1And it happened in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, men of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD and sat down before me. 2And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 3“Man, speak to the elders of Israel and say to them, Thus said the Master, the LORD: To inquire of Me do you come? By My life, I will not respond to your inquiry, said the LORD. 4Will you judge them, will you judge, man? Make known to them all the abominations of their fathers. 5And say to them, Thus said the Master, the LORD: On the day I chose Israel, I raised My hand to the seed of the house of Jacob and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, saying, I am the LORD your God. 6On that day I raised My hand to them to bring them out of the land of Egypt to a land that I had searched out for them, flowing with milk and honey, a splendor for all the lands. 7And I said to them: Let each man fling away the loathsome things that are before his eyes, and do not be defiled with the foul things of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. 8But they rebelled against Me and did not want to heed Me. Each man did not fling away the loathsome things that were before his eyes, and they did not forsake the foul things of Egypt. And I thought to pour out My wrath upon them, to exhaust My anger against them in the land of Egypt. 9But I acted for the sake of My name, that it not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose midst they were, as I had made Myself known before their eyes, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. 10And I brought them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. 11And I gave them My statutes and made My laws known to them, that a man should do them and live through them. 12And My sabbaths, too, I gave to them to be a sign between Me and them, to know that I am the LORD who hallows them. 13And the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes, and they spurned My laws, that a man should do them and live. And My sabbaths they profaned grievously, and I thought to pour My wrath against them in the wilderness. 14But I acted for the sake of My name, not to profane it in the eyes of the nations before whose eyes I had brought them out. 15And I on My part raised My hand to them in the wilderness not to bring them to the land that I had given, flowing with milk and honey, a splendor to all the lands, 16inasmuch as they spurned My statutes, they had not followed them, and My sabbaths they had profaned, for after the foul things their heart had gone. 17But My eye had pity for them not to destroy them, and I did not make an end of them in the wilderness. 18And I said to their children in the wilderness: Do not follow the statues of your fathers and do not keep their laws and do not be defiled with their foul things. 19I am the LORD your God. Follow My statutes and keep My laws and do them. 20And hallow My sabbaths, that they be a sign between Me and you to know that I am the LORD your God. 21And the sons rebelled against Me, My statutes they did not follow and My laws they did not keep to do them, which a man does and lives through them. My sabbaths they profaned. And I thought to pour out My wrath on them, to exhaust My anger against them in the wilderness. 22But I pulled back My hand and acted for the sake of My name not to profane it in the eyes of the nations before whose eyes I had brought them out. 23I on My part raised My hand to them in the wilderness to disperse them among the nations and to scatter them in the lands. 24Inasmuch as they did not do My laws and they spurned My statutes and they profaned My sabbaths and their eyes went after the foul things of their fathers. 25And I on My part gave them statutes that were not good and laws through which they would not live. 26And I defiled them with their gifts when they passed every womb-breach in sacrifice, so that I might desolate them, so they might know that I am the LORD. 27Therefore speak to the house of Israel, man, and say to them, Thus said the LORD: In this, too, your fathers insulted Me in betraying Me. 28And I brought them to the land that I had raised My hand to give them, and they saw every high hill and every thick-branched tree and offered their sacrifices there and put their vexing offerings there and set their fragrant odors there and poured out their libations there. 29And I said to them, What is the high place to which you come? And its name has been called high place to this day. 30Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus said the Master, the LORD: Are you defiled in the way of your fathers, and do you whore after their loathsome things? 31And in bringing up your gifts, in passing your children through the fire you are defiled for all your foul things to this day. And shall I respond to your inquiry, house of Israel? By My life, said the Master, the LORD, I will not respond to you. 32And what occurs to your mind, it shall surely not come about, that you say, ‘We shall be like the nations, like the clans of the lands, to serve wood and stone.’ 33By My life, said the Master, the LORD, with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath, I will surely reign over you. 34And I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you were scattered with a strong hand and with an outstretched hand and with outpoured wrath. 35And I will bring you to the desert of peoples and come to judgment with you there face-to-face. 36As I came to judgment with your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt, so will I come to judgment with you, said the Master, the LORD. 37And I will make you pass under the rod and bring you into the bonds of the covenant. 38And I will purge from you the rebels and those who trespass against Me. I will bring them out of the land of their sojourning, but to the soil of Israel they shall not come, and you shall know that I am the LORD. 39And you, house of Israel, thus said the Master, the LORD: Each man go, worship his foul things, and afterward, if you do not heed Me. . . . But My holy name you shall no longer profane with your gifts and with your foul things. 40But on My holy mountain, on the mountain of the height of Israel, there shall all the house of Israel worship Me, all of it in the land. There will I favor them, and there will I require your offerings and your choice donations with all your sacred things. 41By a fragrant odor I will show favor to you when I bring you out from the peoples, and I will gather you from the lands where you were scattered, and I will be hallowed through you before the eyes of the nations. 42And you shall know that I am the LORD when I bring you to the soil of Israel, to the land for which I raised My hand to give it to your fathers. 43And you shall recall there your ways and all your acts through which you were defiled, and you shall be disgusted with yourselves for all your evils that you did. 44And you shall know that I am the LORD when I deal with you for the sake of My name, not according to your evil ways and your ruinous acts, O house of Israel,” said the Master, the LORD.
CHAPTER 20 NOTES
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1. in the seventh year, in the fifth month. As before, the reckoning is from the beginning of the exile of Jehoiachin, so the year is 591 B.C.E. The fifth month is Av, which occurs in midsummer.
came to inquire of the LORD. Though several theories have been proposed about the nature of the oracle they were seeking, there is no clear indication of what it might have been.
