Idolatry

Ezekiel 20 is a favorite chapter of mine. It's pretty depressing, to be honest, but it's one of those places where God Himself makes a commentary on the scriptures. I try to make note of those passages; it seems to me that God's commentary on scripture is probably the most helpful thing there is.

Ezekiel 20:1–8 opens with the claim that the children of Israel were worshiping idols in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:7–8). In fact, God says there that He commanded them to throw away their Egyptian idols, and they refused. He goes on to say (Ezekiel 20:15–16) that they were worshiping "their idols" in the wilderness. In context, that would seem to indicate the same idols they had been worshiping in Egypt.

Then in Ezekiel 20:27ff makes the claim that idolatry characterized their time in Canaan.

When I read the history of Joshua through 2 Chronicles, I tend to see it as a pattern of idolatry, judgment, repentance, restoration, then the cycle repeats. That's probably most evident in Judges, but it seems to hold for the entire history from Joshua to the Babylonian Captivity.  But Ezekiel 20 gives a different view of that history: it's one long story of uninterrupted idolatry. From the fathers worshiping idols in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:7) to the elders of Israel worshiping idols in Babylon (Ezekiel 20:1–3), there is an unbroken history of idolatry.

As an aside: when Joshua gathers the people to Shechem (Joshua 24:1ff), he calls on the people to "put away the gods" their fathers served "beyond the River" and in Egypt (Joshua 24:14). We like to quote Joshua 24:15 ("choose ye this day whom you will serve") as a gospel verse, but in context, Joshua is telling them they should choose whether they want to serve the Canaanite gods or the Chaldean gods, since they weren't apparently interested in serving the Lord. 

And of course this is what happens at Shechem. Jacob confiscated his family's idols and buried them under the oak near Shechem (Genesis 35:1–4) . They buried Joseph's bones in Shechem too (Joshua 24:32), which is suggestive. I suspect this is where Christ met the woman at the well (John 4:1–5).

But the point of Ezekiel 20 is that – at least from God's point of view – idolatry isn't a sin into which Israel fell repeatedly in the Old Testament. Rather, it's the sin that never really stopped the entire time. This is how God sees the history from Joshua through Ezekiel.

We should be thankful that God loves idolaters. It's striking to me that Scripture mentions Asenath by name three times (Genesis 41:45, 50; Genesis 46:20) and in every case, it tells us that she is the daughter of the priest of On. There's a message in that: when God chooses a wife for His man, He chooses her from idolaters.  Ezekiel 20:17 makes the same point right in the middle of the litany of their sins: God took pity on those idolaters He redeemed from Egypt.

I suppose that ties back into John 4 as well: the Lord Jesus went through Samaria to meet a wicked woman and tell her about His gift to her. And not only that woman, but "many people" in her city believed in Him (John 4:39–45). In fact, they asked Him to stay with them and He did (John 4:40). I can't find many places in the Gospels where people ask the Lord to stay with them, and I can't find a single one where He doesn't accept the invitation.

Of course you and I have a lot in common with those idolaters He redeemed from Egypt. We, like them, tend to hang pretty tightly to our idols. And He still has compassion on us, just like He did on them. We're a lot more like Asenath than we are like Joseph: but praise God! He loves to take pity on idolaters.