To a rebellious nation; literally, with Revised Version, nations that are rebellious. The Hebrew word (goim) is that used elsewhere for "heathen" and that may be its sense here. As in Ezekiel 28:22. Judah and Israel may be thought of as having fallen to the level of the heathen.
Part of Ezekiel's work was actually addressed to the heathen as such (ch. 25-32.). The word may, however, be used in the plural to include both Judah and the remnant of the northern kingdom. They and their fathers.
The words anticipate the teaching of Ezekiel 18:1-32. The people to whom the prophet was sent could not say that they were suffering for the sins of their fathers. They, in their own persons, had transgressed up to the very day on which the prophet received his mission.
They had rebelled as their fathers had done in the days of Moses and Joshua (Numbers 14:9; Joshua 22:18).