Ezekiel 22:29
The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.
The people of the land are charged with oppression and robbery, with vexing the poor and needy and wrongfully oppressing the stranger, and because God sought for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap for the land but found none, He poured out judgment upon them. Their injustice stood amid wider corruption, alongside priests violating the law, profaning holy things and hiding their eyes from God's Sabbaths, showing failure to distinguish between the sacred and the profane. The gap is the break torn in God's holy law by removing and trampling the Sabbath, daubed with untempered mortar when men say Thus saith the Lord God where the Lord has not spoken to set aside God's commandment for the first day. The oppression, robbery and vexing of the poor, needy and stranger are the legitimate fruit of trampling God's law and teaching that it may be changed in one vital point and therefore in all, which explains the increase of crime. That prophetic warning belongs also to the last days, when the professed people of God walk in violation of His precepts, so restoring the Sabbath and repairing the breach is standing in the gap to prepare the people to stand in the day of the Lord.
Oppression Described and Judged
The verse lists the sins of the people of the land as using oppression and exercising robbery, vexing the poor and needy, and wrongfully oppressing the stranger. That oppression includes deceit, alongside robbery, mistreatment of the poor and needy, and wrongful treatment of strangers. These are the people's oppression, robbery, and unjust wronging of the poor, needy, and foreigner.
These acts are profane wrongdoing, identified as failure to distinguish between what is sacred and what is profane. They belong to the land's wider corruption and disregard for God. They are part of its corruption and disregard for God's law, with the people's oppression of the poor, needy, and stranger standing among the wrongs condemned for confusing the holy with the profane.
In its setting in Ezekiel 22:24-30, and in the grouped charges of Ezekiel 20-22, this injustice of the people stands alongside the priests violating the law, profaning holy things, and hiding their eyes from God's Sabbaths so that He is profaned among them. The surrounding indictment thus joins profaning of God's holy things and ignoring and disregarding His Sabbaths to the people's wrongdoing, with Sabbath violation presented as one breach in the people's defense. That prophetic message of judgment belonged to Ezekiel's time and is also applied to the last days.
Joined to what follows, the verse means that God sought for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap before Him for the land so He would not destroy it, but found none. Because no one stood in the gap to avert judgment, He poured out judgment upon the people for the profaning of God by leaders and people. The transgressions so described, as idolatry mingled with Sabbath desecration, led to Israel's troubles, dispersion, and exile. Linked to Sabbath desecration as one of Israel's great sins, this oppression and robbery of the poor and needy and wrongful oppression of strangers brought divine judgment and contributed to the nation's destruction.
Sabbath Breach and Gap
The gap is the break torn in the heart of God's holy law by removing and trampling the Sabbath, and Sabbath violation stands as one breach in the people's defense alongside profaning holy things and disregarding the Sabbaths. The breach came when the papacy built a slight wall in it and ministers daubed it with untempered mortar, sustaining that wall by their efforts to uphold Sunday keeping. Through pagan Babylonian apostasy at work in Israel, priests were carried so far as to violate God's law and profane His Sabbath, because sun-worship with the worship of Tammuz and the worship of the sun toward the east brought Sunday as its worship day in place of the Sabbath of Jehovah.
The untempered mortar is saying Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord has not spoken, setting aside God's commandment by mere assertion for the first day. It consists of the various reasons urged to sustain as doctrine what lacks a thus saith the Lord, while no word blesses and hallows the first day as God blessed and hallowed the seventh. The people's oppression and robbery and vexing of the poor and needy and wrongfully oppressing the stranger are the legitimate fruit of professed ministers trampling God's law and justifying its transgression by calling it Jewish, abolished, changed, and subject to man's whim. By setting aside the Sabbath precept that reveals the Author of the law for a day of pagan origin, they teach the mass of men that if the law may be changed in one vital point it may be changed in all, producing murder, theft, and blasphemy and explaining the quickening tendency toward crime.
Failing to go up into the gaps and make up the hedge is refusing to defend the Sabbath in the battle of the day of the Lord, which is now on, while restoring the Sabbath and repairing the breach is standing in the gap and preparing the people to stand. Thousands refuse to stand and trample God's holy day, while the few who turn their feet from trampling the Sabbath stand in the gap until the Master comes with reinforcements. They are called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in, and the needed work is to repair the breach made by breaking and neglecting the Sabbath commandment. The verse stands among prophetic passages threatening divine displeasure against violating and defiling the Sabbath, describing the people as oppressing the poor and needy and wronging the stranger.
Prophecy for Last Days
The indictment of oppression, robbery, vexing the poor and needy, and wrongfully oppressing the stranger stands within a wider charge of profaning holy things and ignoring the Sabbaths, with announced divine judgment, and that prophetic message belongs both to Ezekiel's time and to the last days. In the last days it describes the professed people of God in this generation as walking in violation of divine precepts, refusing warning, and rejecting God's words and His law. They are lulled by the cry of peace and safety before sudden destruction comes.
Ezekiel 22:25-31 foretells the present contempt for law and government, because religious leaders have set aside the foundation of God's government, His holy law, calling it Jewish and treating it with contempt. While despising that law they demand that human governments enact their own amended code, making God like themselves and bringing law and religion into disrepute. This sowing of wind from pulpits, lobbies, platform, and press ripens into the whirlwind of oncoming wars of anarchy.
The same condition of oppression, including deceit, robbery, vexing the poor and needy, and wrongfully oppressing the stranger, accurately portrays Spain in its present condition. Joined to what follows, it means God seeks for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap for the land so He will not destroy it, but finds none. It therefore calls those in comfortable homes to leave them to stand in the gap and witness for God in Spain, lest it must again be said that none was found.
The needed work is to repair the breach made by breaking and neglecting the Sabbath commandment and to prepare the people to stand in the day of the Lord. The gap is the break torn in the heart of God's holy law by trampling the Sabbath, after priests violated the law, profaned holy things, and hid their eyes from the Sabbaths, while teachers failed to prepare the people. Failing to go up into the gaps and make up the hedge for the house of Israel is refusing to defend the Sabbath in the battle of the day of the Lord, which is now on. Thousands refuse to stand and trample the holy day, while the few who turn their feet from trampling the Sabbath stand in the gap until the Master comes with reinforcements and are called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.
In these evil times God calls all, especially the poor and oppressed, to trust Him to render justice to all. They are to be patient and to establish their hearts unto the coming of the Lord. There is no permanent help in human schemes, and the only sure hope is in the gospel of Christ.