Ezekiel 36:23

sanctify my great name To sanctify is the opposite of to profane. As the latter term means to detract from the power, majesty or purity of Jehovah, or from any of those attributes which belong to his godhead, to sanctify is to manifest or make these attributes conspicuous. Hence the effect of Jehovah's sanctifying his name is that the heathen know him to be Jehovah God alone and all that which he is who is God alone. In Ezekiel 36:22 "holy name," here "great name"; "greatness" is an element in "holiness."

be sanctified in you Or reflexive: shew myself holy where "holy" embraces the attributes of Deity as a whole. Israel is the subject throughwhich Jehovah shews himself to be God, i.e. by his operations in Israel in the sight of the nations.

24 seq. These operations are his restoration and regeneration of Israel. It is certainly possible that the more internal operations of Jehovah on Israel (Ezekiel 36:25 seq.) his washing them with clean water and putting a new spirit within them that they shall walk in his statutes, are considered part of Jehovah's sanctifying of himself in the sight of the nations. They do express better what Jehovah is than a mere exhibition of power, cf. Ezekiel 39:23-24; Isaiah 61:3; Isaiah 62:2. At the same time this more general idea seems to pass from the prophet's mind in the delight with which he dwells on Israel's religious regeneration. The wider idea is at any rate returned to in Ezekiel 36:33 seq.