Because thou hast not remembered (comp. Jeremiah 2:2). There is, so to speak, a certain dawn of tenderness in the new form of reproach, as compared with the sternness of what had gone before, and this in itself implies the pity which is the ground of hope.
Fretted. Ezra (Ezra 5:12) uses the same word, there rendered "provoke." Had Ezekiel's use of it stamped it as the right word for confession? Thou shalt not commit, etc. The Vulgate follows a reading which gives, "I have not done according to thy lewdness," etc.
; i.e. the guilt had deserved a greater punishment. The Revised Version margin gives, "Hast then not committed," etc.? The word for "lewdness" ("lewd way" in verse 27) is specially characteristic of Ezekiel, who uses it eleven times.
Elsewhere it is translated "wickedness" (Le Ezekiel 18:17, et al.), "lewdness" in 20:6; Jeremiah 13:27. It conveys always the sense of a guilt that revolts and shocks us.