Ezekiel 20:13

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Rebelled against me.—See Exodus 32:1-6; Numbers 14:1-4; Numbers 14:16; Numbers 25:1-3; and for the desecration of the Sabbath in particular, Exodus 16:27; Numbers 15:32.

I will pour out my fury.—Comp. Exodus 32:10; Numbers 15:12; and on Ezekiel 20:14 comp. Note on Ezekiel 20:9.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 20:13-17. But the house of Israel — Not a few, but the generality of the people; rebelled against me — Were undutiful, disobedient, contumacious, and even openly and repeatedly rebellious; in the wilderness — Where they were receiving daily and great mercies from me; where they were on their way to Canaan, and were peculiarly dependant upon me for direction in the way, protection from their enemies, and the supply of all their wants; where they most needed my care and favour, and where the preserving their lives from being destroyed by noxious creatures and by famine, in that barren, desolate, and howling desert, required and was a continued miracle. They walked not in my statutes — Given them as the rule of their conduct toward me and one another. And they despised my judgments — Slighted them first as of little excellence, and then refused and cast them off. They who disobey God’s statutes despise them; they show by their disobedience that they have a mean opinion of them, and of him whose statutes they are. And my sabbaths they greatly polluted — That is, profaned, neglecting the duties enjoined to be done on those holy days, and employing them in worldly business, in pursuing sensual gratifications, or in practising secret idolatry and other wickedness. But I wrought, &c. — See on Ezekiel 20:9. Yet I lifted up my hand, &c. — I solemnly swore (see Ezekiel 20:5) they should not enter into that rest I had designed for them. So all the murmuring, disobedient, unbelieving generation was excluded, and their children were brought in. Because they despised, &c. — See on Ezekiel 20:13. For their heart went after their idols — They were still inclined to the idolatries which they had learned in Egypt, to which they added new idols, which they had seen in the countries through which they travelled, namely, the idols of the Midianites, Amorites, &c: see the margin. Nevertheless, mine eye spared them — Though they did highly provoke me, and deserved to be all cut off, I had great patience with them, often reprieved them after sentence of condemnation was passed, and bore with their untoward manners, till a new and better disposed generation arose, to whom I could, consistently with my holiness, fulfil my promises made to their fathers.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:10-26. The history of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the new Testament as well as in the Old, for warning. God did great things for them. He gave them the law, and revived the ancient keeping of the sabbath day. Sabbaths are privileges; they are signs of our being his people. If we do the duty of the day, we shall find, to our comfort, it is the Lord that makes us holy, that is, truly happy, here; and prepares us to be happy, that is, perfectly holy, hereafter. The Israelites rebelled, and were left to the judgments they brought upon themselves. God sometimes makes sin to be its own punishment, yet he is not the Author of sin: there needs no more to make men miserable, than to give them up to their own evil desires and passions.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My sabbaths they greatly polluted - Not by actual non-observance of the sabbatical rest in the wilderness, but in failing to make the day holy in deed as well as in name by earnest worship and true heart service.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. in the wilderness—They "rebelled" in the very place where death and terror were on every side and where they depended on My miraculous bounty every moment!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The house of Israel; not a few, this I might have borne in silence, but most of them; they were, as we are, a rebellious house.

Rebelled against me; provoked me bitterly to indignation by their contumacies, and that frequently, as Exodus 17:7 Numbers 20:24 Deu 1:26,43; a stubborn and rebellious generation, Psalm 78:8, with Ezekiel 20:40.

In the wilderness; where they most needed my care and favour, where the preserving their life from destruction by the noxious creatures, and from famine by the barrenness of the wilderness, was a continued miracle, which required their obedience and dependence.

Walked not in my statutes; made not them the only rule of their religion, and exercise of it, as they should have done, but framed religion to their own or their neighbours’ idolatrous inclinations.

Despised my judgments; slighted first, as of little excellency, refused next, and cast off with disdain and loathing.

Which, the equitable and necessary rules for government of their civil affairs, which were framed to the safety and welfare of a people,

if a man do, he shall even live in them: see Ezekiel 20:11.

Polluted; profained with working what was prohibited, misemploying those days on idols, or on any common ordinary business, as Exodus 16:27 Numbers 15:32 Jeremiah 17:22,23.

Then I said: see Ezekiel 20:8.

To consume them; to cut them off from being a people, as Numbers 16:21.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness,.... Where they were wholly at the mercy of God, entirely dependent upon him; and miracles were wrought every day for the sustaining and preservation of, them from famine, wild beasts, and enemies; yet they rebelled against the Lord; provoked him bitterly by their manifold transgressions, their ingratitude, unbelief, and idolatry; and this not a few of them only, but the whole body of the people, the house of Israel, the whole family, and that for the space of forty years, Psalm 95:9;

they walked not in my statutes; did not make them the rule of their walk and conversation, and steer the course of their lives and actions by them, as they ought to have done:

and they despised my judgments; as not worthy their notice and regard, as useless and unprofitable; nay, had an aversion to them, and a loathing of them, as the word (h) signifies; such is the corrupt and wicked heart of man; it is enmity against God and his law, and all that is good:

which if a man do, he shall even live in them; See Gill on Ezekiel 20:11;

and my sabbaths they greatly polluted; or "profaned", or "made them common" (i); that is, with other days; by going out for manna on them; by gathering sticks upon them; by doing their own work, speaking their own words, and seeking their own pleasure, and worshipping false deities:

then I said, I would pour out, my fury upon them in the wilderness to consume them; that they should not enter into the land of Canaan; as the generation that came out of Egypt were consumed in the wilderness, excepting two; as the Lord threatened, Numbers 14:35.

