Ezekiel 20:10 - Meaning and Application

The story continues here of the struggle between Israel’s sins, which were driving them toward ruin, and God’s mercy, which was working to save and bless them. These verses focus on what happened between God and Israel in the wilderness, where God honored himself and they brought shame on themselves. The New Testament points back to Israel’s life in the wilderness, especially in (1 Corinthians 10) and (Hebrews 3), as a warning to Christians. So these verses speak directly to us too.

First, God reminds them of the great things he did for them, not because he resented his kindness, but to show how ungrateful they had been. He brought them out of Egypt, even though he led them into the wilderness instead of taking them straight into Canaan, the promised land (Ezekiel 20:10). It is better to be free in a wilderness than enslaved in a land of plenty. It is better to enjoy God and ourselves in quiet than to lose both in a crowd. Yet many of them had such low and slave-like minds that they did not see this, and when the desert became hard, they wanted to go back to Egypt.

He also gave them his law on Mount Sinai (Ezekiel 20:11). This did more than teach them right and wrong. By his authority, God tied them to what was good and turned them away from what was evil. Moses called this law a precious inheritance for Israel (Deuteronomy 33:4). God made known his judgments, which means he not only gave commands, but also showed how wise and fair those commands were. The law promised life to those who kept it: “If a person does them, he will live by them.” There is comfort and reward in obeying God. Jesus said that if a person wants life, he must keep the commandments. Paul uses this in (Galatians 3:12) to show that the law is not based on faith, because it promises life only to perfect obedience, which we cannot give. So we must turn to the grace of the gospel, or we are lost.

He also restored the Sabbath, the day of rest, which had been neglected while they were slaves in Egypt. Their Egyptian masters would not allow them to rest one day in seven. In the wilderness, every day was in one sense a day of rest, because they lived on manna and their clothes did not wear out. Still, one day in seven was to be a holy rest (Ezekiel 20:12). God says he gave them his Sabbaths as a sign between himself and them. The Sabbath showed his goodwill toward them, and their keeping it showed their respect for him. It also taught them that he was the Lord who made them holy.

Sabbaths are a privilege and should be treated as one. In (Nehemiah 9:14), the church speaks of this as a great kindness: “You made known to them your holy Sabbaths.” Sabbaths are also signs. When people care about keeping the day holy, it shows they have some sense of religion and real fellowship with God. And if we rightly keep the Sabbath, it becomes a means of sanctification, which means being made holy. If we do the duty of the day, we find that the Lord is the one who makes us holy now and prepares us for perfect holiness later.

Second, God recalls their disobedient and ungrateful conduct. He could have cast them off as soon as he brought them into covenant, but instead they rebelled in the wilderness (Ezekiel 20:13). There, where they had so much mercy and depended on him so fully, they still broke out into open rebellion against the God who led and fed them. They did not merely fail to keep his statutes, they despised his judgments as though they were not worth obeying. Instead of honoring the Sabbaths, they polluted them greatly. One man gathered sticks, and many went out to gather manna on that day.

Because of this, God was at times ready to destroy them. More than once he said he would consume them in the wilderness. Moses pleaded for them, and God’s own mercy pleaded even more strongly. Above all, God acted for the sake of his own glory, so that his name would not be profaned among the nations (Ezekiel 20:14). He did not want the Egyptians to say that he had brought Israel out only to harm them, or that he could not bring them into the land, or that the good land he had promised did not exist (Exodus 32:12; Numbers 14:13). God’s strongest reasons for showing mercy often come from concern for his own honor.

Third, God declares that he would cut off that generation in the wilderness. The same God who lifted up his hand in promise for them (Ezekiel 20:6) now lifted up his hand against them. He who had sworn to bring them out of Egypt now swore that he would not bring them into Canaan (Ezekiel 20:15, Ezekiel 20:16). He said, “As surely as I live,” those who tested him ten times would never see the land he had sworn to their fathers (Numbers 14:22, Numbers 14:23; Psalm 95:11). Their contempt for God’s law, especially for his Sabbaths, shut the door against them. Beneath their disobedience was a hidden love for the gods of Egypt, because “their heart went after their idols.”

That is still the root of much sin. When the mind is bent toward the world, the flesh, money, or appetite, that inward pull becomes the bitter root from which disobedience grows. The heart that follows those idols will despise God’s judgments.

Fourth, God reserved a remnant, a smaller people, for a new beginning, and he gave them instruction (Ezekiel 20:17). Even though they deserved ruin and had been sentenced to it, God’s eye spared them. When he looked on them, he had pity and did not bring them to an end. He gave them time until a new generation could rise up. It is only because of God’s mercy that he has not long ago made an end of us. This new generation was carefully taught.

Moses, in Deuteronomy, repeated and pressed on Israel the laws first given to those who came out of Egypt. He did this so their children would hear them fresh in their ears when they entered Canaan (Ezekiel 20:18). He told the people in the wilderness, in the plains of Moab, to walk in the statutes of their God and not in the statutes of their fathers. In other words, they were not to copy their parents’ superstitious practices or keep their foolish and sinful customs.

