“For, as for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now that land will be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
Parallel Translations
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“For, as for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now that land will be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
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For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
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For thy waste and thy desolate places and thy land that hath been destroyed — surely now shalt thou be too strait for the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
Cross-references (20)
Passages linked to Isaiah 49:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Zechariah 10:10 I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and there won’t be room enough for them.
- Isaiah 54:1-2 “Sing, barren, you who didn’t give birth; break out into singing, and cry aloud, you who didn’t travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,” says Yahweh. “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; don’t spare: lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.
- Jeremiah 30:18-19 Yahweh says: “Behold, I will reverse the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places. The city will be built on its own hill, and the palace will be inhabited in its own place. Thanksgiving will proceed out of them with the voice of those who make merry. I will multiply them, and they will not be few; I will also glorify them, and they will not be small.
- Psalms 56:1-2 Be merciful to me, God, for man wants to swallow me up. All day long, he attacks and oppresses me. My enemies want to swallow me up all day long, for they are many who fight proudly against me.
- Isaiah 49:25-26 But Yahweh says, “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the plunder retrieved from the fierce, for I will contend with him who contends with you and I will save your children. I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh; and they will be drunk on their own blood, as with sweet wine. Then all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
- Isaiah 51:3 For Yahweh has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh. Joy and gladness will be found in them, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
- Hosea 1:10-11 Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.
- Psalms 124:3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us;
- Proverbs 1:12 Let’s swallow them up alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down into the pit.
- Isaiah 5:6 I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”
- Isaiah 49:8 Yahweh says, “I have answered you in an acceptable time. I have helped you in a day of salvation. I will preserve you and give you for a covenant of the people, to raise up the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritage,
- Isaiah 49:17 Your children hurry. Your destroyers and those who devastated you will leave you.
- Jeremiah 30:16 Therefore all those who devour you will be devoured. All your adversaries, everyone of them, will go into captivity. Those who plunder you will be plunder. I will make all who prey on you become prey.
- Jeremiah 33:10-11 Yahweh says: “Yet again there will be heard in this place, about which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,’ the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to be reversed as at the first,” says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 51:33 For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest comes for her.”
- Jeremiah 51:44 I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. The nations will not flow any more to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall.
- Ezekiel 36:3 therefore prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because, even because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that you might be a possession to the residue of the nations, and you are taken up in the lips of talkers, and the evil report of the people;”
- Ezekiel 36:9-15 For, behold, I am for you, and I will come to you, and you will be tilled and sown. I will multiply men on you, all the house of Israel, even all of it. The cities will be inhabited, and the waste places will be built. I will multiply man and animal on you. They will increase and be fruitful. I will cause you to be inhabited as you were before, and you will do better than at your beginnings. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, even my people Israel. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance, and you will never again bereave them of their children.” “ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because they say to you, ‘You are a devourer of men, and have been a bereaver of your nation;’ therefore you shall devour men no more, and not bereave your nation any more,” says the Lord Yahweh. “I won’t let you hear the shame of the nations any more. You won’t bear the reproach of the peoples any more, and you won’t cause your nation to stumble any more,” says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”
- Zechariah 2:4 and said to him, “Run, speak to this young man, saying, ‘Jerusalem will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it.
- Zechariah 2:11 Many nations shall join themselves to Yahweh in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell among you, and you shall know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me to you.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 49:19 For thy waste and thy desolate places,…
Isa 49:19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
Ver. 19. For thy waste and thy desolate places.] Heb., Thy wastenesses and thy desolations. The true Church then may lie waste and desolate and not be so gloriously visible, as the Papists falsely say it always is.
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Shall even now be too narrow.] A metaphor from cities that being overcrowded send out colonies into other countries.
And they that swallowed thee up.] See Isa 49:17.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Thy waste and thy desolate places; thy own land,…
Thy waste and thy desolate places; thy own land, which is now waste and desolate, and whereof divers parts lay formerly waste and desolate for want of people to possess and manage them.
