They - The inhabitants of Jerusalem.

She hath changed my judgments - God shows the reason why he deals with Jerusalem in greater severity than with the surrounding nations; because she was more wicked than they. Bad and idolatrous as they were, they had a greater degree of morality among them than the Jews had. Having fallen from the true God, they became more abominable than others in proportion to the height, eminence, and glory from which they had fallen. This is the common case of backsliders; they frequently, in their fall, become tenfold more the children of wrath than they were before.

And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations,.... So they changed their glory for that which did not profit; and the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man; and the truth of God into a lie, Jeremiah 2:11; or, "for wickedness" (q); for judgments and laws that were not good, and which to observe was wickedness. The word rendered "changed" signifies to "rebel against" or to "transgress": and the may be, she, that is, Jerusalem, has "rebelled" against my judgments, and "transgressed" (r) them in a wicked manner, even to a greater degree than the nations of the world. The Targum and Jarchi interpret it changed as we do:

and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her. "Judgments" and "statutes", are the same laws and ordinances of worship, being just and righteous, and firm and unalterable; unless it should rather be thought that "judgments" belong to the moral law, being given forth by the Lord as a judge, and founded upon judgment and righteousness; and "statutes" to the ceremonial law, being of positive institution and appointment, and to last so long as it was the pleasure of the lawgiver:

for they have refused my judgments and my statutes; they refused to comply with them, and to yield an obedience to them, and that with loathing, disdain, and contempt, as the word (s) signifies,

they have not walked in them; they did not make them the role of their walk and conversation; they showed no regard to them; they went out of the way of them, into crooked paths, with the workers of iniquity.

(q) "ut improbe ageret", Cocceius. (r) "transgressa est, vel rebellis fuit", Calvin; "refractaria (s) "Verbum" "significat spernere, reprobare, rejicere, idque ex contemptu et fastidio", Polanus.

And she hath changed my {e} judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are around her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.

(e) My word and law into idolatry and superstitions.

5:6 More - More than the heathen.

6. changed . into-rather, "hath resisted My judgments wickedly"; "hath rebelled against My ordinances for wickedness" [Buxtorf]. But see on [1021]Eze 5:7, end.

5:5-17 The sentence passed upon Jerusalem is very dreadful, the manner of expression makes it still more so. Who is able to stand in God's sight when he is angry? Those who live and die impenitent, will perish for ever unpitied; there is a day coming when the Lord will not spare. Let not persons or churches, who change the Lord's statutes, expect to escape the doom of Jerusalem. Let us endeavour to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Sooner or later God's word will prove itself true.