Ezekiel 20:17

17 "Yet My eye spared them rather than destroying them, and I did not cause their ¹annihilation 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 "Also I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands,

16 because they rejected My ordinances, and as for My statutes, they did not walk in them; they even profaned My sabbaths, for their heart continually went after their idols.

17 "Yet My eye spared them rather than destroying them, and I did not cause their annihilation in the wilderness.

18 "I said to their children in the wilderness, '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 and keep My ordinances and observe them.

Cross References

• 1. Jeremiah 4:27; Jeremiah 5:18; Ezekiel 11:13