The land of thy destruction; or rather, thy land of destruction; so called because it is devoted and shall be exposed to destruction. Shall be far away, to wit, from thee.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the…
For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction,.... Or "thy land of destruction, or thy destroyed land" (n); laid waste and desolate by the enemy, without inhabitants; such countries in which there were few professors of the true religion:
shall even now be too narrow, by reason of the inhabitants; because of the multitude of them; a hyperbolical expression, setting forth the great numbers of Christian converts everywhere: this straitness will not be on account of strangers or enemies having taken possession; but on account of those who are true and proper possessors: for it follows,
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and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away; from the church; the Heathen, the Gentiles, or Papists,
shall now perish out of his, Jehovah's, "land"; "sinners shall be consumed out of the earth, and the wicked be no more", Psa 10:16. Antichrist and his abettors, which "swallowed" up the people, their riches, and substance, like beasts of prey, to which he is compared, shall go into perdition, and never disturb the church any more, Rev 13:1.
(n) "terra tua destructa", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, De Dieu; "et terram destructionis tuam", Cocceius; "et terram tuam quae destructa est", Vitringa.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Thy waste places - Thy own land, whereof divers…
Thy waste places - Thy own land, whereof divers parts lie waste for want of people to possess them. Land of destruction - Which before was desolate and destroyed.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 49:19-21. For thy waste and desolate places, &c.…
Isa 49:19-21. For thy waste and desolate places, &c. — He alludes to the land of Judea lying waste during the Babylonish captivity. Thus the church of God was in a waste, desolate, and barren state, till the coming of the Messiah, the introduction of the gospel, and the conversion of the Gentiles; and the land of thy destruction — Or, thy land of destruction. He still alludes to Judea, thus characterized, because it was devoted, and should be exposed to destruction, first by the Chaldeans, and again by the Romans, a lively emblem of the ruined state of their church; shall even now be too narrow — To contain the multitude of converts that shall be made. The middle wall of partition that separated the Jews from the Gentiles shall be broken down, and the pale of the church shall be enlarged. The children which thou shalt have, &c. — Hebrew, בני שׁכלין, The children of thy orbity, or, barren and childless state. Those children which thou shalt have when thou art past the ordinary age and state of childbearing, as Sarah in her old age was made the mother of a most numerous posterity; to which he seems to allude: those children which shall be begotten to thee by the gospel when thou shalt be deprived of thine own natural children, or when thou shalt become barren as to the conversion of natural Jews; when the generality of the Jews shall cut themselves off from God and his true church, by their apostacy from him, and by their unbelief and rejection of their Messiah; shall say again — Or rather, shall yet say, though for the present it be far otherwise, The place is too strait for me, &c. — This is figuratively spoken, merely to signify the great enlargement of the church by the accession of the Gentiles. See Isa 54:1. Then shalt thou say in thy heart — Not without admiration, Who hath begotten me these — Whence, or by whom, have I this numerous issue? Seeing I have lost my children — Seeing it is not long since that I was in a manner childless? And am desolate — Without a husband, being forsaken of God, who formerly owned himself for my husband, Isa 54:5; Jer 31:32; a captive, and removing to and fro — In an unsettled condition, and not likely to bear and bring up children for God or myself. Who hath brought up these? — The same thing is repeated in these words to express the miraculousness of this work, and the great surprise of the Jews at it: which shows that he speaks of the conversion of the Gentiles.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For thy waste and thy desolate places - Thy…
For thy waste and thy desolate places - Thy land over which ruin has been spread, and ever which the exile nation mourns.
And the land of thy destruction - That is, thy land laid in ruins. The construction is not uncommon where a noun is used to express the sense of an adjective. Thus in Psa 2:6, the Hebrew phrase (margin) is correctly rendered ‘my holy hill.’ Here the sense is, that their entire country had been so laid waste as to be a land of desolation.
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Shall even now be too narrow - Shall be too limited to contain all who shall become converted to the true God. The contracted territory of Palestine shall be incapable of sustaining all who will acknowledge the true God, and who shall be regarded as his friends.
