Ezekiel 20:40-41

“For in my holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, says the Lord Yahweh, there will all the house of Israel, all of them, serve me in the land. There will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things. I will accept you as a sweet savour when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries in which you have been scattered, and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the nations.”

In contrast with the disobedient and the rebels there will yet be those who once again serve God faithfully. The whole of Israel, yes ‘all of them', will serve Him in the land. Note here what is meant by ‘all Israel'. It is those who remain after the rebels have been purged out and the disobedient excluded. Here already we have the seeds of the doctrine which Paul will expand in Romans 9-11. Not all Israel are the true Israel. Only those who respond and obey are the true Israel.

‘In my holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel.' ‘The mountain' was the term used to depict the whole of the mountain region of Israel from north to south, here described as ‘the mountain of the height of Israel'. This might seem therefore to be referring to the land of Israel as a whole. Thus we need not necessarily see it as limited to, although it includes, Mount Zion. It is true that in Isaiah 27:13; Isaiah 56:7; Isaiah 66:20; Joel 2:1; Joel 3:17; Zephaniah 3:11; Zechariah 8:3 ‘the holy mountain' is Mount Zion. But Mount Zion was all inclusive. Indeed His people in exile could be called ‘Zion' (Zechariah 2:7). Thus the whole mountain region was all God's holy mountain, set apart for Himself and for His people. It was ‘the mountain of His inheritance' (Exodus 15:17).

Mount Zion was seen anyway as inclusive of all the territory that surrounded it. Compare how in Psalms 78:68 ‘the mount Zion which He loved' is the tribe of Judah, the ‘chosen' tribe, over against the remainder of Jacob's descendants, so that ‘He loves the gates of Zion more than the dwellings of Jacob' (Psalms 87:2). The ‘beloved mountain' therefore there refers to His chosen ones. Mount Zion was central because it was seen as the site of God's earthly dwellingplace, where God was with all His people, but it was a part of the whole mountain range of Israel, which was His inheritance.

Israel would indeed return there to prepare the way for the coming of the One Whom God would send and through those who responded to Him God's name would be sanctified, revealed as holy and unique, among all the nations.

‘There will all the house of Israel, all of them, serve me in the land. There will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.' To these rebellious people making their enquiries before Ezekiel God promised that one day there would be those who would truly serve Him in the land. All those who were truly His people would serve Him. They would be accepted, and from them He would require complete fulfilment of the covenant and active and true worship, and the giving to God of what was His. Ezekiel as a priest saw it in terms of the priestly offerings, but we may see it as symbolic of offerings of praise and thanksgiving and spiritual worship.

‘I will accept you as a sweet savour when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries in which you have been scattered, and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the nations.' One day God would again receive His people ‘as a sweet savour', something welcome and pleasant and acceptable, who would bring honour to His name. This found partial fulfilment in those who served God faithfully after the restoration in the four hundred years before Christ, and final fulfilment in the ministry of Christian Jews to the world in the early church throughout the known world. Having been gathered to the mountain of Israel they had been prepared by Jesus for their worldwide task.

So in the end God would triumph. Once again we have in tension the idea of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, with God's sovereignty prominent.