4 Seeing then that I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The righteous and the wicked - take the place of "every green tree and every dry tree" Ezekiel 20:47; "all faces" that of "all flesh:" to show the universality of the destructions. National judgment involves the innocent in the temporal ruin of the guilty. The equity of God is vindicated by the ruin being only temporal.
From the south to the north - From one end of the holy land to the other; the seer is in the north, and looks at once on the whole extent of the ruin.
From the south to the north - The whole land shall be ravaged from one end to the other.
Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth from its sheath against all flesh from the south to the (c) north:
(c) Meaning, through all the land.
Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked,.... Some by the sword, some by famine, some by pestilence, and others by captivity; and, upon the whole, none spared, but the land left desolate:
therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh, from the south to the north; the Chaldean army shall go out of their own land against all the inhabitants of Judea, from Beersheba to Daniel; this explains what is meant by all faces being burnt from the south to the north, Ezekiel 20:47, namely, the general destruction of the Jews by the Chaldeans.
The "sword" did not, literally, slay all; but the judgments of God by the foe swept through the land "from the south to the north."
All flesh - All the Jews that dwell in the land.
*More commentary available at chapter level.