Ezekiel 36:16

16–38. Not for Israel’s sake but for his own name’s sake does Jehovah do all this in behalf of his people

The passage is remarkable and deserves to be studied almost more than any other part of Ezek. when one is seeking to understand his general conceptions. It exhibits his philosophy of history (cf. ch. 20), and also describes with great beauty the principles of Jehovah’s redemption of his people, and how step by step this shall be accomplished. The prophet reviews the history of the people from the beginning, running it out till it is lost in its eternal issues, and shewing how it will read to all the nations of the earth the true lesson of that which Jehovah, the God of Israel, is, and leave ineffaceable impressions on the mind of his own people.

First, Eze_36:16-24. The history with its significance up to Israel’s final restoration.—The people defiled the land with their idolatries and bloodshed (Eze_36:17), therefore the fury of Jehovah was kindled and he poured it out upon them, scattering them among the nations (Eze_36:18-19). By these disasters which the people brought upon themselves they “profaned” Jehovah’s name among the heathen. The nations, ignorant of the nature of Jehovah, and incapable of divining the moral principles of his rule of the world and of his people, attributed the calamities of Israel to the feebleness of their God, who was unable to defend them, saying, these are the people of Jehovah, and they are gone forth out of his land. Thus the greatness and power of Jehovah, who is God alone, was detracted from, and the knowledge of him by the nations—which he wills in all that he does to convey to them—was delayed or frustrated (Eze_36:20). Therefore for the sake of his holy name he will interpose and turn the fortunes of his people, that he may be sanctified in the eyes of the nations and known by them to be God omnipotent (Eze_36:21-24, cf. Eze_36:35-36).

Secondly, Eze_36:24-38. The history of Jehovah’s restoration of his people and their full redemption in its successive steps, with the eternal impressions which this history will engrave upon the people’s minds.—In the prophet’s view Jehovah must vindicate himself in the eyes of the nations by the restoration of Israel, not because he is a mere tribal god who will do something for his people, but because he is God alone, and his manifestation of himself to the nations of the world is the goal towards which all history runs.

Jehovah “sanctifies” himself in the sight of the nations not only by convincing them of his power, but even more if possible by displaying his moral rule of his people (cf. Eze_39:23-24), and by the spiritual regeneration which he works among them (Eze_36:25 seq.). But though this great thought of Jehovah’s revelation of himself in the sight of the nations be attractive to the prophet, having touched upon the redemption of Israel he becomes absorbed in these internal operations of Jehovah among his own people, which he pursues in all their details, and the wider thought of their influence on the heathen is not reverted to till Eze_36:35-36. (1) Jehovah will take his people from the nations and bring them again to their own land (Eze_36:24). (2) Then he will sprinkle clean water upon them and wash them from all their past impurities (Eze_36:25). (3) He will also regenerate them, giving them a new heart and a new spirit, putting indeed his own spirit within them (Eze_36:26-27). (4) In this spirit they shall walk in his statutes and judgments, and thus shall inherit the land for ever, which the Lord will greatly bless (Eze_36:27-30). (5) Surrounded thus on all sides by the tokens of Jehovah’s goodness, and looking at themselves and at their past doings with the new mind which the Lord will give them (Eze_36:26), they shall loathe themselves because of all their former impurity and evil, for it is not for what they have been that Jehovah does this to them (Eze_36:31-32). (6) Thus when Israel’s captivity is brought back the nations shall learn the true meaning of their dispersion, and the nature of Jehovah their God, who disperses and restores (Eze_36:33-36).

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.

Eze 36:16 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Ver. 16. Moreover the word.] See Eze 18:1

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.

Eze_36:16-17

Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, son of man.

The messenger

Having scattered over an open field the bones of the human body, bring an anatomist to the scene. Observe how he fits bone to bone and part to part, till from those disjointed members he constructs a framework, which, apart from our horror at the eyeless sockets and fleshless form, appears perfectly, divinely beautiful. Now, as with these different parts of the human frame, so is it with the doctrines of the Gospel, in so far as they are intelligible to our limited understandings. There is a difference, which even childhood may discern, between the manner in which the doctrines and duties of the Gospel are set forth in the Word of God, and their more formal arrangement in our catechisms and confessions. They are scattered over the face of Scripture much as the plants of nature are distributed upon the surface of our globe. There, for example we meet with nothing that corresponds to the formal order, systematic classification, and rectangular beds of a botanical garden; on the contrary, the creations of the vegetable kingdom lie mingled in what, although beautiful, appears to be wild confusion. On the same moor, on the surface of the same meadow, the naturalist collects grasses of many forms, and finds both enamelled with flowers of every hue. And in those primeval forests which have been planted by the hand of God, and beneath whose silent and solemn shades man still walks in savage freedom, trees of every form and foliage stand side by side like brothers. Now, although over the whole surface of our globe plants of every form and family seem thrown at random, amid this apparent disorder the eye of science discovers a perfect system in the floral kingdom; and just as, though God has planted these forms over the face of nature without apparent arrangement, there is a botanical system, so there is as certainly a theological system, though its doctrines and duties are not classified in the Bible according to dogmatic rules. Does not this circumstance teach us that He intended His Word to be a subject of careful study as well as of devout faith, and that man should find in its saving pages a field for the exercise of his highest faculties?

I. That this portion of scripture, extending onwards from the 16th verse, presents an epitome or outline of the Gospel. Its details, with their minute and varied beauties, are here, so to speak, in shade; but the grand truths of redemption stand boldly up, much as we have seen from sea the summits of a mountain range, or the lofty headlands of a dim and distant coast. In the 17th verse, we have man sinning--Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings. In the 18th verse, we have man suffering--Wherefore, I poured My fury upon them. In the 21st verse, man appears an object of mercy--But I had pity. In the 22nd verse, man is an object of free mercy, mercy without merit--I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel. In the 24th verse, mans salvation is resolved on--I will bring you into your own land. In the 25th verse, man is justified--Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean. In the 26th and 27th verses, man is renewed and sanctified--A new heart also will I give you, etc. In the 28th verse, man is restored to the place and privileges, which he forfeited by his sins--Ye shall be My people, and I will be your God. This land that was desolate, is become like the garden of Eden. We have our security for these blessings in the assurance of the 36th verse--I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it; and we are directed to the means of obtaining them in the 37th verse--I will yet for this be inquired of, etc. Such is the wide and interesting field that lies before us. But before entering upon it, let us consider--

II. Who is commissioned to deliver Gods message. Who and what is the chosen ambassador of heaven? An angel? No; but a man. Son of man, says the Lord. By this title Ezekiel is so often addressed that it forces all our attention Lord remarkable fact, that God deals with man through the instrumentality of man, communicating by men His will to men. The rain, in its descent from heaven, falls upon the surface of our earth, percolates through the porous soil, and, flowing along rocky fissures or veins of sand, is conveyed below ground to the fountain whence it springs. Now, although rising out of the earth, that water is not of the earth, earthy. The worlds deepest well owes its treasures to the skies. So was it with the revealed will of God. It flowed along human channels, yet its origin was more than celestial; it was Divine.

