Ezekielchapter 36
38 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel wrote this for exiles whose neighbours mocked them for having a God who could not keep His own land. The chapter speaks first to the hills and valleys of Israel, emptied and ruined, and promises that they will be farmed and filled again. Then it turns to the people themselves. God tells them plainly why He will act, and it is for the honour of His own name. Listen for the promise of clean water, a new heart and God's own Spirit within them. These words stand behind the New Testament's teaching on the new birth.
Context
- Who
- Exiles being taunted by the nations around them for having a God who could not hold His own land
- What
- A promise to the mountains of Israel that they will be restored, and a promise to the people of cleansing, a new heart and God's Spirit within them.
- Where
- Spoken at Tel Abib in Babylonia and addressed to the hill country of Israel, its ridges, valleys and ruined towns.
- When
- About 585 BC, after the fall of Jerusalem, in the Babylonian exile.
- Why
- To end the shame of the exile for the sake of God's holy name and to promise a people changed from within who walk in His ways.
Historical context
Speaking to mountains is not a poetic flourish here; the hill country was the country. Israel's farming was terraced hillside, vines and olives on stone-walled steps cut into the slopes, with grain in the valleys. Terraces need constant maintenance, and a generation of neglect brings the walls down and the soil with them. God promises the mountains will shoot out branches and yield fruit, and that towns will be inhabited and ruins rebuilt.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The taunt behind the chapter is a theological one, and it was standard in that world. When a nation was defeated, everyone concluded that its god was weak, or had abandoned it, or had been defeated by the winner's gods. The nations were saying of Israel: these are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to leave his land. God's answer is startlingly frank, He is not acting for their sake but for the sake of His holy name, which they profaned among the nations.
The cleansing image comes straight out of priestly practice. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. Under the Law, a person defiled by contact with a corpse was purified by being sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of a red heifer on the third and seventh day. Ezekiel the priest reaches for the ritual his hearers knew and applies it to the whole nation at once.
Then the promise of the new heart, stated more fully than anywhere else in the book: a new heart and a new spirit, the heart of stone removed and a heart of flesh given, and God's own Spirit put within them so that they walk in His statutes. Stone does not respond to anything; flesh does. The problem is diagnosed as an organ transplant, not a training programme.
The last paragraph adds a comparison the exiles would have felt in their bones: the ruined cities filled with people like the flocks of Jerusalem at her appointed feasts, when the pilgrim crowds packed the city.
Significance
The exiles had been shamed in public. Their disaster was, to everyone watching, proof that their God was small. This chapter says God agrees the shame is real and intends to end it, for His own name's sake, in the sight of the same nations.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And the honesty in it is what makes it usable. God says plainly: it is not for your sake that I am about to act, be ashamed and confounded for your ways. Restoration is offered without pretending the exile was undeserved, which is exactly the kind of hope a guilty community can actually receive.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the twenty-first verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 7:5. Under the thirty-seventh verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beshalach 15:3 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 13:5. Under the thirty-eighth verse it carries Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 9.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern.
Rashi reads the prophecy to the mountains of Israel against the nations' joy. The cry of the enemy is again read as joy (Rashi on Ezekiel 36:2:1). The neighbours were "longing, pining, and looking forward to your becoming an inheritance for the remnant of the nations" (Rashi on Ezekiel 36:3:1). The charge that the land devours its people he explains from history: "This land is accustomed to destroying its inhabitants. The Amorites perished therein, and the Jews perished therein" (Rashi on Ezekiel 36:13:1).
The likeness to a woman in her separation Rashi reads as a figure of hope. She is a woman "whose husband looks forward to when she will become clean, and longs to return to her" (Rashi on Ezekiel 36:17:1).
At the twentieth verse he notes a grammar point first. The verb is singular because the segment opens with the house of Israel as one body. He then reports a Midrash Aggadah from Lamentations Rabbah, Proem 15. In it "the Holy One, blessed be He, came with them in exile and bent His ear [to hear] what the captors were saying" (Rashi on Ezekiel 36:20:1). The sanctifying of the Name is the gathering itself. He asks what the sanctification is and answers with the next verse, the taking of Israel from among the nations (Rashi on Ezekiel 36:23:1).
