Thy days... thy years. — Viz., of judgment and visitation. The Rabbinical commentators interpret the days of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the years of the captivity in Babylon.
A mocking to all countries. — This is frequently spoken of in Ezekiel, and is the necessary result in all ages of the contrast between high professions and inconsistent performance. Israel’s law stood far above the legislation of any other nation of the period, but the habitual conduct of her people was in utter disregard of that law. The effect was the same as at a later day, when St. Paul said, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you” (Romans 2:24), just as the same evils and the same hindrances to the spread of the Gospel now result from the unworthy lives of Christians. But the Jews peculiarly exposed themselves to derision by their claim, as the chosen people of God, to universal and everlasting dominion, contrasted with their present overthrow and desolation; and this desolation was a punishment for the outrageous sins of a people whose whole national existence was based upon a call to peculiar holiness.