1. The kindness of God to man. The God of salvation, the author and finisher of our faith, might have arranged it otherwise. Who shaft limit the Holy One of Israel? The field is the world. And as the husbandman ploughs his fields and sows his seed in spring by the same hands that bind the golden sheaves of autumn, God might have sent those angels to sow the Gospel, who shall descend at the judgment to reap the harvest. But though these blessed and benevolent spirits, who are sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation, take a lively interest in the work; though watching from on high the progress of a Redeemers cause, they rejoice in each new jewel that adds lustre to His crown, and in every new province that is won for His kingdom; and though there be more joy even in heaven than on earth when man is saved, a higher joy among these angels over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons, yet theirs is little more than the pleasure of spectators. To man, however, in salvation, it is given to share, not a spectators but a Saviours joy; with his lips at least he tastes the joys of that cup for which Jesus endured the Cross and despised the shame. If theft parent is happy who has snatched a beloved child from the flood or fire, and the child, saved, and thus twice given hind, becomes doubly dear, what happiness in purity or permanence to be compared with his, who is a; labourer with God in saving souls?

2. The honour conferred on man. Did Moses occupy a noble position when, taking advantage of some rock, he stood aloft amid the dying Israelites, and there, the central figure of the camp, on whom all eyes were turned, raised high that serpent, at which to look was life? Nobler his attitude, much holier his office, who with his foot on a dying world, lifts up the Cross--exalts Jesus Christ and Him crucified--that, whosoever looketh and believeth on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. What dignity does this world offer, what glittering stars, what jewelled honours flash on her swelling breast, to be for one moment compared with those which they win on earth, and wear in heaven, who have turned souls from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the living, loving God? Each converted soul a gem in their crown, they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars, forever and ever. How has the hope of this touched, as with burning fire, the preachers lips, sustained his sinking heart, and held up the weary hands of prayer! It has proved an ample recompense for the scanty rewards which Gods servants have received at the hands of men, for the penury which has embittered their life, and the hardships which have pressed on their lot. You are a son of man; and as you bear the prophets title, whatever otherwise you may be, let me call you to the prophets office. The Master hath need, much need, daily need of you. Take a living, lively, loving interest in souls. Dont leave them to perish. You are your brothers keeper. Permanently and formally to instruct may be the duty of others, but to enlist is yours. This honour have all His saints.

3. The wisdom of God. However highly gifted he may otherwise be, it is a valid objection to a preacher, that he does not feel what he says; that spoils more than his oratory. Once on a time an obscure man rose up to address the French Convention. At the close of his oration, Mirabeau, the giant genius of the Revolution, turned round to his neighbour, and eagerly asked, Who is that? The other, who had been in no way interested by the address, wondered at Mirabeaus curiosity. Whereupon the latter said, That man will yet act a great part; and added, on being asked for an explanation, He speaks as one who believes every word he says. Much of pulpit power under God defends on that; admits of that explanation, or of one allied to it. They make others feel who feel themselves. How can he plead for souls who neither knows nor feels the value of his own? How can he recommend a Saviour to others who himself despises and rejects Him? It is true that a man may impart light to others who does not himself see the light. It is true that, like a concave speculum cut from a block of ice, which, by its power of concentrating the rays of the sun, kindles touch wood or explodes gunpowder, a preacher may set others on fire, when his own heart is cold as frost. It is true that he may stand like a lifeless fingerpost, pointing the way on a road where he neither leads nor follows. It is true that God may thus in His sovereign mercy bless others by one who is himself unblessed. Yet commonly it happens that it is what comes from the heart of preachers that penetrates and affects the heart of hearers. Like a ball red hot from the cannons mouth, he must burn himself who would set others on fire. We have read the story of a traveller who stood one day beside the cages of some birds, that tuned their plumage on the wires, struggling to be free. A wayworn and sun-browned man, like one returned from foreign lands, he looked wistfully and sadly on these captives, till tears started in his eye. Turning round on their owner, he asked the price of one, paid it in strange gold, and opening the cage set the prisoner free; thus he did with another and another, till every bird had flown away singing to the sides--soaring on the wings of liberty. The crowd stared and stood amazed. They thought him mad, till to the question of their curiosity he replied, I was once a captive; I know the sweets of liberty. And so they who have experience of guilt, who have felt the serpents bite, the poison burning in their veins, who on the one hand have felt the sting of conscience, and on the other the peace of faith, the joys of hope, the love, the light, the liberty, the life that are found in Jesus, they, not excepting heavens highest angels, are the fittest to preach a Saviour; to plead with man for God, and with God for man. During a heavy storm off the coast of Spain a dismasted merchantman was observed by a British frigate drifting before the gale. Every eye and glass were on her; and a canvas shelter on a deck almost level with the sea suggested the idea that even yet there might be life on board. With all their faults, no men are more alive to humanity than our rough and hardy mariners; so the order instantly sounds to put the ship about; and presently a boat is lowered, and starts with instructions to bear down upon the wreck. Away after that drifting hulk go these gallant men over the mountain swell and roaring sea. They reach it; they shout; and now a strange object rolls from that canvas screen against the lee shroud of a broken mast. It is hauled into the boat. It proves to be the trunk of a man, bent head and knees together, so dried up and shrivelled as to be hardly felt within the ample clothes--so light that a mere boy lifted it on board. It is conveyed to the ship and laid on the deck. In horror and pity the crew gather around it. These feelings suddenly change into astonishment. The miserable object shows signs of life. The seamen draw nearer; it moves; and then mutters--in a deep sepulchral voice mutters--There is another man. Rescued himself, the first use the saved one made of Speech was to try to save another. Oh! learn that blessed lesson. Be daily practising it. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

They defiled it.--

The defiler

When with slow and lingering steps Adam and Eve came forth weeping from Paradise, and the gate was locked behind them, that was the bitterest home leaving the world has ever seen. Adam belay; the federal head of his family, they come not alone. A longer sad sadder procession follows them than went weeping on the road to Babylon. They are attended by a world in tears. Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

