The judgments which God sent upon the land, had so destroyed the inhabitants that men deemed it a fatal land, which brought destruction to all that should occupy it (compare 2-Kings 17:25).

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because they say to you, Thou (k) [land] devourest men, and hast bereaved thy nations;
(k) This the enemies imputed as the reproach of the land, which God did for the sins of the people according to his just judgments.

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.

Thou land devourest up men--alluding to the words of the spies (Numbers 13:32). The land personified is represented as doing that which was done in it. Like an unnatural mother it devoured, that is, it was the grave of its people; of the Canaanites, its former possessors, through mutual wars, and finally by the sword of Israel; and now, of the Jews, through internal and external ills; for example, wars, famine (to which Ezekiel 36:30, "reproach of famine among the heathen," implies the allusion here is).

They - The heathen round about.