Ezekiel 13:5

gone up into the gaps Or, breaches. Ezekiel turning to the prophets themselves uses "ye" a frequent change of person in animated speech.

made up the hedge Or, fence, R.V. If they had been true prophets they would have done two things: stood in the breach, and made a wall of defence for Israel. Without figure: these prophets knew neither what measures to adopt to stop the way of the invading dangers, nor what protective methods to recommend that the state might be successfully defended. They are hardly charged with want of personal courage when it is said they go not up into the breach; rather they wanted wisdom and insight, they had no measures to suggest which would repair or protect the fortunes of the people. Another prophet with more pathos describes the incompetence of Israel's leaders in the day of her distress: "there was none to guide her among all the sons which she had brought forth; neither was there any to take her by the hand of all the sons that she had brought up" (Isaiah 51:18). No doubt the one measure to adopt was repentance and trust in the Lord; Amos 5:14, "Seek good, and not evil … and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye say."