I. Let us look at man sinning. Ye have defiled the land. Sin is presented here as a defilement. Pluck off that painted mask, and turn upon her face the lamp of Gods Word. We start--it reveals a deaths head. I stay not to quote texts descriptive of sin. It is a debt, a burden, a thief, a sickness, a leprosy, a plague, a poison, a serpent, a sting; everything that man hates it is; a load of curses and calamities beneath whose crushing, most intolerable pressure the whole creation groaneth. But leaving what is general let us fix our attention on that view of sin which the text presents. Here it is set forth as a defilement; and what else in the eye of God can deform, and does defile? Yet how strange it is, that some deformity of body shall prove the subject of more parental regrets and personal mortification than this most foul deformity of soul! Your manners may have acquired a courtly polish, your dress may, rival the winters snow, unaccustomed to menial offices, and sparkling with Indian gems, your hands may bear no stain, yet they arm not clean; nay, beneath that graceful exterior may lie concealed more foul pollution than is covered by a beggars rags. This son of toil, from whose very touch your delicacy shrinks, and who, till Sabbath stops the wheels of business, and with her kind hand wipes the sweat of labour from his brow, never knows the comfort of cleanly attire, may have a heart within, which, compared with yours, is purity itself. Beneath this soiled raiment he wears, all unseen by the worlds dull eye, the raiment of needlework, and the clean linen of a Redeemers righteousness.

II. The nature of this defilement.

1. It is internal. Like snowdrift, when it has levelled the churchyard mounds, and, glistening in the winter sun, lies so pure, and white, and fair, and beautiful, above the dead that fester and rot below, a plausible profession may wear the look of innocence, and conceal from human eyes the foulest heart corruption. The grass grows green on the mountain that hides a volcano in its bowels. Behind the rosy cheek and lustrous eye of beauty, how often does there lurk the deadliest of all diseases! Internal, but all the more dangerous that they are internal, such maladies are reluctantly believed in by their victims. They are the last to be suspected and the hardest to cure. To other than the physicians skill or a mothers anxious look, this youthful and graceful form never wears bloom of higher health, nor moves in more fascinating charms, nor wins more admiring eyes, than when fell consumption, like a miner working on in darkness, has penetrated the vital organs, and is quietly sapping the foundations of life. Like these maladies, sin has its seat within. It is a disease of the heart. It is the worst and deadliest of all heart complaints. Needing not food, but medicine, a new nature, a new heart, a new life, this is the prayer that best suits thy lips and meets thy case--Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

2. This defilement is universal. Our world is inhabited by various races; different specimens, not different species of mankind. The Mongolian, the Negro, the race early cradled among Caucasian mountains, and the Red Indians of the New World; these all differ from each other in the colour of the skin, in the contour of the skull, in the cast and character of their features. But although the hues of the skin differ, and the form of the skull and the features of the face are cast in different moulds, the features, colour, and character of the heart are the same in all men. Be he pale-faced or red, tawny or black, Jew, Greek, Scythian, bond or free, whether he be the lettered and civilised inhabitant of Europe, or roam a painted savage in American woods, or pant beneath the burning line, or wrapt in furs shiver amid Arctic snows, as in all classes of society, so in all these races of men, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; the carnal mind is enmity against God. The pendulum, farther removed from the centre, vibrates more slowly at the equator than at the poles; the farther north we push our way over thick-ribbed ice, the faster the clock goes; but parallels of latitude have no modifying influence on the motions of the heart. It beats the same in all men; nor, till repaired by grace, does it in any man beat true to God. How can it be otherwise? The tree is diseased, not at the top, but at the root; and therefore no one branch of the human family can possibly escape being affected by sin. Man is the child of unholy parents, and how can a clean thing come out of an unclean?

3. This evil is incurable. Hear the word of the Lord, Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord. Again, Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Again, Why should ye be stricken any more, ye will revolt more and more? Of these solemn and humbling truths it were difficult to find a more remarkable illustration than that before us. What moral effect had Gods judgments on His ancient people? Were they cured by their afflictions, by trials that extended over long years of suffering? Did these arrest the malady? Had they even the salutary effect of preventing their sinking deeper into sin? By no means. As always happens in incurable diseases, the patient grew worse instead of better. Seducers wax worse and worse. As always happens when life is gone, the dead became more and more offensive. The brighter the sun shines, the more the skies rain, the thicker the dews of night, and the hotter the day, the faster the fallen tree rots; because those agents in nature which promote vegetation and develop the forms and beauty of life, the sounding shower, the silent dews, the summer heat, have no other effect on death than to hasten its putridity and decay. And even so--impressive lesson of the impotency of all means that are unaccompanied by the Divine blessing--was it with Gods ancient people. Trust not., therefore, in any unsanctified afflictions. These cannot permanently and really change the condition of your heart. I have seen the characters of the writing remain on paper which the flames had turned into a film of buoyant coal; I have seen the thread that had been passed through the fire, retain, in its cold grey ashes, the twist which it had got in spinning; I have found every shivered splinter of the flint as hard as the unbroken stone: and let trials come, in providence, sharp as the fire and ponderous as the crushing hammer, unless a gracious God send along with these something else, bruised, broken, bleeding, as your heart may be, its nature remains the same. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Man sinning

Range the wide fields of nature, travel from the equator to the poles, rise from the worm that wriggles out of its hole to the eagle as she springs from the rock to cleave the clouds, and where shall you find anything that corresponds either to our scenes of suicidal dissipation or the blood-stained fields of war? Suppose that, on his return from Africa, some Park, or Bruce, or Campbell were to tell how he had seen the lions of the desert leave their natural prey, and, meeting face to face in marshalled bands, amid roars that drowned the thunder, engage in deadly battle. Would he find one man so credulous as to believe him? The world would laugh that traveller and his tale to scorn. But should anything so strange and monstrous occur, or, while the air shook with their bellowings, and the ground trembled beneath their hoofs, should we see the cattle rush from their distant pastures, to form two vast, black, solid, opposing columns, and, with heads levelled to the charge, should these herds dash forward to bury their horns in each others bodies, we would proclaim a prodigy, asking what madness had seized creation. But is not sin the parent of more awful prodigies? Fiercer than the cannons flash, flames of wrath shoot from brothers eyes. They draw; they brandish their swords, they sheathe them in each others bowels; every stroke makes a widow, every ringing volley scatters a hundred orphans on a homeless world. Covering her eyes, humanity flies shrieking from the scene, and leaves it to rage, revenge, and agony. Sooner would I be an atheist and believe that there was no God at all, than that man appears in this scene as he came from the hand of a benignant Divinity. Man must have fallen.

