Ezekiel 20:28 describes what Israel did once they settled in the land God had promised them: they set up sacrifices on every high hill and under every leafy tree, worshiping in places God had never chosen. The verse is a record of their disobedience, and it explains why God says they grieved him. The prophet Ezekiel speaks it on God’s behalf to the elders of Israel, who had come to him seeking a word from the Lord while they were living in exile in Babylon.
For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering. There they also made their pleasant aroma, and there they poured out their drink offerings.
Ezekiel 20:28 (WEB)
What Ezekiel 20:28 Means
The verse begins with a reminder of God’s faithfulness: he had brought the people into the land he had sworn to give their ancestors. The gift was real, and the people had every reason to live in gratitude and obedience. Instead, the verse says, they looked around at the hills and groves of the land and began offering sacrifices there, in the open places where the local nations had long worshiped other gods.
Several details in the verse describe the kind of worship that was happening. The sacrifices, drink offerings, and “pleasant aroma” are all terms from the worship system God had given through Moses, which means Israel was borrowing familiar religious actions and attaching them to places and practices God had not authorized. The verse does not say the people abandoned God entirely. It says they mixed their devotion with rival practices and treated the land itself as a place where they could worship on their own terms.
What the verse does not do is offer a comfortable promise. It is not a general statement that God will bless any kind of worship sincerely offered. It is a sober account of how God’s people drifted, and it sets up the rest of the chapter, where God explains that he will not be consulted by a people who keep turning away from him.
The Context of Ezekiel 20:28
The book of Ezekiel was written by the prophet Ezekiel, a priest who was taken into exile in Babylon around 597 BC. He spoke to the Jewish exiles, many of whom still hoped Jerusalem would be quickly restored. Chapter 20 is set in the seventh year of the exile, when the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and God answers them with a long review of Israel’s history from Egypt onward. Verse 28 belongs to that review, showing a pattern of rebellion that began early and continued after they entered the land.
The verses around it make the point clearer. In verses 25 and 26 God says he gave Israel statutes that were not good because they had first rejected his good commands, and in verses 30 and 31 he presses the same people with the question of whether they are still polluting themselves in the same ways their fathers did. Read alongside those lines, verse 28 is not an isolated complaint about hilltop shrines. It is one piece of a continuous argument that the exiles are repeating the sins of their ancestors, and that this is the reason God is refusing to be inquired of by them.
Key Phrases in Ezekiel 20:28
Deuteronomy 12:5
But to the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, you shall seek his habitation, and there you shall come.
(WEB)
This verse tells Israel to seek the place the Lord will choose for his name, which is the very principle the hill shrines violated. Reading it alongside Ezekiel 20:28 shows that the prophet was not inventing a new rule but holding the people to one God had given them long before.
Ezekiel 20:31
When you offer your gifts, when you make your sons pass through the fire, do you pollute yourselves with all your idols to this day? Should I be inquired of by you, house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord the LORD, I will not be inquired of by you!
(WEB)
Ezekiel 20:31 closes the same section by asking whether the people still pollute themselves with their idols, and it ends with God refusing to be inquired of. Reading it right after verse 28 helps you see that the pattern of disobedience was still going on in the exile, which is why God would not answer their questions.
A Short Prayer From Ezekiel 20:28
Lord, you have given me far more than I deserve, and you have always been faithful to the promises you made. Search my heart where I have drifted toward worship that suits me more than it honors you. Show me the high places in my own life, the comfortable substitutes I have set up beside the true faith you gave me. Turn my devotion back to you alone, and let my worship rise as a pleasing offering rather than a provocation. Amen.
