Thus saith the Lord God, because they say unto you
The Heathens that dwelt round about the land of Judea said to the mountains, or to the whole land, thou land devourest up men;
eats up the inhabitants of it; which is part of the ill report the spies, in the times of Moses, brought on it, ( Numbers 13:32 ) , to which the allusion is here; suggesting, that either the air was unwholesome; or that the land did not produce a sufficiency of food to support the inhabitants of it; or that the curse of God was upon it; and that one judgment or another was ever on it; either famine, or pestilence, or the sword of the enemy, or internal broils among themselves, or wild beasts, whereby the inhabitants of the land were wasted and consumed: and hast bereaved thy nations;
the several tribes, of men and children; so that they were diminished and depopulated: the allusion seems to be to miscarrying women, or such who kill their children in the womb, and become abortive.