I. Apart from derived sinfulness we have personal sins to answer for. Come, let us reason together. Do you mean, on the one hand, to affirm that you have never been guilty of doing what you should not have done? or, on the other, that you were never guilty of not doing what you should have done? Could you be carried back to lifes starting post, leant you again an infant against the cradle, stood you again a child at your mothers knee, sate you again a boy at the old school desk, with companions that are now changed, or scattered, or dead and gone, were you again a youth to begin the battle of life anew, would you run the self-same course; would you live over the self-same life? What! is there no speech that you would unsay? no act that you would undo? no Sabbath that you would spend better? are there none alive, or mouldering in the grave, none now blest in heaven, or with the damned in hell, to whom you would bear yourself otherwise than you have done? Have none gone to their account whose memory stings you, and whose possible fate, whose everlasting state fills you with the most painful anxiety? Did you never share in sins that may have proved their ruin, nor fail in faithfulness that might have saved their souls?

II. The guilt of these actual sins is our own. There are strong pleas which the heathen may advance in extenuation of their guilt; there are excuses which they, Stepping forward with some confidence to the judgment, may urge upon a just and merciful as well as holy God. What value may be given to these pleas, what weight they may carry at a tribunal where much shall be exacted of those who have received much, and little asked where little has been given, it is not for us to say, or even attempt to determine. But this we know, that we have no such excuse to plead, nor any such plea to urge, in extenuation of our offences, of one of a thousand of our offences. Supposing, however, that the plea were accepted, more than enough remains to condemn us, and leave guilt no refuge out of Christ. We talk of a natural bias to sin; but who has not committed sins that he could have avoided, sins which he could have abstained from, and did abstain from, when it served some present purpose to do so? Some years ago, on a great public occasion, a distinguished statesman rose to address his countrymen, and, in reply to certain calumnious and dishonourable charges, held up his hands in the vast assembly, exclaiming, These hands are clean. Now, if you or I or any of our fallen race did entertain a hope that we could act over this scene before a God in judgment, then I could comprehend the calm, the unimpassioned indifference with which men sit in church on successive Sabbaths, idly gazing on the Cross of Calvary, and listening with drowsy ears to the overtures of mercy. But are these, I ask, matters with which you have nothing to do? Beware! Play with no fire; least of all, with fire unquenchable. Play with no edged sword; least of all, with that which Divine justice sheathed in a Saviours bosom. Your everlasting destiny may turn upon this hour. Do you feel under condemnation? Are you really anxious to be saved? Be not turned from such a blessed purpose by the laughter of fools and the taunts of the ungodly. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eze 36:16. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

Eze 36:17. Son of man, the house of Israel, those that dwelt upon their land, and they denied it by their ways and their doings, their way before me was as the defilement of a removed woman.

Eze 36:18. And I poured out (the future in the original, to denote continued action) my fury upon them, because of the blood which they shed upon the land, and because they defiled it with their idols;

Eze 36:19. And I scattered them among the nations, and dispersed them in the lands; according to their way and according to their doings I judged them.

Eze 36:20. And when they came to the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, since it was said of them, “Jehovah’s people are these, and from his land have they gone forth.”

Eze 36:21. And I felt pity for my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the heathen, whither they went. (The only peculiar expression in the passage is that in the first clause of this last verse: “I felt pity for my holy name.” This is undoubtedly the proper rendering; as the עַל after חָטַל denotes the object in behalf of which the pity is exercised. The LXX., whom Hävernick follows, refer it to the people: I spared them for my holy name. Undoubtedly the people were spared because of the affection indicated here; but the affection itself was one of tender regard, or pitying concern for the Lord’s own abused and dishonoured name.)

The passage, it will be observed, is of an unfinished and incomplete nature, being chiefly intended to form a sort of preamble to the great promise contained in the next section. It assigns the reason of all the severities which had been exercised by God upon the covenant-people; which it traces to their own sinful ways, viewed in connection with the holiness of God. Because of this he had banished them from his presence, and driven them as exiles into foreign lands. And even then so inveterate was their attachment to sin, they still continued to follow their forbidden practices; and by so doing, as also by the abject condition in which they appeared, they still further brought reproach upon the holy name of God. Had he therefore sought merely in them the reason of his procedure, nothing could have been expected but a continuance of the severity until they were utterly consumed. But a higher reason presented itself to the mind of God in regard to his own name, which he must vindicate from the dishonour thus brought upon it; and which, situated as matters were, he could only effectually do by accomplishing a change to the better in their condition. But this change must be no superficial one. The evil had its seat in the opposition between them and the righteousness of God, and the first grand step to an effectual and permanent recovery must consist in their thorough renewal of heart to the Divine image. This is what is promised in the verses that follow.

Patrick Fairbairn — An Exposition of Ezekiel (1851), Jonah (1849), and The Pastoral Epistles (1874) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36:16-38 Ezekiel reminded his hearers of their guilt and their need for God to change their hearts. In the future, God would cleanse his people. • Objects and people are divided in the Old Testament into the categories of “clean” and “unclean,” “sacred” and “profane” (see “Clean, Unclean, and Holy” Theme Note). God had made Israel clean, while the Gentile nations had remained unclean. Then Israel as a nation became unclean because of their bloodshed and idolatry, which defiled the land. Because they behaved like the unclean nations, Israel’s punishment of being scattered among the nations was fitting. In the future, God would make them clean so that he could dwell among them again. The other nations, seeing his holiness in his people, would once again know that he is the Holy One. In the New Testament, God’s redemption through Christ redraws the lines between clean and unclean (see Acts 10:15). The Gentiles are no longer outside of God’s grace; they too can receive the Holy Spirit and become clean. Jews and Gentiles together now make up the one people of God in Christ. Those who are in Christ Jesus are not only clean, but also holy by virtue of his priesthood. Therefore, they are able to come boldly into God’s presence and experience his grace (Heb 12:18-29).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

When God promised the poor captives a glorious return, in due time, to their own land, it was a great discouragement to their hopes that they were unworthy, utterly unworthy, of such a favour; therefore, to remove that discouragement, God here shows them that he would do it for them purely for his own name's sake, that he might be glorified in them and by them, that he might manifest and magnify his mercy and goodness, that attribute which of all others is most his glory. And, the restoration of that people being typical of our redemption by Christ, this is intended further to show that the ultimate end aimed at in our salvation, to which all the steps of it were made subservient, was the glory of God. To this end Christ directed all he did in that short prayer, Father, glorify thy name; and God declared it was his end in all he did in the immediate answer given to that prayer, by a voice from heaven: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it yet again, Joh 12:28. Now observe here,

