Ezekiel 36:20

20 Wherever they went, they brought disgrace on my holy name, because people would say, "These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave his land.'

Ezekiel 36:20 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 36:20

And when they entered unto the Heathen, whither they went,
&c.] When the Jews went into the Heathen countries, whither they were carried captive, either by the Chaldeans, or by the Romans: they profaned my holy name;
by their irreligion and immorality; by their violation of both tables of the law; by their wicked lives and conversations, whereby they gave the enemy an occasion to reproach them, their religion, and their God, ( Romans 2:24 ) : when they said to them, these are the people of the Lord, and are gone
forth out of his land;
these are the men that boast they are the people of the Lord, whom he has chosen above all people, and see what a wicked people they are; for their sins they are driven out of the land, and become our captives: or though they were the Lord's people, as they pretend, and were under his care and protection; yet he was not able to keep them in their own land, and deliver them out of our hands, but they are carried captive by us; and thus the name of God, his being and perfections, were blasphemed, and his word, worship, and worshippers, were ridiculed by them. The Targum is,

``if these are the people of the Lord, how is it that they are gone out of the land of the house of his majesty?''

Ezekiel 36:20 In-Context

18 I let them feel the force of my anger because of the murders they had committed in the land and because of the idols by which they had defiled it.

19 I condemned them for the way they lived and acted, and I scattered them through foreign countries.

20 Wherever they went, they brought disgrace on my holy name, because people would say, "These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave his land.'

21 That made me concerned for my holy name, since the Israelites brought disgrace on it everywhere they went.

22 "Now then, give the Israelites the message that I, the Sovereign Lord, have for them: What I am going to do is not for the sake of you Israelites, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have disgraced in every country where you have gone.