Son of man, thy brethren, [even] thy brethren, the men of thy
kindred
Or, "of thy redemption" F12; to whom the right of redemption of his lands and possessions belonged, as it did to those that were next akin. The Septuagint, by a mistake of the word, render it, "the men of thy captivity"; and so the Syriac and Arabic versions, following them. It is true those were his fellow captives who are here meant; some of them that were carried captive were his brethren by blood, and all by nation and religion; and these phrases, and the repetition, of them, are designed not only to excite the prophet's attention to, and to assure them of what is after declared; but to take off his concern for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who had used his brethren ill, and to turn his thoughts and affections towards his friends in Chaldea. Kimchi thinks that these three expressions refer to three captivities; the captivity of the children of Gad and Reuben; the captivity of Samaria, or the ten tribes; and the captivity of Jehoiachin. It follows, and all the house of Israel wholly [are] they;
or,
``all the house of Israel, all of them,''as the Targum; that is, all the whole house of Israel. The Septuagint render it, "all the house of Israel is made an end of"; the Syriac version, "shall be blotted out"; and the Arabic version, "shall be cut off"; all wrong; since these words are not a threatening to the ten tribes, or those of the Jews in captivity, for all that follows is in favour of them; but only point at the persons the prophet is turned unto, and who are the subject of the following discourse. A colon, or at least a semicolon, should be here put; since the accent "athnach" is upon the last word; unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, get ye far from the
``from the fear of the Lord;''the worship of the Lord; they being at a distance from the temple, and the service of it. These words are an insult of the inhabitants of Jerusalem upon the captives, suggesting that they were great sinners, and for their sins were taken away from their own land, and carried to Babylon; and that they deserved to be excommunicated from the house and people of God, and were so; and indeed this is a kind of a form of excommunication of them: unto us is this land given in possession;
``because they said to them, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, depart from the Lord, for unto us is given this land for an inheritance.''The Arabic version indeed makes them to be the words of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but render the last clause thus; "to you" (that is, "the Israelites") "is given the land for an inheritance".