Ezekiel 20:1

And it came to pass in the seventh year,.... Of Zedekiah's reign, and of the captivity of Jeconiah; from whence the dates of Ezekiel's visions and prophecies are taken, Ezekiel 1:2; two years, one

And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and sat before me.

EZEKIEL CHAPTER 20 God refuseth to be consulted by the elders of Israel, . He rehearseth the rebellions of their ancestors in Egypt, ; in the wilderness, ; and in the Promised Land, . He reproacheth the present generation with the like corrupt manners, . He threateneth to rule over them with rigour, but with promise to gather them, to purge out the rebels, and accept the services of the faithful in his church, . The destruction of Jerusalem prophesied under the name of a forest, . The seventh year of Jeconiah’ s captivity and Zedekiah’ s reign, two years and five months before Nebuchadnezzar did besiege Jerusalem. The fifth month; August. The tenth day; which answers to cur twenty-seventh. Certain, Heb. men. Some of note among the elders and rulers of Israel. Either some of the captives in Babylon, as most likely they were who, , came to him, or some of those who were sent from Zedekiah to compliment or carry tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, as most likely they were, . Of the elders; not of the priests or Levites, but of the laity, civil magistrates and officers, who might be sent to view the state of Babylon, and to observe what posture things were in, the better to resolve on that Zedekiah and his councils were forming, whether it will be advisable to shake off the yoke of the king of Babylon by a rebellion, or patiently bear it: and I conjecture this might be the main inquiry they made now, which was two years and five months before the siege began, during which two years and five months I suppose the design was resolved on, framed, provision made of all sorts, and at last a rebellion raised. Came to inquire of the Lord; yet resolved beforehand what they would do, as will appear. Prophets neither did pretend to, nor could they, resolve such inquiries, but the Lord whom the prophets did consult. Sat before me: whether it speak the quality of the persons, that did not stand as mean persons, or their resolution to wait for answer, or be a phrase proper with the Jews to express the common deportment of the country, I leave you to guess.

Ezekiel 20:1 And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth [month], the tenth [day] of the month, [that] certain of the elders of Israel came to enquire of the LORD, and sat before me.Ver. 1. And it came to pass.] This chapter fitly followeth the former. There these malcontents had complained that the fathers had sinned and the children suffered. Here is evinced that there was never a better of them, that a viperous brood they had been from the first, that they were some of them naught all. In the seventh year,] scil., Of Jeconiah’ s captivity: and every year seemed seven, till the seventy were expired. The years of our misery we reckon; not so of our prosperity, which yet we should duly prize and improve. That certain of the elders of Israel.] Not Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, as the Jews fable: but worse men, rank hypocrites. Came to inquire.] But were resolved of their course, and had made their conclusion before they came. Either the prophet should chime in with the false prophets, who told them they should be sent home ere long, or else they would, for peace sake, worship idols and comport with the Babylonians; which yet, if they had done, it might have proved nothing better with them than it did with those renegade Christians in Turkey, who, falling down, many thousands of them, before Solyman II, and holding up the forefinger, as their manner is, in token of their conversion to Mohammedanism, he asked what moved them to turn? they replied, it was to be eased of their heavy taxations. He, disdaining that baseness, or not willing to lose in tribute for an unsound accession in religion, rejected their conversion, and doubled their taxations. κακοιμενθριπες, κακοιηδεκαιιπες. - Eras. Adag. Sir Henry Blunt’ s Voy. into Levant p. 111.

(1) Came to enquire.—It does not appear that the elders actually proposed their enquiry. It doubtless had relation not to personal affairs, but to the welfare of the nation, and in this prophecy the Lord meets their unspoken question.

CHAPTER XX A deputation of the elders of Israel, as usual, in their distress, came to request Ezekiel to ask counsel of God, 1. In reply to this, God commands the prophet to put them in mind of their rebellion and idolatry: In Egypt, 2-9, in the wilderness, 10-27, and in Canaan, 28-32. Notwithstanding which the Lord most graciously promises to restore them to their own land, after they should be purged from their dross, 33-44. The five last verses of this chapter ought to begin the next, as they are connected with the subject of that chapter, being a prophecy against Jerusalem, which lay to the south of Chaldea, where the prophet then was, and which here and elsewhere is represented under the emblem of a forest doomed to be destroyed by fire, 45-49. NOTES ON CHAP. XX Verse 1. In the seventh year] Of the captivity of Jeconiah, (see Ezekiel 8:1,) and the seventh of the reign of Zedekiah. The fifth month, the tenth day] That is, according to Abp. Usher, Monday, August 27, A.M. 3411. Certain of the elders of Israel] What these came to inquire about is not known. They were doubtless hypocrites and deceivers, from the manner in which God commands the prophet to treat them. It seems to have been such a deputation of elders as those mentioned Ezekiel 8:1; Ezekiel 14:1.

1–4. Introductory. Certain elders came to the prophet to enquire of the Lord, in the seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin and tenth day of the fifth month—Aug. 590 b.c., four years before Jerusalem fell.

The elders of Israel - These were as in Ezekiel 14:1, some of Ezekiel’s fellow-exiles, designated in general terms by the name of Israel, though more properly belonging to the kingdom of Judah.

THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL AGAIN INQUIRE IN VAIN OF JEHOVAH, Ezekiel 20:1-4. (Compare Ezekiel 14:1-5.)1. The date given shows that the inquiry from the elders came some four years before Jerusalem fell — August, 590 B.C.