I. How God's name had suffered both by the sins and by the miseries of Israel; and this was more to be regretted than all their sorrow, which they had brought upon themselves; for the honour of God lies nearer the hearts of good men than any interests of their own. 1. God's glory had been injured by the sin of Israel when they were in their own land, Eze 36:17. It was a good land, a holy land, a land that had the eye of God upon it. But they defiled it by their own way, their wicked way; that is our own way, the way of our own choice; and we ourselves must bear the blame and shame of it. The sin of a people defiles their land, renders it abominable to God and uncomfortable to themselves; so that they cannot have any holy communion with him nor with one another. What was unclean might not be made use of. By the abuse of the gifts of God's bounty to us we forfeit the use of them; and, the mind and conscience being defiled with guilt, no comfort is allowed us, nothing is pure to us. Their way in the eye of God was like the pollution of a woman during the days of her separation, which shut her out from the sanctuary and made very things she touched ceremonially unclean, Lev 15:19. Sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates, and which he cannot endure to look upon. They shed blood and worshipped idols (Eze 36:18) and with those sins defiled the land. For this God poured out his fury upon them, scattered them among the heathen. Their own land was sick of them, and they were sent into other lands. Herein God was righteous, and was justified in what he did; none could say that he did them any wrong, nay, he did justice to his own honour, for he judged them according to their way and according to their doings, Eze 36:19. And yet, the matter being not rightly understood, he was not glorified in it; for the enemies did say, as Moses pleaded the Egyptians would say if he had destroyed them in the wilderness, that for mischief he brought them forth. Their neighbours considered them rather as a holy people than as a sinful people, and therefore took occasion from the calamities they were in, instead of glorifying God, as they might justly have done, to reproach him and put contempt upon him; and God's name was continually every day blasphemed by their oppressors, Isa 52:5. 2. When they entered into the land of the heathen God had no glory by them there; but, on the contrary, his holy name was profaned, Eze 36:20. (1.) It was profaned by the sins of Israel; they were no credit to their profession wherever they went, but, on the contrary, a reproach to it. The name of God and his holy religion was blasphemed through them, Rom 2:24. When those that pretended to be in relation to God, in covenant and communion with him, were found corrupt in their morals, slaves to their appetites and passions, dishonest in their dealings, and false to their words and the trust reposed in them, the enemies of the Lord had thereby great occasion given them to blaspheme, especially when they quarrelled with their God for correcting them, than which nothing could be more scandalous. (2.) It was profaned by the sufferings of Israel; for from them the enemies of God took occasion to reproach God, as unable to protect his own worshippers and to make good his own grants. They said, in scorn, "These are the people of the land, these wicked people (you see he could not keep them in their obedience to his precepts), these miserable people - you see he could not keep them in the enjoyment of his favours. These are the people that came out of Jehovah's land, they are the very scum of the nations. Are these those that had statues so righteous whose lives are so unrighteous? Is this the nation that is so much celebrated for a wise and understanding people, and that is said to have God so nigh unto them? Do these belong to that brave, that holy nation, who appear here so vile, so abject?" Thus God sold his people and did not increase his wealth by their price, Psa 44:12. The reproach they were under reflected upon him.

II. Let us now see how God would retrieve his honour, secure it, and advance it, by working a great reformation upon them and then working a great salvation for them. He would have scattered them among the heathen, were it not that he feared the wrath of the enemy, Deu 32:26, Deu 32:27. But, though they were unworthy of his compassion, yet he had pity for his own holy name, and a thousand pities it was that that should be trampled upon and abused. He looked with compassion on his own honour, which lay bleeding among the heathen, on that jewel which was trodden into the dirt, which the house of Israel, even in the land of their captivity, had profaned, Eze 36:21. In pity to that God brought them out from the heathen, because their sins were more scandalous there than they had been in their own land. "Therefore I will gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land, Eze 36:24. Not for your sake, because you are worthy of such a favour, for you are most unworthy, but for my holy name's sake (Eze 36:22), that I may sanctify my great name," Eze 36:23. Observe, by the way, God's holy name is his great name. His holiness is his greatness; so he reckons it himself. Nor does any thing make a man truly great but being truly good, and partaking of God's holiness. God will magnify his name as a holy name, for he will sanctify it: I will sanctify my name which you have profaned. When God performs that which he has sworn by his holiness, then he sanctifies his name. The effect of this shall be very happy: The heathen shall know that I am the Lord when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes and yours. When God proves his own holy name, and his saints praise it, then he is sanctified in them, and this contributes to the propagating of the knowledge of him. Observe, 1. God's reasons of mercy are all fetched from within himself; he will bring his people out of Babylon, not for their sakes, but for his own name's sake, because he will be glorified. 2. God's goodness takes occasion from man's badness to appear so much the more illustrious; therefore he will sanctify his name by the pardon of sin, because it has been profaned by the commission of sin.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me,.... Here begins another prophecy, which was delivered about the same time with the former:

saying; as follows:

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

The defilement of the people described in order to its removal.

Eze 36:20

They profaned my holy name - Caused it to be dishonored by the pagan who said in scorn, “This is the people of God.” The pagan, seeing the miserable state of the exiles, fancied that Yahweh was no more than a national god, powerless to protect his subjects.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16-24. Before the captivity, Israel, because of its bloody deeds and idolatry (Eze_36:18), was as unclean as a woman “in her separation” (Eze_36:17, R.V.), and for this reason was separated from her beautiful land (Eze_36:19; compare Lev_15:19; Lev_18:30, etc.). But instead of repenting and purifying herself, Israel excused or denied her sin (Eze_2:3-5; Eze_18:2), and while professing allegiance to Jehovah gave honor to idols (Eze_14:7; Eze_20:8; Eze_20:39), and thus so belittled and polluted the Holy Name before the nations that these actually supposed that the captivity was due, not to Jehovah’s justice, but to his weakness. For this reason they could speak of the Israelites (“of them,” Eze_36:20, R.V.), saying, “These are the Lord’s people, and yet had to go forth out of his land” (Eze_36:20, Kautzsch). It is not because of the worthiness of fallen Israel (Eze_36:21-22; Eze_36:32; compare Tit_3:5-6) that Jehovah now snatches them again out of their captivity and returns them to their own land, but in order that this reproach may be removed from his own name, when all men shall see that the real cause, both of the captivity and restoration, lies in God’s holiness and justice (Eze_36:23-24). Thus will his name be sanctified, or “set apart” from those of the “idol blocks” with which he is now compared, and his real nature will be revealed. (See valuable remarks in Expositor’s Bible, p. 356.)

It has been said that this passage (Eze_36:25-27), with that which immediately precedes, deserves study more than any other part of Ezekiel, since it exhibits his “philosophy of history,” and describes with great beauty the principles of Jehovah’s redemption of his people. But this is not merely the philosophy of Ezekiel, it is a revelation of the divine thought. It is the gospel of the Old Testament. In its teaching of moral and spiritual cleansing (Eze_36:25; Eze_36:29) and of the God-given “new heart” and “new spirit” (Eze_36:26-27) which loathes the old life of uncleanness (Eze_36:31) and produces a new life of obedience, purity, and happiness (Eze_36:27; Eze_36:29; Eze_36:33), it indeed “reads like a fragment of a Pauline epistle.” It strikes the same spiritual note which is afterward heard at Bethlehem and Calvary, at Pentecost and Patmos.

