Verse 4. - The rivers (or, channels, bottoms, dales) were the water-courses, wadies, or ravines through which mountain streams flowed, as in Ezekiel 35:8; and the residue of the heathen were the surrounding nations that had mocked Israel in her degradation, and were then profiting by her fall (comp. Psalm 79:4).

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.Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord,.... As in Ezekiel 36:1, here repeated to raise and quicken their attention to what was about to be said to them:

thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken; before only the mountains are spoken to, though the whole land was included; here the several particulars are given, which describe the whole, and which suffered in the calamity, and the inhabitants that dwelt in them or near them; who only can be supposed to hear the word of the Lord, though places are only mentioned, because of the great depopulation of them:

which became a prey and derision to the residue of the Heathen that are round about; to the Tyrians, Philistines, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites; who mocked the Jews, rejoicing at their destruction by the king of Babylon, and seized upon as a prey to themselves what he left: or these are the residue of the Heathens round about Judea; who remained after the judgments threatened were executed on the above nations, foretold in chapters twenty five and twenty six, see Ezekiel 36:36.