Verse 15. - If the wicked restore the pledge. In Ezekiel 18:7, 12, 16, this and its opposite had been grouped with other forms of good and evil. Here it stands out in solitary preeminence. The reason may possibly be found in the fact that a time of exile and suffering was likely to make the sin, which the penitent thus showed that he had renounced, a specially common one. The starving man pledged his garment or his tools for the loan of money or of food at a price far below its value. There was a real self-sacrifice, a proof of the power of the faith that worketh by love, when the creditor restored it. The primary duty, when a man turned from evil, was, as far as in him lay, to overcome his besetting sin and make restitution for the past. Compare the words of the Baptist (Luke 3:12-14), and those of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8). The statutes of life. The words are used as in Ezekiel 20:11 and Leviticus 18:5, on the assumption that, if a man kept the statutes, he should (in the highest sense of the word) live in them. It was reserved for the fuller illumination of St. Paul, taught by a representative experience to proclaim the higher truth that the Law, ordained for life, was yet the minister of condemnation and death unless there was something higher than itself to complete the work which it could only begin (Romans 7:10; Romans 8:3; comp. also Hebrews 7:19).

33:10-20 Those who despaired of finding mercy with God, are answered with a solemn declaration of God's readiness to show mercy. The ruin of the city and state was determined, but that did not relate to the final state of persons. God says to the righteous, that he shall surely live. But many who have made profession, have been ruined by proud confidence in themselves. Man trusts to his own righteousness, and presuming on his own sufficiency, he is brought to commit iniquity. If those who have lived a wicked life repent and forsake their wicked ways, they shall be saved. Many such amazing and blessed changes have been wrought by the power of Divine grace. When there is a settled separation between a man and sin, there shall no longer be a separation between him and God.If the wicked restore the pledge,.... His neighbour's raiment, which he has taken as a pledge for money lent him; and which, according to the law, was to be restored before sunset, Exodus 22:26 which wicked men did not attend unto; but when such a man is brought to a sense of his wickedness, and repentance for it, as an evidence of it he would restore the pledge:

and give again that he had robbed; to him whom he had robbed; as a thief was obliged to do, four or five fold, according to the law, Exodus 22:1, and which, when a man did voluntarily, from the convictions of his own mind, and not by force of the civil magistrate, it was a sign of true repentance; see Luke 19:8,

and walk in the statutes of life; the rule of life and conversation, and to the keeping of which the promise of long life is annexed; and which preserve persons from dying a shameful death by the hand of the civil magistrate; statutes, which, if a man do, he shall live in them; see Ezekiel 20:11,

without committing iniquity; not living entirely without sin, which the best of men do not; but without committing grosser sins, as before; and without making a trade of sinning, and living in it:

he shall surely live, he shall not die; he shall live comfortably now, and happily hereafter; he shall live a spiritual life, and not die the second death.