What is the context?
The Lord’s challenge to serve the idols is followed by a promise that this divided worship will not continue. His name will no longer be profaned by gifts offered alongside idolatry.
The whole house of Israel will serve Him on His holy mountain. He will accept the people and their offerings when He gathers them, showing His holiness through them in the sight of the nations.
The people will know Him as the Lord who brings them to the land promised to their fathers. They will remember and recoil from the ways in which they defiled themselves.
The ending explains why their restoration is possible: He deals with them for His name’s sake, rather than according to their wicked conduct. Accepted worship and repentance grow out of His merciful action.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley connects the promise with restored worship in Jerusalem and the people’s sorrow over their former ways. Henry likewise emphasizes repentance produced through God’s kindness and a fuller recognition of His holiness.
The promise is more than the recovery of prosperity. The people’s relation to the Lord and their judgment of their own former conduct have changed. Their future gives the nations a reason to recognize His holiness, rather than to associate His name with their idols.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Revelation 7:9–17 presents a multitude from every nation worshiping God and the Lamb. Their robes have been washed in the Lamb’s blood, they serve before God, and the Lamb shepherds them to living water.
Revelation does not explicitly identify that multitude with the whole house of Israel in Ezekiel 20. The shared theme is a people gathered and accepted for worship through God’s saving provision. Revelation develops the wider hope through the Lamb and brings the nations into the picture of life in God’s presence.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.