What the Laws and Rulings of Ezekiel 20:25 Mean

Ezekiel 20:25 is quite the notorious verse that can be seen as contradictory, confusing, or as a smoking gun that God doesn't like his own law, and that the commandments are now done away with. But what is the real meaning of this Old Testament verse? Let's examine this Scripture to see for ourselves that this is not talking about Biblical law or the commandments.

Let's take a look at what it says in the common NIV version:

"I gave them other statutes that were not good, and laws through which they could not live." -Ezekiel 20:25

This is an easy verse to pull out to say that the law is not good. Pastors and Bible commentary alike will use this verse as some sort of once and for all statement that Biblical law was not a good thing (God himself is talking in this passage!), and that, therefore, we are now free from the commandments.

But shouldn't this interpretation give us pause? God is talking here and he says that he gave us something that wasn't good? Does that mess with our "God is good, all the time" theology? Doesn't it sound like God is just being mean here? Didn't Jesus have a parable about not giving bad gifts? Why would YHWH give his people something that was not good?

If we look at other versions of this verse. We will see slightly different wording, that makes a significant difference.

"I gave them up to statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could not live." -Ezekiel 20:25 NKJV

I gave them up to, reads very differently from I gave them. This is not talking about laws or statutes from the Living God, but something else entirely. If we back up and take a look at the context we will have a better idea of what is meant by this statement.

The bulk of Ezekiel 20 is YHWH himself speaking. Early on in this passage (in verse 5), he brings up Israel in Egypt. He goes on to say (verse 7) that when he brought the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery, he told them to throw away all idols and abominations. "But they rebelled against me and would not obey me." Up until verse 25, the whole chapter is about Israel rejecting God's laws in order to serve idols. In Ezekiel 20:24 it says, "They had not done my right rulings, they rejected my laws, and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were on their fathers' idols."

Because of this context, we can see that the laws and rulings referred to in verse 25 don't mean Biblical law or the Levitical priesthood laws. If we read verse 25 as a stand alone verse, you could make the argument that laws of men - whether religious or governmental - fit the bill, but that's not the point either. The laws and rulings were about the power of idols and the corrupted nature of human flesh. These were what God gave his people up to. This passage is absolutely not saying that Biblical law was bad or that it took away life. It's saying that the paths of idolatry and serving our own flesh cannot lead to life.

We know for sure Ezekiel 20:25 isn't talking about Biblical law and the commandments because of verse 11.

"I gave them my laws and showed them my right rulings, which if a man does, he shall live by them." -Ezekiel 20:11

YHWH said that if a man does his laws, he shall live by them. This is the opposite of verse 25's laws, by which people cannot live. Both verses cannot be talking about the same laws. We see that this whole chapter is about his people willingly choosing to participate in idol worship, in spite of express warnings he had given them about this. This fits with the words of Romans.

"Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts to disrespect their bodies among themselves, who changed the truth of Elohim into lies, and worshipped and served the created rather than the Creator...because of this God gave them over to degrading passions." -Romans 1:24-26

Here is a New Testament passage that agrees with the idea that God let his people pursue their own desires and that his people chose to worship things besides the Creator. These are the things that don't lead to life...not the word of God or his instructions for living.

Psalm 81:9-12 echoes this idea as well.

"You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me. I am YWHH your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices."

Once again, idolatry and pursuing our own desires at the expense of God's word is what is not good, and which doesn't lead to abundant life. Ezekiel 20 tells us that not only are the rulings and laws of God right, but they help us to live! Not only do the words of Ezekiel 20:25 not mean that Biblical commandments are bad or cumbersome, but this passage fits with the rest of Scripture, from Old Testament writings to the words of the Messiah and the letters of Paul, in that it calls for humanity to do what God says.

"I am YHWH your God. Walk in my laws. Guard my rulings and do them, and set apart my Sabbaths." -Ezekiel 20:19-20

More on understanding the Old Testament:
Four Distinctions We Need to Make to Understand Scripture
What You Should Know about the Levitical Priesthood
What Were the Sins of Jeroboam?

The Significance of Sarah in the Bible

Who is Sarah in the Bible and what does this Biblical matriarch teach us? I believe she is one of the most significant characters in Scripture, and that her presence has so much to teach us about faith and also about how the Living God esteems women.

