Ezekiel 20:17

17 But my eye took pity on them by not destroying them, and {I did not completely destroy them} in the desert.

Ezekiel 20:17 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 20:17

Nevertheless, mine eye spared them from destroying them
Utterly, so as to leave neither root nor branch; for though the whole generation died excepting two, either by the immediate hand of God in wrath, or else by ordinary deaths; yet there was a generation raised up in their stead, to whom mercy was shown: neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness;
that they should be no more a nation and people; though the carcasses of them that believed not fell in the wilderness, and never saw the good land, yet their posterity was spared to see it, and did.

Ezekiel 20:17 In-Context

15 And also {I myself swore} to them in the desert not to bring them into the land that I had given [to them], flowing with milk and honey--it [is the most] beautiful of all of the lands--

16 because they despised my judgments, and {they did not walk in my statutes}, and my Sabbaths they profaned, for their heart was going after their idols.

17 But my eye took pity on them by not destroying them, and {I did not completely destroy them} in the desert.

18 "And I said to their children in the desert, 'You must not go in the statutes of your parents; you must not keep their regulations, and you must not make yourself unclean with their idols.

19 I, Yahweh, [am] your God, [so] go in my statutes and keep my regulations and do them.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "and not I make them complete destruction"