Ezekiel 11:17

Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) I will give you the land of Israel.—Again in contrast to the people of Jerusalem, who claimed the land as their own exclusive possession. They shall be cast out; the exiles whom they despised shall be gathered again and possess the land. (Comp. Numbers 14:3; Numbers 14:31-32, where when the people refused the Divine command to take possession of the land, and feared that their little ones should be a prey, the doom came that they should all themselves perish in the wilderness, but their little ones should inherit the land.)

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 11:17-20. I will even gather you from the people — This might be, in some degree, fulfilled in those that returned from captivity, but the perfect completion of this promise must be referred to the time of the expected general restoration of the Jewish nation. And they shall come thither — They who assemble upon Cyrus’s proclamation first, and they who afterward assemble upon Darius’s, shall overcome all difficulties, perform their journey, and come safely to their own land. And they shall take away all the detestable things thereof — Shall abolish superstition and idolatry from the temple, the city, and the country, and shall live pure from all the pollutions with which the land had been formerly defiled. But this promise also ultimately respects the future conversion of the Jews, as do those contained in the next two verses. And I will give them one heart — A heart entire for me, the living and true God, and not divided, as their hearts were formerly, among many gods; a heart firmly fixed and resolved for my worship and service, and not wavering; steady and uniform, and not inconstant, and inconsistent with itself. And hence they shall serve me with one consent, Zephaniah 3:9. And I will put a new spirit within them — A disposition of mind agreeable to the new circumstances into which, in the course of my providence, I will bring them. Observe, reader, all that are regenerated have a new spirit: a spirit entirely changed from what it was before: they act from new principles, walk by new rules, and aim at new ends. A new name, a new profession, new opinions, or new modes of worship will not serve without a new spirit. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: see the margin. And I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh — Out of their corrupt nature. Their hearts shall no longer be dead and dry, hard and unfeeling, but tender and apt to receive good impressions, and deeply sensible of, and affected with, things spiritual and divine. These are the same evangelical promises as we read in the other prophets, particularly Jeremiah 32:39. “The insensibility of men, with regard to religious matters, is often ascribed to the hardness of their hearts. God promises here to give them teachable dispositions, and to take away the veil from their hearts, as St. Paul expresses it, 2 Corinthians 3:16; the same temper being indifferently expressed either by blindness or hardness of heart.” — Lowth. That they may walk in my statutes — In their whole conversation; and keep my ordinances — In all acts of religious worship. These two particulars must go together, and not be separated; and those to whom God has given a new heart, and a new spirit, will make conscience of both, and then the following promise shall be fulfilled, They shall be my people, and I will be their God: the ancient covenant, which seemed to have been broken and forgotten, shall be renewed. By their idolatry and other sins, they appeared to have cast God off; and by their being sent into captivity, and divers other punishments, God seemed to have cast them off; but when they are cured of their idolatry and various vices, and delivered from their captivity and other calamities, God and Israel own one another again: God, by his good work in them, makes them his people; and then, by the tokens of his good-will toward them, shows them that he is their God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:14-21 The pious captives in Babylon were insulted by the Jews who continued in Jerusalem; but God made gracious promises to them. It is promised, that God will give them one heart; a heart firmly fixed for God, and not wavering. All who are made holy have a new spirit, a new temper and dispositions; they act from new principles, walk by new rules, and aim at new ends. A new name, or a new face, will not serve without a new spirit. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. The carnal heart, like a stone, cannot be made to feel. Men live among the dead and dying, and are neither concerned nor humbled. He will make their hearts tender and fit to receive impressions: this is God's work, it is his gift by promise; and a wonderful and happy change is wrought by it, from death to life. Their practices shall be agreeable to those principles. These two must and will go together. When the sinner feels his need of these blessings, let him present the promises as prayers in the name of Christ, they will be performed.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

As a little sanctuary - Rather, I will be to them for a little while a sanctuary. The blessing was provisional, they were to look forward to a blessing more complete. For a little while they were to be satisfied with God's special presence in a foreign land, but they were to look forward to a renewal of His presence in the restored temple of Jerusalem. "sanctuary" means here strictly the holy place, the tabernacle of the Most High: Yahweh will Himself be to the exiles in the place of the local sanctuary, in which the Jews of Jerusalem so much prided themselves (compare the margin reference). Here is the germ from which is developed Ezekiel 40-48, the picture of the kingdom of God in its new form.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. (Eze 28:25; 34:13; 36:24).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Say; add to the former apology this promise.