And they that swallowed thee up - The enemies that laid waste thy land, and that “absorbed,” as it were, thy inhabitants, and removed them to a distant land. They shall be all gone, and the land shall smile again in prosperity and in loveliness.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Inhabitants. The country was better peopled, (Calmet) and Jerusalem…
Inhabitants. The country was better peopled, (Calmet) and Jerusalem enlarged under the Machabees. (Josephus, Jewish Wars v. 6.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain land of thy destruction--thy land once the scene of…
land of thy destruction--thy land once the scene of destruction.
too narrow-- (Isa 54:1-2; Zac 10:10).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 19. In the import of Isa_49:16-18 our Version and…
19. In the import of Isa_49:16-18 our Version and the Hebrew quite accurately coincide, though the Hebrew is occasionally broken; as for example:
Thy waste and thy desolate places — More literally, Thy wastes and thy desolations, and the land of thy wasteness.
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Shall even now be too narrow — So great should be the number of her converts, here termed inhabitants, that not only the more attractive parts of the land, but even the “waste places” should overflow with people. Not the newly built-up city alone, but all the land around, so long lying waste, shall be renewed in beauty, both of holy citizens and their substance and productiveness, just as in her former palmiest days when God was sole theocratic king: only no more hovering enemies shall, as of old, be around. They shall be far away.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 19. For as for thy waste and thy desolate…
19. For as for thy waste and thy desolate places and thy land that hath been destroyed, surely now shalt thou be too strait for the inhabitants, &c.] So R.V. But there appears to be some textual disorder, the subjects in the first half of the verse having no predicate. The R.V. gets over the difficulty by taking “thy waste places” &c. as a sort of casus pendens, resumed in the “thou” of the last clause; but this is a forced construction. The most probable solution is that the original conclusion of the first clause has been lost in copying (Duhm); the second would then commence with the words For now.
the land of thy destruction] lit. “thy land of destruction,” i.e., as R.V., thy land that hath been destroyed.
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19, 20. In place of her present solitude, the ideal Zion shall yet look down on a densely peopled city, whose inhabitants are embarrassed for want of room.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (19) Shall even now be too narrow.—Literally, with a…
(19) Shall even now be too narrow.—Literally, with a vivid abruptness, thou shalt be . . . The over population of the future is contrasted with the depopulation of the past (Isa_3:6; Isa_4:1).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The land of thy destruction; or, of thy overthrow…
The land of thy destruction; or, of thy overthrow i.e, where thou wert overthrown by Nebuchadnezzarshall even now be too narrow, etc. This must not be understood literally. Palestine, after the return from the Captivity, was at no time over-populated; and when the conversion of the Gentiles took place it caused no influx of fresh settlers into the Holy Land. The object of the prophet is simply to mark the vast growth of the Church, which would necessarily spread itself far beyond the limits of Palestine, and would ultimately require the whole earth for its habitation.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking to Zion as if it were a woman. (See: Personification)
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Though you were a waste and desolate
The words "a waste" and "desolate" mean basically the same thing and emphasize that the enemy has destroyed Zion and left it empty. AT: "Though you were completely desolate" (See: Doublet)
those who devoured you
The enemy destroying Zion is spoken of as if they had devoured it. AT: "those who destroyed you" (See: Metaphor)
The children born during the time of your bereavement
Yahweh speaks of the time when the people of Jerusalem were in exile as if the city was bereaved of her children. Those who were born while the people were in exile are spoken of as the city's children. AT: "Those who will inhabit you, who were born while the people were in exile" (See: Metaphor)
The place is too cramped for us
This means that there will be so many people that the city will be too small for them all to live in it.
translationWords
waste
desolate
ruin
devour
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 49:19-21 The population explosion would reach beyond Israel to…
49:19-21 The population explosion would reach beyond Israel to include the members of foreign nations who turn to the Lord (see 56:6-8; Rev 7:9). • more room: The expanded population would require space far beyond the traditional boundaries of the land of Israel (see also Zech 2:4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.