Ezekiel 18:23

The verse meets a feeling of despair both in regard to themselves and in regard to God which was beginning to take possession of the minds of some, perhaps many, among the people. The despair in regard to themselves is seen in ch. Ezekiel 33:10-11, "We pine away in our iniquities, how should we live?" and the despair in regard to God, which is but another side of that in regard to themselves, is expressed in such passages as Lamentations 3:42-44, "We have rebelled and thou hast not pardoned … Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud that our prayer should not pass through." The Lord had brought the evil on them which he had purposed (Lamentations 2:8; Lamentations 2:17), and it was final (Lamentations 2:9). The same despondency, though softened in some measure by the lapse of time, appears in another prophet, Isaiah 40:27-31; Isaiah 49:14, "Zion hath said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." So long as the state existed the covenant might also be thought to remain, and the prophets could sustain the hearts of men by reminding them that the Lord was their God; but when the state fell and Israel was no more to appearance the people of Jehovah, they had to go behind the covenant and fall back on that unchanging nature of Jehovah which originated the covenant that mercy which endureth for ever. The prevailing disposition of the mind of Jehovah was towards the salvation of men.