The Lord God; the faithful and eternal God, the supreme and sovereign Lord.

I will gather; by my advice and hand they were scattered, and by my hand they shall be gathered.

Assemble you; and to confirm them, it is added in different words, and the promise is repeated, and thus it was punctually performed, Ezra 1:1-4, with Ezekiel 8:15.

I will give you the land of Israel; though your brethren do say you are not to dwell at Jerusalem, nor inherit the land, yet my purpose is otherwise, and I do promise you, that you who followed my counsel, and now are in Babylon, you, or your seed, shall return and inherit Canaan. All this was so worded, that some have thought it no groundless inquiry whether any of those that went with Zedekiah into captivity, or only such as went with Jeconiah, did return out of captivity; and though it is most probable some did, yet of the returners the far greater part were of those that with Jeconiah were gone into captivity.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will even gather you from the people,.... The Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, where they had been carried captive:

and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered; that is, out of Chaldea and Media, out of which they should come in a body, and not singly, or in small numbers, as they did when Cyrus issued out his proclamation:

and I will give you the land of Israel; not only the Jews of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, but many of the ten tribes came out of Babylon with Zerubbabel, and settled in the land of Israel; and hither they came also in later times, even those that settled in other countries; at their several festivals, and about such time more especially that the Messiah was expected, and continued there; and this will have a fuller completion at the restoration of the Jews in the latter days.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17–20. But this time of privation for the exiles shall come to an end. They shall be gathered out of the countries, and the land of Israel given to them; from which they shall remove all its abominations. They shall receive a new heart to walk in the Lord’s commandments; and he shall be their God and they his people.

give you the land of Israel] Those left in the country said: The land is given unto us. They shall be cast out and the land again given to those now in exile. The flower of the nation had been carried away in the captivity of Jehoiachin. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel regard the exiles as the hope of the nation and speak bitterly against the population remaining at home; comp. the former’s parable of the very naughty figs (ch. 24), and the latter’s scornful questions, ch. Ezekiel 33:24-26. Cp. ch. Ezekiel 28:25, Ezekiel 34:13, Ezekiel 36:24.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 17. - I will give you the land of Israel. The marginal references in the Authorized Version show how entirely Ezekiel was following in the footsteps of his master Jeremiah, as he had done in those of Isaiah, in their prophecies of restoration. Here also the law of" springing and germinant accomplishments" finds its application. Ezekiel (Ezekiel 47:13-48:35) has his ideal of a new geographical Israel, as of a new local temple, a land from which idolatrous shrines and high places have disappeared. St. Paul (Romans 9-11.) clings to the thought of a restoration of the literal Israel, even while he strips it of Ezekiel's geographical limitations. Ezekiel 11:17

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Promise of the Gathering of Israel out of the Nations

Ezekiel 11:14. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 11:15. Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren are the people of thy proxy, and the whole house of Israel, the whole of it, to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem say, Remain far away from Jehovah; to us the land is given for a possession. Ezekiel 11:16. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Ye, I have sent them far away, and have scattered them in the lands, but I have become to them a sanctuary for a little while in the lands whither they have come. Ezekiel 11:17. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I will gather you from the nations, and will collect you together from the lands in which ye are scattered, and will give you the land of Israel. Ezekiel 11:18. And they will come thither, and remove from it all its detestable things, and all its abominations. Ezekiel 11:19. And I will give them one heart, and give a new spirit within you; and will take the heart of stone out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh; Ezekiel 11:20. That they may walk in my statutes, and preserve my rights, and do them: and they will be my people, and I will be their God. Ezekiel 11:21. But those whose heart goeth to the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will give their way upon their head, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - The prophet had interceded, first of all for the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 9:8), and then for the rulers of the nation, and had asked God whether He would entirely destroy the remnant of Israel. To this God replies that his brethren, in whom he is to interest himself, are not these inhabitants of Jerusalem and these rulers of the nation, but the Israelites carried into exile, who are regarded by these inhabitants at Jerusalem as cut off from the people of God. The nouns in Ezekiel 11:15 are not "accusatives, which are resumed in the suffix to הרחקתּים in Ezekiel 11:16," as Hitzig imagines, but form an independent clause, in which אחיך is the subject, and אנשׁי גאלּתך as well as כּל־בּית ישׂראל sa llew sa the predicates. The repetition of "thy brethren" serves to increase the force of the expression: thy true, real brethren; not in contrast to the priests, who were lineal relations (Hvernick), but in contrast to the Israelites, who had only the name of Israel, and denied its nature.

