Ezekiel 20:26

26. I polluted them in their own gifts From these words certain expositors (Kuenen, Wellhausen, Smend, Toy, etc.) have drawn the conclusion that one of the statutes which were “not good,” and which Jehovah gave in the early days to Israel, was that of child sacrifice. Renan plainly says that Jehovah commanded this evil thing, “in order to avenge himself and punish the nation by prescribing detestable rites” ( History, iii, p. 260). This suggestion is a horrible one, and is opposed not only to God’s righteousness and to all that we know of the Mosaic legislation, but is in direct contradiction to the explicit declaration of Jehovah himself (Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5; see also arguments of A. von Hoonacker and Kamphausen). Bertholet, with his customary confidence that Smend and Duhm are far greater authorities than Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the moral conditions of their times and as to Hebrew history in general, bluntly affirms that these were human sacrifices to Jehovah; adding “and the fact that Jeremiah is of a different opinion is of no importance to the decision!” But the fact is that Jehovah never asked this heathenish gift of human blood (Numbers 18:15). The so-called sacrifice of Isaac was to teach the great truth that, unlike some heathen deities, Jehovah wanted only the devotion of the heart and preferred their living rather than their dead children. It is, indeed, somewhat doubtful whether this verse refers at all to human sacrifice. Dr. Konig believes that it has sole reference to the sin of the people in failing to obey the Levitical distinctions between clean and unclean animals in sacrifice ( Religious History, 1885, p. 137, etc.). But granting that human sacrifice is referred to, which seems on the whole probable, there is no proof whatever that this was an original commandment of the God who said, “Thou shalt not kill,” and who was by nature “merciful and gracious.” Rather, in harmony with our interpretation of Ezekiel 20:25, we conceive the meaning to be that, having given up the service of Jehovah for the service of idols, the people found (in accordance with God’s eternal decree) that with such service came self-degradation and doubled hardship. The man who chose lustful idol worship instead of the pure worship of a holy God became brutal as the gods he worshiped and the idols required at his hands more awful sacrifices than Jehovah had ever asked. It was God’s ordainment that sin should be the punishment of sin, and that he who refused obedience to the good statutes of a good God should be controlled by the statutes of his own deities, which were “not good.” He who gave up faith in Jehovah and put Molech in his stead was soon called upon to offer his son as a burnt offering. This gift was never asked of him by Jehovah; rather, because of this gift did Jehovah count him “polluted,” literally, profane. (See Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:31; Deuteronomy 18:10; compare also Orelli, in loco.)

Openeth Or, first openeth.

That I might make them desolate Or, amazed, or horrified (Ezekiel 32:10). Jehovah’s purpose in permitting the people to go into these depths of bestiality was that they might be shocked into an appreciation of their own folly and sin and thus be led to repentance.