It is not easy for us to conceive the effect of this revelation on the minds of people so utterly unprepared for it as the generation in which Ezekiel lived. Accustomed as they were to think of their individual fate as bound up in that of their nation, they could not at once adjust themselves to a doctrine which had never previously been enunciated with such incisive clearness. And it is not surprising that one effect of Ezekiel’s teaching was to create fresh doubts of the rectitude of the divine government. “The way of the Lord is not equal,” it was said (vv. 25, 29). So long as it was admitted that men suffered for the sins of their ancestors or that God dealt with them in the mass, there was at least an appearance of consistency in the methods of Providence. The justice of God might not be visible in the life of the individual, but it could be roughly traced in the history of the nation as a whole. But when that principle was discarded, then the question of the divine righteousness was raised in the case of each separate Israelite, and there immediately appeared all those perplexities about the lot of the individual which so sorely exercised the faith of Old Testament believers. Experience did not show that correspondence between a man’s attitude towards God and his earthly fortunes which the doctrine of individual freedom seemed to imply; and even in Ezekiel’s time it must have been evident that the calamities which overtook the state fell indiscriminately on the righteous and the wicked. The prophet’s purpose, however, is a practical one, and he does not attempt to offer a theoretical solution of the difficulties which thus arose. There were several considerations in his mind which turned aside the edge of the people’s complaint against the righteousness of Jehovah. One was the imminence of the final judgment, in which the absolute rectitude of the divine procedure would be clearly manifested. Another seems to be the irresolute and unstable attitude of the people themselves towards the great moral issues which were set before them. While they professed to be more righteous than their fathers, they showed no settled purpose of amendment in their lives. A man might be apparently righteous to‐day and a sinner to‐morrow; the “inequality” of which they complained was in their own ways, and not in the way of the Lord (vv. 25, 29). But the most important element in the case was the prophet’s conception of the character of God as one who, though strictly just, yet desired that men should live. The Lord is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish; and He postpones the day of decision that His goodness may lead men to repentance. “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? saith the Lord: and not that he should turn from his ways, and live?” (ver. 23). And all these considerations lead up to the urgent call to repentance with which the chapter closes.