51 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
51 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
+++
|
||
title = "Ezekiel 20:1–32"
|
||
date = "2023-04-20"
|
||
+++
|
||
|
||
### [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.
|