Thus says the Lord GOD: Because they say to you, ‘You devour people, and you bereave your nation of children,’
The prophet had been ordered to set his face towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, Eze 6:2. Then God was coming forth to contend with his people; but now that God is returning in mercy to them he must speak good words and comfortable words to these mountains, Eze 36:1 and again Eze 36:4.
Commenting on Ezekiel 36:1-15
Thus saith the Lord God, because they say unto you,.... The Heathens that dwelt round about the land of Judea said to the mountains, or to the whole land, thou land devourest up men; eats up the inhabitants of it; which is part of the ill report the spies, in the times of Moses, brought on it, Num 13:32, to which the allusion is here...
Thou land devourest up men--alluding to the words of the spies (Num 13:32). The land personified is represented as doing that which was done in it. Like an unnatural mother it devoured, that is, it was the grave of its people; of the Canaanites, its former possessors, through mutual wars, and finally by the sword of Israel; and now, of the Jews, through internal and...