And they shall fall one upon another,.... In their hurry and confusion, everyone making all the haste he can to escape the imaginary danger; or "a man upon his brother" ; his friend, as Aben Ezra interprets it, having no regard to relation and friendship, every one endeavouring to save himself.
There is another sense which some Jewish writers give of this phrase, and is observed by Jarchi, which is, that everyone shall fall for the iniquities of his brother; for all the Israelites say, they are sureties for one another; but the former sense is best:as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: as if a sword was drawn and brandished at them, just ready to be thrust in them, filling them with the utmost dread and terror, and yet at the same time none in pursuit of them:and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies; no heart to resist them, no strength nor spirit to oppose them, and defend themselves but be obliged to surrender their cities, themselves, their families and goods, into the hand of the enemy.
wyxab vya "vir in fratrem suum", Vatablus, Drusius, Piscator. Torat Cohanim apud Yalkut, par. 1. fol. 197.