The corpus carries fifteen further notes on this chapter without an English text, each of them marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Ezekiel 36:1:1, 36:4:1, 36:6:1, 36:7:1, 36:8:1, 36:9:1, 36:10:1, 36:11:1, 36:14:1, 36:16:1, 36:18:1, 36:19:1, 36:21:1 and 36:24:1 and at Metzudat David on Ezekiel 36:15:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the second verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah 2:8, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 5:18 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 15:6:4. On the fourth verse it holds Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 1:3. On the seventh verse it holds Sifrei Devarim 330:1. On the eighth verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Megillah 2:2, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:46 and Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 2:4:10.
On the thirteenth verse it holds Keritot 5b:15 and Shevuot 36a:2. On the seventeenth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 71:3, Bamidbar Rabbah 9:45 and Eikhah Rabbah 3:7. On the twentieth verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 15 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 8:13. On the twenty-first verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 7:5.
On the twenty-second verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 3:22:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 6:11:1. On the twenty-third verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 5:6 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash on the Ten Kings 1:9. On the twenty-fourth verse it holds Jerusalem Talmud Ketubot 12:3:11. On the twenty-fifth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 7:10 and Bamidbar Rabbah 9:49.
On the twenty-sixth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 14:4 and Bamidbar Rabbah 15:16. On the twenty-seventh verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 17:6 and Berakhot 32a:4. On the twenty-ninth verse it holds Berakhot 55a:10 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 9:3. On the thirtieth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 63:14 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 25:34:32.
On the thirty-fourth verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 34. On the thirty-fifth verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 24:65:1. On the thirty-sixth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 28:3 and Aggadat Bereshit 77:4. On the thirty-seventh verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Beshalach 15:3 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 13:5.
On the thirty-eighth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 9 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 40:4. On the thirty-ninth verse it holds Midrash Tehillim 27:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 36:2:1 to 36:23:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 36:1:1, 36:4:1, 36:6:1, 36:7:1, 36:8:1, 36:9:1, 36:10:1, 36:11:1, 36:14:1, 36:16:1, 36:18:1, 36:19:1, 36:21:1 and 36:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 36:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/36.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this chapter and printing no weekly portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The mountains of Israel mocked by the nations
Ezekiel 36:1-3
prophesy to the mountains of Israel: After Edom's judgment in chapter 35, the prophet turns to address the mountains of Israel, the land personified as chapter 6 addressed it. The address answers the enemy's boast, “The ancient heights have become our possession”. The land had been “taken up in slander by the lips of their talkers”.
Ezekiel 36:1
“Prophesy unto the mountains of Israel - This is a part of the preceding prophecy though it chiefly concerns the Jews. In it they are encouraged to expect a glorious restoration, and that none of the evil wishes of their adversaries should take place against them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 36:1
“And sanctification, 25-38 Commentary on Chapter XXXVI 1. The mountains - The inhabitants being in captivity, speak to the mountains, that is, the land of Judah, and Israel, which was a country full of mountains.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Aha is a cry of gloating, used by Ammon at 25:3 over the sanctuary and by Tyre at 26:2 over Jerusalem. The ancient heights are the hill country promised to the patriarchs. The enemy is Edom, carried over from chapter 35.
Ezekiel 36:2
“Because the enemy hath said - The Idumeans thought they would shortly be put in possession of all the strong places of Israel; the ancient high places shall be ours.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
trampled you on every side: Desolate and trampled describe the land after Jerusalem fell in 586 BC. The rest of the nations are the neighbours who survived Babylon's campaigns, Edom first among them, and moved into the empty territory. Their scorn came with their settlement.
