(7) Lifted up mine hand.--As in Ezekiel 20:6 = "I have sworn."

Shall bear their shame.--Comp. Ezekiel 36:6. The Israelites have been compelled to bear the reproaches of the heathen, but these now return upon themselves.

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 thus saith the Lord God,.... This being the case, the people of God being in distress, and under shame and disgrace, and the enemy insulting them, and triumphing over them:

I have lifted up mine hand; solemnly swore; lifting up of the hand being a rite used by men when they swore, Genesis 14:22,

surely the Heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame; the punishment of their shame; that which is justly due to them for reproaching and putting to shame the people of God: or they shall be a laughing stock to others, and be reproached and derided themselves, and so be paid in their own coin; a just retaliation this for their treatment of the Jews.