Ezekiel 20:26

26 I abandoned them. Filthy in the gutter, they perversely sacrificed their firstborn children in the fire. The very horror should have shocked them into recognizing that I am God.'

Ezekiel 20:26 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 20:26

And one polluted them in their own gifts
Suffered them to defile themselves; or declared them to be, and treated them as polluted persons, in the gifts and sacrifices which they offered to idols, particularly their firstborn: as the next clause explains it: in that they caused to pass though [the fire] all that openeth the
womb;
this very likely they did, when they sacrificed to Baalpeor, the same with Molech, ( Numbers 25:3 ) ; that I might make them desolate;
their families, by stripping them of their children, their firstborn, and strength: to the end that they might know that I [am] the Lord;
a righteous God, in punishing men for sin, in a way it deserves. Some interpret this, not of causing the firstborn to pass through fire to an idol; but of causing them to pass, or of setting them apart, to the Lord, according to the law in ( Exodus 13:12 ) ; where the same word is used as here; and the sense is that God declared them to be impure in or with all their gifts, by commanding them to cause their firstborn to pass to him, which they were obliged to redeem; which sense is approved of by Gussetius F12; and so Abendana, taking the words to refer to both, gives this sense of them,

``I pronounced them impure, and removed them far from me, instead of sanctifying them; because they caused everyone that opens the womb to pass from me, whom I commanded to give to me for holiness, but they have given them to idolatry;''
rather, according to Braunius F13, the words may be understood of God's rejecting and causing the firstborn to pass from him, and not suffering them to offer gifts and sacrifices unto him; which may be meant by pronouncing them impure, or polluting them in their gifts; this was after the worship of the golden calf; when he took Aaron and his sons in their room.
FOOTNOTES:

F12 Ebr. Comment. p. 576, 939.
F13 Selecta Sacra, l. 4. c. 11. p. 522.

Ezekiel 20:26 In-Context

24 because they didn't keep my laws nor live by my statutes. They desecrated my Sabbaths and remained addicted to the no-god idols of their parents.
25 Since they were determined to live bad lives, I myself gave them statutes that could not produce goodness and laws that did not produce life.
26 I abandoned them. Filthy in the gutter, they perversely sacrificed their firstborn children in the fire. The very horror should have shocked them into recognizing that I am God.'
27 "Therefore, speak to Israel, son of man. Tell them that God says, 'As if that wasn't enough, your parents further insulted me by betraying me.
28 When I brought them into that land that I had solemnly promised with my upraised hand to give them, every time they saw a hill with a sex-and-religion shrine on it or a grove of trees where the sacred whores practiced, they were there, buying into the whole pagan system.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.