In the Christian church today, Sarah is treated as a minor character at best. She is often overlooked in favor of her more well-known husband, Abraham. She is usually regarded as something of an assistant to him, and if anything about her is focused on, it's usually the infamous Hebrews 11 verse that has been used to shame thousands of barren women...Sarah had enough faith to get pregnant.

But there is so much more to her! God made promises to her. Angels showed up to give her messages. Two kings wanted her as their queen (including the Egyptian pharaoh - likely the most powerful man in the world at the time). God himself instructed her husband to call her princess. The Bible records her faith as exemplary. Peter wrote that her descendants are those who do what is right without fear. It's time to take notice of her. It's time to recognize the importance of Sarah from the Bible, and what her life teaches us today.

We don't know a lot about Sarah's life growing up in what is now the country of Turkey, but we do know plenty of adventures she had as an adult. Starting with her marriage to Abraham, a blood relative of hers (more on that later), their move away from their homeland and family to the Promised Land, and even some sojourns in the land of Egypt, leading up to her birthing her only child in her 90s. After she had died, at the age of 127, Scripture even records the story of the acquisition of the burial plot for this great woman.

When we look at Sarah, we need to see that she is not spiritually significant only because she was married to Abraham. She does not play a secondary role to him. While Abraham is expressly mentioned more often in Scripture, most all of these mentions are referring to Abraham and Sarah together as a unit. All of the promises to Abraham are promises to Abraham and Sarah together. Not just Abraham. Not just Sarah. But Abraham and Sarah as one, because they are both halves of a whole before YHWH. Genesis 2:24 and Ephesians 5:31 tell us that a husband and wife are one.

Abraham and Sarah are one in the eyes of the Creator. She has just as much of a part in this story as he does.

Both the Old and New Testaments tell us that a husband and wife are one. This does not mean that either loses their identity, but rather that who they are as individuals is a key part to who they become as one flesh. If you mix yellow with red, you will get orange. But if you mix that yellow with blue instead, then it becomes green. Both colors directly influence the end result. There is simply no way to have green without both blue and yellow. Together Abraham and Sarah became something different than what they would have been with anyone else.

We see this truth played out expressly in the story of Abraham having a son with Hagar. If God's promise of a son was just to Abraham, then it wouldn't have mattered who the mother was. But this story shows that God made this promise to Abraham and Sarah together.

After years of waiting for the promised heir, Abraham and Sarah still have not had a child. Keep in mind, they around the ages of 86 and 76 respectively, so it’s not surprising that they started to think that maybe this wasn’t going to happen. Sarah (who is still called Sarai at this point), starts to feel like maybe this promise is really more for Abraham than for her.

“And Sarai said to Abram, ‘See, YHWH has restrained me from bearing. Please, go into my maid; perhaps I will obtain children by her.’” -Genesis 16:2a NKJV

We can see from this language that Sarah must have felt that she was the reason YHWH’s promise had yet to happen. She blamed herself, perhaps thinking she was holding everyone back from God’s best. She took herself out of the picture, suggesting that Abraham could have children with Hagar, and then she could have some sort of stepmom or adopted mother role. This approach was successful, and sure enough, Hagar did conceive, and bore a son. You can imagine everyone congratulating themselves on his arrival. Their plan had worked. They made YHWH’s promise really happen. The boy Ishmael was living proof.

Except, YHWH had promised a son to Abraham and Sarah. Not to Abraham and Hagar. Not to Abraham and whoever. Not even a son from other parents that they would physically adopt. The promised heir would be Sarah’s flesh and blood, just as he would be Abraham’s. We see this clarified in Genesis 17:16 when YHWH said that Sarah would have a son with Abraham, and that Sarah specifically would be blessed and “become nations.” He also told Abraham to stop calling his wife ‘Sarai’, and start referring to her as ‘Sarah,’ which means princess. When the Living God calls someone a princess, I think we’d better take note of that. This tells us that this woman isn’t just a supporting character, but is highly esteemed and valued by YHWH.

If Sarah wasn’t important, if Abraham just needed a wife to birth and raise children, then why did the promised child need to come from her? Why couldn’t Ishmael have been a stand in, since he was, after all, Abraham’s son? Simply because when YHWH made that promise, he was making it to both of them. He promised that they would have a child, not just he. His words and instructions weren’t only for Abraham, just as they aren’t limited to men today. Sarah had a crucial role to play in this great story. While church organizations have largely underplayed the validity and value of her faith and actions, the Bible does not. In Hebrews 11 her faith is recognized.

