Ezekiel:

His point is the judgment of rebellious Israel. He likens the disobedient people now (early 6th c. BC) to the disobedient people of the wilderness. He is showing that God has not changed—what was wrong then is just as wrong now. The whole chapter preceding vv. 25-26is rehashing the wilderness wanderings and the people's sin, and how they are worthy of judgment. He particularly mentions the desecration of the Sabbaths and their idolatrous practices. At that time there were incidents where he withheld his protective hand and allowed destructive forces to come against them (disease and military incursions) so that they would repent and return to him.

This is the point of vv. 25-26. In recent history (for Ezekiel) God withheld his protective hand so that the Babylonians could come and conquer the nation. This is what is meant by "I gave them statutes that were not good." He withheld his hand (Ezk. 20.22). The statute he gave them was a judicial sentence of dispersion (See also 2 This. 2.11; Acts 7.42). He decreed events that were not in their favor and did not lead them to life and blessing.

Then in v. 26 he gives examples. The allusion is not to Ex. 13.12 but to its perversion by them in idolatry (because the words "to the Lord" that are present in Ex. 13 are not here in Ezk. 20.26). His purpose was to excite horror in them so they would return to him. By picking the worst example of their disobedience and sin (child sacrifice, practiced by Ahaz and others against God's laws). In both cases (Exodus and Ezekiel), God judged the people by allowing their sin to take its course—the law of natural consequences.

> Exodus: "Then what is it saying?"

It is defined and elaborated on by Ex. 13.2, 12-13 and Lev. 27.26. It means that the firstborn were dedicated to the Lord as a sign of the continuance of the covenant.

> the quote from Ezekiel does not confirm that it was child sacrifice at one time. There are no fewer than eight different interpretations of the Ezekiel text.

Go ahead an make an argument.

> As far as Exodus, what patently does not make sense is that God would spare the firstborn of the children of Israel (Ex. 12.13) in the Passover, only to turn around a short time later and demand they all be slaughtered. There is no logic to that supposition.

Then what is it saying?

The quote from Ezekiel does not confirm that it was child sacrifice at one time. There are no fewer than eight different interpretations of the Ezekiel text. That text has been wrestled with for millennia, and there is nothing certain about it.

As far as Exodus, what patently does not make sense is that God would spare the firstborn of the children of Israel (Ex. 12.13) in the Passover, only to turn around a short time later and demand they all be slaughtered. There is no logic to that supposition.

The quote from Ezekiel confirms that it was child sacrifice at one point in time. If Ex 22:20 wasn't supposed to be child sacrifice, what was supposed to be done with the firstborn humans? What was supposed to be done with the firstborn animals?

Yes, I read through your argument about Ezekiel and Exodus re: child sacrifice, but I don't find them compelling, as you do. Taking the thrust of the Bible as a whole, child sacrifice is a ubiquitous and unfluctuating abomination. Also, in the Bible, God doesn't give bad laws. Hermeneutically, we let Scripture interpret Scripture, and while I appreciate all the work that went into your analysis, I don't buy it. You've spent some much time on one tree that you've missed the forest, in my opinion. You've missed the character of God and the nature of his revelation. We could go back and forth 100 times, but I don't agree with you. The scholarship of Walton, Block, and Greenberg ring more true to me than your work.

As far as the Israelites being Aramean and not Canaanite, according to Genesis 10, the Canaanites were descendants of Ham, and Aram and Abraham of Shem. This is confirmed several times through the Bible (Dt. 26.5; Gn. 25.20; 28.2). Isaac was forbidden to marry a Canaanite (Gn. 28.2). There was a concerted effort in Genesis to make sure all readers knew that the Israelites were not of Canaanite descent.

As far as I know, we don't really know the origin of the Canaanites. While the Bible attributes them to Ham for theological reasons, they were Semites. In the ancient Near East the designation "Canaanite" was more a geographical description than a people group. Canaan was a region, and people groups from that region were known as Canaanites. They are mentioned as early as the Ebla tablets in about 2300 BC.

But Abraham hailed from "Ur of the Chaldeans" (Gn. 11.31). This was probably not the famous Ur discovered and identified by Wooley in the early 20th c., but a location in northern Syria or southern Turkey, relatively near Haran. This is probably why Abraham's family is always said to have its homeland in Paddan Adam or Adam Naharaim (both Aramean locales) rather than Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates. In any case, the Bible always clearly distinguishes between Israelites and Canaanites.

