| Geneva Study Bible Wherefore I gave {l} them also statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they should not live; (l) Because they would not obey my laws, I gave them up to themselves that they should obey their own fantasies, as in Eze 20:39, Ro 1:21,24. Wesley's Notes 20:25 Wherefore - Because they rejected my good laws and judgments. I gave them - Not by enjoining, but by permitting them to make such for themselves. Not good - That were pernicious to the users. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 25. I gave them . statutes . not good-Since they would not follow My statutes that were good, "I gave them" their own (Eze 20:18) and their fathers' "which were not good"; statutes spiritually corrupting, and, finally, as the consequence, destroying them. Righteous retribution (Ps 81:12; Ho 8:11; Ro 1:24; 2Th 2:11). Eze 20:39 proves this view to be correct (compare Isa 63:17). Thus on the plains of Moab (Nu 25:1-18), in chastisement for the secret unfaithfulness to God in their hearts, He permitted Baal's worshippers to tempt them to idolatry (the ready success of the tempters, moreover, proving the inward unsoundness of the tempted); and this again ended necessarily in punitive judgments. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 20:10-26. The history of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the new Testament as well as in the Old, for warning. God did great things for them. He gave them the law, and revived the ancient keeping of the sabbath day. Sabbaths are privileges; they are signs of our being his people. If we do the duty of the day, we shall find, to our comfort, it is the Lord that makes us holy, that is, truly happy, here; and prepares us to be happy, that is, perfectly holy, hereafter. The Israelites rebelled, and were left to the judgments they brought upon themselves. God sometimes makes sin to be its own punishment, yet he is not the Author of sin: there needs no more to make men miserable, than to give them up to their own evil desires and passions. | 