3. I will not respond to your inquiry. Given what is presumed to be the reprehensible behavior of the elders, God—or perhaps one should say, His spokesman the prophet—will issue no oracle but instead will castigate them for their misdeeds.
4. all the abominations of their fathers. Ezekiel, himself taken into exile with the Judahite king and nobles and seeing the imminence of a much more comprehensive exile and national disaster, here undertakes an extensive revision of the history of Israel. In his perception, the people’s reprehensible behavior is by no means limited to recent generations but goes all the way back to its origins in Egypt and is indelibly stamped in the national character.
5. I raised My hand. This is the gesture of someone taking a solemn vow (still used in courtrooms in our own society).
6. to a land that I had searched out for them. In this version, the episode of the twelve spies sent by Moses to search out the land is elided in order to emphasize God’s extravagant bountifulness to Israel.
8. Each man did not fling away the loathsome things. The idea that the Hebrews in Egypt were wallowing in the idolatrous practices of their Egyptian enslavers is nowhere hinted in Exodus.
9. But I acted for the sake of My name. This notion that God spared wayward Israel in order not to compromise His reputation among the nations is no more than hinted at in the Wilderness narrative, but Ezekiel gives it special prominence because in his dour view Israel has scarcely any redeeming features that would intrinsically justify its national survival.
12. And My sabbaths, too, I gave to them to be a sign between Me and them. In the late monarchic period and on into the era of exile, there was an increasing emphasis on the centrality of the sabbath, as attested in passages in Jeremiah and Trito-Isaiah as well as in Ezekiel. The portability of the sabbath as a community-affirming observance may have made it especially appealing in a time when the Temple was no longer accessible.
13. And My sabbaths they profaned grievously. In Exodus, it is one man who violates the sabbath, but Ezekiel accuses the whole people of such violation.
18. Do not follow the statues of your fathers . . . and do not be defiled with their foul things. Given that the Israelites, in Ezekiel’s revision of the national narrative, persisted in their Egyptian idolatry in the wilderness, they had no right to be brought into the land flowing with milk and honey. God nevertheless allows them to survive and come into the land, both for the sake of the divine name and because He chooses to give the next generation an opportunity—which they will reject—to turn away from the misdeeds of their fathers.
22. and acted for the sake of My name not to profane it in the eyes of the nations. As in the long prose prophecy of chapter 18, this prophecy is marked by didactic repetition.
25. And I on My part gave them statutes that were not good. This is a startling theological idea. In part it flows from the general assumption that since God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens, if Israel adopts perverse practices, it is because God has decreed it. A dynamic of punishment, however, is detectable here: if Israel stubbornly clings to pagan abominations, God will compound the guilt of the people by encouraging them to persist in their waywardness.
26. gifts. In this context, the term means “sacrifices,” gifts to a deity.
they passed every womb-breach in sacrifice. The prophets of this era so often inveigh against child sacrifice that one may reasonably infer it was actually widespread. “Womb-breach” is a term borrowed from Exodus as an epithet for the firstborn.
29. What is the high place to which you come? The Hebrew exhibits a derisive false etymology: “high place” is bamah; “what” is mah; the first syllable of “come” is ba. (James Moffatt, with some ingenuity and a little strain, conveys this in English as: “What is this high place you hie to?) The implication of the ad hoc etymology is that the very name bamah reflects the fact that it is something alien, scarcely comprehensible.
31. And shall I respond to your inquiry. This phrase loops back to the beginning of the prophecy (verse 3), suggesting that the elders do not deserve any oracular revelation because they are the representatives of an idolatrous people.
34. And I will bring you out from the peoples . . . with a strong hand. Momentarily, this sounds like a promise to bring them out from exile, but that illusion is shattered as God goes on to say that the people will be brought out into the desert to be destroyed (and note how “outpoured wrath” is held back until the end of the sentence).
35. the desert of peoples. This is the great Syrian desert to the west of Babylonia and contiguous with several countries.
36. As I came to judgment with your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt. This is a mysterious reference, and it may be that Ezekiel is caught up here in the rhetorical momentum of his invective, reaching to invoke a historical parallel to the present moment. Egypt in the ancient period didn’t have a desert, and if it is the “desert” at the Sea of Reeds, Israel was saved there, not brought to judgment.
37. And I will make you pass under the rod. This is the notion of the shepherd counting his sheep. But “rod” also suggests punishment.
the bonds. The Hebrew masoret looks as though it were the word for “tradition,” though in its syntactical position that word would have been vocalized as mesoret. Most scholars plausibly conclude that it is an elliptical spelling of maʾasoret, a noun derived from the verb ʾasar, which means “to bind.”
38. I will purge from you the rebels. Ezekiel’s vision is quite implacable: before any return to Zion, the exiles will be taken out into the desert where many of them—implicitly, the majority—will be destroyed.
39. Each man go, worship his foul things. This is obviously sarcastic.
and afterward, if you do not heed Me. . . . The only way to save the received text is to assume, as several scholars have proposed, that a clause has dropped out that would have stipulated the dire consequences of not heeding God. The words that follow swivel around to imagine an Israel that puts aside the idolatrous ways of its fathers and returns to worship God in the proper place, on Mount Zion.
43. you shall be disgusted with yourselves for all your evils that you did. A psychological manifestation of the people’s true repentance is that it experiences deep revulsion in thinking of its past behavior—a revulsion clearly shaped by the prophet as he castigates Israel for its idolatry.