Ezekiel 20: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the seventh year, some elders of Israel come to ask the LORD for a message, and God refuses to be consulted by them. Instead he has Ezekiel set out Israel's history in stages (in Egypt, in the wilderness with the first generation and then with their children, and later in the land) as a repeated pattern of rebellion, of God holding back full destruction for the sake of his own name, and of oaths sworn against them. God then declares that he will bring the people out from the nations, judge them face to face in a wilderness, remove the rebels, and be served on his holy mountain; there they will remember their ways and loathe themselves for what they have done. The chapter ends with a separate word against the forest of the south, which Ezekiel says the people dismiss as mere riddles.

Claim by Claim

1. 20:1
   • It happened in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month.
   • Certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD.
   • The elders sat down before Ezekiel.
2. 20:2
   • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
   • The word of the LORD spoke to him.
3. 20:3
   • The LORD told Ezekiel to speak to the elders of Israel.
   • The LORD told Ezekiel to say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD.
   • The Lord GOD asked whether they had come to inquire of him.
   • The Lord GOD swore by his own life.
   • The Lord GOD said he would not be inquired of by them.
4. 20:4
   • The LORD asked Ezekiel whether he would judge them.
   • The LORD repeated the question whether Ezekiel would judge them.
   • The LORD addressed Ezekiel as son of man.
   • The LORD told Ezekiel to make them know the abominations of their fathers.
5. 20:5
   • The LORD told Ezekiel to say to them: Thus says the Lord GOD.
   • On the day the LORD chose Israel, he raised his hand in an oath to the offspring of the house of Jacob.
   • The LORD made himself known to them in the land of Egypt.
   • The LORD raised his hand in an oath to them, saying: I am the LORD your God.
6. 20:6
   • On that day the LORD raised his hand in an oath to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
   • The LORD swore to bring them into a land he had searched out for them.
   • That land flows with milk and honey.
   • That land is the glory of all lands.
7. 20:7
   • The LORD said to them that each man must cast away the detestable things his eyes were set on.
   • The LORD said they must not defile themselves with the idols of Egypt.
   • The LORD said: I am the LORD your God.
8. 20:8
   • They rebelled against the LORD.
   • They were unwilling to listen to him.
   • They did not each cast away the detestable things their eyes were set on.
   • They did not forsake the idols of Egypt.
   • The LORD said he would pour out his fury upon them.
   • The LORD said he would spend his anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.
9. 20:9
   • The LORD acted for the sake of his own name.
   • The LORD acted so that his name would not be profaned before the nations among whom they were living.
   • The LORD had made himself known to Israel in the sight of those nations.
   • The LORD made himself known by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
10. 20:10
    • The LORD caused them to go out of the land of Egypt.
    • The LORD brought them into the wilderness.
11. 20:11
    • The LORD gave them his statutes.
    • The LORD made his ordinances known to them.
    • A man who does these things will live by them.
12. 20:12
    • The LORD also gave them his sabbaths.
    • The sabbaths were to be a sign between the LORD and them.
    • The purpose was that they would know that the LORD sanctifies them.
13. 20:13
    • The house of Israel rebelled against the LORD in the wilderness.
    • They did not walk in his statutes.
    • They rejected his ordinances.
    • A man who does these things will live by them.
    • They greatly profaned his sabbaths.
    • The LORD said he would pour out his fury upon them in the wilderness.
    • The LORD said he would consume them.
14. 20:14
    • The LORD acted for the sake of his own name.
    • The LORD acted so that his name would not be profaned before the nations in whose sight he had brought them out.
15. 20:15
    • The LORD also raised his hand in an oath to them in the wilderness.
    • The LORD swore that he would not bring them into the land he had given them.
    • That land flows with milk and honey.
    • That land is the glory of all lands.
16. 20:16
    • They rejected the LORD's ordinances.
    • They did not walk in his statutes.
    • They profaned his sabbaths.
    • Their heart went after their idols.
17. 20:17
    • The LORD's eye spared them from destruction.
    • The LORD did not make a full end of them in the wilderness.
18. 20:18
    • The LORD spoke to their children in the wilderness.
    • The LORD told them not to walk in the statutes of their fathers.
    • The LORD told them not to keep their fathers' ordinances.
    • The LORD told them not to defile themselves with their fathers' idols.
19. 20:19
    • The LORD said: I am the LORD your God.
    • The LORD commanded them to walk in his statutes.
    • The LORD commanded them to keep his ordinances.
    • The LORD commanded them to do them.
20. 20:20
    • The LORD commanded them to keep his sabbaths holy.
    • The sabbaths shall be a sign between the LORD and them.
    • The purpose is that they may know that the LORD is their God.
21. 20:21
    • The children rebelled against the LORD.
    • They did not walk in his statutes.
    • They did not keep his ordinances to do them.
    • A man who does these things will live by them.
    • They profaned his sabbaths.
    • The LORD said he would pour out his fury upon them.
    • The LORD said he would spend his anger against them in the wilderness.
22. 20:22
    • The LORD withdrew his hand.
    • The LORD acted for the sake of his own name.
    • The LORD acted so that his name would not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight he had brought them out.
23. 20:23
    • The LORD also raised his hand in an oath to them in the wilderness.
    • The LORD swore that he would scatter them among the nations.
