Therefore, son of man, speak unto the house of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah In this moreover have your fathers blasphemed me, in that they have wrought unfaithfulness against me.
Elders of Israel came to ask God a question. Instead of an answer, He gives them their whole history, down to the land itself — where they wronged the God who had just given it to them.
These elders came to the prophet to ask God a question. One writer explains why He refuses to answer them.
God will not allow any more inquiry from them. What right do they have to inquire? He had fully set before them the terms on which He alone can be with them. The prophets He raised up pressed those terms on them again and again, and they broke them the whole time. Their own consciences would witness that their hearts were untrue in the inquiry itself. There was no need, then, but to remind them of their fathers' abominations: they would find in them a mirror of their own.
This verse is not a new subject. It is the third stage of one long charge, and the chapter's layout shows it.
They soon brought on themselves an even deeper reproach, which the prophet Ezekiel describes in detail in chapter 20. First, in the land of Egypt (Ezek. 20:5-9); second, in the wilderness (Ezek. 20:10-26); third, in the land (Ezek. 20:27-32).
God had brought them into a good land, and its hills and its fruitfulness became the sites of the sin.
Fresh privileges would be only fresh opportunity for evil. The high hills of the land He now brought them to, and the trees that showed its fertility, became their places of idol worship. There they lifted up offerings they claimed were for Him — offerings that provoked Him. Or they would have been glad to hide among the trees the sin they could not be parted from. Their sweet aroma was for others than Himself.
The treachery here is aimed at God Himself. One writer, explaining the law's trespass offering, shows why a wrong always had to be settled with God and not only with the person harmed.
Of course every trespass was a sin, though every sin was not a trespass. The law demanded a payment, which showed that the rights of the one sinned against were not to be ignored. It also demanded a sacrifice, which showed that a wrong against one's neighbour could not be hushed up or settled quietly, without acknowledging the guilt before God… So the Lord would teach His people that their acts of sin had to be seen in connection with their responsibility to Him, and not merely as they might affect the one sinned against on earth.
Every nation around them worshipped idols. What made Israel's idolatry an insult to God's name was who they were and what He had given them.
How much more guilty were those who knew far better! They stood in national relationship with God as His own special and favoured people, and they had the very tent of the testimony, a witness for Him and against their ways. They carried it not only in the wilderness from father to son, but into the good land. God had driven out the pagan nations living there by the hand of Joshua, so that Israel could have it. In this way they added gross hypocrisy to their greedy idolatry. There is no corruption so grievous as that of God's people, and so His chastenings match it: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).
Later in the book the same prophet returns to this charge. There the outcome turns not on Israel's record but on God's own name.
Such was Israel's way in the land and out of it, everywhere a shame to Him who chose them as His own — idolatrous corruption and murderous violence in Canaan, profaning His name among the nations. And what did He do, the One against whom they had sinned? He is Jehovah and does not change, so He did not destroy them. Instead, He had pity for the name which they had outraged, and He would sanctify it and be sanctified in them.
One writer turns this history on later readers, and finds the same heart still at work.
The history of the Church on earth has been a viler history still. Think of the higher privileges perverted, and the sweeter communications of God's grace — a grace now fully declared. As a whole, we are today just where Ezekiel was in his day, though we may hide it from ourselves, as they would have been glad to hide it too… We may still worship silver and gold, even though we do not shape it into the hideous forms once made.
- Gift. The charge starts with what God did: He brought them into the land. Their sin stands against that goodness.
- Treachery. A wrong done to a neighbour still had to be settled with God. Here the treachery is aimed at God Himself.
- Blasphemy. Idolatry from His own favoured people was not just failure but insult. No corruption is more serious than that of God's people.
- Mirror. God sets the fathers' record before the sons so they will see themselves in it. Later readers should look into the same mirror.
- Name. The name they profaned is the very thing God acts to vindicate, and that, not their record, is where hope for them lies.
When I had brought them into the land which I had lifted up my hand to give unto them, then they saw every high hill and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering; and there they placed their sweet savour, and there poured out their drink-offerings.
Ezekiel 20 reviews Israel's whole history, and one sin runs through it: idolatry, starting back in Egypt. This verse reaches the moment the story should have turned happy. Israel is in the land God swore to give them. The first thing they do is turn its hills and trees into places of worship for other gods.
