because they had not complied with My ordinances, but had rejected My statutes and had profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were on the idols of their fathers.
Parallel translations
- WEB because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.
- KJV Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.
- BSB For they did not practice My ordinances, but they rejected My statutes and profaned My Sabbaths, fixing their eyes on the idols of their fathers.
- NKJV because they had not executed My judgments, but had despised My statutes, profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on their fathers’ idols.
- NLT because they did not obey my regulations. They scorned my decrees by violating my Sabbath days and longing for the idols of their ancestors.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The reason for scattering was their rejection of God's ordinances and Sabbaths and their devotion to their fathers' idols. Their idolatry sealed the sentence of exile.
Overview
God again names the heart of the problem: eyes and affections fixed on idols rather than on Him. The repetition drives home that exile was the righteous fruit of covenant-breaking, not divine caprice. It is a sobering reminder that idolatry, the love of anything above God, brings ruin and must be forsaken.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ezek 20:16because they rejected my ordinances, and didn’t walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.
- Ezek 6:9Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
- Amos 2:4Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have rejected Yahweh’s law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked;
- Ezek 20:13“‘“But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They didn’t walk in my statutes, and they rejected my ordinances, which if a man keeps, he shall live in them. They greatly profaned my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them in the wilderness, to consume them.
- Ezek 18:12has wronged the poor and needy, has taken by robbery, has not restored the pledge, and has lifted up his eyes to the idols, has committed abomination,
- Deut 4:19and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
- Ezek 18:15who has not eaten on the mountains, neither has lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, has not defiled his neighbor’s wife,
- Job 31:26–27if I have seen the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in splendor,
- Ezek 18:6and has not eaten on the mountains, neither has lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither has defiled his neighbor’s wife, neither has come near to a woman in her impurity,
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 20:24 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.