Ezekiel 20:39

39 "As for you, house of Isra'el, here is what Adonai ELOHIM says: 'Go on serving your idols, every one of you! But afterwards, [I swear that] you will listen to me, and you will no longer profane my holy name with your gifts and with your idols.

Ezekiel 20:39 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 20:39

As for you, O house of Israel
The then present house of Israel, and the elders of it, who were upon the spot with the prophet: go ye, serve ye everyone his idols;
or dunghill gods; since they liked not to serve the true God: this is not giving them leave to serve idols, or approving their idolatrous practices; but is said "ironically", as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, who compare it with ( Ecclesiastes 11:9 ) : and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me;
not only serve them now, but for the future; seeing ye choose not to hearken to my voice, to obey my laws, and to worship me, and me only; for it suggests, that it was better to attend to the service of the one, or of the other, and not halt between two opinions; but either, if the God of Israel was the true God, then serve him, and him only; but if Baal, or any other Heathen deity, was so, then serve them, and keep serving them: but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts and with your
idols;
to worship him along with them, and them along with him; to pretend they worshipped him in them, and offered their gifts and sacrifices to him through them; and so made use of his name as a cover to their idolatrous practices: this was a polluting his name, and was abominable to him.

Ezekiel 20:39 In-Context

37 'I will make you pass under the crook and bring you into the obligations of the covenant.

38 I will rid you of the rebels who are in revolt against me - I will bring them out from the land where they are living, but they will not enter the land of Isra'el; then you will know that I am ADONAI.'

39 "As for you, house of Isra'el, here is what Adonai ELOHIM says: 'Go on serving your idols, every one of you! But afterwards, [I swear that] you will listen to me, and you will no longer profane my holy name with your gifts and with your idols.

40 For on my holy mountain, the high mountain of Isra'el,' says Adonai ELOHIM, 'the whole house of Isra'el, all of them, will serve me in the land. I will accept them there, and there I will require your contributions, your best gifts and all your consecrated things.

41 I will accept you with your sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you were scattered; and through you I will manifest my holiness in the sight of the nations.