Arise ye and depart - Go your way, as being cast out of God’s care and land. It matters not where they went. “For this is not your rest.” As ye have done, so shall it be done unto you. As ye cast out the widow and the fatherless, so shall ye be cast out; as ye gave no rest to those “averse from war,” so shall ye have none Revelation 13:10. “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.” The land was given to them as a temporary rest, a symbol and earnest of the everlasting rest to the obedient. So Moses spake, “ye are not as yet come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when He giveth you rest from your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety ...” (Deuteronomy 12:9-10, add 1 Kings 8:56). And Joshua, “Remember the word which Moses commanded you, saying, The Lord your God giveth you rest” Joshua 1:13. But the Psalmist had warned them, that, if they hardened their hearts like their forefathers, they too would “not enter into His rest” Psalms 95:11.
Because it is polluted - (Literally, because of its pollution ) by idolatry, by violence, by uncleanness. So Moses (using the same word) says, “the land is defiled” by the abominations of the pagan; and warns them, “that the land spue you not out, when you defile it, as it spued out the nations which were before you.” Ezekiel speaks of that “defilement” Ezekiel 36:17, as the ground why God expelled Israel. “It shall destroy you, even with a sore (literally sharp) destruction” (Ezekiel 36:18, add Jeremiah 2:7). . It is a sore thing to abuse the creatures of God to sin, and it is unfit that we should use what we have abused. Hence, Holy Scripture speaks, as though even the inanimate creation took part with God, “made subject to vanity, not willingly,” and could not endure those who employed it against His Will.
The words, “Arise, depart, ye, for this is not your rest,” became a sort of sacred proverb, spoken anew to the soul, whenever it would find rest out of God. : “We are bidden to think of no rest for ourselves in any things of the world; but, as it were, arising from the dead, to stretch upwards, and walk after the Lord our God, and say, ‘My soul cleaveth hard after Thee.’ This if we neglect, and will not hear Him who saith, ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,’ we shall indeed slumber, but shall be deceived and shall not find rest; for where Christ enlighteneth not the risen soul, what seemeth to be rest, is trouble.” All rest is wearisome which is not in Thee, O our God.