Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
I Will Bring You Into the Wilderness of the Peoples
Ezekiel 20:30-49
30 “Therefore tell the house of Israel, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Do you pollute yourselves in the way of your fathers? Do you play the prostitute after their abominations? · WEB
The exiles wanted to become an ordinary nation like the rest, and are told the one thing they cannot do is stop belonging to God.
What the people are thinking is quoted, and it is not defiance. It is exhaustion: We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. Being God's people had brought them a destroyed capital and a foreign address. The proposal is to resign — to stop being a peculiar people and take up the ordinary religion of the region.
The reply refuses the resignation in the strongest terms available: That which comes into your mind will not be at all... surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you. The exodus formula is used, and it says that the relationship is not theirs to end. They cannot dissolve it by assimilating, any more than they could keep it by ritual. That is a hard word and a merciful one. The chapter does not pretend it is only the second.
What follows is a second exodus described with the pattern of the first, including the part nobody wants. God will gather them out of the countries and bring them into the wilderness of the peoples. There he will enter into judgment with them face to face, just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt. The wilderness in Israel's memory was not only the road home. It was where a whole generation was sifted. The passage says plainly that the sifting is part of the plan again.
The image for it is a shepherd's. I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. A shepherd counting his flock made them file under his staff one at a time. That is a picture of individual reckoning rather than a mass reprieve. And the result is stated without softening. The rebels are purged out, brought out of the land where they live and not brought into the land of Israel. A restoration that includes a sorting is the only kind this book ever promises.
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