Ezekiel 20:38 - Exposition

The thought of the shepherd suggests, as in Matthew 25:33 , the separation of the sheep from the goats. The land of the restored Israel was to be a land of righteousness, and the rebels were not to enter into it. Was Ezekiel thinking of those who were thus to die in the "wilderness of the peoples" as a counterpart of those who perished in the forty years of the wandering, and did not enter Canaan? Verse 36 seems to imply that he was looking for a repetition of that history. The solemn fast kept by Ezra by the river of Ahava ( Ezra 8:21-22 ) may be noted as corresponding, on a small scale, to Ezekiel's expectations.