SUBJECT:  Ezekiel 20:25

QUESTION:  Can you explain this verse?  It talks about “statutes that were not good”; what are those statutes?

ANSWER:

First the verse:

Ezekiel 20:23-26

23 I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries;

24 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.

25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;

26 And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.

Notice the commentary:

Ezekiel 20:10-26

Verse 25. The "judgments whereby they should not live" are those spoken of in Ezekiel 20:18, and are contrasted with the judgments in Ezekiel 20:13,21, laws other than divine, to which God gives up those whom He afflicts with judicial blindness, because they have willfully closed their eyes, (Psalm 81:12; Romans 1:24). ~from Barnes' Notes

Note:  Here is what is going on in these scriptures:  The children of Israel had been given the Law but they refused to keep it.  They wanted to worship idols and the statues of men.  These are the statues that are not good.  Notice all the scriptures mentioned in the above commentary:

Ezekiel 20:18

But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:

Ezekiel 20:13

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.

Ezekiel 20:21

Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.

Psalm 81:12

So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels.

Romans 1:24

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

Clearly we cannot live by the ideas, laws and statutes of man.