Ezekiel 33:15 - Exposition

If the wicked restore the pledge . In Ezekiel 18:7 , Ezekiel 18:12 , Ezekiel 18:16 , this and its opposite had been grouped with other forms of good and evil. Here it stands out in solitary preeminence. The reason may possibly be found in the fact that a time of exile and suffering was likely to make the sin, which the penitent thus showed that he had renounced, a specially common one. The starving man pledged his garment or his tools for the loan of money or of food at a price far below its value. There was a real self-sacrifice, a proof of the power of the faith that worketh by love, when the creditor restored it. The primary duty, when a man turned from evil, was, as far as in him lay, to overcome his besetting sin and make restitution for the past. Compare the words of the Baptist ( Luke 3:12-14 ), and those of Zacchaeus ( Luke 19:8 ). The statutes of life . The words are used as in Ezekiel 20:11 and Le Ezekiel 18:5 , on the assumption that, if a man kept the statutes, he should (in the highest sense of the word) live in them. It was reserved for the fuller illumination of St. Paul, taught by a representative experience to proclaim the higher truth that the Law, ordained for life, was yet the minister of condemnation and death unless there was something higher than itself to complete the work which it could only begin ( Romans 7:10 ; Romans 8:3 ; comp. also Hebrews 7:19 ).