“By belief also, Sarah herself was enabled to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the normal age, because she deemed Him trustworthy who had promised.” -Hebrews 11:11

Please do not read that as a chastisement for those who struggle with infertility. The Bible is not saying that if you just believe you will get pregnant, then that will happen. Belief is not a necessary element to having a baby, as millions of people who don't believe in God have children. Sarah did not seem to believe she herself would conceive a child. That’s evidenced by the Hagar debacle, and by her reaction to the words of the angels who visited her and Abraham. She heard the angel (or some would say YHWH himself in the flesh) say that she was to have a baby, she “laughed within herself.” Genesis 18:12 says her thoughts were, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my husband being old too?” Translated into modern parlance I imagine it something like, “Yeah right. After all these years of no pregnancies I’m finally going to have a baby when my husband is 100? Ha!”

We should also take another look at this passage where the angels appeared to Abraham with this news that Sarah would have a son. This Genesis 18 story is typically used to highlight Abraham's importance (he was visited by angels!), and underplay Sarah's (she was secretly listening). Church tradition would have us believe that heavenly visitors of some sort (again either angels or perhaps YHWH himself), came down to have a meeting with Abraham. But look at the text...

If I have now found favor in your eyes, please do not pass your servant by. Please let a little water be brought, and was your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And let me bring a piece of bread and refresh your hearts, and then go on for this is why you have come to your servant. 3-5

And he took the curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree as they ate. 8

And they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” 9

Abraham gives a rambling invitation for the visitors to stay and be refreshed. Then he goes to prepare veal, and serves it to them. And how do the angels respond? Do they tell Abraham they want to speak to him? Do they express gratitude for his efforts? No, they ask for his wife!

Could you imagine if this story was reversed? Say that Sarah was the one inviting the visitors to a meal and refreshments. The heavenly visitors say, “Yes, serve us,” (as they did to Abraham in 18:5), and then they ask to speak to her husband. Wouldn't that fit a lot better with the all too common storyline that women are somehow less important than men? But no, the angels show up and they want to speak to Sarah. Genesis 18 is completely upside down from what church tradition has taught us to expect. The real star of this passage is Sarah. The case can be made that Sarah then came to hear what the visitors had to say to her directly. And don't forget that YHWH himself insisted the promised child had to be from Sarah in Genesis 17:19.

Sarah didn’t make having a baby happen (though we see that she tried, hence the birth of Ishmael), and the takeaway isn’t that she just ‘had enough faith’ to become pregnant. Her faith was not in her body's ability to bear a child. Her faith was in God. All she knew was that YHWH was trustworthy. She believed God. And she continued to believe God, even though she hadn't yet seen him keep his promise. She chose to believe, even when she couldn’t see how things were going to work out. And because she made that choice she became the mother of “many nations” (Genesis 17:16). Many of us are physical descendants of Sarah, whether or not we are aware of that. But either way she is a spiritual mother to us.

And because there are spiritual matriarchs to our faith as well as patriarchs, we know that both men and women have instrumental roles to play in YHWH's plan of restoration, every day. Don’t even consider believing the lie that women’s beliefs and actions are secondary to the faith of the men in their lives! Both genders have great significance spiritually. If you read Hebrews 11, you’ll notice that while Abraham gets recognized for his faith, the words are different than how the next verses describe Sarah’s. And that is because she added something to their collective faith that he did not. The Bible doesn't say that the people of Israel came into being because Abraham had faith, but because Sarah did.

Sarah and Abraham were related. Genesis 20:12 tells us that Abraham and Sarah had the same father, but different mothers. They were related by blood. Scholars debate if they were really full half-siblings or if they were less close blood relatives. One school of thought is that Sarah was really his niece, since Abraham describes Lot as his “brother,” even though elsewhere in Scripture he is described as his nephew (Genesis 13:8). The logic being that if Sarah is a granddaughter of Abraham's father, they still have the same ‘father.’ Abraham justifies misleading King Abimelek by saying that Sarah was in fact his sister...but fails to mention their marriage.