Ezekiel 36:3
“There are some that are noted for talkers, that have something to say of every body, but cannot find in their hearts to speak well of any body; God's people, among such people, were sure to be a reproach when the crown had fallen from their head. Thus it was the lot of Christianity, in its suffering days, to be every where spoken against.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:3
“Literally, "Because, even because." swallowed you up--literally, "panted after" you, as a beast after its prey; implying the greedy cupidity of Edom as to Israel's inheritance (Ps 56:1, 2). lips of talkers--literally, "lips of the tongue," that is, of the slanderer, the man of tongue.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 36:3
“The residue of the pagan - Those of the surrounding nations which had survived Jerusalem’s fall, and may have profited by it.”
Ezekiel 36:4-7
hear the word of the Lord GOD: God's jealousy is provoked chiefly by the nations' contempt of the land. “I have sworn with an uplifted hand” is the oath gesture of a sworn verdict. The nations who mocked “will endure reproach of their own” in turn, the same talion principle chapter 35 used against Edom.
Ezekiel 36:4
“Therefore - thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, etc. - They shall neither possess mountain nor valley, hill nor dale, fountain nor river; for though in my justice I made you desolate, yet they shall not profit by your disasters. See Eze 36:5-7.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:4
“Inanimate creatures are addressed, to imply that the creature also, as it were, groans for deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Ro 8:19-21) [POLANUS]. The completeness of the renewed blessedness of all parts of the land is implied. derision-- (Ps 79:4).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Surely in My burning zeal: Burning zeal translates a Hebrew word for jealousy, the LORD's protective anger over what is His. The land named here is His property. Edom and the rest of the nations are judged as trespassers on the LORD's own estate.
Ezekiel 36:5
“Having a love for both as strong as death, he has a jealousy for both as cruel as the grave. They spoke in their malice against God's people, and he will speak in his jealousy against them; and it is easy to say which will speak most powerfully.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:5
“For hence it is that under the figure of the Idumaeans, who allowed themselves to be vanquished by their own prosperity, those who rejoice in the successes of this world are rebuked, when it is said, "They have given my land to themselves for an inheritance with joy, and with their whole heart and mind." In which words it is to be observed, that they are smitten with severe rebuke, not merely because they rejoice, but because they rejoice with their whole heart and mind.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Pastoral Rule, Part 3, Chapter 26patristic
you have endured the reproach of the nations: Reproach is the insult and shame the nations heaped on the land. The word returns in verses 15 and 30. The land had borne scorn meant for its people and its God.
Ezekiel 36:6
“Fury is not in God; but he will exert his power against them and handle them as severely as men do when they are in a fury. He will so speak to them in his wrath as to vex them in his sore displeasure. What he says he will stand to, for it is backed with an oath.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
sworn with an uplifted hand: The same raised hand swore at 20:6 to bring Israel's fathers into this land and at 20:23 to scatter their children among the nations. Now it swears against the neighbours who mocked. The oath marks each turn of Israel's history.
Ezekiel 36:7
“I have lifted up mine hand - i. e., I have sworn. Compare marginal reference. Their shame - They shall find their taunts come home to themselves.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:7
“The promises of God's favour to his Israel and assurances given of great mercy God had in store for them. God takes occasion from the outrage and insolence of their enemies to show himself so much the more concerned for them and ready to do them good, as David hoped that God would recompense him good for Shimei's cursing him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Branches and fruit for my people, and soon
Ezekiel 36:8-12
will produce branches and bear fruit: The reversal begins. Mountains that lay under a curse are promised fruit “for My people Israel, for they will soon come home”. Population and cultivation are restored, “more than before”, and the recognition formula lands again, that judgment and restoration alike teach who the Lord is.
Ezekiel 36:8
“For they are at hand to come - The restoration of the Jews is so absolutely determined that you may rest assured it will take place; and be as confident relative to it, as if you saw the different families entering into the Israelitish borders. It was near at hand in God’s determination, though there were about fifty-eight of the seventy years unelapsed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:8
“It was a type of the heavenly Canaan, to which all God's children are heirs, every Israelite indeed, and into which they shall shortly be all brought together, out of the countries where they are now scattered.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I am on your side: The promise to be on the mountains' side reverses the formula of judgment spoken to Mount Seir at 35:3 and to the shepherds at 34:10. The LORD declared Himself against them. Tilled and sown fields mean farmers are home.
