Ezekiel 20:25

I gave them also statues that were not good— This passage has given great handle to infidels and free-thinkers, though certainly it will admit of more interpretations than one, clear and consistent, and sufficient to remove every objection. I will subjoin two; the first espoused by Dr. Waterland and Vitringa; the second by Spencer, Bishop Warburton, and others; leaving the decision to the reader's judgment. I. God intends not here his own statutes or judgments, but the idolatrous and corrupt principles and practices of the heathens, to which he sometimes abandoned the Israelites, because they had first deserted him. That this is the genuine sense of the text, may be made appear as follows. 1. It is observable, that God here describes these statutes and judgments by characters directly opposite to what he gives of his own. In Ezekiel 20:11; Ezekiel 20:13; Ezekiel 20:21 he says; I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments; which if a man do, he shall even live in them; characters conformable to what he had given in Leviticus 18:4 where he says, Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances to walk therein; I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them: (Compare Romans 10:5.Galatians 3:12.) which is plainly to be understood of the whole system of the Jewish laws; to the keeping of which life was promised, as to the breach of any of them a curse was annexed. See Deuteronomy 27:26. Galatians 3:10. The character then of God's laws, ritual as well as others, was, that a man shall live in them. But in the verse before us, God says, I gave them also statutes [not my statutes] and judgments [not my judgments] whereby they should not live; directly contrary to what he had before said both here and in Leviticus, of his own statutes at large. So that it is highly unreasonable, or rather absurd, to understand both of God's own statutes. 2. In Ezekiel 20:11. God had spoken of giving his own laws to his people; and Ezekiel 20:13 he proceeds to speak of their frowardness, and contemning those his laws, and of his forbearance with them in the wilderness notwithstanding. But at length, in punishment to them, he did what he mentions in the verse before us. So that these statutes cannot be the same with those laws of Moses given before, but must be different. 3. God immediately adds, Ezekiel 20:26. And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire (to be sacrificed, or consecrated in fire to Moloch) all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate. This may be sufficient to intimate what kind of statutes and judgments God is here speaking of; namely, the rites and practices of the heathen, whereby he polluted them, that is, gave them up to their own heart's lusts, to defile and pollute themselves: wherefore it is said, Ezekiel 20:31. When ye offer your gifts, &c. ye pollute yourselves, &c. The Israelites had provoked God many ways, and more especially by their frequent idolatries; and therefore God gave them up to the vilest and most deplorable idolatry, namely, that of sacrificing their sons and daughters to devils, offering them up as burnt-offerings to Moloch. These were the statutes not good; that is to say, the worst that could be, for such is the force of that expression according to the Hebrew idiom. It is said moreover, Ezekiel 20:18. Walk not in the statutes of your fathers, &c. Here we have mention of statutes and judgments by the same words in the Hebrew as in the present verse; not meaning, however, God's statutes or judgments, but the corrupt customs of their idolatrous ancestors; such as God permitted, or gave them up to, because they chose such, as is here intimated. The original word נתן natan, is frequently used in the permissive sense; and therefore I gave them, may amount to no more than, I suffered such things. See Poole's Annotations. 4. St. Stephen, Acts 7:42 seems to have been the best interpreter of the text before us, who says, God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, &c. This was giving them up to statutes that were not good, and to judgments whereby they should not live; to the corrupt customs and impure rites of the heathen. To confirm this, we may observe, that God, by the prophet Jeremiah, (chap. Ezekiel 16:13 compare Deuteronomy 4:27; Deuteronomy 28:36.) threatens the like judgments to his offending people: and in like manner of Ezekiel in the 39th verse of this very chapter. The Chaldee paraphrast interprets the text before us thus; I cast them out, and delivered them into the hand of their enemies; and they went after their own foolish lusts, and made statutes which were not right, and laws by which you shall not live. See Waterland's Scripture Vindicated, part 3: p. 104. &c. and Vitringa, Observ. Sacr. lib. 2: cap. 1.——II. Bishop Warburton's interpretation is as follows. Their fathers, says he, left their bones in the wilderness; but this perverse race, being pardoned as a people, and still possessed of the privilege of a select and chosen nation, were neither to be scattered among the heathen, nor to be confined for ever in the wilderness. Almighty wisdom, therefore, ordained that their punishment should be such as should continue them, even against their wills, a separated race in possession of the land of Canaan; a punishment declared by these words, Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, &c. that is to say, "Because they had violated my first system of laws, the decalogue, I added to them, [I gave them also, words which imply the giving as a supplement] my second system, the ritual law; very aptly characterised (when set in opposition to the moral law) by statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." What is here observed opens to us the admirable reasons of both punishments, and why there was a forbearance, or a second trial, before the yoke of ordinances was imposed: for we must never forget, that the God of Israel transacted with his people according to the mode of human governors. Let this be kept in mind, and we shall see the admirable progress of the dispensation. God brought the fathers out of Egypt, to put them in possession of the land of Canaan. He gave them the moral law, to distinguish them for the worshippers of the true God; and he gave them the positive law of the sabbath, to distinguish them for God's peculiar people. These fathers proving perverse and rebellious, their punishment was death in the wilderness, and exclusion from that good land which was reserved for their children. But then these children in that very wilderness, the scene of the fathers' crime and calamity, fell into the same transgressions. What was now to be done? It was plain, that so inveterate an evil could be only checked or subdued by the curb of some severe institution. A severe institution was prepared, and the ritual law was established. For the first offence the punishment was personal; but when a repetition shewed it to be inbred, and, like the leprosy, sticking to the whole race, the punishment was properly changed to national. How clear! How coherent is every thing, as here explained! How consonant to reason! How full of divine wisdom! Yet we are told by the Rabbens, who hold the perfection and eternal obligation of their law, that the statutes not good, were the tributes imposed on the Israelites while in subjection to their pagan neighbours. And Christian writers, who did not attend to the subtilty of this explication, have pretended that the statutes given, which were not good, were pagan idolatries, not given, but suffered; indeed not suffered; because severely, and almost always immediately punished. But the absurdity of this supposition is best exposed by the prophet himself, as his words lie in the text. God's first intention with respect to these rebels, is represented to be the renouncing them for his people, and scattering them among the nations; Ezekiel 20:21. But his mercy prevails; Ezekiel 20:22. In these two verses we see, that the punishment intended, and the mercy shewn, are delivered in general, without the circumstances of the punishment, or the conditions of the mercy. The three next verses, in the mode of eastern composition, which delights in repetition, inform us more particularly of these circumstances, which were dispersion, &c. and of these conditions, which were the imposition of a ritual law, &c. The intended punishment is explained specifically, that is, with its circumstances; the mercy follows, and the terms on which it was bestowed are likewise explained. Whatever is meant by statutes not good, the end of giving them, we see, was, to preserve the Israelites a peculiar people of the Lord; for the punishment of dispersion was remitted to them. But if by statutes not good, be meant the permitting them to fall into idolatries, God is absurdly represented as decreeing an end—the keeping of his people separate—and at the same time providing means to defeat it: for every lapse into idolatry was a step to their dispersion, and utter consumption, by absorbing them into the nations. We must needs conclude therefore, that by statutes not good, is meant the ritual law; the only means of attaining that end of mercy; the preserving them a separate people. See Div. Leg. vol. 3: book 4: p. 394, &c.