Then Amaziah separated them,.... From his army, among whom they were incorporated and ranked, to wit: the army that was come to him out of Ephraim; which he had hired of the ten tribes, these he singled out: to go home again; to their own country: wherefore their anger was greatly kindled against Judah, and they returned home in great anger; it being a great slight put upon them, and a reproach to them, to be thus dismissed, as they thought; and especially if they understood that it was because they were idolaters; and the rather as they might have hoped to have had their share in the plunder of the Edomites.