Ezekiel 20:39

39 "As for you, house of Israel, this is what the Lord God says: Go and serve your idols, each of you. But afterwards you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.

Ezekiel 20:39 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 20:39

As for you, O house of Israel
The then present house of Israel, and the elders of it, who were upon the spot with the prophet: go ye, serve ye everyone his idols;
or dunghill gods; since they liked not to serve the true God: this is not giving them leave to serve idols, or approving their idolatrous practices; but is said "ironically", as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, who compare it with ( Ecclesiastes 11:9 ) : and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me;
not only serve them now, but for the future; seeing ye choose not to hearken to my voice, to obey my laws, and to worship me, and me only; for it suggests, that it was better to attend to the service of the one, or of the other, and not halt between two opinions; but either, if the God of Israel was the true God, then serve him, and him only; but if Baal, or any other Heathen deity, was so, then serve them, and keep serving them: but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts and with your
idols;
to worship him along with them, and them along with him; to pretend they worshipped him in them, and offered their gifts and sacrifices to him through them; and so made use of his name as a cover to their idolatrous practices: this was a polluting his name, and was abominable to him.

Ezekiel 20:39 In-Context

37 "I will make you pass under the rod and will bring you into the bond of the covenant.
38 And I will also purge you of those who rebel and transgress against Me. I will bring them out of the land where they live as foreign residents, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
39 "As for you, house of Israel, this is what the Lord God says: Go and serve your idols, each of you. But afterwards you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.
40 For on My holy mountain, Israel's high mountain"-the declaration of the Lord God -"there the entire house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land. There I will accept them and will require your contributions and choicest gifts, all your holy offerings.
41 When I bring you from the peoples and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered, I will accept you as a pleasing aroma. And I will demonstrate My holiness through you in the sight of the nations.
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