(h) "abjeoerunt", Pagninus; "reprobaverunt", Montanus. (i) "prophanarunt", Vatablus, Piscator, Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Provocation of the people in the wilderness. They rejected the statutes of Jehovah and “polluted,” better: profaned, his sabbaths, i.e. failed to dedicate and keep them to Jehovah. The profanation is to be taken in a wider sense than the special instances of neglect, Exodus 16:27; Numbers 15:32. This profanation of the Sabbath was oblivion of the covenant, cf. Amos 8:5.

pour out my fury] Cf. Exodus 32:10 seq.; Numbers 14:11-12; Numbers 14:29.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - It is hardly necessary to count up the several instances of rebellion, from the sin of the golden calf onward. Of direct violation of the sabbath we have but two recorded instances (Exodus 16:27; Numbers 15:32); but the prophet looked below the surface, and would count a mere formal observance, that did not sanctify the sabbath, as a pollution of the holy day. (For parallel teaching in the prophets, see Isaiah 56:2-4; Isaiah 58:13; Jeremiah 17:21-27; and later on in the history, probably as the result of their teaching, Nehemiah 10:31-33; Nehemiah 13:15-22.) Then I said. The history of Numbers 14:26 and Numbers 26:65 was probably in Ezekiel's thoughts. Ezekiel 20:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Behaviour of Israel in the Desert

Ezekiel 20:10. And I led them out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the desert; Ezekiel 20:11. And gave them my statutes, and my rights I made known to them, which man is to do that he may live through them. Ezekiel 20:12. I also gave them my Sabbaths, that they might be for a sign between me and them, that they might now that I Jehovah sanctify them. Ezekiel 20:13. But the house of Israel was rebellious against me in the desert: they did not walk in my statutes, and my rights they rejected, which man is to do, that he may live through them, and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned: Then I thought to pour out my wrath upon them in the desert to destroy them. Ezekiel 20:14. But I did it for my name's sake, that it might not be profaned before the eyes of the nations, before whose eyes I had led them out. Ezekiel 20:15. I also lifted my hand to them in the desert, not to bring them into the land which I had given (them), which floweth with milk and honey; it is an ornament of all lands, Ezekiel 20:16. Because they rejected my rights, did not walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths, for their heart went after their idols. Ezekiel 20:17. But my eye looked with pity upon them, so that I did not destroy them, and make an end of them in the desert. - God gave laws at Sinai to the people whom He had brought out of Egypt, through which they were to be sanctified as His own people, that they might live before God. On Ezekiel 20:11 compare Deuteronomy 30:16 and Deuteronomy 30:19. Ezekiel 20:12 is taken almost word for word from Exodus 31:13, where God concludes the directions for His worship by urging upon the people in the most solemn manner the observance of His Sabbaths, and thereby pronounces the keeping of the Sabbath the kernel of all divine worship. And as in that passage we are to understand by the Sabbaths the actual weekly Sabbaths, and not the institutions of worship as a whole, so here we must retain the literal signification of the word. It is only of the Sabbath recurring every week, and not of all the fasts, that it could be said it was a sign between Jehovah and Israel. It was a sign, not as a token, that they who observed it were Israelites, as Hitzig supposes, but to know (that they might know) that Jehovah was sanctifying them, namely, by the Sabbath rest - as a refreshing and elevation of the mind, in which Israel was to have a foretaste of that blessed resting from all works to which the people of God was ultimately to attain (see the comm. on Exodus 20:11). It is from this deeper signification of the Sabbath that the prominence given to the Sabbaths here is to be explained, and not from the outward circumstance that in exile, when the sacrificial worship was necessarily suspended, the keeping of the Sabbath as the only bond which united the Israelites, so far as the worship of God was concerned (Hitzig). Historical examples of the rebellion of Israel against the commandments of God in the desert are given in ex. EZechariah 32:1-6 and Numbers 25:1-3; and of the desecration of the Sabbath, in ex. EZechariah 16:27 and Numbers 15:32. For the threat referred to in Ezekiel 20:13, compare Exodus 32:10; Numbers 14:11-12. - Ezekiel 20:15 and Ezekiel 20:16 are not a repetition of Ezekiel 20:13 (Hitzig); nor do they introduce a limitation of Ezekiel 20:14 (Kliefoth). They simply relate what else God did to put bounds to the rebellion after He had revoked the decree to cut Israel off, at the intercession of Moses (Numbers 14:11-19). He lifted His hand to the oath (Numbers 14:21.), that the generation which had come out of Egypt should not come into the land of Canaan, but should die in the wilderness. Therewith He looked with pity upon the people, so that He did not make an end of them by following up the threat with a promise that the children should enter the land. עשׂה כלה, as in Ezekiel 11:13.