Ezekiel 36:13-15

‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because they say to you, ‘you are devourer of men, and have been a bereaver of your nation,' therefore you will devour men no more, nor bereave (another reading is ‘cause to stumble') your nation any more,” says the Lord Yahweh, “nor will I let you hear any more the shame of the nations, nor will you any more bear the reproach of the peoples, nor will you cause your nation to stumble any more,” says the Lord Yahweh.”

These words are still spoken to ‘the land' as representing Israel. In Numbers 13:32 the land of Canaan is described as a land that ‘devours its inhabitants'. The idea there would seem to be that it was seen as a land of trouble and unrest, a land where death was commonplace. Here the parallel ‘bereaver of your nation' would confirm this. But in the future there will be no more violent or premature death, nor will there be any reproach or shaming, nor will men stumble. Again we are carried into the environment of eternity with God, when all death and sin is done away.

The alternative reading ‘cause to stumble' may well be correct. It is repeated in Ezekiel 36:15 and Ezekiel is fond of repetition. But the overall meaning is the same. The word signifies weakness, and therefore here stumbling morally through weakness. Compare Jeremiah 18:15; Jeremiah 31:9; Hosea 14:9 for parallel thoughts.