Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession.
Thy brethren, even thy brethren. The repetition implies, 'Thy real brethren' are no longer the priests at Jerusalem, with whom thou art connected by the natural ties of blood and common temple-service; but thy fellow-exiles on the Chebar, and the house of Israel, whosoever of them belong to the remnant to be spared.
Men of thy kindred - literally, of thy redemption х gª'ulaatekaa (H1353)]; i:e., the nearest relatives, whose duty it was to do the part of Go'el (H1352), or vindicator and redeemer of a relative's forfeited inheritance (Leviticus 25:25). Ezekiel, seeing the priesthood doomed to destruction, as a priest, felt anxious to vindicate their cause, as if they were his nearest kinsmen and he their Goel. But he is told to look for his true kinsmen in those his fellow-exiles whom his natural kinsmen at Jerusalem despised, and to be their vindicator. Spiritual ties, as in the case of Levi (Deuteronomy 33:9), the type of Messiah (Matthew 12:47-50), are to supersede natural ones where the two clash. The hope of better days was to rise from the despised exiles. The Gospel principle is shadowed forth here, that the despised of men are often the chosen of God, and the highly esteemed among men are an abomination before Him (Luke 16:15; 1 Corinthians 1:26-28). 'No door of hope but in the valley of Achor' ('trouble,' Hosea 2:15). (Fairbairn.)
Get you far from the Lord; unto us is this land given in possession - the contemptuous words of those left still in the city at the carrying away of Jeconiah to the exiles, 'However far ye be outcasts from the Lord and His temple, we are secure in our possession of the land.'