Eze 36:12-14 | JFB | STEP | 12. to walk upon you-- O mountains of Israel ( )! thee ... thou-- change from plural to singular: O hill of Zion, singled out from the other mountains of Israel ( ); or land. thou shall no more ... bereave them of men-- Thou shalt no more provoke God to bereave them of children (so the ellipsis ought to be supplied, as Ezekiel probably alludes to , "I will bereave them of children").

‏ Ezekiel 36:12-14

12. to walk upon you--O mountains of Israel (Eze 36:8)!

thee ... thou--change from plural to singular: O hill of Zion, singled out from the other mountains of Israel (Eze 34:26); or land.

thou shall no more ... bereave them of men--Thou shalt no more provoke God to bereave them of children (so the ellipsis ought to be supplied, as Ezekiel probably alludes to Jr 15:7, "I will bereave them of children").

13. Thou land devourest up men--alluding to the words of the spies (Nu 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 external ills; for example, wars, famine (to which Eze 36:30, "reproach of famine among the heathen," implies the allusion here is).

14. bereave--so the Keri, or Hebrew Margin reads, to correspond to "bereave" in Eze 36:13; but "cause to fall" or "stumble," in the Hebrew text or Chetib, being the more difficult reading, is the one least likely to come from a corrector; also, it forms a good transition to the next subject, namely, the moral cause of the people's calamities, namely, their falls, or stumblings through sin. The latter ceasing, the former also cease. So the same expression follows in Eze 36:15, "Neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more."