These brethren are to be the people of his proxy; and toward these he is to exercise גּאלּה. גּאלּה is the business, or the duty and right, of the Gol. According to the law, the Gol was the brother, or the nearest relation, whose duty it was to come to the help of his impoverished brother, not only by redeeming (buying back) his possession, which poverty had compelled him to sell, but to redeem the man himself, if he had been sold to pay his debts (vid., Leviticus 25:25, Leviticus 25:48). The Gol therefore became the possessor of the property of which his brother had been unjustly deprived, if it were not restored till after his death (Numbers 5:8). Consequently he was not only the avenger of blood, but the natural supporter and agent of his brother; and גּאלּה signifies not merely redemption or kindred, but proxy, i.e., both the right and obligation to act as the legal representative, the avenger of blood, the hair, etc., of the brother. The words "and the whole of the house of Israel" are a second predicate to "thy brethren," and affirm that the brethren, for whom Ezekiel can and is to intercede, form the whole of the house of Israel, the term "whole" being rendered more emphatic by the repetition of כּל in כּלּה. A contrast is drawn between this "whole house of Israel" and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who say to those brethren, "Remain far away from Jehovah, to us is the land given for a possession." It follows from this, first of all, that the brethren of Ezekiel, towards whom he was to act as Gol, were those who had been taken away from the land, his companions in exile; and, secondly, that the exiles formed the whole of the house of Israel, that is to say, that they alone would be regarded by God as His people, and not the inhabitants of Jerusalem or those left in the land, who regarded the exiles as no longer a portion of the nation: simply because, in their estrangement from God, they looked upon the mere possession of Jerusalem as a pledge of participation in the grace of God. This shows the prophet where the remnant of the people of God is to be found. To this there is appended in Ezekiel 11:16. a promise of the way in which the Lord will make this remnant His true people. לכן, therefore, viz., because the inhabitants of Jerusalem regard the exiles as rejected by the Lord, Ezekiel is to declare to them that Jehovah is their sanctuary even in their dispersion (v. 16); and because the others deny that they have any share in the possession of the land, the Lord will gather them together again, and give them the land of Israel (Ezekiel 11:17). The two לכן are co-ordinate, and introduce the antithesis to the disparaging sentence pronounced by the inhabitants of Jerusalem upon those who have been carried into exile. The כּי before the two leading clauses in Ezekiel 11:16 does not mean "because," serving to introduce a protasis, to which Ezekiel 11:17 would form the apodosis, as Ewald affirms; but it stands before the direct address in the sense of an assurance, which indicates that there is some truth at the bottom of the judgment pronounced by their opponents, the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The thought is this: the present position of affairs is unquestionably that Jehovah has scattered them (the house of Israel) among the Gentiles; but He has not therefore cast them off. He has become a sanctuary to them in the lands of their dispersion. Migdâsh does not mean either asylum or an object kept sacred (Hitzig), but a sanctuary, more especially the temple. They had, indeed, lost the outward temple (at Jerusalem); but the Lord Himself had become their temple. What made the temple into a sanctuary was the presence of Jehovah, the covenant God, therein. This even the exiles were to enjoy in their banishment, and in this they would possess a substitute for the outward temple. This thought is rendered still more precise by the word מעט, which may refer either to time or measure, and signify "for a short time," or "in some measure." It is difficult to decide between these two renderings. In support of the latter, which Kliefoth prefers (after the lxx and Vulgate), it may be argued that the manifestation of the Lord, both by the mission of prophets and by the outward deliverances and inward consolations which He bestowed upon the faithful, was but a partial substitute to the exile for His gracious presence in the temple and in the holy land. Nevertheless, the context, especially the promise in Ezekiel 11:17, that He will gather them again and lead them back into the land of Israel, appears to favour the former signification, namely, that this substitution was only a provisional one, and was only to last for a short time, although it also implies that this could not and was not meant to be a perfect substitute for the gracious presence of the Lord. For Israel, as the people of God, could not remain scattered abroad; it must possess the inheritance bestowed upon it by the Lord, and have its God in the midst of it in its own land, and that in a manner more real than could possibly be the case in captivity among the Gentiles. This will be fully realized in the heavenly Jerusalem, where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb will be a temple to the redeemed (Revelation 21:22). Therefore will Jehovah gather together the dispersed once more, and lead them back into the land of Israel, i.e., into the land which He designed for Israel; whereas the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who boast of their possession of Canaan (Ezekiel 11:15), will lose what they now possess. Those who are restored will then remove all idolatrous abominations (Ezekiel 11:17), and receive from God a new and feeling heart (Ezekiel 11:19), so that they will walk in the ways of God, and be in truth the people of God (Ezekiel 11:20).