Now I know that archaeologists have proposed all sorts of theories as to the origin of the Israelites, but there are distinctive differences between the Canaanites and Israelites, especially according to the archaeologists studying the Conquest. There is no end to the scholarly opinions about the origin of the Israelites, but it is certainly not a settled issue as you portray.

1. Finkelstein's research shows nearly 300 new settlements in the central hill country of Canaan during Iron Age I, clearly distinct from Canaanite culture.

2. The Merneptah Stele (1205 BC) refers to Israel as a people group, probably located in the Transjordan.

3. Biblical writings tie the Israelites with the Arameans, not with the Canaanites, as I have said.

> You say, "The most likely counterpart to the 'not good' things of v. 25 is not decrees of judgment—or, more accurately, we might say 'retributions' or punishments—but actual laws."
. . .
Ezekiel has already made quite clear that God's decrees and laws are the way to life (Ezk. 20.11 & 13). It would be absurd to think he would turn around 12 verses later and contradict that thought.

> Note the broader context in which my argument was made: "The most likely counterpart to the “not good” things of v. 25 is not decrees of judgment—or, more accurately, we might say “retributions” or punishments—but actual laws. Interestingly, although the most obvious and straightforward support for this comes from the second part of v. 25 (“…by which they would not live”) being an antithetical parallel to the laws “by which they would live” (Ezekiel 20:13, 21), there’s also an antithetical parallel in that there are other places in the OT where the laws are explicitly called good: for example, Nehemiah 9:13.⁵

By contrast, to my knowledge nowhere else are retributions or punishments specified as “not good”—which would seem redundant anyways.

And my footnote here reads: [5] Conversely, it seems like it’s not just as an antithetical counterpart of Leviticus 18:5 that we have parallels to the idea of “not good” legislation: see Isaiah 10:1, “Woe to those who enact evil statutes, and to those who constantly record unjust decisions,” etc. (Also Psalm 94:20, and maybe even things like Iliad 16.388, too. I’m still on the hunt for a nice Near Eastern parallel, if anyone knows one.)
As for "Ezekiel's reliance on and quoting of Leviticus is not a problem. Ezekiel was a priest, and one would expect him to know the Torah."

I didn't set it up as a problem. In fact, quite the opposite. As I wrote at the end there,

One suggestion here, which I hinted at near the beginning of this discussion, is that the process behind Ezekiel’s shift to the masculine “decrees” in 20:25 is more or less parallel to that of the same shift in Leviticus. (I have some further comments on Leviticus 26:46 in a note.¹⁰) In sum, at various places the author of Ezekiel seems to have preferred specific language more uniquely associated with Leviticus or with Deuteronomy.¹⁰ᵇ

Finding the origin of Ezekiel's particularly terminology for the Law in Leviticus here alleviates us from having to come up with some implausible interpretation for חקים and משפטים not being legal terms but being judgmental/retributionary terms, as Walton et al. argue. Again, I think a more careful read of my argument will probably show that it's pretty decisive in this regard.

(I know it's a long read and that we're not supposed to link to things without summarizing them, etc.; I'm trying to do that as we go in.)

As for "There are many scholars who take Abraham to be of the Arameans settled in Chaldees, not of Canaanite extraction"...

Jesus Christ, "Chaldees"? Exactly which century are your claims re: the genesis of Israelite ethnicity coming from?

> If you have an argument against it, I'd like to hear it

The van consecutive is no particular problem. I would agree that v. 26 is conjoined to v. 25.

You say, "The most likely counterpart to the 'not good' things of v. 25 is not decrees of judgment—or, more accurately, we might say 'retributions' or punishments—but actual laws." But that's not at all the case if you take the text as I mentioned, a rhetorical device to explain why the people are being judged. Even the Leviticus set to which Ezekiel and you refer (Lev. 26) is about the punishment of defeat and exile for breaking the covenant. Consistent with Ezekiel's purpose and point, his reference to "no-good laws" is a rhetorical device of what God has ordained: the exile, invaders, plague, etc. As Walton said, God decreed events that were not in their favor, and he made judicial decisions that threatened their survival. Ezekiel has already made quite clear that God's decrees and laws are the way to life (Ezk. 20.11 & 13). It would be absurd to think he would turn around 12 verses later and contradict that thought.

