John Calvin Commentary Ezekiel 20:26

"and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through [the fire] all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Jehovah." — Ezekiel 20:26 (ASV)

There is no doubt that God here continues the same doctrine. From this, we gather that injurious laws were given to the people when they adopted various errors and worshipped idols of their own fabrication instead of God. Therefore, it is added, I polluted them in their gifts.

This, then, was added by the Prophet, lest the Jews should object that they had not altogether rejected the worship of God, for they mingled the ceremonies of the laws with the fictions of the Gentiles, as we saw before, and the Prophet will shortly repeat. In this way, they thought they discharged their duty to God, though they added mixtures of their own.

Here the Prophet meets them and cuts off all occasion for turning aside, since they were polluted in their gifts, and nothing was pure or sincere when they thus corrupted God’s precepts by their comments. However, they daily offered their gifts and professed to present them to the true God, yet they obtained no advantage because God abominated mixtures of this kind, as we have previously said. For he cannot bear to be worshipped according to human will but wishes his children to be simply content with his commands.

Now we perceive the meaning of the Prophet: God pollutes them in their gifts. That is, he renders their gifts polluting whenever they think that they discharge their duty. But how? He says, when they cause whatever opens the womb to pass through.

Here the Prophet touches on only one kind of superstition, but by a figure of speech, he means all kinds by which the Jews vitiated God’s pure worship. For this superstition was very detestable: to pass their sons through the fire and to consecrate them to idols.

But in this passage, God speaks only of the first-born, thereby greatly exaggerating the crime. That ceremony was indeed general. But since God claimed the first-born as his own, wished them to be redeemed at a fixed price (Exodus 13:2, Exodus 22:29, and Exodus 34:19-20), and by this act wished the remembrance of their redemption to be preserved (for all the first-born of Israel, as well as of animals, had escaped, while those of the Egyptians perished (Numbers 3:13 and Numbers 8:16)), was it not monstrous to pass through the fire and to offer to idols those who were specially devoted and sacred to God?

We see, then, that the Prophet does not speak in vain of the first-born.

That I should destroy you, he says, and they should know that I am Jehovah. God here shows that he had proceeded gradually to the final vengeance. For this reason, the people were the more convicted of stupidity, since they never perceived God’s manifest judgments.

If God had suddenly and impetuously issued his vengeance from heaven, people’s astonishment would not have been surprising. But when he grants them space and a truce so that they may weigh the matter at leisure, and admonishes them to repentance not once only, but often, and then if they remain always the same and are not affected, they show themselves utterly desperate by this slothfulness, as the Prophet now asserts.

But when he adds, that they may know that I am Jehovah, he means that as he was not acknowledged as a Father by the Jews, he would be their judge and compel them, willing or unwilling, to feel the formidable nature of that power which they despised.

Since we have treated this subject fully before, we now pass over it more lightly. Yet we must notice this: God is recognized by the reprobate, because when his fatherly goodness has been despised by them for a long time, he finally appears as a judge, draws them against their will to his tribunal, and executes his vengeance, so that they cannot escape.