The Divine Motive of Action
A. B. Davidson, D. D. Ezekiel 20:9 But I worked for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were… The conception that Jehovah acts only for His own name's sake, to sanctify His great name, is capable of being set in a repellent light. It seems to make the Divine Being egoistic, and His own sense of Himself the source of all His operations. The way too in which He brings the nations to know that He is Jehovah, through judgments mainly, invests the idea with additional harshness. The conception is not found in the earlier prophets, but is familiar in the age of Ezekiel. Perhaps two things, if considered, would help to explain the prophet's idea. One is his lofty conception of Jehovah, God alone and over all, and his profound reverence before Him. The "child of man" cannot conceive the motive of Jehovah's operations to be found anywhere but in himself. But that name for whose sake he works is a "great name" (Ezekiel 36:23) and a "holy name" (Ezekiel 39:25), it is that of Him who is God. The prophet thinks of Jehovah as one of his predecessors did. "For Jehovah your God is the God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and the terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward" (Deuteronomy 10:17). And the second thing is this: the conception arose out of the conflicts of the times. There were antagonisms within Israel, and more powerful antagonisms without, between Israel and the nations. The conflicts on the stage of history were but the visible forms taken by a conflict of principles, of religions of Jehovah God with the idolatries of which the nations of the earth were the embodiments. The prophet could not help drawing up this antagonism into his conception of God; and not unnaturally he inflicted his own feeling upon the mind of God, and conceived Him thinking of Himself as he thought of Him. If it was but half a truth, it was perhaps the half needed for the age. When the fulness of time was come, the centre of Divine motive was shifted. God so loved the world, etc. Coming from the bosom of the Father, and knowing Him, the Son's mind was altogether absorbed in the positive truth the stream of which was so broad and deep that all antagonisms were buried beneath it. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt. WEB: But I worked for my name's sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, among which they were, in whose sight I made myself known to them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.