    • The LORD swore that he would disperse them through the lands.
24. 20:24
    • They had not carried out the LORD's ordinances.
    • They had rejected his statutes.
    • They had profaned his sabbaths.
    • Their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
25. 20:25
    • The LORD also gave them statutes that were not good.
    • The LORD gave them ordinances by which they could not live.
26. 20:26
    • The LORD declared them defiled through their own gifts.
    • They caused all that opens the womb to pass through the fire.
    • The LORD's purpose was to make them desolate.
    • The LORD's purpose was that they would know that he is the LORD.
27. 20:27
    • The LORD told Ezekiel to speak to the house of Israel.
    • The LORD told Ezekiel to say: Thus says the Lord GOD.
    • In this also their fathers blasphemed the LORD.
    • Their fathers committed a treachery against the LORD.
28. 20:28
    • The LORD brought them into the land.
    • The LORD had raised his hand in an oath to give that land to them.
    • They saw every high hill and every leafy tree.
    • They offered their sacrifices there.
    • They presented there the offering that provoked the LORD.
    • They made their soothing aroma there.
    • They poured out their drink offerings there.
29. 20:29
    • The LORD asked them what the high place was to which they go.
    • The name of it is called Bamah to this day.
30. 20:30
    • The LORD told Ezekiel to say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord GOD.
    • The Lord GOD asked whether they are defiling themselves in the manner of their fathers.
    • The Lord GOD asked whether they are playing the harlot after their fathers' detestable things.
31. 20:31
    • When they offer their gifts they defile themselves.
    • They make their sons pass through the fire.
    • They defile themselves with all their idols to this day.
    • The Lord GOD asked whether he should be inquired of by them, house of Israel.
    • The Lord GOD swore by his own life.
    • The Lord GOD said he will not be inquired of by them.
32. 20:32
    • What comes into their mind shall not happen at all.
    • They say: We will be like the nations.
    • They say: We will be like the families of the lands.
    • They say they will serve wood and stone.
33. 20:33
    • The Lord GOD swore by his own life.
    • The Lord GOD said he will rule over them with a mighty hand.
    • The Lord GOD said he will rule over them with an outstretched arm.
    • The Lord GOD said he will rule over them with fury poured out.
34. 20:34
    • The LORD will bring them out from the peoples.
    • The LORD will gather them out of the lands where they are scattered.
    • He will do this with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, and fury poured out.
35. 20:35
    • The LORD will bring them into the wilderness of the peoples.
    • The LORD will enter into judgment with them there face to face.
36. 20:36
    • The LORD entered into judgment with their fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt.
    • The LORD will enter into judgment with them in the same way.
    • The Lord GOD declares this.
37. 20:37
    • The LORD will cause them to pass under the rod.
    • The LORD will bring them into the bond of the covenant.
38. 20:38
    • The LORD will purge out from among them the rebels.
    • The LORD will purge out those who transgress against him.
    • The LORD will bring them out of the land where they sojourn.
    • They shall not enter the land of Israel.
    • They shall know that he is the LORD.
39. 20:39
    • The Lord GOD addresses the house of Israel.
    • The Lord GOD tells them to go and each serve his idols.
    • The Lord GOD says this applies also hereafter, if they will not listen to him.
    • The Lord GOD tells them not to profane his holy name any more with their gifts and their idols.
40. 20:40
    • On the LORD's holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, all the house of Israel will serve him in the land.
    • The Lord GOD declares this.
    • The LORD will accept them there.
    • The LORD will require their offerings there.
    • The LORD will require the firstfruits of their contributions.
    • The LORD will require all their holy things.
41. 20:41
    • The LORD will accept them as a soothing aroma.
    • The LORD will bring them out from the peoples.
    • The LORD will gather them out of the lands where they were scattered.
    • The LORD will be shown holy in them before the nations.
42. 20:42
    • They shall know that he is the LORD.
    • The LORD will bring them into the land of Israel.
    • The LORD raised his hand in an oath to give that land to their fathers.
43. 20:43
    • There they will remember their ways.
    • There they will remember all their doings by which they were defiled.
    • They will loathe themselves in their own sight.
    • They will loathe themselves for all the evils they have committed.
44. 20:44
    • They shall know that he is the LORD.
    • The LORD will have dealt with them for the sake of his name.
    • The LORD will not deal with them according to their wicked ways.
    • The LORD will not deal with them according to their corrupt doings.
    • The address is to the house of Israel.
    • The Lord GOD declares this.
45. 20:45
    • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
    • The word of the LORD spoke to him.
46. 20:46
    • The LORD addressed Ezekiel as son of man.
    • The LORD told him to set his face toward the south.
    • The LORD told him to let his word drop toward the south.
    • The LORD told him to prophesy against the forest of the southern field.
47. 20:47
    • The LORD told Ezekiel to say to the forest of the south to hear the word of the LORD.
    • Thus says the Lord GOD.
    • The LORD will kindle a fire in the forest.
    • The fire will devour every green tree in it.
    • The fire will devour every dry tree in it.
    • The blazing flame will not be quenched.
    • All faces from the south to the north will be scorched by it.
48. 20:48
    • All flesh will see that the LORD has kindled it.
    • It will not be quenched.
49. 20:49
    • Ezekiel said, Ah, Lord GOD.
    • Ezekiel said that they say of him: Is he not a speaker of parables?