In its entirety takes in both kingdoms, the northern tribes taken by Assyria in 722 BC and Judah taken by Babylon. Chapter 37:15 to 22 pictures the two joined as one stick in the prophet's hand. Rebuilt ruins answer the ruins of verse 4.
I will fill you with people and animals: People and animals together reverse the judgments of 14:13 to 21, where famine, wild beasts, sword and plague cut off both from the land. Multiply and be fruitful echoes the blessing of Genesis 1:28. The land is made new.
Ezekiel 36:11
“I will multiply upon you man and beast - The agriculturalist and the beast of burden. And will do better unto you than at your beginnings - I agree with Calmet, that it would be difficult to show the literal fulfillment of this prophecy from the days of Zerubbabel to the birth of Christ. The colouring is too high for that period; and the whole falls in better with Gospel than with Jewish times.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:11
“Their own sin had unsettled them, but now God's favour shall resettle them. When the prodigal son has become a penitent he is settled again in his father's house, according to his former estate.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
no longer deprive them of their children: Here the land is spoken of as a mother who lost her children. The charge that the land bereaved its people goes back to Numbers 13:32, which called Canaan a land that devoured those living in it. Verses 13 and 14 answer that slander.
Ezekiel 36:13-15
The land had been called one that devours men, a reproach the commentators trace to the plagues, famine and war that had emptied it. God promises the reproach will end together with the emptying, so the land will “no longer endure the reproach of the peoples”.
Ezekiel 36:13
“The judgments which God sent upon the land, had so destroyed the inhabitants that men deemed it a fatal land, which brought destruction to all that should occupy it (compare 2Ki 17:25).”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:13
“Like an unnatural mother it devoured, that is, it was the grave of its people; of the Canaanites, its former possessors, through mutual wars, and finally by the sword of Israel; and now, of the Jews, through internal and external ills; for example, wars, famine (to which Eze 36:30, "reproach of famine among the heathen," implies the allusion here is).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
you will no longer devour men: The written Hebrew text of this verse reads cause to stumble. The reading the scribes preserved in the margin reads deprive of children, which the Berean follows. The land will stop taking lives.
Ezekiel 36:14
“Therefore thou shalt devour men no more,.... Or they shall be no more destroyed in thee by pestilence, famine, sword, or other means: neither bereave that nations any more, saith the Lord; or, "thou shalt not cause them to fall any more" (k), for so it is written, as in Eze 36:15, though the marginal reading is, "thou shalt not bereave", which we follow; and both are to be received, since miscarriages often come by falls. (k) לא תכשלי "non impingere facies", Montanus, Vatablus; "non offendere facies", Starckius.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:14
“But the inhabitants shall live to a good old age, and not have the number of their months cut off in the midst. Compare this with that promise, Zech. viii. Note, God will take away the reproach of his people by taking away that which was the occasion of it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
cause your nation to stumble: To cause the nation to stumble means to lead it into sin, and the land did so through the idol shrines on its hills. The taunts of the nations end when the land stops both taking lives and tempting its people. Both shames end together.
Ezekiel 36:15
“Hear in thee the shame of the pagan - Hear the pagan putting thee to shame by their contemptuous words. The reproach of the people - “Thy people” (thy rightful possessors) shall have no cause to reproach thee for want of fertility. Were the blessings promised here merely temporal they could not be said to be fulfilled. The land is still subject to pagan masters. The words must point to blessings yet future, spiritual blessings.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:15
“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.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Not for your sake, but for my holy name
Ezekiel 36:16-21
the word of the LORD came to me: The word comes again, turning from land to people and tracing the cause of exile: Israel's defilement, the blood shed, and the idols. Their saying, “These are the people of the LORD, yet they had to leave His land”, profaned the name the judgment was meant to vindicate.
