‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, say to her, You are a land that is not cleansed nor rained on in the day of indignation.” '
Ezekiel now declares his third oracle. It concentrates on the infiltration of evil into the whole of society. Its first warning is that there will be no renewal of the land by rain because of God's anger against them.
In it God gives warning that the rains which were the lifeblood of the land will fail in ‘the day of indignation', the day of His anger (compare Isaiah 5:6; Zechariah 14:17). Notice the comparison of the falling of rain with the cleansing of the land. This will be taken up in Ezekiel 36:25. As the rain fell and life was renewed it was seen as a purification and a regeneration. (This would later be central in the teaching of John the Baptiser). But for this land in its evil there was to be no purification, no regeneration. It is in direct contrast with the ‘showers of blessing' in Ezekiel 34:26 producing great fruitfulness.
(There is absolutely no reason for changing the Hebrew text from ‘cleansed' to ‘rained on'. LXX, which does so, may well have been by interpretative translation rather than as indication of a different text and Ezekiel 36:25 demonstrates that Ezekiel links cleansing with rain).