My princes shall no more oppress my people. That Israel in former times had suffered from the oppressions and exactions of her kings, from Solomon downwards, as Samuel had predicted she would (1 Samuel 8:10-18), was matter of history (see 1 Kings 12:4, 1 Kings 12:10, 1 Kings 12:11; 2 Kings 23:35), and was perhaps partly explained, though not justified, by the fact that the kings had no crown lands assigned them for their support.
This excuse, however, for regal tyranny should in future cease, as a sufficient portion of land should be allocated to the prince and his successors, who accordingly should give, or leave, the rest of the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes.
The use of "princes" does not show, as Hengstenberg asserts, that "under the ideal unity of the prince in Ezekiel, a numerical plurality is included," and that "these who understand by the prince merely the Messiah must here do violence to the text;" but simply, as Kliefoth explains, that Ezekiel was thinking of Israel's past kings, and contrasting with them the rulers Israel might have in the future, without affirming that these should be many or one (see on Ezekiel 44:3).