Eze 20:2-9 | Clarke

Ezekiel 20:2-9

Verse 3

I will not be inquired of by you - I will not hear you. I will have nothing to do with you. Verse 4

Wilt thou judge them - If thou wilt enter into any discussion with them, show them the abomination of their fathers. The whole chapter is a consecutive history of the unfaithfulness ingratitude, rebellion, and idolatry of the Jews, from the earliest times to that day; and vindicates the sentence which God had pronounced against them, and which he was about to execute more fully in delivering them and the city into the hands of the Chaldeans. Verse 5

I chose Israel - They did not choose me for their God, till I had chosen them to be my people.

I lifted up mine hand - I bound myself in a covenant to them to continue to be their God, if they should be faithful, and continue to be my people. Among the Jews the juror lifted up his right hand to heaven; which explains Psa 144:8 : "Their right hand is a right hand of falsehood." This is a form used in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Verse 6

To bring them forth of the land of Egypt - When they had been long in a very disgraceful and oppressive bondage.

A land that I had espied for them - God represents himself as having gone over different countries in order to find a comfortable residence for these people, whom he considered as his children.

Flowing with milk and honey - These were the characteristics of a happy and fruitful country, producing without intense labor all the necessaries and comforts of life. Of the happiest state and happiest place, a fine poet gives the following description: -

Ver erat aeternum, placidique tepentibus auris

Mulcebant Zephyri natos sine semine flores.

Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat:

Nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis.

Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant:

Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.

Ovid's Metam. lib. i., 107.

On flowers unsown soft Zephyr spreads his wing,

And time itself was one eternal spring;

Ensuing years the yellow harvest crowned,

The bearded blade sprang from the untilled ground,

And laden unrenewed the fields were found.

Floods were with milk, and floods with nectar filled,

And honey from the sweating oaks distilled.

In the flourishing state of Judea every mountain was cultivated as well as the valleys. Among the very rocks the vines grew luxuriantly. Verse 7

Cast ye away - the abominations - Put away all your idols; those incentives to idolatry that ye have looked on with delight. Verse 8

They did not - cast away - They continued attached to the idolatry of Egypt; so that, had I consulted my justice only, I should have consumed them even in Egypt itself. This is a circumstance that Moses has not mentioned, namely, their provoking God by their idolatry, after he had sent Moses and Aaron to them in Egypt. Verse 9

But I wrought for my name's sake - I bare with them and did not punish them, lest the heathen, who had known my promises made to them, might suppose that I had either broken them through some caprice, or was not able to fulfill them.