Ezekiel 36:16
“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.”
defiled it by their own ways: Leviticus 18:24 to 28 warned that a defiled land would vomit out its people, as it had the Canaanites before them. Ezekiel reads the exile of Israel as that warning carried out. Their ways and deeds made the land unclean.
Ezekiel 36:17
“When the house of Israel dwelt in their own land - Had they continued faithful to me, they had never been removed from it: but they polluted it with their crimes; and I abhorred the land on that account, and gave both them and it up to the destroyers.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
because of the blood they had shed: Blood and idols are the two charges Ezekiel lays against Jerusalem throughout, set side by side at 22:3 to 4. Numbers 35:33 taught that bloodshed pollutes a land. Wrath poured out pictures a full cup emptied.
according to their ways and deeds: The verse applies to the whole nation the principle that chapter 18 applied to each person, judgment matched to ways and deeds. The same pairing closes verse 17. Israel was scattered among the nations for its sin.
Ezekiel 36:19
“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. lii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
they profaned My holy name: To profane, in the Law, is to treat what is holy as common, as when a sanctuary is entered in uncleanness. The exiles profaned the name twice, by the sins that brought the exile and by the talk their scattering provoked. Ancient peoples judged a god by his land.
Ezekiel 36:20
“These, &c.--The Israelites gave a handle of reproach to the heathen against God, who would naturally say, These who take usury, oppress, commit adultery, &c., and who, in such an abject plight, are "gone forth" as exiles "out of His land," are specimens of what Jehovah can or will effect, for His people, and show what kind of a God this so-called holy, omnipotent, covenant-keeping God must be!”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I had concern for My holy name: Had concern translates a Hebrew verb for pity or sparing, the verb of 5:11 and 7:4, where the LORD said He would show no pity. The pity withheld in judgment is now shown to His own name. Mercy begins with God's regard for Himself.
Ezekiel 36:21
“I had pity for mine holy name--that is, I felt pity for it; God's own name, so dishonored, was the primary object of His pitying concern; then His people, secondarily, through His concern for it [FAIRBAIRN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:21
“But I had pity - For these sins I had just cause to cut them off; but I had pity, for the glory of my name: had I destroyed them, the heathen would have concluded against my omnipotence, and my truth.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:22-23
not for your sake that I will act: The motive clause is the chapter's hinge: “It is not for your sake that I will act”, the Lord says, “but for My holy name”. The phrase grounds everything that follows in God's character. “I will show the holiness of My great name” answers the profaning in the previous unit.
Ezekiel 36:22
“But, one way or other, God will make all his favourites to know and own that it is his grace, and not their goodness, his mercy, and not their merit, that made them so; and that therefore not unto them, not unto them, but unto him, is all the glory due. (2.) They must repent of the sin of their own evil ways.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
when I show My holiness in you: The LORD's holiness is displayed in what He does for Israel, the same promise made at 20:41 and 28:25. The nations watch it happen before their eyes. Israel's restoration becomes the proof of the LORD's name.
Ezekiel 36:23
“I will sanctify my great name - They gave the heathen occasion to think meanly of me, but I will shew I am as great as good. When God performs what he hath sworn by his holiness, then he sanctifies his name.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:23
“We cannot sanctify God's name unless he sanctify our hearts, nor live to his glory, but by his grace. That God would give them a new heart, a disposition of mind excellent in itself and vastly different from what it was before.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Clean water, a new heart, and a new spirit
Ezekiel 36:24-26
gather you out of all the countries: The text gives land, cleansing and inward change in order: regathering from the nations, then a washing, “I will also sprinkle clean water on you”. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you”, replacing the “heart of stone” with “a heart of flesh”.
