Cause... to fall. — In the last four verses there is a delicate play upon words which cannot well be expressed in English. Two verbs are used, each of them twice (“bereave” in Ezekiel 36:14 should be cause to fall, as in margin), one of them meaning to bereave, the other to cause to fall; and these verbs have the same radical letters, but with the first two of them transposed.
In reviewing this whole prophecy (Ezekiel 35:1 to Ezekiel 36:15), it is evident that the time had in view by the prophet was one in which Edom still existed as a nation, and was rejoicing in the fall of Israel. It cannot, therefore, look forward to any literal, but still future, accomplishment, since Edom, as a nation, has long since disappeared; and no future people, occupying the same territory or bearing the same name, could possibly sustain the same historic relations to Israel as are here attributed to Edom. Whatever, therefore, is to be literally understood in the prophecy must have been long ago fulfilled. And this was much. Israel was restored to its land, and there greatly multiplied, so that the country became for ages one of the most fertile and prosperous in Asia. At the same time, the sinfulness of the people, as of old, hindered the fulness of blessing that was within their reach. But a small part of them availed themselves of the opportunity to return to their land; and they who did so suffered themselves so to live that when the crowning blessing of the ages was fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah, the mass of the nation rejected and crucified Him. The blessings promised were fulfilled literally as far as the sinfulness of the people allowed; but inasmuch as these prevented anything like the full realisation of the terms of the prophecy, and as no future realisation of these is possible, on account of the total change of conditions and circumstances, it is plain that under these earthly terms the prophet, like his predecessors, Isaiah and the others, sets forth the glories of the spiritual future, and uses earthly blessings as the types of those better ones which are heavenly.
Ezekiel 36:16-38 constitute a separate prophecy, but one closely connected with that which has gone before. It is here declared that Israel has been scattered among the heathen because they had defiled the land by their sin (Ezekiel 36:16-19); then, that although they had yet further profaned God’s name among the heathen, He yet had pity for that name’s sake (Ezekiel 36:20-23); and, accordingly, that He will gather and restore Israel, cleansing them from their sins, and giving them a heart to keep His commandments (Ezekiel 36:24-32); and in consequence of this change that He will greatly bless them (Ezekiel 36:35-38). The great point of the prophecy is the moral change foretold in Ezekiel 36:25-27; Ezekiel 36:31.