Ezekiel 5:7

7 For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;

Ezekiel 5:7 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 5:7

Therefore thus saith the Lord God
Having observed their sins, and which are still enlarged upon, the Lord proceeds to denounce his judgments against them: because ye multiplied more than the nations that [are] round about you;
not in numbers, nor in wealth and riches, or in blessings and privileges, and therefore grew wanton and forgetful; though this was true: but in sins and wickedness, which abounded among them, and in which they exceeded the nations round about them; and so the Targum paraphrases it,

``because that ye have sinned more than the people that are round about you:''

[and] have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments;
which as repeated to show the certainty of fact, and how much the Lord resented it: neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that [are]
round about you.
The Syriac version leaves out the negative particle and renders the words thus, "but ye have done the judgments of the nations which are round about you"; and it may be observed, that it is omitted in parallel text, ( Ezekiel 11:12 ) ; and this is what the Jews are often reproved for, that they followed the laws and customs of the Gentiles, and worshipped their gods; and the opposition to the preceding clause seems to require this sense; but the retaining the negative particle is confirmed by the Targum, Masora, and the Septuagint and Arabic versions; and also by the Talmud ^F20, which reconciles the passage with the parallel text before mentioned, thus,

``according to those things which are right among them (the Gentiles) ye have not done; [but] according to what are corrupt among them ye have done;''

and the meaning is, either that they did not walk according to the law and light of nature, which the Gentiles had, and attended to, ( Romans 2:14 Romans 2:15 ) ; or that they did not follow them in their conduct and behaviour; they were not so zealous for the true God as the Heathens were for their idols; they were not so tenacious of the laws and worship the true God of Israel as the Gentiles were of their superstitious rites and ceremonies; the Gentiles did not change their gods, and manner of worship, but retained what, they received from their ancestors time immemorial; but the Jews changed their glory for that which did not profit, ( Jeremiah 2:11 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 39, 9.

Ezekiel 5:7 In-Context

5 This is what the Lord has said: This is Jerusalem: I have put her among the nations, and countries are round her on every side;

6 And she has gone against my orders by doing evil more than the nations, and against my rules more than the countries round her: for they have given up my orders, and as for my rules, they have not gone in the way of them.

7 For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;

8 For this cause the Lord has said: See, I, even I, am against you; and I will be judging among you before the eyes of the nations.

9 And I will do in you what I have not done and will not do again, because of all your disgusting ways.