Ezekiel 20:18

20:10-26. The history of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the new Testament as well as in the Old, for warning. God did great things for them. He gave them the law, and revived the ancient keeping of the sabbath day. Sabbaths are privileges; they are signs of our being his people. If we do the duty of the day, we shall find, to our comfort, it is the Lord that makes us holy, that is, truly happy, here; and prepares us to be happy, that is, perfectly holy, hereafter. The Israelites rebelled, and were left to the judgments they brought upon themselves. God sometimes makes sin to be its own punishment, yet he is not the Author of sin: there needs no more to make men miserable, than to give them up to their own evil desires and passions.

But I said unto their children in the wilderness,.... Or, "then I said" (k); his judgments and statutes being neglected and despised by them, and good instructions and kind providences being of no use unto them, the Lord turns to their posterity while yet in the wilderness: what follows seems to refer to those directions, instructions, and exhortations given in the book of Deuteronomy by Moses, in the plains of Moab, a little before the children of Israel went over Jordan into the land of Canaan: walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments; they were not only not to imitate their parents in their open sins and transgressions of God's law; but they were not to follow them in the observance of such rules of worship, which were of their own devising, and they had formed into a law: this makes greatly against such who think it a very heinous sin to relinquish the religion of their ancestors, or that in which they were brought up; but if this does not appear to be according to the word of God, the statutes and judgments of our fathers should stand for nothing, yea, should be rejected: nor defile yourselves with their idols; idolatry, as it is abominable to God, is defiling to men, and renders them loathsome to him; and it being what their fathers practised will not excuse them; for, as it was defiling to their fathers, it is no less so to their children. (k) "postea dixi", Piscator.

Ezekiel 20:18-24. But I said unto their children in the wilderness — In the plains of Moab; Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers — Imitate not their superstitious usages, nor retain their foolish and wicked customs, but walk in the statutes of your God. This refers to the many pathetical exhortations contained in the book of Deuteronomy, particularly those in chapters twenty-ninth to the thirty-second, which were uttered after that rebellious generation were all consumed, according as God had threatened them. Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against me — Even that generation which I afterward permitted to enter Canaan, and which I rendered victorious over all the inhabitants of that land, was guilty of many instances of disobedience and rebellion. The chief instance of that generation’s contumacy and inclination to idolatry, was the iniquity of Peor, ( Numbers 25:3 ,) as that of their fathers was the golden calf. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel: then there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord, which, if it had not been seasonably stayed by Phinehas’s zeal, had cut them all off; and yet they owned in Joshua’s time that they were not cleansed from that iniquity unto that day, Joshua 22:17 .

Then it was that God said he would pour out his fury upon them, Ezekiel 20:21 ; that he lifted up his hand, &c., in the wilderness — When they were a second time just ready to enter into Canaan; that he would scatter them among the heathen — This very thing he said to them by Moses in his parting song, ( Deuteronomy 32:20 ; Deuteronomy 32:26-27 ,) which explains this passage.

(18) Unto their children. —The prophet comes now to the third part of his historical retrospect ( Ezekiel 20:18-26 )—the generation which grew up in the free air of the wilderness, and under the influence of the legislation and institutions given at Sinai. At the same time, it would be a mistake to confine what he says exclusively to that generation. In this, as in the other parts of the discourse, he regards Israel as a whole, and while speaking of one period of their history especially, yet treats of national characteristics which may have come to their most marked development only at a later time. This generation was very earnestly warned against the sins of their fathers, and exhorted to obedience to the Divine law. The whole Book of Deuteronomy is the comment on Ezekiel 20:18-20 .

Verse 18. - I said unto their children, etc. The words can refer to nothing but the great utterance of the Book of Deuteronomy as addressed to the children of those who had perished in the wilderness. That utterance also, it is implied, as indeed the Baal-peor history at the close of the forty years showed, fell on deaf ears. Then also there was, once again, in the inevitable anthropomorphic language, a change of purpose, from that of a rigorous judgment to the mercy which prevailed against it. Ezekiel 20:18

But I said to their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your {i} fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: (i) By which the Holy Spirit confuses them that say that they will follow the religion and example of their fathers, and not measure their doings by God's word whether they are approved by it or not.

But, and, or then I said . The fathers were refractory, and deaf, would not hearken, therefore God turns his advice to children. Though the particular place is not specified, yet among the calamities of that mournful age, and at the funerals of so many as then died, there were some that had piety, zeal, and courage enough to warn the survivors, and Psalm 90:7-11 affords us ground enough to believe Moses did warn and advise. In the wilderness ; in that part of it where their fathers murmured, and where some were cut off by the hand of God, and in other parts through which they travelled and suffered. Walk ye not: it is both counsel, as from love, and a command, as from power; Live not as your fathers, for they walked contrary to reason, religion, and their own good, as much as they walked contrary to me. Your fathers; though fathers, they may not command contrary to God’s command, nor be imitated in what they do contrary to God’s law. Their judgments; it is observable, the prophet forbids them to imitate the customs, rites, and usages of their fathers, included in judgments, and thence passeth to forbid their imitating their fathers in their idolatry. Idolatry is fruitful when it so multiplied in Egyptian bondage, and in the desolate state of a people in the wilderness.

18. I said unto their children—being unwilling to speak any more to the fathers as being incorrigible. Walk ye not in … statutes of … fathers—The traditions of the fathers are to be carefully weighed, not indiscriminately followed. He forbids the imitation of not only their gross sins, but even their plausible statutes [Calvin].

The Generation that Grew Up in the Desert Ezekiel 20:18. And I spake to their sons in the desert, Walk not in the statutes of your fathers, and keep not their rights, and do not defile yourselves with their idols. Ezekiel 20:19. I am Jehovah your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my rights, and do them, Ezekiel 20:20. And sanctify my Sabbaths, that they may be for a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God. Ezekiel 20:21. But the sons were rebellious against me; they walked not in my statutes, and did not keep my rights, to do them, which man should do that he may live through them; they profaned my Sabbaths. Then I thought to pour out my wrath upon them, to accomplish my anger upon them in the desert. Ezekiel 20:22. But I turned back my hand and did it for my name's sake, that it might not be profaned before the eyes of the nations, before whose eyes I had them out. Ezekiel 20:23. I also lifted my hand to them in the desert, to scatter them among the nations, and to disperse them in the lands; Ezekiel 20:24. Because they did not my rights, and despised my statutes, profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after the idols of their fathers. Ezekiel 20:25. And I also gave them statutes, which were not good, and rights, through which they did not live; Ezekiel 20:26.