The charge in this chapter starts long before the land.
Here the Spirit retraces the sin, and especially the idolatry of Israel — that is, of the people as a people — from the time of their stay in Egypt. Already there they had begun with their idolatry. For His own name's sake God had brought them up from there, and given them His statutes and His sabbaths... They had polluted the sabbaths of Jehovah and gone after the idols of their fathers, so they would be polluted in their own gifts... God brought them into the promised land, and there they forsook Jehovah for the high places.
Notice what they used: the hills and trees that proved how good the land was.
There is only a glance at their history in the land... Fresh privileges would be only fresh opportunity for evil. The high hills of the land they were now brought into, and the trees that showed how rich it was, became their places of idol worship. There they lifted up offerings that provoked Him, and claimed they were for Him. Or they would gladly have hidden among the trees the sin they could not get rid of. Their sweet savour was for others than Himself. Their drink-offerings of joy became nothing but drunken revels in honour of their many gods.
A hilltop and a shaded wood work on the imagination. People mistake the feeling for the reality.
In Israel, turning away from God showed itself outwardly in making "high places." It was only a pagan habit. It played on the imagination with a worship that had no heart in it... On the mountain-tops a man could imagine himself nearer to God than in the valleys. Deep woods and forests helped too, along with the beauty of nature, to make him think he was nearer to the God of nature than he really was. There is indeed a witness to God in all these things: who would wish to deny it?... Still, it is just here that man so often makes the fatal mistake. He puts what is merely natural in the place of what is spiritual, and so deceives himself.
These sites were not new. Israel took over the places it was sent to clear away.
To prepare for proper worship in the land, Israel had to completely destroy every place where the nations before them served their idols. The nations usually did this on high hills and mountains and in lovely wooded areas. Many people today say the same kind of thing: they need no gathering of saints to the name of the Lord Jesus to worship, but feel closer to God when they are outside enjoying the beauties of nature.
The prophets come back to this one detail again and again.
Almost every direct reference to the drink offering in the prophets has to do with idol worship. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel all speak of the children of Israel and Judah pouring out drink offerings to the gods of the nations. This provoked Jehovah to judge His disobedient people... Every blessing that God has ever given to man, man has corrupted. This is true of the drink offering also. We must make sure that all our worship — indeed all our thoughts, words and actions — gives joy to God. Anything else that aims at pleasing ourselves is like offering drink offerings to false gods. They are an abomination to God.
The chapter does not end at the ruined altars. Later God promises to accept the offering He here calls a provocation. The quote below keeps the older wording "sweet savour" for what the ESV calls a "pleasing aroma."
"I will accept you with your sweet savour when I bring you out from the people, and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the nations"... God will then accept them, and they will know Jehovah. The promises to the fathers will come true — not only in us who now believe and go to heaven at Christ's coming, but in the children of Israel on the earth. They will then truly repent, and only because of His mercy. He acts freely, above the evil of the creatures, for His own sake. If He did not, to be a sinner would be to be ruined without remedy or hope.
- Gift. God brought them into the land He had sworn to give — the verse opens with grace, not with sin.
- Corruption. The hills and leafy trees that showed how rich the land was became sites of idol worship. Fresh privileges only gave fresh opportunity for evil.
- Counterfeit. Israel kept the sacrifice, the sweet savour and the drink offering. It only changed the God they were meant for, and worship turned into self-pleasing.
- Warning. These were the very high places Israel was sent to destroy. Feeling nearer to God in nature can still replace what is spiritual.
- Restoration. In verse 41 God promises to accept the sweet savour that provoked Him here, when He gathers His people again. That is mercy acting above human evil, for His own name's sake.
And I said unto them, What is the high place whither ye go? And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.
God is retracing Israel's history for a group of elders. He reaches the point where the promised land itself became the scene of their idolatry. Every high hill and every leafy tree turned into a place of sacrifice. His question about the high place is not asking for information. The name that stuck to those shrines shows what came of it.
The name in this verse is not really a name at all. It is the ordinary Hebrew word for such a shrine.
Translators left the Hebrew word bamah, meaning "high place," untranslated just once, in Ezekiel 20:29, where Israel offered sacrifices to idols. Elsewhere they often render it HIGH PLACES.
