Ezekiel 13:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Ye have not gone up into the gaps Or stood in the gap, or breach, as it is expressed Ezekiel 22:30; Psalms 106:23. Ye have not exercised your prophetical office, and framed your own conduct, so as to stop the wrath of Jehovah, by admonitions and exhortations to the people, and by personal piety and prayer to God. The place alludes to the intercession which Moses made for the Israelites, whereby he withheld God's hand, as it were, when it was just stretched out to take vengeance upon the people for their heinous sin in making the golden calf, Exodus 32:10-11. The phrase is taken from those who put a stop to the enemy, when he is just entering in at a breach. In like manner it was the office and duty of those prophets, if they had truly been what they pretended to be, by their endeavours to reform the people, and their intercessions with God, to avert his displeasure, and prevent the vengeance which was just ready to be poured out on a sinful people. Neither made up the hedge The Vulgate renders it, neque opposuistis murum pro domo Israel, nor made up a wall for the house of Israel; another expression taken from people besieged in a city, who, if a breach be made in the wall, presently make it up, or build up a new one within it, to prevent the enemy from entering and becoming masters of the place. To stand in the battle in the day of the Lord When God shall come, like a general at the head of his army, to execute his judgment upon his enemies.