34 and I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries in which you are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out;
"For, behold, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the least kernel will fall on the earth. All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, 'Evil won't overtake nor meet us.'
Therefore by this shall the iniquity of Jacob be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in sunder, [so that] the Asherim and the sun-images shall rise no more. For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches of it. When the boughs of it are withered, they shall be broken off; the women shall come, and set them on fire; for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor. It shall happen in that day, that Yahweh will beat off [his fruit] from the flood of the River to the brook of Egypt; and you shall be gathered one by one, you children of Israel. It shall happen in that day, that a great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt; and they shall worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ezekiel 20
Commentary on Ezekiel 20 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 20
In this chapter,
Eze 20:1-4
Here is,
Eze 20:5-9
The history of the ingratitude and rebellion of the people of Israel here begins as early as their beginning; so does the history of man's apostasy from his Maker. No sooner have we read the story of our first parents' creation than we immediately meet with that of their rebellion; so we see here it was with Israel, a people designed to represent the body of mankind both in their dealings with God and in his with them. Here is,
Eze 20:10-26
The history of the struggle between the sins of Israel, by which they endeavoured to ruin themselves, and the mercies of God, by which he endeavoured to save them and make them happy, is here continued: and the instances of that struggle in these verses have reference to what passed between God and them in the wilderness, in which God honoured himself and they shamed themselves. The story of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the New Testament (1 Co. 10 and Heb. 3), as well as often in the Old, for warning to us Christians; and therefore we are particularly concerned in these verses. Observe,
Eze 20:27-32
Here the prophet goes on with the story of their rebellions, for their further humiliation, and shows,
Eze 20:33-44
The design which was now on foot among the elders of Israel was that the people of Israel, being scattered among the nations, should lay aside all their peculiarities and conform to those among whom they lived; but God had told them that the design should not take effect, v. 32. Now, in these verses, he shows particularly how it should be frustrated. They aimed at the mingling of the families of Israel with the families of the countries; but it will prove in the issue that the wicked Israelites, notwithstanding their compliances, shall not mingle with them in their prosperity, but shall be distinguished from them for destruction; for idolatrous Israelites, that are apostates from God, shall be sooner and more sorely punished than idolatrous Babylonians that never knew the way of righteousness. Read and tremble at the doom here passed upon them; it is backed with an oath not to be reversed: As I live, saith the Lord God, thus and thus will I deal with you. They think to make both Jerusalem and Babylon their friends by halting between two; but God threatens that neither of them shall serve for a rest or refuge for them.
Eze 20:45-49
We have here a prophecy of wrath against Judah and Jerusalem, which would more fitly have begun the next chapter than conclude this; for it has no dependence on what goes before, but that which follows in the beginning of the next chapter is the explication of it, when the people complained that this was a parable which they understood not. In this parable,
Now observe,