Hear in thee the shame of the pagan - Hear the pagan putting thee to shame by their contemptuous words.

The reproach of the people - "Thy people" (thy rightful possessors) shall have no cause to reproach thee for want of fertility. Were the blessings promised here merely temporal they could not be said to be fulfilled. The land is still subject to pagan masters. The words must point to blessings yet future, spiritual blessings.

In the following chapters to the end of Ezekiel 39 the conflict between the world mid God is described in its most general form, and the absolute triumph of the kingdom of God fully depicted. The honor of God is asserted in the gathering together, and the purification of, His people. As the dispersion of the children of Israel was far wider and more lasting than the sojourn in Chaldaea, so the reunion here predicted is far more extensive and complete. The dispersion yet continues, the reunion will be in those days when Israel shall be gathered into the Church of God.

Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the Heathen any more,.... Their calumnies and revilings, their scoffs and jeers:

neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more; or be any more a taunt and a curse, a proverb and a byword of the people; or be their laughing stock, and the object of their derision:

neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord God; by famine, sword, or pestilence, or any other judgment caused by sin: or, "thou shalt not bereave" (l), as the marginal reading is; and which the Targum and many versions follow: now what is here promised, in this and the preceding verse, had not its full accomplishment upon the Jews' return from the Babylonish captivity; for since that time their men have been devoured, and their tribes have been bereaved of them by famine, sword, and pestilence; and they have heard and bore the shame and reproach of the nations where they have been dispersed, and do to this day; wherefore these prophecies must refer to a future restoration of that people.

(l) "Non orbabis", Starckius.

Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord GOD.

36:1-15 Those who put contempt and reproach on God's people, will have them turned on themselves. God promises favour to his Israel. We have no reason to complain, if the more unkind men are, the more kind God is. They shall come again to their own border. It was a type of the heavenly Canaan, of which all God's children are heirs, and into which they all shall be brought together. And when God returns in mercy to a people who return to him in duty, all their grievances will be set right. The full completion of this prophecy must be in some future event.