Ezekiel 36:24
“I will take you from among the heathen - This does not relate to the restoration from Babylon merely. The Jews are at this day scattered in all Heathen, Mohammedan, and Christian countries. From these they are to be gathered, and brought to repossess their own land.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:25
“Christ was himself clean, else his blood could not have been cleansing to us; and it is a Holy Spirit that makes us holy: From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:25
“Ezekiel the priest has in view the purifying rites prescribed by the Law, the symbolic purport of which is exhibited in Heb 9:13-14; Heb 10:22. As the Levites were consecrated with sprinkling of water, so should the approved rite “sprinkling of water” thus prescribed by the Law and explained by the prophets, give occasion to the use of water at the admission of proselytes in later days, and so to its adoption by John in his baptism unto repentance.”
Ezekiel 36:25
Sprinkle - "This signifies both the blood of Christ sprinkled upon their conscience, to take away their guilt, as the water of purification was sprinkled, to take away their ceremonial uncleanness and the grace of the spirit sprinkled on the whole soul, to purify it from all corrupt inclinations and dispositions."
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:25
“THIS is one of the opening words of the glorious Covenant of Grace. Ezekiel's copy of the Covenant is full and clear and deserves to be written in letters of gold and hung up in the best chamber of every Believer's dwelling This is the Magna Charta of saints—the title deed of the land of our inheritance! Glorious Covenant of Grace, our heart delights in every line of promise wherewith you are enriched! You perceive that this promise deals with sin and it deals with sin because sin broke the first Covenant and thus ruined us all.”
remove your heart of stone: In Hebrew thought the heart is the seat of thought and will, so a heart of stone cannot answer God. Hebrews 8 applies the parallel new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31 to 34 to the church in Christ. Ezekiel 11:19 gave this promise of a new spirit earlier.
Ezekiel 36:26
“A new heart also will I give you - I will change the whole of your infected nature; and give you new appetites, new passions; or, at least, the old ones purified and refined. The heart is generally understood to mean all the affections and passions. And a new spirit will I put within you - I will renew your minds, also enlighten your understanding, correct your judgment, and refine your will, so that you shall have a new spirit to actuate your new heart.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
4 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:26
“And it is to be considered that a new heart and a new spirit are given through the effusion and sprinkling of water. When, however, a new heart and a new spirit are given, then all hardness, which is compared to stone, will be removed from the Jewish heart, so that the heart may be a fleshy, soft, and tender one, which can receive the spirit of God within itself and be inscribed with saving words.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 36:26
“A new heart - A new frame of soul, a mind changed, from sinful to holy, from carnal to spiritual. A heart in which the law of God is written, Jer. xxxi, 33. A sanctified heart, in which the almighty grace of God is victorious, and turns it from all sin to God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:26
“In Eze 18:31 they are commanded, "Make you a new heart, and a new spirit." Here God says, "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Thus the responsibility of man, and the sovereign grace of God, are shown to be coexistent.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 36:26
IT is a peculiar feature in our holy religion that it begins its work within and acts first upon the heart. Other religions, like that of the Pharisees, begin with outward forms and ceremonies, perhaps hoping to work inwardly from without, although the process never ends, for though the outside of the cup and of the platter is made clean, the inside still remains full of rottenness as before. No Truth of God is more sure than this concerning all the sons of men, "You must be born again."
ConnectionsJeremiah 31:33
Ezekiel 36:27-28
cause you to walk in My statutes: “I will put My Spirit within you” completes what the new heart begins, an indwelling that produces obedience from within. The covenant formula that closes the unit, “you will be My people, and I will be your God”, echoes Leviticus 26:12. Land and people are held in the one promise.
Ezekiel 36:27
“And cause you - Sweetly, powerfully, yet without compulsion; for our spirits, framed by God's spirit to a disposition suitable to his holiness, readily concurs. Ye shall keep - Be willing; and able to keep the judgments, and to walk in the statutes of God, which is, to live in all holiness.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:27
“And I will put my Spirit within you - To keep the heart of flesh alive, the feeling heart still sensible, the loving heart still happy. I will put my Spirit, the great principle of light, life, and love, within you, to actuate the new spirit, and to influence the new affections and passions; that the animal spirit may not become brutish, that the mental powers become not foolish.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:27
“But if they repent and I am sanctified in their midst, then all the multitude of the nations will know that I will remove them from the lands where they were dispersed and bring them back to the land of the Church, and I will pour out upon them not the waters of saving Baptism, but the waters of teaching and the word of God; and I will cleanse them from all their uncleannesses, and from all the idols and errors which they had secretly conceived in their hearts.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
the land that I gave your forefathers: The forefathers are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom the land was promised by oath in Genesis. The new heart and spirit of verses 26 and 27 are joined to a return to that same land. At 37:25 the promise names Jacob.
