Therefore declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries to which you have been scattered, and I will give back to you the land of Israel.’
Now God expresses the effect of his grace. In the last verse he had said that he would be a sanctuary. I have reminded you that these words ought not to be understood of a visible place in which God was worshipped, but of that hidden influence by which he cherishes his people. But if the exile had been perpetual, that promise might seem vain.
Prophecy was designed to exalt every valley as well as to bring low every mountain and hill (Isa 40:4), and prophets were to speak not only conviction to the presumptuous and secure, but comfort to the despised and desponding that trembled at God's word.
Commenting on Ezekiel 11:14-21
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will even gather you from the people,.... The Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, where they had been carried captive: and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered; that is, out of Chaldea and Media, out of which they should come in a body, and not singly, or in small numbers, as they did when Cyrus...