No matter if they were full half-siblings or not, I think the point is that they came from the same place. They literally came from the same family. Abraham’s lineage is not somehow better than Sarah’s, and she is not lesser than him. She belongs here just as much as he does. By letting Sarah and Abraham come from the same family, YHWH was assuring that her bloodline couldn't be used against her, while also validating that Sarah is just as much part of his family as Abraham is.

We learn from Sarah's life that women are not secondary characters in the story of redemption. Her story teaches us more about what the Bible says about women and how the Living God honors women. When YHWH refused Abraham's plan of making Ishmael the heir, he demonstrated that Sarah had an equal part in the promises he had made to them. YHWH does not treat women as side-kicks or tag-alongs, but esteems them as he does their male counterparts. Don't miss that he taught us this story early on in Scripture. The New Testament tells us that God's family exists today because of the faith of Sarah. Never underestimate the faith of one woman.

Where is Sarah mentioned in the Bible? Where can I read about her?

We see Sarah mainly in Genesis, but she appears throughout Scripture, particularly when we keep in mind that most mentions of Abraham are actually referring to her as well. The prophet Isaiah speaks of her, as do the writings of Paul and Peter in the New Testament. The author of Hebrews honors her as an example of great faith.

Genesis 11-25
Isaiah 51:2
Romans 4:19, 9:9
Hebrews 11:11-12
1 Peter 3:6

These are passages that use Sarah's name to talk about her. But again, when the Bible speaks of Abraham, it most often means Abraham and Sarah. When Scripture references ‘Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ for example, this draws our attention not to Abraham's many sons, but to the one whose mother was Sarah.

More about women in the Bible:
Overlooked Truths in Proverbs 31
Should Women Be Silent in the Church? Understanding 1 Corinthians 14
Who Was Phoebe in the Bible?

Overlooked Truths in Proverbs 31

We need a better understanding of Proverbs 31. This passage of Scripture has been twisted, abused, and taken out of context for many years, and too many women have been left feeling inadequate because they don't do every single thing listed. I'd like to say clearly that the Holy Spirit did not inspire this part of the Bible to leave women feeling discouraged! 

The true meaning of the passage of Proverbs 31 is beautiful, but too often it has been used to reprimand women for not "doing it all," or not doing more, or to try and tell women that their only role in society should be inside the home. Most of us read it as a checklist of things we need to or 'should' do. Select wool and flax. Hire servants. Buy a field. Plant a vineyard. Sew clothes. Make a quilt. Gather food. Cook. Stay up late. Get up early. Help the poor. Have energy. Show strength. Make items to sell in the marketplace. It seems like a bit much.

But...it's a poem. It was never meant as an itinerary for all women, everywhere, throughout history. I believe that the many different activities are listed to demonstrate that being a woman of valor can look like a lot of different things! And it shows that all of these jobs, many of which are not glamorous, or are not praised in our culture, have significance. The range of activities in this poem celebrate the various professions, skills, hobbies, and value of women from all walks of life.

We should also note that Proverbs 31 isn't even directed at women. Verse 1 says that the Queen (likely Bathsheba, as "King Lemuel," is thought be Solomon, since the word lemuel means "for God") taught this saying to her son. She wasn't saying it to her daughters to tell them that a woman of valor had to do all these things. This wasn't a checklist. She was saying this to her son. I believe she did this to teach him to recognize that valor and value can come in many different forms. 

This poem calls attention to tasks that need done, but aren't necessarily noticed by those who don't do them. How many times have you gotten up early or stayed up late to attend to the work at hand and felt like no one noticed your effort? Have you worked to be generous to the poor, contribute to ministries, or provide for your family only to have your efforts feel taken for granted or downplayed? 

Proverbs 31 is not just about commercial undertakings, parenting, and homemaking either. It's not about resume building or interesting quips to put in a biography. It highlights specific character traits. Being able to laugh, acting with dignity, speaking with wisdom, generosity, and fearing YHWH are all celebrated in this passage of Scripture. The Queen was pointing out that these traits should be valued and respected!

This Bible passage is a reminder to all of us, but men in particular, not to take for granted the significant work done by women of valor. This is why the last verse says, "Honor her for all that she has done." Proverbs 31 calls us to recognize the character and resilience of the women in our lives. 

Related posts:
The Truth About 1 Corinthians 14
Who Was Phoebe in the Bible?
Five Books That Changed My Understanding of Scripture
A Hebraic Perspective on a Woman of Valor