Ezekiel 36:28
“Ye shall be my people - Wholly given up to me in body, soul, and spirit. And I will be your God - To fill you with love, joy, peace, meekness, gentleness, longsuffering, fidelity and goodness, to occupy your whole soul, and gratify your every desire.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:28
“Ye shall dwell - Observe: then, and not before, are these promises to be fulfilled to the house of Israel. And I will be your God - This is the foundation of the top-stone of a believer's happiness.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:29-32
save you from all your uncleanness: The response the text names is shame: “you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves”. Grace received produces shame at the history it forgives. Verse 32 repeats the chapter's hinge line, “It is not for your sake that I will act”.
Ezekiel 36:29
“I will also save you - I will continue to save you. From all your uncleannesses - Salvation from all uncleannessess, includes justification, entire sanctification, and meetness for glory.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
no longer bear reproach among the nations: Famine brought reproach: the nations read a failed harvest as the failure of Israel's God to bless His land. Plentiful fruit of the trees and crops of the field answer the slander of verse 13. Joel 2:19 makes the same promise.
you will remember your evil ways: The same self-loathing appears at 6:9 and 20:43, each time after the LORD has acted. Repentance in Ezekiel follows the gift and is produced by it. Kindness makes Israel remember its evil ways and wicked deeds, as Romans 2:4 teaches.
Ezekiel 36:31
“Then shall ye remember your own evil ways - Ye shall never forget that ye were once slaves of sin, and sold under sin; children of the wicked one; heirs to all God’s curses, with no hope beyond hell. Such cleansed people never forget the horrible pit and the miry clay out of which they have been brought. And can they then be proud? No; they loathe themselves in their own sight. They never forgive themselves for having sinned against so good a God, and so loving a Savior.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:31
“That penitents may have their due it is enough for them to feel shame instead of all other punishment.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Against Jovinianus 2.31patristic
Ezekiel 36:31
“We noticed, in our reading, in what a kingly style the Lord speaks all through this chapter. He does not say "if or "but," but He says, "you will"and "you shall"and this teaches us that God is Omnipotent even in the regions of free agency. It would be preposterous to say that man is not a free agent!”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2743: “Mistaken Notions About Repentance” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Be ashamed and disgraced for your ways: The command to be ashamed and disgraced follows the promise of blessing. Shame here is the fitting response of a forgiven house of Israel that sees what its ways cost. Ezekiel 16:63 pairs shame with atonement in the same way.
Ezekiel 36:32
“There are two sins of man that are bred in the bone, and that continually come out in the flesh. One is self-dependence and the other is self-exaltation. It is very hard, even for the best of men, to keep themselves from the first error. The holiest of Christians, and those who understand best the gospel of Christ, find in themselves a constant inclination to look to the power of the creature, instead of looking to the power of God and the power of God alone.”
Cities rebuilt and the waste land like the garden of Eden
Ezekiel 36:33-36
I cleanse you from all your iniquities: Cleansing precedes rebuilding in the order the verses give it, and the desolate land becomes “like the garden of Eden”. That is the strongest image of restored blessing the Hebrew Bible has, naming the place forfeited at the beginning as the standard the end recovers.
in the sight of all who pass through: Travellers had seen the ruined land, and Leviticus 26:32 foretold that enemies living in it would be appalled at its desolation. The same passers-by now see the desolate land cultivated. The change is public.
like the garden of Eden: Isaiah 51:3 makes the same promise, that the LORD will make Zion's wilderness like Eden. The speakers here are the passers-by of verse 34, reporting what they see. Fortified cities mean safety as well as numbers.
