Ezekiel 20:13
But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.
In the wilderness the house of Israel rebelled against God by not walking in His statutes, despising His judgments, and greatly polluting His Sabbaths. The statutes and judgments they rejected were good and life-giving, so that the man who does them shall live in them. The Sabbaths they polluted had been given as a sign between God and His people that they might know He is the Lord who sanctifies them, stamped as the mark of His government showing they are chosen and set apart to honor Him. To profane the Sabbath was therefore to reject God's authority and the sign of His sanctifying work, and dishonest conduct and dishonest gain dishonor that sign.
Because of this rebellion God said He would pour out His fury upon them in the wilderness to consume them, though He did not destroy them completely. The Sabbath pollution lasted through the entire forty years in the wilderness as great laxness in keeping the fourth commandment, even with the weekly miracle of the manna reminding them of its sacred obligation. After the signal punishment of the stick-gatherer they did not venture into open and bold transgression. This Sabbath pollution was counted among the reasons the first generation was excluded from the promised land, and because their children continued the same neglect during the wandering, though allowed to enter Canaan, God declared they would afterward be scattered among the heathen after settlement in the land of promise.
For continual disobedience penalties were annexed to transgression that were not good for the transgressor and by which he should not live in rebellion, since transgression showed open contempt for the great Lawgiver and death was the penalty. Under the civil law given through Moses punishment was to be inflicted on the transgressor so that others would be restrained by fear. The Sabbath is a test of loyalty to God, and no human ruler may stand between God and a person's conscience. The verse warns against disregarding God's law and Sabbath, identifying the seventh day as the day to keep holy, and teaches that efforts to promote a false day of rest and to enforce Sunday observance by compelling obedience to human laws opposed to God's law will meet God's wrath and punishment unless there is change.
Keeping the Sabbath requires honest dealing in all work, for God will not be a party to any dishonest transaction, so Sabbathkeepers must honor the sign through obedience to God's Word, examine the Word to see whether they bear the mark, and follow the methods plainly specified in Isaiah 58. The rebellion described in the verse includes a transgression of God's Sabbath that quenches the light that should have shone.