This is not the only place in Ezekiel where the grammar and terminology lead to interpretive problems. It's still true that the masculine form of חֻקִּים contrasts with his use of the term in this chapter.

Ezekiel's reliance on and quoting of Leviticus is not a problem. Ezekiel was a priest, and one would expect him to know the Torah. Leviticus 26 is a reminder of the covenant blessings and punishments. The point there is also clearly that it is not God that has sinned by "commanding no-good laws," but the people by violation of it.

Though this is a difficult text variously interpreted through the ages, I see no necessary contradiction with the rest of Scripture. Those contradictions are one possible interpretation that put God in a horrible light and make His character disturbingly immoral—a stance the Bible never takes.

> the universal consensus of scholars of early Israel is that the Israelites themselves were an off-shoot of early Canaanite culture, and preserved many aspects thereof.

This is not so at all. There are many scholars who take Abraham to be of the Arameans settled in Chaldees, not of Canaanite extraction. While there is a camp that regards the Israelites as of Canaanite origin, that case is far from either solid or closed or "universal consensus."

> While I (and others) may find points of disagreement with your linguistic conclusions, the terminology...

If you have an argument against it, I'd like to hear it, not just see its inadequacy assumed.

> There is no other context or verse where God gives bad laws.

Is there any reason we'd expect for such a unique (and disturbing) idea to be attested more widely?

That being said, I've compared Ezekiel 20:25-26 to things like Jeremiah 7:22, 31 and 19:5, etc., as attesting to similar strategies for mitigating what were thought to be highly problematic commands or laws of God. In the best critical analysis available to us, Jeremiah 7:22 is simply plainly contradictory to what God indeed says/commands in the Torah. (The post I linked to you was simply the last in a series of posts I wrote on ancient Israelite and Canaanite child sacrifice, the first of which can be found here.)

> There is no biblical warrant for considering early laws as good and later laws as no good.

I'm assuming you meant this the other way around (insofar as it's usually suggested that the early laws were the ones which weren't good, considering that later laws mitigate them)?

> God consistently throughout the entire OT regards child sacrifice as an abomination. They represent a contradiction to every fundamental law He issued. Again, we are rash to rush to this conclusion based on one verse.

There are any number of factors that might lead you to reconsider here. Perhaps first and foremost, the possibility -- indeed the certainty -- of some inner-Biblical contradiction is universally agreed upon by Biblical scholars. So it's perfectly possible for God to at one point appear to appear child sacrifice, while later expressing the opposite view.

Second, if it's the horribleness/unethical-ness of child sacrifice that seems so out of step with God's nature (or "a contradiction to every fundamental law He issued"), we could turn toward any number of disturbingly violent and seemingly rash actions ascribed to God throughout the Old Testament. And perhaps the most instructive of these here is Exodus 13, where God's command to hand over the firstborn of men and animals to him -- despite the presence of the redemption clauses in 13:2, 13:13 and 13:15b -- is clearly connected with actual violent slaughter:

14When in the future your child asks you, 'What does this mean?' you shall answer, 'By strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery. 15When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human firstborn to the firstborn of animals.

For that matter, the likelihood of an original positive (and indeed divinely-ordained) command for child sacrifice is made more plausible by the unambiguous presence of this in Canaanite/Phoenician religious practice, in tandem with the fact that the universal consensus of scholars of early Israel is that the Israelites themselves were an off-shoot of early Canaanite culture, and preserved many aspects thereof.

I can get around it. Outside of that interpretation of this text, no evidence exists to interpret Ex. 22.29 as child sacrifice, nor for such a practice in Israel. It is an explicit contradiction to everything else in the canon. It is intrinsically improbable and unwarranted to interpret this one text as YHWH demanding something that he not only never demands anywhere else, but explicitly and consistently regards it as one of the most sinful practices imaginable. Israelite religion categorically forbade child sacrifice.

I'm glad you see child sacrifice as a bad thing! Let's go one step at a time:

Exodus 22 asks Israelites to offer their firstborn children as human sacrifices. You cannot get around it. It's a part of the Covenant Code which was the earliest part of the laws and possibly independant from the others. But the language is unmistakeable: v29 says not to delay to make offerings. And the verb for give is applied to human children and animal alike. This part demands sacrifice.

Any attempt to deny this is simply at attempt to preserve a discrepancy with other later portions. Exodus 13 demands sacrifices.