head.  This whole concept of God making a covenant - or offering a covenant - with Israel, while they were still captive in Egypt.  This is in vs 5:

5 and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt; I swore to them, saying, I am the LORD your God. [Eze 20:5 ESV]

"on the day" certainly implies a specific, not a general covenant.  It was auspicious.  God CHOSE THEM on that day.  He promised to deliver them from bondage, and to give them Canaan.  And for their part, this verse:

7 And I said to them, Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. [Eze 20:7 ESV]

This is phrased as an order, a commandment, not as a negotiation, not as something they could accept or reject.  God chose them, and as a consequence, putting away idols was required.

They rebelled.  They did not submit to the requirement.  They continued to do things their own way.  This while they were STILL in Egypt.  So they earned this judgement:

8 "...Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. [Eze 20:8 ESV]  They had earned God's wrath at this point, already, in their history.  Likely before Moses was ever born.  But God determines not to proceed with this judgement, lest His own name be profaned in the sight of the surrounding nations.  Instead, He kept HIS part of the promise, and brought them out of Egypt. 

Once in the wilderness, God tries again with Israel.   These verses:

11 I gave them my statutes and made known to them my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live. 12 Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them. [Eze 20:11-12 ESV]  I believe this ties to the time they spent at Mt. Sinai.  The Ten Commandments were part of this.  I do not know how much further it went.  But God gave them some rules to live by, and the purpose of those rules was so they would "live", and they would know their blessings were from God, and were because of their compliance.  I believe this was a choice they were given, at Sinai, where they said they would agree to do all that God commanded.  Perhaps this is the "modification" from the covenant while they were captives.  Slaves don't get a choice.  Free people do, and they chose to bind themselves in the Sinai covenant.  But for the second time, Israel fails to keep their part of the bargain.  The consequence comes again.  God was justified at this point in pouring out His full wrath, and making a complete end of Israel there in the wilderness.  Again, lest His own name be profaned by this action, God forbears the sentence.  However, God does refuse to give them the land of Canaan at this time.  He won't let them enter. 

God offers a covenant with their children.  The previous generation was denied entry to Canaan, and they all died in the 40 year wandering.  But God tries again, the third time, with the children of that generation.  This was His proposal:

18 "And I said to their children in the wilderness, Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor keep their rules, nor defile yourselves with their idols. 19 I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules, 20 and keep my Sabbaths holy that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the LORD your God. [Eze 20:18-20 ESV]  There doesn't seem to be a negotiation here.  This generation was given opportunity to make good on the covenant made by the previous generation.  They were "inheritors" of that covenant, broken by their parents, but God offers it to them if they will only follow the statutes and rules from Sinai.  This younger generation also rebels, and does not hold up their part of the covenant their fathers had agreed to.

Because of this, God again determines to pour out his wrath on them and to spend His anger against them there in the wilderness.  A third time, God refrains from doing so lest His name be profaned in the sight of the nations.  This time, something is added.  God tells them, while still in the wilderness and before Canaan was entered, that He will scatter them among the nations.  He will disperse them.  This for not obeying God's rules, and for profaning His sabbaths.  Then this remarkable verse:

25 Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, 26 and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the LORD. [Eze 20:25-26 ESV]

Does this say there was a "second law"?  Isn't that what Deuteronomy means - second law?  Does it say God gave them laws more specific, more strict as to the holiness he required of them, knowing they could not keep these laws, and so would condemn themselves continually from that point on?  And He "defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up their firstborn."  Was it at this time that God said all the firstborn of man and beast were to be dedicated to Him?  Knowing they would not do it.  That even if they went through the motions they wouldn't mean it?  Or is this about them defiling themselves with false gods by offering their own children to idols? 

So ends this recounting of God's initial relationship with the descendants of Jacob, from Egypt to the second law? (((I think!  Not sure add'l laws were given to them in Deuteronomy.  In fact, MSB says this is not a literal "second law" but an account of Moses' words of explanation concerning the law.  Well...maybe.  But in light of Ezekiel 20?  Surely there is a second law somewhere.  Ahhh...The additional laws are in Leviticus.  MSB says that among other things before Israel camped at Mt. Sinai, there was no formal sacrificial system.  So...Moses brought down the 10.  He found the people already breaking this simple law that would let them live.  Moses went back up.  The Levitical law was given, the sacrificial system formalized, the duties of priests and people detailed.  This makes sense.  God wanted to wipe them all out when Moses came down with the 10, but He stopped short.  Then there was another 40 days on Sinai, and additional laws were given.  Maybe this is what it means.)))

I have one of Dad's books, called Ezekiel the Prophet, by H. A. Ironside.  It goes through Ezekiel chapter by chapter.  This is what it says about Chapter 20:

Ironside says that we often think of the Jewish slaves in Egypt living as a separate people up until Moses arises and leads them out.  This chapter of Ezekiel makes it more likely that they had mostly forgotten God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and had turned almost exclusively to the gods of the Egyptians.  Perhaps this is why Pharoah worked them so hard - it was God chastening them through Pharoah!  So when Moses showed up to lead them out, they were shocked and awed and saw this "I Am" Moses talked of as a god previously unknown to them!  Doesn't that answer a lot of questions!

At Sinai, per Ironside, God would again have destroyed them and built a new nation from Moses, but Moses intervened, and again, for His name's sake, did not destroy them.  But at this point, God determined they would not enter Canaan.  Not this generation. 

Ahhhh!!!!  Ironside says that it wasn't that God gave them a whole new set of laws to condemn them - they were already condemned.  But He gave them up to follow the laws and statutes of false gods, so pagan that they even required them to sacrifice their own children.  God let them degrade themselves in their worship of these gods, rather than just wipe them out and be done with it.  He let things progress naturally to barbaric horrible inhuman behavior which is always the end of the rejection of the Holy One of Israel.

So!  I was definitely on the right track, but was reading far more into it than was there.  I thought Ezekiel was telling us about things that no previous book had revealed.  This is not the case.  It is a succinct recounting of God's dealings with - and continuing mercy toward - the nation of Israel.  His anger, His justifiable readiness to pour out His wrath and wipe that nation from the earth multiple times, and just start over to keep His promises to Abraham, is reduced to simplest terms.  I thought this was brand new.  It is not. But this is a good version of the history of Israel, and it gets us to the place where we are in Ezekiel.  They just kept getting worse.  They turned further and further.  It got to the point - my words here - that NOT wiping them out profaned the name of God more than scattering, dispersing, and de-nationalizing them.

2025 - No, that previous note that says I was reading too much into it wrong.  I wasn't reading enough into it.  This goes all the way to the Millennial, and explains many mysterious things.