Then said he unto me. The answer holds out but little comfort. The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah (we note the coupling of the names though Judah only was the immediate subject of the vision, as if his prayer had gone up for the whole body of the twelve tribes) was immeasurably great.
Not idolatry only, but its natural fruits, bloodshed and oppression, had eaten into the life of the nation (comp. Ezekiel 7:11, Ezekiel 7:12; Ezekiel 8:17; Ezekiel 22:25). And these evils had their root in the practical atheism of the denials which had been already uttered in Ezekiel 8:12.
and which are here reproduced. The unpitying aspect of God's judgments is, for the present, dominant, and the work must be thorough. One notes how the despair of the prophet leads him to forget those who were to have the mark upon their foreheads, who were indeed the true "remnant."
Like Elijah, he does not know of any such (1 Kings 19:10); like Jeremiah, he searches through the streets of Jerusalem, and cannot find one righteous man (Jeremiah 5:1).