He also warned them not to defile themselves with their idols, because they had seen how hateful those idols made their fathers in God’s sight. Instead, they were to keep God’s judgments and honor his Sabbaths (Ezekiel 20:19, Ezekiel 20:20). If parents fail to give good instruction, children should make up that lack by studying God’s word more carefully when they are grown. Bad examples from parents should serve as warnings, not as patterns to follow.

The next generation also rebelled against God, and by that they too brought themselves under his wrath (Ezekiel 20:21). The same charge made against the fathers is made against the children, because they were, as Scripture says, a seed of evildoers. Moses had already told them that he knew their rebellion and stubbornness (Deuteronomy 31:27), and that they had been rebellious against the Lord from the day he knew them (Deuteronomy 9:24). They did not walk in God’s statutes, and indeed they despised them (Ezekiel 20:21, Ezekiel 20:24). People who break God’s commands show that they look down on both the commands and the God who gave them.

They also profaned God’s Sabbaths, just as their fathers had done. The misuse of the Sabbath is often the doorway to wider sin, because those who spoil holy time tend not to keep anything holy. About the fathers, it was said that their hearts went after their idols, because they loved them. But about the children, it is said that their eyes went after their fathers’ idols (Ezekiel 20:24). They had grown cold and unbelieving, yet they still followed those idols because they belonged to their fathers and were always before them. They were familiar with them, and if they must have gods, they wanted ones they could see and handle.

This rebellion was especially serious because obedience would have brought them life and blessing (Ezekiel 20:21). Those who go against their duty also go against their own good. They refuse to obey, and they refuse to come to Christ, so that they may have life (John 5:40). It is only right that those who will not live and flourish in obedience should die in disobedience.

The great example of that generation’s rebellion and pull toward idolatry was the sin of Peor, just as the fathers’ great sin had been the golden calf. Then the Lord’s anger burned against Israel (Numbers 25:3). A plague struck the people, and if Phinehas, Eli’s zealous grandson, had not acted in time, it would have destroyed them all. Even later, in Joshua’s day, they still said, “We were not cleansed from that iniquity to this day” (Joshua 22:17; Psalm 106:29). At that time God said he would pour out his fury on them and scatter them among the nations (Ezekiel 20:21). He had already spoken the same warning through Moses in his farewell song (Deuteronomy 32:20). Because they provoked him with false gods, he said he would hide his face from them. He also said he would scatter them into corners, except that he feared the enemy would misunderstand and boast too much (Ezekiel 20:26, Ezekiel 20:27).

This helps explain the meaning of Ezekiel 20:21, Ezekiel 20:22. God said he would pour out his fury, but he held back for the honor of his name. Even when the visible church becomes deeply corrupt and seems ready for destruction, we may still be sure of this for comfort: God will protect his own honor and keep his promise to have a church in the world while it stands.

The sixth point is the judgments God sent on them for their rebellion. They would not respect the statutes and judgments that showed them their duty, and they despised them. So God gave them statutes and judgments that were not good, and by which they could not live (Ezekiel 20:25). This refers to the many punishments he sent in the wilderness, such as the plague, the fiery serpents, and similar judgments. In relation to the law they had broken, these are called judgments because God sent them in justice, and statutes because God ordered them. He commanded desolations just as he had once commanded deliverances. He appointed Israel’s plagues just as he had appointed Egypt’s plagues.

When God said, “I will consume them in a moment” (Numbers 16:21), and when he said, “Take the heads of the people and hang them up” (Numbers 25:4), and when he warned them with curses and made them answer, “Amen,” to every curse (Deuteronomy 27:26), then he was giving them judgments by which they should not live. More is meant than is directly said, because these were judgments leading to death. Those who will not be ruled by the commands of the law will be ruled by its sentence. God’s word will hold fast to people one way or another (Zechariah 1:6).

Spiritual judgments are the most terrible, and God punished them with those as well. The practices the heathen used in idol worship were not good, and no one could live by them. God gave Israel over to those practices. He made their sin their punishment, giving them up to a worthless mind, as he did with Gentile idolaters (Romans 1:24, Romans 1:26), and giving them up to their own stubborn desires (Psalm 81:12). He punished them for superstitious customs that broke his written law by handing them over to customs that broke even the light of nature.

So he left them to themselves, and they fell into the most filthy idolatries, as with Baal-peor, where he “defiled” them, meaning he allowed them to defile themselves with their own gifts (Ezekiel 20:26). They also fell into the most brutal idolatries, as with Moloch, when they made their children, especially their firstborn, pass through the fire as sacrifices to idols. God had claimed special ownership of the firstborn, saying, “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me.” In this way he would make them desolate, not only because it was just, but because they would bring it on themselves. Such sin had to weaken their families and reduce the honor and strength of their nation.

God sometimes lets sin become its own punishment, yet he is never the author of sin. Nothing more is needed to make people miserable than to hand them over to their own corrupt desires and passions. If they are left to their own plans, they will ruin themselves and leave themselves desolate.

In this way God makes them know that he is the Lord, and that he is a righteous God. They will be forced to admit this when they see how much their willful sins helped bring about their own ruin. Those who will not accept God as their ruler will one day have to recognize him as their judge, but then it will be too late.