Ezekiel 20:35

of the people peoples. This wilderness of the peoples is the Syro-Babylonian wilderness, adjoining the peoples among whom they were dispersed; as that into which their fathers were brought was the wilderness of Egypt, i.e. adjoining Egypt. Isaiah 40:1-11 also represents Jehovah as marching at the head of his people, redeemed from exile, through the wilderness from Babylon to Jerusalem. Ezek. may follow Hosea 2:14-15, but cf. Jeremiah 31:2 seq.

plead … face to face With no intermediaries, no heathen people on whose fellowship they could stay themselves, absolutely cut off from men and alone with their God (Hosea 2:4). Jehovah's "pleading" or litigating is sometimes in terrible deeds (ch. Ezekiel 17:20), sometimes in words of reason (Isaiah 1:18; Micah 6:2 seq.). Gathered out from the nations and far from their seductive influences Israel will respond to the discipline of her God as in former days (Hosea 2:15).