Ezekiel 36:35
“This land that was desolate by sin, is become like the garden of Eden by righteousness - Satan’s blast is removed; God’s blessing has taken place.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 36:35
“Eden--as Tyre (the type of the world powers in general: so Assyria, a cedar "in the garden of God, Eden," Eze 31:8, 9), in original advantages, had been compared to "Eden, the garden of God" (Eze 28:13), from which she had fallen irrecoverably; so Israel, once desolate, is to be as "the garden of Eden" (Isa 51:3), and is to be so unchangeably.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I have replanted what was desolate: The closing formula ties the promise to the LORD's word, as at 17:24, 22:14 and 37:14. Rebuilding what was destroyed and replanting what was desolate are the verbs of Jeremiah 1:10 and 31:28. The nations around see the LORD's own building work.
Ezekiel 36:36
“With us saying and doing are two things, but they are not so with God. He proposes these things to them, not as the recompence of their merits, but as the return of their prayers.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 36:37-38
hear the plea of the house of Israel: The chapter closes with a flock. “I will multiply their people like a flock”, compared to “the numerous flocks for sacrifices at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts”. The image answers chapter 34's scattered, shepherdless sheep with cities so full of returned exiles they read as one long feast day.
Ezekiel 36:37
“Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel,.... Besought and prayed unto for the accomplishment of the above promises, as well as what follows: for though God has promised and will perform, yet he expects that his people will apply to him for it; it is our duty to put the Lord in mind of his promises, to plead them with him, and pray unto him for the fulfilment of them.”
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:37
“Thus saith the Lord God - In answer to the question, “Who shall have such blessings?” we say, they that pray, that seek earnestly, that strive to enter in at the strait gate. “Thus saith the Lord, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel.” Neither Jew nor Gentile shall be thus saved who do not earnestly pray to God; and for this thing; for this complete salvation; this setting up of the kingdom of Christ upon earth, and particularly in their own souls.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:37
“MULTIPLICATION is a very ancient form of blessing. The first benediction pronounced upon man was of this sort, for we read in the first chapter of Genesis, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." That same blessing was pronounced, again, when God accepted His servant Noah, and entered into covenant with him. We read in Genesis 9:1 that "God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." This also constituted a main part of the blessing promised to faithful Abraham.”
the numerous flocks for sacrifices at Jerusalem: At the dedication of Solomon's temple, 2 Chronicles 7:5 counts 120,000 sheep offered. Flocks brought for sacrifice were set apart for God, so the comparison makes the returned people consecrated as well as numerous. Crowded streets replace the ruins.
Ezekiel 36:38
“And again the prophetic word exhorts the repentant, that even when they have returned to the Church, they should always seek the Lord, and find Him: so that the flocks of the Lord may multiply with the multitude of those who return: not of horses and brute animals, but of flocks of men, who are full of faith and reason, the holy flocks, the flocks of the city of Jerusalem, on all the solemnities, which they have received through the mercy of God; so that when the multitude of such flocks has filled the cities of the Lord, then all…”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
3 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 36:38
“As the holy flock - The Church of Christ, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. The flock of Jerusalem - The Jerusalem that is from above, the city of the living God, the place where his Majesty dwells. As they came in ancient times to the solemn national feasts so shall they come when they have fully returned unto the Lord, and received his salvation by Christ Jesus.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:38
“Thus shall men multiply, and fill the cities of replanted Judea. And the increase of the numbers of men is then honourable, when they are all dedicated to God as a holy flock, to be presented to him for living sacrifices. Crowds are a lovely sight in God's temple.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 36:38
“As the holy flock--the great flock of choice animals for sacrifice, brought up to Jerusalem at the three great yearly festivals, the passover, pentecost, and feast of the tabernacles.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Keep studying
Studies16
Words11
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Patrick Fairbairn and Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible.