Ezekiel 18:31
Read Ezekiel 18:31 Using Other Translations
What does Ezekiel 18:31 mean?
Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye
have
transgressed
As unprofitable and pernicious, to be abhorred and abstained
from, and to be cast off, as loads and burdens upon them. Kimchi
interprets it of the punishment of their sins, which might be
cast off, or escaped, by repentance; perhaps it is best to
interpret it of the casting away of their idols, by which they
transgressed; see ( Ezekiel 20:7
Ezekiel
20:8 ) ; and make you a new heart and a new
spirit;
which the Lord elsewhere promises to give, and he does give to
his own elect; (See Gill on Ezekiel
11:19); and if here to be understood of a regenerated
heart and spirit, in which are new principles of light, life, and
love, grace and holiness, it will not prove that it is in the
power of man to make himself such a heart and spirit; since from
God's command, to man's power, is no argument; and the design of
the exhortation is to convince men of their want of such a heart;
of the importance of it: and which, through the efficacious grace
of God, may be a means of his people having it, seeing he has in
covenant promised it to them. The Targum renders it,
``a fearing heart, and a spirit of fear;''that is, a heart and spirit to fear, serve, and worship the Lord, and not idols; and so the amount of the exhortation is, yield a hearty reverential obedience to the living God, and not to dumb idols; or that they would be hearty and sincere in their national repentance and reformation they are here pressed unto: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
which is to be understood, not of an eternal death; since the deaths here spoken of was now upon them, what they were complaining of, and from which they might be recovered, ( Ezekiel 18:2 Ezekiel 18:23 ) ; but temporal calamity and affliction, as in ( 2 Corinthians 1:10 ) ( 11:23 ) ; and so in the following words.