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1

The date is counted from the deportation of King Jehoiachin to Babylon in 597 BC, the system Ezekiel uses throughout the book; this is roughly August 591 BC. The "elders" are the heads of families and clans among the exiles, the community's recognized leaders. To "ask the LORD for a message" was a formal procedure: you went to a prophet with a question and expected an oracle in reply, and sitting down in front of him was the posture of waiting for that answer.

20:2

The man saying "me" is Ezekiel. He was a prophet, someone who told people what God said.

20:3

"Son of man" is a Hebrew idiom meaning simply "human being" or "mortal." It is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book, over ninety times, and it marks the distance between the speaker and the man spoken to. "As surely as I live" is a standard oath formula: the speaker stakes his own life on the truth of what follows.

20:4

"Disgusting things" translates a Hebrew word for practices regarded as detestable, used above all for the worship of other gods and the rites that went with it. It is a word of revulsion, not a description of the acts themselves.

20:5

Raising the hand was the ordinary gesture that accompanied swearing an oath, much as a raised hand accompanies swearing in a courtroom today; the Hebrew says only "I lifted my hand," and the swearing is understood. Jacob was renamed Israel, so "the family of Jacob" and "Israel" are the same people.

20:6

"Flowing with milk and honey" was a set phrase for a fertile country: milk from herds grazing good pasture, and honey from wild bees. It pictures abundance without hard labor, not a literal landscape.

20:7

To be "unclean" here is a matter of ritual status, not dirt. An unclean person or object was unfit to come near what belonged to God until the condition was dealt with; contact with idols and their rites produced that state.

20:9

In Hebrew a person's "name" stands for their reputation, what others say and think of them. To treat a name as worthless is to hold the person themselves in contempt. "The nations" (the King James "heathen") simply means the other peoples of the world, non-Israelites, without any comment on their character.

20:10

The wilderness is the desert country between Egypt and Canaan, where the exodus story places Israel for forty years.

20:11

"Rules" and "laws" render two Hebrew words often paired: fixed decrees, and rulings of the kind a judge hands down. Together they mean the whole body of law. "Anyone who obeys them will live by them" quotes Leviticus 18:5, a line that was already familiar wording.

20:12

The Sabbath was the seventh day of every week, on which all work stopped. Because no neighboring people kept it, it functioned as a public marker of who Israel was, which is what "a sign between me and them" means. "Sets them apart as holy" translates a word meaning to separate something off from ordinary use for God's use.

20:13

To "pollute" the Sabbath meant treating a day marked off as holy as if it were an ordinary working day.

20:15

This refers to the forty years of wandering: the adults who left Egypt died in the desert and their children entered the land instead.