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

The oracle, commencing with this verse and extending to Eze_37:14, has an ultimate connection with that which precedes. Having predicted a golden age in the future for Israel, when her people should have returned from banishment her cities should again be inhabited and her fields cultivated, the prophet is directed

(1) to explain that the ground of this would not have in any worthiness Jehovah should behold in Israel, who had rather in the past been punished and dispersed (vers. 16-20), but only in the regard he, Jehovah, should have for his own holy Name or character (vers. 21-24);

(2) to intimate that this glorious period should be accompanied by a moral and spiritual renovation of the people, which, however, could and therefore would be brought about only by God himself giving them a new heart and a new spirit, again for his own Name"s sake (vers. 25-32), and which, when attained, should lead to a prosperity so unparalleled as to recall the pristine splendors of earth"s paradisiacal condition, and convince the heathen that should then be sharers in Israel"s felicity that Jehovah alone was God (vers. 33-38); and

(3) to remove all doubt from the people"s minds as to the possibility of this happening by the vision of the dry bones. (Eze_37:1-14) Vers. 16-20. That Israel"s restoration should not be brought about on account of Israel"s merit, the prophet shows by briefly rehearsing the story of Israel"s demerit, as the reason of her exile.

Vers. 16-32. A vision of the true golden age.

Up to this point God had been revealing more clearly his active righteousness to Israel; and this with a view to arouse their drugged and drowsy consciences. The equity and justice of his scepter had been vividly portrayed. The keen edge of his judicial sword had been felt. Some movements of better feeling in the exiles were apparent. And now God hastens to foster penitential sentiments with a promise of generous kindness. Further revelations of his great nature are made. The excellence of his grace is unveiled to the opening eye of the penitents. Stupendous condescension is shown. God himself will undertake the renovation of human nature. He will go down to the very root of the evil. He will transform the innermost principles in the minds of the people, and so qualify them for national restoration and national prosperity. And he will do this mainly that he may set before the world the wealth of goodness and kindness which constitutes his glory. "I do this for my holy Name"s sake, saith the Lord.

I ISRAEL"S ARRAIGNMENT.

1. The gravamen of the accusation is idolatry. Than idolatry, no greater affront can be put upon God, no greater evil can be wrought. God was deposed from his rightful throne, and senseless matter elevated into his place. The perfect will of God was set aside for the vain fancies of wicked men. The devil was preferred to Jehovah.

2 Idolatry was a system of active vice. It did not represent merely a change of belief; it was the enthronement and deification of vice. Public sanction was given to lust and unchastity. The marriage-tie was dissolved. The temple of God was desecrated with animal lust. The barbarous rites of idolatrous worship served to crush every tender feeling and to make men fiends. Wrong soon lost its hideous features in the eyes of men. They became inhuman, cruel, quarrelsome, murderous. Human life lost its sanctity, and the land was stained with blond.

3 Idolatry"s fruits were most offensive to God. In order to convey to men an approximate idea of this offensiveness, God was compelled to borrow an illustration from the most loathsome thing familiar to men. As if he had said, "Picture to yourselves the thing most repulsive to your senses; this thing will feebly convey the idea of disgust I feel towards this monstrous crime." A common dung-hill is fragrance itself compared with the moral foulness of idolatry; and dead to every virtuous instinct must be the man who can endure it.

II ISRAEL"S ARRAIGNMENT LED TO SEVEREST PENALTY.

1. A discharge of God"s anger. I poured out my fury upon them." The long-gathering storm of just indignation burst upon them as torrents from a broken reservoir. This is God"s own account of his conduct, and he speaks, as usual, after the manner of a man. The violent anger of a man under a strong sense of injury has its correspondence in God, save that in God it is filled with the element of righteousness, and is in exact proportion to the sinner"s deserts.

2. It embraced the dissolution of the covenant. The covenant made with Abraham and renewed with the Israelites was founded on a moral condition. That condition had been broken and abandoned by the nation; hence God publicly testified that he was no longer bound. The land of Canaan ceased to be held by Divine covenant; and, as the result of the broken compact, the Assyrians took possession. Pledges and contracts between God and man, wantonly violated, are surely followed by gravest disaster. This should teach all men the reality and the value of righteousness.

3 The penalty, though severe, was strictly equitable. "According to their doings I judged them." The fullest equity in God"s dealings is guaranteed

1. by the qualities of his nature and

2. by the well-being of all the moral intelligences of his kingdom.

Every act of loving obedience shall be rewarded. Every deed of rebellion shall be punished according to the most equitable scale. And in this category is registered every secret design, as well as every overt deed.

III THIS MANIFESTATION OF JUSTICE OVERSHADOWED THE BENIGNANT NATURE OF GOD. "They profaned my holy Name." It is a great responsibility to bear the Name of God a great responsibility to belong to his kingdom. We carry his reputation in our hands. Mankind will judge him by what they see in us. If they discover in us selfishness, avarice, lust, they will conclude that our God is not over-righteous. If we, for our sins, are chastised, men will shrink from serving such a Master. Such was the case in the olden time among all the peoples that dwelt in the vicinity of Palestine. They said contemptuously, "This Jehovah, who conquered Canaan for his people, was, not able to retain it for them! Or else, he is a God easily offended! He chooses a nation for his favor one day, and casts it off on the morrow! Or else, his justice is so severe that we prefer to keep aloof from him!" Such were the judgments of men. But this was the result of ignorance. This was derogatory to God. This prejudiced the public mind against just conceptions of God. Now, it had been God"s high design to unveil gradually to mankind all the fullness of his nature his strong affection, the riches of his mercy, his self-sacrificing grace. Did men but know him thoroughly, one great hindrance to confidence and obedience would be removed. Most surely he deserves our allegiance; he is infinitely worthy of our trust. Therefore God had pity upon his Name; for his Name is the sum-total of his goodness. Men were suffering, because they did not know God were misled by erroneous views of his character. Hence God resolved to adopt another plan to make a grand experiment. He will make a new covenant with the people, and will write his laws on the tablet of their hearts. He will yet conquer their rebellions with his abounding grace.

IV THE GRAND EXPERIMENT OF KINDNESS; viz. a gracious renewal of human nature.

1. The first step is cleansing. "From all your idols will I cleanse you." A disposition of repentance was already apparent. Many were beginning to ask how deliverance could be obtained; and, before they asked, the remedy is announced. God will undertake to purge out the virus of disease, and if he undertakes it, the change will be effectual. He will go to the root of the matter. The love of idols shall be rooted out of the heart; and, the root being killed, all the fruits will disappear. The instrument to be employed is the Truth the revelation of Divine mercy. This is the "clean water" mentioned. To the same effect David declared, "The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." And Jesus the Christ affirmed, "Now ye are clean, through the word which I have spoken unto you.

