Ezekiel 36:16-24

16-24. Before the captivity, Israel, because of its bloody deeds and idolatry (Ezekiel 36:18), was as unclean as a woman “in her separation” (Ezekiel 36:17, R.V.), and for this reason was separated from her beautiful land (Ezekiel 36:19; compare Leviticus 15:19; Leviticus 18:30, etc.). But instead of repenting and purifying herself, Israel excused or denied her sin (Ezekiel 2:3-5; Ezekiel 18:2), and while professing allegiance to Jehovah gave honor to idols (Ezekiel 14:7; Ezekiel 20:8; Ezekiel 20:39), and thus so belittled and polluted the Holy Name before the nations that these actually supposed that the captivity was due, not to Jehovah’s justice, but to his weakness. For this reason they could speak of the Israelites (“of them,” Ezekiel 36:20, R.V.), saying, “These are the Lord’s people, and yet had to go forth out of his land” (Ezekiel 36:20, Kautzsch). It is not because of the worthiness of fallen Israel (Ezekiel 36:21-22; Ezekiel 36:32; compare Titus 3:5-6) that Jehovah now snatches them again out of their captivity and returns them to their own land, but in order that this reproach may be removed from his own name, when all men shall see that the real cause, both of the captivity and restoration, lies in God’s holiness and justice (Ezekiel 36:23-24). Thus will his name be sanctified, or “set apart” from those of the “idol blocks” with which he is now compared, and his real nature will be revealed. (See valuable remarks in Expositor’s Bible, p. 356 . )

It has been said that this passage (Ezekiel 36:25-27), with that which immediately precedes, deserves study more than any other part of Ezekiel, since it exhibits his “philosophy of history,” and describes with great beauty the principles of Jehovah’s redemption of his people. But this is not merely the philosophy of Ezekiel, it is a revelation of the divine thought. It is the gospel of the Old Testament. In its teaching of moral and spiritual cleansing (Ezekiel 36:25; Ezekiel 36:29) and of the God-given “new heart” and “new spirit” (Ezekiel 36:26-27) which loathes the old life of uncleanness (Ezekiel 36:31) and produces a new life of obedience, purity, and happiness (Ezekiel 36:27; Ezekiel 36:29; Ezekiel 36:33), it indeed “reads like a fragment of a Pauline epistle.” It strikes the same spiritual note which is afterward heard at Bethlehem and Calvary, at Pentecost and Patmos.