John Calvin Commentary Ezekiel 20:37

"And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant;" — Ezekiel 20:37 (ASV)

He follows up the same kind of instruction: the people were not permitted to perish because they belonged to him, as if he had said that they would always be his, whether they liked it or not. And yet he seems to promise here what was very agreeable: that he would always esteem them as his flock.

This is the meaning of to pass under the rod; for שבט, shebet, does not mean a scepter here, nor a staff by which a delinquent is struck, but it means a shepherd’s crook. It is, then, a simile taken from a shepherd who numbers and marks his flock; and this phrase often recurs.

It means that because God has once acquired the people as his own, he cannot be rightly deprived of them. The exiles, indeed, had imagined themselves free if they could blot out of their minds and memories the name of the true God and pollute themselves with the defilements of the Gentiles.

But God, on the other hand, pronounces that as a shepherd notices his sheep, counts their number, and makes them pass under his staff—like a king reviewing his army—so he would reckon up his people and not allow anyone to snatch them from him, since he claims authority over them all without exception.

Now, therefore, we understand the sense of the words. From this we gather again that abandoned men gain nothing by their obstinacy, except that God truly shows that the dominion which he has once assumed cannot by any means be snatched away from him.

So this passage teaches us the kind of reward that awaits all apostates who think themselves emancipated when they brutally indulge in impiety: because God eventually will make them pass under the rod; that is, he will call and compel them to render an account, as if their profession of faith were like a brand burnt into their hearts.

He says, in the bonds of a covenant, but in a different sense from what Hosea calls a bond of affection (Hosea 11:4). Hosea is there discussing reconciliation; but in this passage, God pronounces that he will no longer be entreated by the Israelites.

Hence, the bond of the covenant here means the constancy of his covenant, as far as he is concerned; and the simile is suitable, because God had bound his people to himself on the condition that they would always be surrounded by these bonds.

Therefore, when they petulantly wandered like untamed beasts, God still had hidden bonds of his covenant; that is, he persevered in his own covenant, so that he gathered them all again to himself—not to rule over them as a father, but to punish their revolt more severely.

Here there is a tacit comparison between the Israelites and the Gentiles. For the Gentiles, since they never drew nearer to God, wandered away in their licentiousness without restraint. But the state of the elect people was different, since the purpose of their covenant was this: God held them bound to him, even if the whole world were to escape from him.