Ezekiel 22:29

29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the foreign resident.

Ezekiel 22:29 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 22:29

The people of the land have used oppression
The common people, the more powerful among them, such as were in greatest authority in cities and towns, in neighbourhoods and families, the richest among them; these oppressed the poor, and those that were under them, the servants of them, and tenants to them, and who were not able to defend themselves against them: the Septuagint and Syriac versions understand this of the prophets using the people of the land ill: and exercised robbery;
such who had not the power as others had, became thieves and robbers, went on the highway, and took men's money from them; broke up houses, and plundered them, and stole away their goods: and have vexed the poor and needy;
by their oppressions, rapines, and robberies, when they should rather have relieved them: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully;
or, "without right or judgment" ^F11; in a very unjust manner, contrary to the due course of law, against all equity and justice; which the Israelites were warned and ordered not to do, in many passages of Scripture; and for this reason, because they had been strangers in Egypt.

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 (jpvm alb) "absque judicio", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, "non in judicio", Cocceius.

Ezekiel 22:29 In-Context

27 "Her officials within her are like wolves tearing [their] prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to get unjust gain.

28 Her prophets plaster with whitewash for them by seeing false visions and lying divinations, and they say: This is what the Lord God says, when the Lord has not spoken.

29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the foreign resident.

30 I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.

31 So I have poured out My indignation on them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their actions down on their own heads." [This is] the declaration of the Lord God .