To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
To turn thine hand ... upon the people that are gathered out of the nations ... that dwell in the midst of the land - literally, in the navel of the land (Judges 9:37, margin.) So, in Ezekiel 5:5, Israel is said to be set "in the midst of the nations:" "This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations;" not physically, but morally; a central position for being a blessing to the world. It is on this account (as the favoured or "beloved city," Revelation 20:9) that it becomes to the godless foe an object of envy. Grotius translates х Tabuwr (H2872)], In the height of the land' (so Ezekiel 38:8), "the mountains of Israel," Israel being morally elevated above the rest of the world. The literal sense, 'navel,' seems to point to the fact of its being the moral center of the world, not to its moral eminence, as Ezekiel 5:5 also implies. Buxtorf takes it as Grotius.