The fulfilment of this promise did, indeed, begin with the return of a portion of the exiles under Zerubbabel; but it was not completed under either Zerubbabel or Ezra, or even in the Maccabean times. Although Israel may have entirely relinquished the practice of gross idolatry after the captivity, it did not then attain to that newness of heart which is predicted in Ezekiel 11:19, Ezekiel 11:20. This only commenced with the Baptist's preaching of repentance, and with the coming of Christ; and it was realized in the children of Israel, who accepted Jesus in faith, and suffered Him to make them children of God. Yet even by Christ this prophecy has not yet been perfectly fulfilled in Israel, but only in part, since the greater portion of Israel has still in its hardness that stony heart which must be removed out of its flesh before it can attain to salvation. The promise in Ezekiel 11:19 has for its basis the prediction in Deuteronomy 30:6. "What the circumcision of the heart is there, viz., the removal of all uncleanliness, of which outward circumcision was both the type and pledge, is represented here as the giving of a heart of flesh instead of one of stone" (Hengstenberg). I give them one heart. לב אחד, which Hitzig is wrong in proposing to alter into לב , another heart, after the lxx, is supported and explained by Jeremiah 32:39, "I give them one heart and one way to fear me continually" (cf. Zephaniah 3:9 and Acts 4:32). One heart is not an upright, undivided heart (לב ), but a harmonious, united heart, in contrast to the division or plurality of hearts which prevails in the natural state, in which every one follows his own heart and his own mind, turning "every one to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). God gives one heart, when He causes all hearts and minds to become one. This can only be effected by His giving a "new spirit," taking away the stone-heart, and giving a heart of flesh instead. For the old spirit fosters nothing but egotism and discord. The heart of stone has no susceptibility to the impressions of the word of God and the drawing of divine grace. In the natural condition, the heart of man is as hard as stone. "The word of God, the external leadings of God, pass by and leave no trace behind. The latter may crush it, and yet not break it. Even the fragments continue hard; yea, the hardness goes on increasing" (Hengstenberg). The heart of flesh is a tender heart, susceptible to the drawing of divine grace (compare Ezekiel 36:26, where these figures, which are peculiar to Ezekiel, recur; and for the substance of the prophecy, Jeremiah 31:33). The fruit of this renewal of heart is walking in the commandments of the Lord; and the consequence of the latter is the perfect realization of the covenant relation, true fellowship with the Lord God. But judgment goes side by side with this renewal. Those who will not forsake their idols become victims to the judgment (Ezekiel 11:21). The first hemistich of Ezekiel 11:21 is a relative clause, in which אשׁר is to be supplied and connected with לבּם: "Whose heart walketh after the heart of their abominations." The heart, which is attributed to the abominations and detestations, i.e., to the idols, is the inclination to idolatry, the disposition and spirit which manifest themselves in the worship of idols. Walking after the heart of the idols forms the antithesis to walking after the heart of God (1 Samuel 13:14). For 'דּרכּם וגו, "I will give their way," see Ezekiel 9:10.