Ezekiel 20:38

Eze 20:38 And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD.

Ver. 38. And I will purge out from among you the rebels.] Making first a difference, and then a riddance of them from among my covenanters.

And they shall not enter into the land of Israel.] But either die by the way, or, if they live to enter, they shall find it a strange land to what they or their fathers left it. See Jer 44:14. Lavater maketh the sense to be, They shall not enter into the heavenly Canaan. {a} See the like, Psa 95:11.

{a} Non eos perducam ad promissiones aeternas. - Oecol.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Signifying, that he will not burn the corn with the chaff, but choose out the wicked to punish them when he will spare his.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(Zac 13:9; Zac 14:2).

purge out--or, "separate." Hebrew, barothi, forming a designed alliteration with "berith," the covenant; not a promise of grace, but a threat against those Jews who thought they could in exile escape the observation and "rule" of God.

land of Israel--Though brought out of the country of their sojourn or exile (Babylon formerly, and the various lands of their exile hereafter) into the literal land of Palestine, even it shall be to them an exile state, "they shall not enter into the land of Israel," that is, the spiritual state of restored favor of God to His covenant people, ,which shall only be given to the remnant to be saved (Zac 13:8-9).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 38. I will purge out from among you the rebels] The incorrigibly wicked I will destroy; those who will not receive him whom I have appointed for this purpose as the Saviour of Israel. And I will gather you who believe out of all the countries where you sojourn, and bring you into your own land; but those of you who will not believe - will not receive the Son of David to reign over you, shall never enter into the land of Israel, but die in your dispersions. This is what the contradicting and blaspheming Jews of the present day have to expect. And thus, both of you shall know that he is Jehovah, fulfilling his threatenings against the one, and his promises to the other.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He continues the discourse which he had commenced, namely, that God would not suffer the exiles to withdraw themselves from him from the time he had adopted them. Then, since they were bound by the blessing of redemption, although they thought themselves far removed from the sight of God, after they were cast into exile, he says he would be present to gather them from the land of their dwellings; that is, wherever they were dispersed to bring them out. Some suppose the phrase to include a promise of favor, because it is said, I will purge you; but the word to choose, as I prefer to render it, or to discern, means, that God will drag to light those who think they have obtained hiding-places in which they can escape his eyes. Although, therefore, they promise themselves complete exemption from God’s authority, he, on the other hand, pronounces them deceived, since he would collect them all together from the land of their habitations, although they were dispersed in different places. God’s threatenings are sufficiently evident from the second clause of the verse, they shall not come, says he, into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am Jehovah. He confirms what we saw before, that when liberty was granted them, they did not on that account become God’s Church, since he had another reason for ruling over them, namely, to chastise them severely for their wickedness. They shall not come, therefore, into the land of Israel; that is, they shall remain, and grow corrupt in the desert, as we know that to be a most severe punishment, when God swore, that except two persons, Caleb and Joshua, no one should enter the land of Canaan. (Numbers 14:23, 24.) So also in this passage, I will free you, that is, when your return to your country shall be evident, a new light shall seem to have shone forth, but yet reflect on what happened to your fathers; for although redeemed, they perished in the desert, and never possessed the land of Canaan. The same thing shall happen to you also:, since your return is only a prelude to my favor: but you shall never return to the land of Israel. But this is extended to those who returned and dwelt in their native land. But we said that Judea was a place of exile since the course of God’s favor was broken off, and God begun to plead with them afresh, even when he had led them from their captivity at Babylon And you shall know that I am Jehovah: as we said yesterday, God is recognized by the reprobate, while they are compelled to acknowledged a judge whose fatherly clemency they had despised. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(38) I will purge out.—The discipline of affliction should have the effect of separating the rebellious in heart from the purified remnant, so that they should not return with them to the land of their fathers. A striking instance of the way in which the Divine purposes are fulfilled through the operations of ordinary laws, occurred on the return of the Jews from their exile. After a residence of more than two generations in Babylonia, they had made themselves homes there, and had become prosperous and contented. Jerusalem and Judæa were utterly desolated and environed with their persistent enemies. The journey thither was long, attended with hardships and danger, and at its close lay the toilsome and self-sacrificing work of pioneers. When therefore, the permission was given for the return, only those who were most earnest in their zeal for the home and religion of their fathers were ready to avail themselves of the opportunity. A great sifting of the people thus took place from the very circumstances of the case, and only a comparatively small portion constituting the better part, returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

38. Describes the other side of the process from Eze_20:37, the separating of the unworthy from among the people, ch. Eze_34:17; Eze_34:20.

and they shall not enter] But they. They shall be brought out but shall fall in the wilderness of the peoples as the rebellious generation aforetime fell in the wilderness of Egypt.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As for you, O house of Israel,.... The then present house of Israel, and the elders of it, who were upon the spot with the prophet:

go ye, serve ye everyone his idols; or dunghill gods; since they liked not to serve the true God: this is not giving them leave to serve idols, or approving their idolatrous practices; but is said "ironically", as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, who compare it with Ecc 11:9,

and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me; not only serve them now, but for the future; seeing ye choose not to hearken to my voice, to obey my laws, and to worship me, and me only; for it suggests, that it was better to attend to the service of the one, or of the other, and not halt between two opinions; but either, if the God of Israel was the true God, then serve him, and him only; but if Baal, or any other Heathen deity, was so, then serve them, and keep serving them:

but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts and with your idols; to worship him along with them, and them along with him; to pretend they worshipped him in them, and offered their gifts and sacrifices to him through them; and so made use of his name as a cover to their idolatrous practices: this was a polluting his name, and was abominable to him.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Israel. They shall continue in exile; or the rebel Jews who will not believe in Christ, shall be cast off. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Purge out; cull, and pick out, that they may be rejected, as they deserve, or brought forth to shame and punishment.

The rebels, the contumacious sinners, who harden themselves against God; his severe wasting judgments shall find them out in their hiding-places, and drag them out, but not to return them to Canaan, they shall no more return thither.

Ye shall know that I am the Lord; by which it shall appear, that though apostates may change their religion, and deny their God, yet he hath not less power to restrain, nor less right to govern, nor less sovereignty to dispose of them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

38. I will bring them forth — These rebellious Hebrews, who think to settle down in Egypt or Babylon and adopt the religion of the country and make their home there, shall find it to be no pleasant home for them. They shall be forced to leave — as the true Israelite will — but they shall not find the same glad end to their journey. They shall remain outcasts from their native land, the scorn both of the heathen and of their own people.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The thought of the shepherd suggests, as in Mat_25:33, the separation of the sheep from the goats. The land of the restored Israel was to be a land of righteousness, and the rebels were not to enter into it. Was Ezekiel thinking of those who were thus to die in the "wilderness of the peoples" as a counterpart of those who perished in the forty years of the wandering, and did not enter Canaan? Ver. 36 seems to imply that he was looking for a repetition of that history. The solemn fast kept by Ezra by the river of Ahava (Ezr 8:21-2:2) may be noted as corresponding, on a small scale, to Ezekiel"s expectations.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The rebels - The stubborn sinners.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

And I shall separate Heb. וּבָרוֹתִי, an expression of ברר [selecting, separating].

from the land of their sojournings From the land of their exile I shall take them and slay them in the wilderness.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.