These hilltop shrines were already there when Israel arrived. One writer traces the whole problem back to a single question: who picks the place of worship?
The Canaanite nations seem to have set up places of worship for their false gods on various heights. They chose those spots to suit their own Satan-controlled desires. Read Deuteronomy 12 carefully. Jehovah told His people about the ways of the nations, and forbade them to imitate them. The Word alone must govern them in everything to do with divine worship, as indeed in everything else. Jehovah would choose His own centre. His people must come there with their burnt offerings and sacrifices… Sadly, the time soon came when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of Jehovah. But all the high places offended Him, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They were the expression of self-will in the creature, of hearts not subject to His commandments.
The pull of a hilltop shrine was not argument but atmosphere. Height and scenery did the work that the heart should have done.
Departure from God took its outward form in Israel by making "high places" for themselves. It was only a heathen habit. It played on the imagination with a worship that has no heart in it. People still try to satisfy themselves the same way, with music, architecture, drapery, and that most typical "dim religious light" — in which to worship a God who is Light itself, and in whom there is no darkness… So on the mountain tops a man could imagine himself nearer to God than in the valleys. The depths of groves and forests helped too, along with the beauty of nature, to make him think he was nearer the God of nature than he really was… Just here man so often makes the fatal mistake of putting what is merely natural in place of what is spiritual, and so deceives himself.
The hills and trees of the land were a fresh privilege. Israel put them to another use.
Fresh privileges would be only fresh opportunity for evil. The high hills of the land they were now brought to, and the trees that showed its fertility, became their gathering places for idols. There they lifted up offerings — supposedly to Him — that provoked Him… This worship in the high places had left its marks on the land in the very names those places carried. So everywhere, across the countryside and the city alike, they had written out their own sentence.
The elders in this chapter had come to ask God a question. One writer shows why God refused them.
In the wilderness He had already warned them that He would scatter them among the nations (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32). They had polluted the sabbaths of Jehovah and gone after the idols of their fathers. So their own gifts would be polluted, and they would be slaves to the idols they had loved, so that the Lord would make them desolate. God had brought them into the promised land, and there they had forsaken Him for the high places. So He would no longer let them enquire of Him. He would rule over them with fury.
The chapter does not stop at the shame of that name. One writer looks ahead to the worship God still intends for Israel.
In that day, of which the prophet speaks, the distinction will reappear, and Israel, delivered from all their idols and every high place, will worship Jehovah their God on the mountain of His holiness.
- Bamah — the word means "high place." It stands untranslated here, because it had become the name of the shrines where Israel sacrificed to idols.
- Self-will — the high places offended God whatever the worshipper's motive. He had said He would choose His own centre, and no other.
- Atmosphere — height, groves and beauty gave a feeling of nearness to God that was not real. That is the natural put in place of the spiritual.
- Sentence — the practice left its mark in the place-names, so the map of the land became their own verdict.
- Silence, then cleansing — they had forsaken the Lord for the high places, so He would not answer them. Yet the same chapter looks on to an Israel free of every high place, worshipping on God's holy mountain.
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah Do ye defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers? and do ye commit fornication after their abominations?
The elders of Israel came to Ezekiel wanting a word from God. What they got was their own family history instead of an answer. This verse is God's reply, and it comes as a question. Commentators read it as a charge that reaches from Egypt to Ezekiel's own day, and further still.
The elders expected guidance. One writer notes that the prophet was not sent to answer them. He was sent to hold their fathers' record in front of them. The Lord later dealt the same way with the religious leaders of His day.
They fully represent those fathers who, as the current proverb said, had set their teeth on edge. The prophet's only task is to set before them the way they were repeating their fathers' detestable practices. In the Lord's time the scribes and Pharisees pleaded the same way. They claimed the right to be exempt from the judgment coming for their fathers' deeds. We cannot help remembering how the Lord meets them: "You witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers" (Matthew 23:31-32).
Behind the refusal is a God who reads hearts. One writer points out that God traces the trouble to its source, not just to what it produced.
He who searches the innermost thoughts and the heart saw that there was no exercise of conscience before Him. Why answer where there is only hollowness and hypocrisy? … So God goes to the very root of the trouble, and the people must judge the evil not just in its effects but at its source.
