In this chapter, I. The prophet is consulted by some of the elders of Israel, Ezek. 20:1. II. He is instructed by his God what answer to give them. He must, 1. Signify God’s displeasure against them, Ezek. 20:2–3. And, 2.

Here is, 1. The occasion of the message which we have in this chapter. That sermon which we had Ezek. 18:1–32 was occasioned by their presumptuous reflections upon God; this was occasioned by their hypocritical enquiries after him. Each shall have his own.

The history of the ingratitude and rebellion of the people of Israel here begins as early as their beginning; so does the history of man’s apostasy from his Maker.

The history of the struggle between the sins of Israel, by which they endeavoured to ruin themselves, and the mercies of God, by which he endeavoured to save them and make them happy, is here continued: and the instances of that struggle in these verses have reference to what passed between God and…

Here the prophet goes on with the story of their rebellions, for their further humiliation, and shows, I. That they had persisted in them after they were settled in the land of Canaan.

The design which was now on foot among the elders of Israel was that the people of Israel, being scattered among the nations, should lay aside all their peculiarities and conform to those among whom they lived; but God had told them that the design should not take effect, Ezek. 20:32.

We have here a prophecy of wrath against Judah and Jerusalem, which would more fitly have begun the next chapter than conclude this; for it has no dependence on what goes before, but that which follows in the beginning of the next chapter is the explication of it, when the people complained that…