20:17

"Mine eye spared them" is a Hebrew idiom for holding back from destroying something you have both the power and the right to destroy.

20:23

Scattering a conquered population across an empire was standard ancient practice for breaking a nation's ability to rebel. Ezekiel's audience is already living through exactly this.

20:25

The Hebrew is as blunt and as difficult as the English: God says he gave them rules that were not good. Ancient and modern readers have taken it in more than one way, and the wording itself does not settle the question. The rendering keeps the difficulty rather than smoothing it out.

20:26

"Pass through the fire" is the standard Hebrew phrase for child sacrifice, condemned repeatedly elsewhere in the Old Testament. It stands here alongside the older law that every firstborn son belonged to God (Exodus 13) but was to be bought back with an animal instead. The verse turns on the collision between those two things.

20:27

"Blasphemed" in the KJV means insulted or spoke against, a wider sense than the modern one. "Trespass" is a technical term for breaking faith with someone you were formally bound to.

20:28

Hilltops and large shady trees were the customary sites for local shrines in Canaan, which is why they are named together as a pair. A drink offering was wine poured out on or beside the altar. The "sweet-smelling" element is the fragrant smoke of the sacrifice, described in Hebrew as a scent that pleases the deity receiving it.

20:29

A "high place" was an open-air worship site, usually raised ground with an altar, a standing stone and a sacred pole. The Hebrew for it is bamah, and the sentence is a pun: mah ha-bamah asher attem ba-im sham, roughly "what (mah) is the high place (bamah) you keep coming (ba) to?" The wordplay cannot be carried into English.

20:30

Hebrew regularly describes the worship of other gods as sexual unfaithfulness, because the bond between God and Israel is pictured as a marriage. The King James "commit whoredom" is that metaphor; it is not an accusation about sexual conduct.

20:31

Ezekiel is saying the practice described in verse 26 has not stopped. The books of Kings report children burned in the valley of Hinnom just outside Jerusalem in the generation before the exile.

20:32

"Wood and stone" means idols, carved images; the point is that these gods are manufactured objects. The temptation here is assimilation: exiles who would rather stop being a distinct people and simply blend into Babylon.

20:33

"A strong hand and an outstretched arm" is the fixed phrase used throughout the Old Testament for God's power in bringing Israel out of Egypt. Here the exodus language is aimed at Israel rather than at their captors.

20:35

"The wilderness of the nations" has no fixed location and commentators have never agreed on one; the likeliest sense is the desert lying between Babylon and Canaan, matching the desert of the first exodus. "Bring my case against you" is courtroom language: to state charges and press them.

20:37

Shepherds counted a flock by making the animals file one at a time under the raised staff, tallying them and marking off which belonged to whom (Leviticus 27:32). A covenant is a formal binding agreement, sworn and enforceable, of the kind made between a ruler and a people. The Greek Old Testament reads this line differently, as bringing you in "by number," continuing the counting image.

20:39

The command "go ahead, serve your idols" is not a permission. Hebrew prophets use an imperative like this ironically, telling people to do what they are going to do anyway and face the result. How much of the verse is irony, and where it stops, is disputed.

20:40

The "holy mountain" is Zion, the temple hill in Jerusalem. "The first and best of your gifts" translates a term for the opening portion of a harvest or flock, handed over before any of it was used; giving the first share stood for giving the whole.

20:41

"A pleasing smell" is technical sacrificial language for an offering that has been received and accepted; the smoke rising is the sign of acceptance. Here the people themselves stand in the place of the offering.

20:43

"Lothe" is the KJV spelling of loathe. The verb is stronger than regret: it means being sickened by the sight of yourself.

20:45

In Hebrew Bibles verses 45 to 49 are printed as the first five verses of chapter 21, which is why they read like the start of a fresh oracle. They belong with the sword prophecy that follows.

20:46

Hebrew uses three different words for "south" in this one verse. The last of them is Negev, the arid region south of Judah, which is also the ordinary word for "south." "Let your words fall" is an idiom for delivering a prophetic speech, as of something dropped or let loose on a target.

20:47

The Negev is dry scrubland with no real forest, so the forest here is a figure for something else; the following chapter applies the same imagery to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. "Green tree and dry tree" is a merism, a pairing of opposites meaning everything of that kind without distinction.

20:49

The Hebrew word is mashal, which covers a proverb, a comparison, a taunt-song and a riddle. The complaint is that Ezekiel talks in figures nobody can pin down, not that he tells edifying stories.