39:23-29 When the Lord shall have mercy on the whole house of Israel, by converting them to Christianity, and when they shall have borne the shame of being cast off for their sins, then the nations shall learn to know, worship, and serve him. Then Israel also shall know the Lord, as revealed in and by Christ. Past events do not answer to these predictions. The pouring out of the Spirit is a pledge that God's favour will continue. He will hide his face no more from those on whom he has poured out his Spirit. When we pray that God would never cast us from his presence, we must as earnestly pray that, in order thereto, he would never take his Holy Spirit from us.According to their uncleanness,.... Not ceremonial, but moral; they were an impure and adulterous generation, as our Lord calls them, Matthew 12:39,

and according to their transgressions have I done unto them; or "rebellions", as the Targum renders it; or defections, as the word (k) signifies; their rebellions against the King Messiah; their defections from him; their contempt of him, and rejection of his yoke, and non-submission to his ordinances; according to the desert of such crimes, the Lord dealt with them;

"took vengeance on them,''

as the Targum is; in the destruction of their nation, city, and temple: "and hid my face from them"; or caused his Shechaniah to remove from them, as the same paraphrase; See Gill on Ezekiel 39:23.

(k) "secundum defectiones eorum", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus, Starckius; "pro defectionibus ipsorum", Cocceius.