Ezekiel 20:25

Wherefore I gave … also Moreover also I gave, see Ezekiel 20:23.

statutes … not good These statutes are of a kind contrary to those given before (Ezekiel 20:11) which were good. These points seem plain: 1. The practice referred to is that of passing the firstborn male children through the fire as a burnt-offering to the deity. 2. The law in Israel was that all the male firstborn of men and the male firstlings of beasts were the Lord's. The firstborn of men were to be redeemed, as also the firstlings of unclean animals, but the firstlings of clean animals were to be offered in sacrifice to Jehovah (Exodus 13:2; Exodus 13:12-13; Exodus 22:29, cf. Numbers 3:46-47; Numbers 18:15-16). The law requiring the sacrifice of the firstborn had become extended, so as to include children. The practice was one prevailing among the peoples around Israel, and probably it first crept into use in Israel and was then justified by the law or custom relating to cattle, of which it might seem a natural extension; but in Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5 Jehovah vehemently protests that to command it never came into his mind. The question to whom the children were offered, lit. passed over in the fire, is not quite easy to decide. In passages where the practice is condemned it is represented as a sacrifice to "the Molech," Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:31; Deuteronomy 18:10, or to the Baal, Jeremiah 7:31, or generally, to the idols, Ezekiel 16:21; Psalms 106:38 (idols of Canaan). Though the spelling of the name Molech is peculiar, the word probably means "the king" originally, just as the Baal means "the lord," both names being descriptive of the same deity. In Isaiah 57:9 "the king" has the ordinary spelling. Though borrowing the practice from the Canaanites it is probable that in Israel the sacrifice was offered to Jehovah, particularly as the law under which it was made was considered given by him. On the other hand Jer., though repudiating this popular inference, speaks of the offering as being made to Baal. The name "Baal," however, from Hosea downwards is used somewhat laxly, including the images of Jehovah, and all heathenish ceremonies in his service are called worship of Baal. 3. This law is described as not good, one by which men could not live. The effect of it was that men were polluted in their gifts (Ezekiel 20:26), and the purpose of it was to destroy them. This evil law, entailing this consequence, was a judicial punishment of them for their former sins, just as the "deception" of the false prophets was, ch. Ezekiel 14:9. Whether the people, familiar with the Baal worship, drew the false inference from the law of the firstborn, or whether false teachers set the idea before them, is uncertain (Jeremiah 8:8 appears to refer to written perversions of the law). The sacrifice of children was a practice that gained ground in the disastrous times before the exile (Hosea 13:2 has another meaning: men who sacrifice kiss calves; it is the irrationality of menkissing calves that the prophet mocks, not the enormity of human sacrifices). Ezekiel appears to regard the practice as ancient, as he connects it with the second generation in the wilderness. The instances noted in early history are transjordanic (Jephthah and king of Moab), and possibly, though the practice became aggravated only at a later period, the prophet may have considered that the people became acquainted with it on the other side of the Jordan.