Bible Strands
Ezekiel 20:25
I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses the exiled house of Israel, recounting their historical rebellion and detailing His judicial response to their persistent idolatry and Sabbath profanation.
The words — חֻקִּים (ḥuqqîm) translates as statutes, while מִשְׁפָּטִים (mišpāṭîm) denotes judgments or ordinances. The text places לֹא (lōʾ) directly before חֻקִּים to describe them as "not good," and applies a separate negative construction to מִשְׁפָּטִים to indicate the people could not live by them.
The thread — This pattern of divine surrender to human stubbornness appears in Psalms 81:12 and Isaiah 66:4, while Ezekiel 20:39 echoes the same judicial tone.
Why it lands — The passage records God actively permitting Israel to follow their chosen path as a consequence of their rejection of His law. It demands recognition that persistent rebellion inevitably produces the very conditions that lead to ruin.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;
Cross-references
- Psalms 81:12 So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
- Isaiah 66:4 So I will choose their punishment and I will bring terror upon them, because I called and no one answered, I spoke and no one listened. But they did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”
- Ezekiel 20:39 And as for you, O house of Israel, this is what the Lord GOD says: Go and serve your idols, every one of you. But afterward, you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.
- Deuteronomy 4:27 Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
- Deuteronomy 28:36 The LORD will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.
- Ezekiel 14:9 But if the prophet is enticed to speak a message, then it was I the LORD who enticed him, and I will stretch out My hand against him and destroy him from among My people Israel.
- Ezekiel 20:26 And I pronounced them unclean through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn in the fire—so that I might devastate them, in order that they would know that I am the LORD.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:9 The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder,
- Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.