Ezekiel 12:22

Proverb - A dark or puzzling saying.

The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth? - These are the words of the infidels and scoffers, who, because vengeance was not speedily executed on an evil work, set their heart to do iniquity. "These predictions either will not come in our days, or will wholly fail; why then should we disquiet ourselves about them?" Strange, that the very means used by the most gracious God to bring sinners to repentance, should be made by them the very instruments of their own destruction! See 2 Peter 3:4.

The land of Israel - is put generally for the land where the children of Israel dwelt, whether at home, or in exile. There was prevalent a disregard for the true prophets, which is ever followed by a recognition of the false. First, the true prophet is rejected because it is thought that his prophecies fail. Then men persuade themselves that if the prophecy be true it respects some distant time, and that the men of the present generation need not disturb themselves about it. Compare Jeremiah 1:11; Amos 6:3; Matthew 24:43; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:4. Against both these delusions Ezekiel is commissioned to protest, and so to lead the way to his condemnation of his countrymen for their blind reliance on false prophets.

12:22 That proverb - That short saying commonly used.Days - Of wrath and vengeance, are to come a great while hence.Every vision - Threatening vision, which Jeremiah and Ezekiel would fright us with, comes to nothing.