Ezekiel 20:1-32

content/bible_journal/ezekiel_20:1-32.md

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+title = "Ezekiel 20:1–32"
+date = "2023-04-20"
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+
+### [Read the passage.](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Ezekiel20.1-32)
+
+It has now been almost a year since Ezekiel was taken to Jerusalem in a vision
+to see the abominations the people were doing there, and the desctruction the
+Lord caused there. (_ch. 8_) The date given in chapter 20 means the tenth of
+Ab, which corresponds to August, 591 <span style="font-variant-caps:
+small-caps">b.c.</span> Interestingly, this is precisely five years before
+Ezekiel's vision is fulfilled, and the Babylonians sack Jerusalem for real. I
+don't think this is more significant than a coincidence, but it is nice to know
+that we can date things this accurately even so long ago.
+
+On this date, the elders of Israel again come to Ezekiel to inquire something
+from the Lord. However, because of the sins Israel has committed, the Lord
+refuses to answer their question. Instead, He reviews Israel's history of
+idolatry, which persisted throughout their entire time as a nation. While they
+lived in Egypt they worshipped the Egyptian idols, so the Lord told them to
+cast them away when He brought them out. He gave them His Law and statutes,
+representend in this text as the Sabbath, which should have brought them life,
+but they profaned and disobeyed them.
+
+After an entire generation of Israelites died in the wilderness outside the
+Promised Land, the Lord charged their children not to walk in the ways of their
+fathers. But they failed and continued in the same sins. Every time the Lord
+describes the failure of the people, He threatens to wipe them out completely
+in judgement, but then He relents because His name would be profaned among the
+nations. Instead He judges them with exile and scattering them away from the
+land, as Moses predicted before they ever entered the Promised Land.
+
+Israel had even gone so far as to pervert the statutes the Lord had given them.
+Back when He made the covenant with Israel, He told them to devote their
+firstborn children as holy to the Lord, but they should use an animal as a
+substitute sacrifice, because God has never actually wanted us to sacrifice our
+children to Him. Somehow Israel forgot that last part, and offered their
+children up as burnt offerings, possibly to Yahweh, but definitely to the
+Caananite god Molech.
+
+The Lord lists all these things and presents His case against the elders of
+Israel. They, representing the whole nation, persist in idolatry still, so they
+have no grounds to inquire what the Lord wants them to do. They have already
+been told and don't do it now, so why should they hear more?
+
+* * *
+
+How great is your patience and long-suffering, O God, to deal with sinners like
+us.