Ver. 1. And it came to pass.] This chapter fitly followeth the former. There these malcontents had complained that the fathers had sinned and the children suffered. Here is evinced that there was never a better of them, that a viperous brood they had been from the first, that they were some of them naught all. In the seventh year,] scil., Of Jeconiah’s captivity: and every year seemed seven, till the seventy were expired. The years of our misery we reckon; not so of our prosperity, which yet we should duly prize and improve. That certain of the elders of Israel.] Not Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, as the Jews fable: but worse men, rank hypocrites. Came to inquire.] But were resolved of their course, and had made their conclusion before they came. (Ezekiel 20:32) Either the prophet should chime in with the false prophets, who told them they should be sent home ere long, or else they would, for peace sake, worship idols and comport with the Babylonians; which yet, if they had done, it might have proved nothing better with them than it did with those renegade Christians in Turkey, who, falling down, many thousands of them, before Solyman II, and holding up the forefinger, as their manner is, in token of their conversion to Mohammedanism, he asked what moved them to turn? they replied, it was to be eased of their heavy taxations. He, disdaining that baseness, or not willing to lose in tribute for an unsound accession in religion, rejected their conversion, and doubled their taxations. κακοι μεν θριπες, κακοι ηδε και ιπες. — Eras. Adag. Sir Henry Blunt’s Voy. into Levant p. 111.
Ver. 2. Then came.] See on Ezekiel 18:1.
Ver. 3. Are ye come to inquire of me?] q.d., I scorn the motion, I loathe your false looks, be packing with your putrid hypocrisy. God will detect and shame gross hypocrites, as he did Jeroboam’s wife, the rotten hearted Pharisees, Ananias and Sapphira, that sorry couple, that consented to “tempt the Holy Ghost,” as these elders also did—that is, to make trial whether he be omniscient, and able to detect and punish them. I will not be inquired of by you.] “The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination; how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?” as these did. (Proverbs 21:27)
Ver. 4. Wilt thou judge them?] Or, Wilt thou excuse them? or, Wilt thou intercede for them? If thou hast never so good a mind to do so, yet do it not; rather reprove them for, and convince them of, their sins; spare thy charity, and exercise thine authority of “having in readiness to revenge their disobedience.” (2 Corinthians 10:6) An causam ageres eorum? Abigendi sunt potius quam docendi. Ostendit Dominus ulcus profundum esse. Cause them to know the abominations of their fathers.] By themselves avowed, abetted, augmented; their fathers’ iniquity they have drawn together with cart ropes of vanity.
Ver. 5. In the day when I chose Israel.] Declared them to be my firstborn, and so higher than the kings of the earth. (Psalms 89:27) When I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord your God.] This sweet promise is not so easily, and, indeed, is never enough, believed, and is therefore here confirmed by God’s solemn oath thrice repeated, “that by two immutable things, wherein it was impossible for God to lie, his people might have strong consolation.” (Hebrews 6:18)
Ver. 6. Into a land that I had espied for them.] Humanitus dictum. Finding it out, as it were, by diligent search. (Numbers 10:33) Look how a father findeth out for his son a habitation fit for him, a help meet for him, other things necessary for his comfortable subsistence; so dealt God by his Israel. He brought them to a land which himself had carefully sought out; his eyes were always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. (Deuteronomy 11:12) Flowing with milk and honey,] i.e., Abounding with choice and cheap commodities. Which is the glory of all lands.] Or, Flower; decorem et desiderium. It was so then, it is not so now, since the Jews were disprivileged and dejected; but as in the earthly paradise, after man fallen, cecidit rosa, mansit spina, the rose fell off, the brier whereon it grew remained; so here. See on Daniel 8:9 11:16.
Ver. 7. Then said I unto them,] viz., While yet in Egypt. This we find not in Exodus; it is enough that we find it here. See Job 5:9. [See Trapp on “Job 5:9”] Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes.] The idols to which your eyes are lifted up, (Ezekiel 18:6) and which are, or should be, to you, as Alexander called the Persian maids, dolores oculorum, eye griefs.
Ver. 8. But they rebelled against me.] I might say what I would, but they would do what they list. Good they were ever, if I may call it so, at resisting the Holy Ghost, obstinate idolaters from the very first; so that God had even as much ado to forbear killing them, as ever he had Moses in the same country for neglecting to circumcise his child. (Exodus 4:24) Neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt.] This we read not of in Exodus either; it is enough that we have it here. The ingratitude of these Israelites was the greater, because God had done much for them, and was daily admonishing them of better things. Then said I, I will pour out my fury.] It was not therefore for nothing that Israel suffered so much in Egypt. Many now marvel at their own miseries, but think not of their sins, the cause.