(7) By father and mother.--Filial respect was one of the most frequently enjoined precepts of the law (see Leviticus 19:32; Leviticus 20:9, &c.). So the other sins mentioned in this and the following verses are transgressions of special Divine commands. "Dealt by oppression" is "dealt oppressively" (see Leviticus 19:10; Exodus 22:21; Deuteronomy 24:14, &c.); for "the father less and widow" (Exodus 22:22-24, &c.). The despising of holy things and the profanation of the sabbaths were the constant subject of the warnings of the law; tale-bearers are forbidden in Leviticus 19:16; the "eating upon the mountains" (which means joining in the idol sacrifices) is often reproved by this and the other prophets; and the sins of lewdness enumerated are all specifically forbidden in Leviticus 18, 20, as well as elsewhere; while the various sins arising from covetousness, mentioned in Ezekiel 22:12, had been constantly denounced both by the law and in the warnings of the prophets. The expression "hast forgotten me" is at once the root of all these sins, and in itself the climax of all.

Verse 7. - We pass to sins of another kind. The fifth commandment was trampled underfoot as well as the sixth, and the blessing of continued national existence (Exodus 20:12) was thereby forfeited. The widow and the orphan and the stranger (we note in that last word the width of Ezekiel's sympathies) were oppressed (compare the same grouping in Deuteronomy 27:16, 19).

22:1-16 The prophet is to judge the bloody city; the city of bloods. Jerusalem is so called, because of her crimes. The sins which Jerusalem stands charged with, are exceeding sinful. Murder, idolatry, disobedience to parents, oppression and extortion, profanation of the sabbath and holy things, seventh commandment sins, lewdness and adultery. Unmindfulness of God was at the bottom of all this wickedness. Sinners provoke God because they forget him. Jerusalem has filled the measure of her sins. Those who give up themselves to be ruled by their lusts, will justly be given up to be portioned by them. Those who resolve to be their own masters, let them expect no other happiness than their own hands can furnish; and a miserable portion it will prove.In thee have they set light by father and mother,.... Through whom they received their being from God; by whom they were brought into the world, brought up and educated; and to whom they owed great respect, honour, and obedience; but, on the contrary, they wanted affection to their persons, showed great disrespect to their commands, and treated them with irreverence and contempt; a sin of a very heinous nature, of the first magnitude; reckoned among the very Heathens as next to contempt of God, and disobedience to him; is directly contrary to a law of God, and threatened with a curse, and a severe punishment, Exodus 20:12 by the connection of the words with the preceding, the princes of Israel seem intended; the children of the nobles, and the sons and daughters of the king; who, it might have been thought, by the character they bore, the station they were in, and the politeness of their education, would have behaved in another manner; and if this sin prevailed among them, no doubt it did among those of a lower class, who are always influenced by such examples:

in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger; the proselyte, as the Septuagint; him that was converted to me, as the Syriac version; which is an aggravation of the sin, that it was not merely a stranger that came about civil business, but one who came from foreign parts to worship the Lord at Jerusalem, as the Ethiopian eunuch did: now, to oppress such an one, either by private frauds, or by injustice in a court of judicature; to exact upon him for food or lodging; or circumvent and overreach him in trade and commerce; or distress him by vexatious lawsuits, when ignorant of the laws and customs of the country; at a distance from his friends, and in want of money, must be a very great evil; and yet even the princes themselves in Jerusalem were guilty of it:

in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow; that were weak and helpless, and had none to protect them, father and husband being dead; when, according to their first rank and station as princes, they ought to have been the defenders of them; but, instead of that, distressed, afflicted, and grieved them.