2. The next step is heart-renovation. "A new heart also will I give you." By the mystic power or" his grace God produces gradually a complete change in the moral principles of every penitent man. New light enters the mind. Sin is seen in its loathsomeness. A gracious influence from heaven softens the dispositions of the heart. Feeling becomes tender. The tastes cluster round nobler objects. God is seen to be supremely good, and new affections begin to entwine round him. Old habits of evil are dissevered. New inclinations and aspirations are engendered. Step by step the man rises out of his dead self into a new life. "Old things pass away, and all things" within him "become new.

3. A further step is the indwelling of Gods Spirit in the wan. This is an anticipation of the new dispensation, more fully developed at Pentecost; this is the highest, noblest gift God can impart. In a word, this is spiritual evolution. On Adam God breathed, and he "became a living soul." But this is a new departure. The Spirit of God finds an entrance into the human soul, and works therein a new creation. All the dispositions of God are gradually reproduced. The man learns to think as God thinks, to feel as God feels, to love as God loves, to act as God acts. Then God"s will is done, and God"s image is reflected in the man as a face is reflected in a mirror.

4. A further step is national restoration. The man who truly loves God learns to love his fellow-man; and this bond of mutual love was the very thing wanted to weld the Hebrews into a nation. A people can safely be trusted with national prosperity only when they are loyal to God. The whole land of Palestine was a kind of enlarged temple, and only a consecrated people are fitted for a consecrated place. The old covenant, in its essential principles was to be restored. God would give himself to the people; they would give themselves up to him.

5. Material prosperity. "I will call for the corn, and will increase it." Soul-prosperity is the foundation; temporal fortune is the superstructure. "All things are ours if we are Christ"s" "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." In Palestine "the state of the harvest-field was a mirror in which men saw the smile or the frown of God. To obedient Jews, land-fertility was secured by an inviolable pledge of Jehovah. The windows of heaven were opened; the vines were embellished with splendid clusters; the very mountains seemed to send out rills of oil from the olive-groves.

V THE FINAL AIM OF THIS STUPENDOUS CHANGE; Viz. to reveal God"s Name. In other words, to make known to the world his wealth of goodness. That the purpose and aim of Jehovah in this grand experiment might be made clear, it is stated both positively and negatively. "Not for your sakes do I this," saith God, "but for my holy Name"s sake." A full and accurate knowledge of God is hope and inspiration to men. If only the state of feeling in a man"s heart be right, then in proportion as God is known, he will be admired, trusted, loved, served. If the soil of the heart be broken up and pulverized, the knowledge of God, like living seed, will grow and flourish and bear a rich harvest of fruit. "They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee." This heart-knowledge of God brings eternal life. Misunderstanding of God brings fear, bondage, misery, hell. The glory of God and the good of men are twin-purposes two sides of the same coin. God"s will is man"s salvation. As we know God experimentally, we aspire to be like God, we yearn to do his will, heaven is begun within. D.

Vers. 16-21God"s Name and ours.

The most striking thought contained in these words is God"s regard for the honor of his own Name. But there are two truths which claim attention.

I TWO THINGS WHICH INCUR HIS HIGH DISPLEASURE. The pouring out of his "fury" is, of course, language which is accommodated to our human feelings; but it speaks of the Divine displeasure existing in a very high degree; and the two evils which excite it are:

1. Perverted piety; the giving to another the glory due to himself: idolatry (ver. 18).

2. Inhumanity. "They had shed blood upon the land" (ver. 18). The wanton taking of human life is the darkest and saddest form of cruelty; but it is by no means the only one which meets the severe rebuke of God. All forms of unkindness or of wrong, by which men"s circumstances are reduced or their spirits are wounded, call down his reproach and bear their penalty.

II ONE ESPECIAL FORM OF PENALTY. God scattered" the Israelites; he caused them to be "dispersed through the countries" (ver. 19). The evil which they suffered in Babylon was negative rather than positive. They were not ill treated there. The misery of it lay in its unhomeliness. They were far from their own land from Mount Zion and its glorious temple, from the happy services and holy institutions which made their childhood and their youth what they were; they were exiles, dwelling in "a strange land." This is the constant penalty of sin. It causes us to dwell afar off from God; we lose our sense of nearness to him; we are in no spiritual home; we are in the hand and in the land of the enemy. It is not that earth is far from heaven; it is that sin is far from righteousness; it is that the disloyal subject, the unfilial child, is far from his gracious Sovereign, far from his heavenly Father.

III GOD"S SOLICITUDE CONCERNING HIS NAME. "They profaned my holy Name" (ver. 20); "I had pity for my holy Name" (ver. 21). Why should God be concerned thus "for his Name?" Knowing, as we do, that God is love, and that he lives not for himself, but for the good of his universe, we cannot believe that this Divine solicitude has any selfishness at the root of it. We conclude that its explanation is in the fact that it is of vital consequence to the world that he should be rightly regarded and truly honored. It is so in both aspects, affirmative and negative.

1. It is a boundless blessing when God is known and understood; when, therefore, he is honored and obeyed; and when, therefore, all the priceless blessings of obedience are secured.

2. It is an immeasurable evil when God is misrepresented and misunderstood; when his Name is profaned, and men think of him as he would not be thought of; when his Name is associated with weakness, or with indifference, or with injustice, or with any kind of wrong. Then comes irreverence, and all the long train of evils that accompany it irreligion, disobedience, rebellion, degradation, ruin, death. We may well pray, "Hallowed be thy Name;" for as men speak of God, and as they think of him and know him, so will they order their lives and construct their character and choose their destiny. We ought, similarly, to be concerned about our name. Not that it is the part of a wise man to covet notoriety; that is weakness rather than wisdom. To wish to be notorious is simply selfish, and to be notorious is to stand on the same ground with many of the very worst men that ever strove and sinned. But we should be concerned so to live that our name, however far it may go, may be associated with all that is pure and good and wise; that such influence as God gives us to exert may all go into the right scale; that whenever and wherever we do speak or strike, we may speak what is true and strike for justice and humanity; that the issue of our lives shall be a brave and faithful witness for God, for the kingdom of Jesus Christ; that no man shall find a shelter for anything that is base or immoral behind our name; that many men may walk more steadily along the path of life or work more devotedly in the fields of usefulness because our name lends some strength to virtue and to holy service. C.