The chapter has traced the nation's story from Egypt onward. God can press the charge as one question because nothing had changed along the way.
What stands out most here is the moral unity of one generation after another. There is a perfect monotony of evil all the way through, from the nation's birth in Egypt to Ezekiel's time. There is nothing else to expect until God acts in the sovereignty of His own grace, at last to fulfil His promises despite this continuous rebellion.
It was useless then for the Israelites, as they were, to think their worship acceptable to God. For the sin of witchcraft is rebellion, and idolatry is stubbornness. So if they would not listen to Jehovah, it was better to be open about their evil than to keep up a show that completely offended Him. Gifts from men in such an idolatrous state only profane His name.
One writer will not leave the question in the past. He turns it on readers who think it could not be asked of them.
And the history of the Church on earth has been worse still. Think of the higher privileges misused, and the sweeter communications of God's grace — a grace now fully declared. We are today, as a mass, just where Ezekiel was in his day, although we may hide it from ourselves, as they would gladly have hidden it also. … We may worship silver and gold still, while we do not shape it into the hideous forms people once made.
There will be the elect remnant, not only of Judah and Benjamin, who had gone through the tribulation, but of the ten tribes. They had never had the responsibility of rejecting Christ, and God will deal with them separately (see Ezekiel 20:30-44).
That future rests on nothing in them. God's purpose does not collapse when people fail it.
God showed them constant grace, and they constantly resisted it, so it had no effect. Still the purpose of that grace stands, as we see at the end here. God would not leave His gracious purpose to end in failure, whatever man's sin against it may be.
- Mirror — They came to ask God a question; He held up their fathers' record instead, and it matched their own.
- Monotony — From Egypt to Ezekiel the evil never changed, so one question fits every generation.
- Mockery — They kept their idols and still brought gifts; such offerings only profaned God's name.
- Mirror today — One writer holds the same mirror up to us: idols change shape, hearts away from God do not.
- Mercy — The story ends not in their failure but in God's purpose of grace, which He will not let fail.
And when ye offer your gifts, making your sons to pass through the fire, ye defile yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day; and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? [As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I will not be inquired of by you.
The elders of Israel came to sit before Ezekiel and ask God for a word. What they got instead was an exposure of the idols still in their hands, and a sworn refusal from God to let them inquire of Him at all.
This is not the first group of elders in the book to come and get nothing. One writer says the fault lies in the men themselves.
The elders here are not described as the same group that came earlier to inquire of the prophet. But they meet the same answer, because there is no moral difference. God will allow no more inquiry from them. What right have they to inquire? God had fully set before them the terms on which He alone can be with them. The prophets He raised up pressed those terms on them again and again, yet Israel broke them all the while. Their own consciences would testify that their hearts were untrue in the very act of inquiring.
God's answer says less about Him than about the men standing in front of Him.
If they had repented of their sins and been broken in spirit, the Lord would gladly have given them His ear. But He knew their low moral condition, and He knew the hypocrisy of their approach to Him.
The verse names their offerings before it names their idols. Worship offered by hands still busy with idols does not lighten the account. It adds to it.
It was useless for the Israelites, as they then were, to think their worship was acceptable to God. For rebellion is the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is idolatry. So if they would not listen to Jehovah, open evil was better than a show that offended Him utterly. Gifts from men in such an idolatrous state only profane His name.
The worst item on the list is the sacrifice of children — a practice some have tried to read as a harmless ritual.
Some have argued from the words "passing through the fire," here and elsewhere, to deny that they burned their children. But this looks like a kindly effort to soften the reality of the wickedness. It was the fullest, though not the only, profaning of the name of Israel's God. Jehovah accepted a sheep or an ox, or even a much smaller sacrifice. Satan, under the names of those idols, demanded their sons.
Earlier in the book, elders also sat before Ezekiel to inquire. One writer describes what was inside them.
They came with pious, religious pretensions. It sounded well to inquire of the Lord and to seek out the prophet-priest for that purpose. Their hearts were full of evil. While their lips spoke of asking the Lord, their hearts were full of idolatry. They liked idolatry. To seek the Lord and inquire of Him in such a condition shows a brazen spirit and the deepest depravity.
