Ezekiel 20:17

17 Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or bring them to an end in the wilderness.

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 Moreover, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands—

16 because they kept rejecting My ordinances, refusing to walk in My statutes, and profaning My Sabbaths; for their hearts continually went after their idols.

17 Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or bring them to an end in the wilderness.

18 In the wilderness I said to their children: ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers or keep their ordinances or defile yourselves with their idols.

19 I am the LORD your God; walk in My statutes, keep My ordinances, and practice them.