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

Israel Restored for the Sake of Jehovah’s Name

v. 16. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

v. 17. Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, before the time of the Babylonian captivity, they defiled it by their own way, their behavior, their manner of acting, and by their doings, the sinfulness of their works being brought out even in the terms used; their way was before Me as the uncleanness of a removed woman, the monthly purification of a woman by separation, Leviticus 15. Cf Isa 64:5.

v. 18. Wherefore I poured My fury upon them, in most severe punishments, for the blood that they had shed upon the land, in open bloodshed and murder, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it, this shameless idolatry being the second reason why the Lord was obliged to visit his wrath upon Israel.

v. 19. And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries, in the great Babylonian exile; according to their way and according to their doings I judged them, as they had deserved by their manifold transgressions.

v. 20. And when they entered unto the heathen whither they went, when they were taken away into captivity, they profaned My holy name, by the open manner of sinning which was found ill their midst, when they, namely, the heathen, said to them, These are the people of the Lord and are gone forth out of His land. The sinful behavior of the Jews in tile various lands of their captivity caused the heathen who witnessed this behavior to blaspheme the name of Jehovah as being responsible for the trespasses. Cf Rom 2:24. There is great responsibility resting upon believers everywhere, that they make use of tact and care at all times, lest on their account the enemies of the Lord be made to mock the name of the one true God.

v. 21. But I had pity for Mine holy name, He felt a pitiful concern for his holy name, because it was being so shamefully abused, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen whither they went. He felt that something must he done to restore the regard in which men had held his honor.

v. 22. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, in explaining His divine pity and in announcing the application of His mercy in their case, Thus saith the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, o house of Israel, but for Mine holy name’s sake, whose honor was at stake on account of their sins, which ye have profaned among the heathen whither ye went.

v. 23. And I will sanctify My great name, so that it would once more be kept holy, which was profaned among the heathen, as they heaped reproaches and mockery upon it, which ye have profaned in the midst of them, the Jews themselves being the reason why God felt obliged to vindicate His glory and to manifest himself as holy; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, overcome by the evidence before their eyes, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes, when the Lord proves that He is holy amid righteous and compels the admission of this fact of the part of the heathen,

v. 24. For I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and will bring you into your own land, this act of This power and holiness putting an effectual stop to the blasphemy and mockery in which the heathen had been indulging.

v. 25. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, as in the rite prescribed by Jewish Law, Num 19:9-18, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you, for their idolatry was a filthy stain upon the whole nation. This is a beautiful description of the forgiveness of sins, of the justification of sinners by the merciful and gracious act. of God.

v. 26. A new heart also will I give you, so that mind and will would be regenerated, and a new spirit will I put within you, so that their entire motives and principles of action would be changed in conformity with God’s will, Psa 51:10; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, the natural enmity against God, and I will give you an heart of flesh, one that will readily receive the impressions of God’s Holy Spirit and be guided by His power in all good works.

v. 27. And I will put My Spirit within you, for it is He who is the true power in regeneration, and conversion is in every way an act of the grace of God and not of man’s reason and strength, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them. It is clear, then, that not only the work of regeneration, but that of sanctification as well is an act of God performed upon the heart of man, that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has prepared before, that we should walk in them, Eph 2:10.

v. 28. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, in the spiritual possessions which were promised to Abraham and his true children; and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God, the relation of Messianic times thus being announced.

v. 29. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses, namely, those which are found even in the regenerated children of God; and I will call for the corn and will increase it and lay no famine upon you, the spiritual blessings of the Gospel being given to the believers in full measure, as Psalms 72 also states.

v. 30. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, that is, of all the trees in God’s spiritual garden, and the increase of the field, of everything that grows in the tilled ground of His Church, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen, so that all reason for mockery on the part of the unbelievers would be removed as they saw the riches of God’s blessings upon His people.

v. 31. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good, for the mercy and grace of God, like His goodness, bring men to an ever greater realization of their unworthiness, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. That is ever the result of conversion, as we see also in the case of the Apostle Paul, 1Ti 1:13-15.

v. 32. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you, for it is never anything in man which causes the Lord to extend to him His loving-kindness and tender mercies, to work faith in his heart; be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel! That is ever all that a repentant sinner sees on his side, namely, reasons to be ashamed, to hide his head on account of the disgrace of sins and transgressions. The salvation of a sinner is altogether and alone the work of our gracious Father in heaven, for the sake of Christ, the Redeemer.

v. 33. Thus saith the Lord God, In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, at the time when the Messianic redemption would be a fact, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded, the ruins once more repaired. This is evidently a reference to the gathering of the New Testament Church.

v. 34. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by, the wasted lands of the Holy Land being a picture of the Lord’s Church as it had been devastated by idolatry and other transgressions of His Law.

v. 35. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the Garden of Eden, a type of the most splendid beauty and glory on earth and a fine picture of the Lord’s Church; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited, so that their inhabitants are secure against all attacks of the enemies. Cf Psalms 46.

v. 36. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I, the Lord, build the ruined places, making restitution wherever He chooses, while His punishment strikes down the heathen, and plant that that was desolate, as the history of His Church throughout the ages abundantly illustrates. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it, His determination being brought out with great emphasis.

v. 37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this, with regard to the restoration of Israel, of His Church, be enquired of by the house of Israel, hearing their appeal with gracious willingness, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock, known for the rapidity with which they multiply.

v. 38. As the holy flock, literally, "as a flock of holy things," of animals intended for sacrifices on the festival days, Cf 2Ch 35:7, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts, which was always very large, as the ordinances pertaining to the festivals show, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men, so would the Church of God be increased in numbers; and they shall know that I am the Lord, whose glory is established by every act of His merciful power at all times.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

the word of Yahweh came

This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)

Son of man

"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"

the house of Israel

Here "house" represents people. AT: "the people of Israel" (See: Metonymy)

with their ways and their deeds

"by the way they lived and the things they did"

Their ways were like the unclean menstruation of a woman before me

This compares how the people behaved to a woman's unclean menstruation rags. This emphasizes how disgusting their behaviors were to Yahweh. AT: "Their ways were as disgusting to me as the unclean menstruation of a woman" (See: Simile)

menstruation of a woman

the blood that comes out of a woman every month when she is not pregnant

I poured out my fury against them

Yahweh punishing people because he is angry is spoken of as if his fury were a liquid that he poured out. AT: "I did things to them that showed how angry I was" (See: Metaphor)

for the blood that they poured out on the land

This is an idiom that refers to killing someone. AT: "because they made the blood of many people spill onto the land" or "because they murdered many people" (See: Idiom)

for their pollution of it by their idols

The people worshiping idols is spoken of as if the idols made the land physically dirty. AT: "because they defiled the land with their idols" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

word of God

house

Israel

defile

works

clean

blood

false god

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.