The chapter does not end at this closed door. One writer looks at the whole record of Israel's failure and points to where hope must come from.
There is a perfect monotony of evil all the way through, from the nation's birth in Egypt to Ezekiel's time. We can expect nothing else until God acts in the sovereignty of His own grace, at last to fulfil His promises despite this continuous rebellion.
- Inquiry. Men who wanted a word from God came and sat before His prophet. The outward act was faultless. It settled nothing.
- Exposure. God named their offerings, their idols and their children in the fire. Their own record was the answer.
- Refusal. God swears He will hear no question from them. Their own consciences knew the asking was untrue.
- Condition. Repentance and a broken spirit would have gained His ear. What shut it was prayer mixed with idolatry.
- Mercy. The record of evil runs unbroken from Egypt to Ezekiel. What comes next can only come from God acting in grace to keep His promise.
And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, in serving wood and stone.
Israel in exile wanted out. The plan was to stop being a separate people and live like the nations around them. God's reply cuts it off: it will never happen.
The plan in verse 32 is not a slip. It is a choice made by people who already had God's light. One commentator names the pull behind it:
We have reason to share the prophet's feelings. God's voice denounces those who had His light and yet deliberately chose darkness. They said, "Let us be like the nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship wood and stone." But anything that offers itself as a hiding place from God has always been, sadly, welcome to those whose hearts wander from Him.
This was not a new idea. One writer places their demand for a king beside this verse as two stages of one appetite. He also marks how far verse 32 reaches:
In their past history they certainly did want to be like the nations. That showed both in having a king instead of God as their King, and in serving wood and stone instead of Jehovah their God. This may apply, more or less, at "the time of the end," but verse 32 does not say so; it does not necessarily extend to the future.
God does not argue with the plan. He says it will not happen. Scattered peoples vanish into the nations that absorb them — this one never has:
They have rebelled, and in hardness of heart have sought company with idol-worshipping nations. Yet mingle with others as they might, they never lost their identity. God watched over them and kept them safe. That same power now keeps the Jews from disappearing among the nations where they are scattered.
God's answer is not to let them go. What comes next is nothing gentle:
He will gather them out from the peoples and the countries where they are still scattered. He will not do it by quiet, moral, or gospel means, but with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with outpoured fury. He will bring them into the wilderness of the peoples, and hold judgment over them face to face, as He once dealt with their fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt.
Their own hope for the future runs on different lines:
They are now scattered in the countries and among many peoples. Yet with reviving hope they are turning once more to the land that God is keeping empty for them. They expect quiet possession, to get it as a mere matter of business and by successful politics. But that is not what God has in mind for them. They still have to face the record of their history. If they do not repent of it, they can face it only in judgment.
One writer takes this as a word to the whole nation, not to Judah alone:
This is the general judgment of the nation, and in fact of the ten tribes as distinct from Judah. They, as a body, were not guilty of rejecting the blessed Lord. They had been long scattered for their rebellion against Jehovah. God will bring them back. But He will pass them as a flock under the rod of the covenant. He will purge out the rebels, and only the spared remnant will enter the land.
Bowing to carved images can sound like someone else's problem. One commentator refuses that comfort:
We may still worship silver and gold, while we no longer shape it into the hideous forms once made. We may civilize and refine, while changing nothing about the terrible reality of hearts that are away from God.
What they meant to give to wood and stone, God will receive Himself — from the very people who wanted out:
But His purpose shall stand. "For on My holy mountain, on the mountain of the height of Israel, says the Lord Jehovah, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me: there will I accept them." … Israel, delivered from all their idols and every high place, will worship Jehovah their God on the mountain of His holiness.
- The wish — They wanted to stop being different and serve wood and stone. The pull was not the idols, but the cover they seemed to offer from God.
- The refusal — God answers that it will never happen. Being His people is not something a nation can resign from.
- The proof — Scattered peoples vanish into their hosts. This one never has, and one writer reads that survival as the work of God's own power.
- The purge — God gathers them with a mighty hand and outpoured fury. He purges out the rebels, and only a spared remnant reaches the land.
- The worship — The service they meant for wood and stone, God receives Himself on His holy mountain, from the whole house of Israel, accepted there.