Ezekiel 20:10

(Verse 10 and following) Therefore I expelled them from the land of Egypt, and brought them into the desert, and gave them my commandments, and showed them my judgments, which a man should do and live by them. Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. But the house of Israel provoked me in the desert.

It is better to be at liberty in a wilderness than bond-slaves in a land of plenty, to enjoy God and ourselves in solitude than to lose both in a crowd; yet there were many of them who had such base servile spirits as not to understand this, but, when they met with the difficulties of a desert, wished themselves in Egypt again. That he gave them the law upon Mount Sinai (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt,.... It was the Lord that brought them out from thence with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; that obliged Pharaoh to let them go, and gave them favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, that they went out unmolested by them: and brought them into the wilderness; before they went into the land of Canaan; here they had freedom from their bondage, and were in a wonderful manner provided for by the Lord, guided, supported, preserved, and at last brought to the promised land.

The probation in the wilderness. The promise was forfeited by those to whom it was first conditionally made, but was renewed to their children. Eze 20:11 The “statutes” were given on Mount Sinai, and repeated by Moses before his death (Exo 20:1 ff; Deu 4:8). In them - Or, through them: and in Eze 20:13. Eze 20:12 See Exo 31:13. The Sabbath was a sign of a special people, commemorative of the work of creation, and hallowed to the honor of Yahweh, the covenant-God. As man honored God by keeping the Sabbath holy, so by the Sabbath, God “sanctified” Israel and marked them as a holy people. Therefore to profane the Sabbath was to abjure their Divine Governor. Eze 20:13 My sabbaths they greatly polluted - Not by actual non-observance of the sabbatical rest in the wilderness, but in failing to make the day holy in deed as well as in name by earnest worship and true heart service. Eze 20:18 The book of Deuteronomy contains the address to “the children” of those who perished in the wilderness. The whole history of Israel was a repetition of this course. The covenant was made with one generation, broken by them, and then renewed to the next. Eze 20:25 The “judgments whereby they should not live” are those spoken of in Eze 20:18, and are contrasted with the judgments in Eze 20:13, Eze 20:21, laws other than divine, to which God gives up those whom He afflicts with judicial blindness, because they have willfully closed their eyes, Psa 81:12; Rom 1:24. Eze 20:26 To pass through - The word also means to “set apart,” as the firstborn to the Lord Exo 13:12. They were bidden to “set apart” their firstborn males to the Lord. They “caused them to pass through the fire” to Moloch. An instance of their perversion of God’s laws.