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.
“Listen to me, my people; and hear me, my nation, for a law will go out from me, and I will establish my justice for a light to the peoples.
My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples. The islands will wait for me, and they will trust my arm.
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish away like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment. Its inhabitants will die in the same way, but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not be abolished.
“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Don’t fear the reproach of men, and don’t be dismayed at their insults.
For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”
Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the monster?
Isn’t it you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
Those ransomed by Yahweh will return, and come with singing to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?
Have you forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth? Do you live in fear continually all day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepares to destroy? Where is the fury of the oppressor?
The captive exile will speedily be freed. He will not die and go down into the pit. His bread won’t fail.
For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. Yahweh of Armies is his name.
I have put my words in your mouth and have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and tell Zion, ‘You are my people.’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16 As plentiful as Paradise, Gen. 2:8.
As plentiful as Paradise, Gen. 2:8.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv3–16 Isa 51:3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he…
Isa 51:3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Ver. 3. For the Lord shall comfort Zion.] (As once he did Abraham) by multiplying her children, giving her good store of converts. These were the apostles and the primitive Christians, those earthly angels, who made the world, which before was as a waste wilderness, to become a most pleasant and plentiful paradise. Chrysostom somewhere calleth them angels, and saith that they were puriores coelo afflictione facti, more clear than the azured sky.
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Joy and gladness shall be found in them.] See Isa 35:10.
Thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.] Paul as the precentor sweetly sings and gives the note to us all, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us," &c. {Eph 1:3-7}
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 On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 For: so this comes in as a reason why…
For: so this comes in as a reason why they should look unto or consider that famous example of Abraham and Sarah, because they should find the like wonder wrought on their behalf. Or, Therefore, or for the sake of Abraham, my friend, and of that covenant which I made with him, and by which I promised to bless him and his seed for ever.
Shall comfort Zion; his church, which is frequently called by that name, both in the Old and New Testament.
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He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord: although she shall be waste and desolate like a wilderness or desert for a time, yet she shall be restored, and be made as pleasant and flourishing as the garden of Eden was.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv4, 9 Both these proclamations, as I may call them, end…
Both these proclamations, as I may call them, end alike with an assurance of the perpetuity of God's righteousness and his salvation; and therefore we put them together, both being designed for the comfort of God's people. Observe,
I. Who they are to whom this comfort belongs: "My people, and my nation, that I have set apart for myself, that own me and are owned by me." Those are God's people and his nation who are subject to him as their King and their God, pay allegiance to him, and put themselves under his protection accordingly. They are a people who know righteousness, who not only have the means of knowledge, and to whom righteousness is made known, but who improve those means, and are able to form a right judgment of truth and falsehood, good and evil. And, as they have good heads, so they have good hearts, for they have the law of God in them, written and ruling there. Those God owns for his people in whose hearts his law is. Even those who know righteousness, and have the law of God in their hearts, may yet be in great distress and sorrow, and loaded with reproach and contempt; but their God will comfort them with the righteousness they know and the law they have in their hearts.
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II. What the comfort is that belongs to God's people. 1. That the gospel of Christ shall be preached and published to the world: A law shall proceed from me, an evangelical law, the law of Christ, the law of faith, Isa 2:3. This law is his judgment; for it is that law of liberty by which the world shall be governed and judged. This shall not only go forth, but shall continue and rest, it shall take firm footing and deep root in the world. It shall rest, not only for the benefit of the Jews, who had the first notice of it, but for a light of the people of other nations. It is this law, this judgment, that we are required to hearken and give ear to, at our peril; for how shall we escape if we neglect it and turn a deaf ear to it? When a law proceeds from God, he that has ears to hear, let him hear. 2. That this law and judgment shall bring with them righteousness and salvation, shall open a ready way to the children of men, that they may be justified and saved, Isa 51:5. These are called God's righteousness and his salvation, because of his contriving and bringing them about. The former is a righteousness which he will accept for us and accept us for, and a righteousness which he will work in us and graciously accept of. The latter is the salvation of the Lord, for it arises from him and terminates in him. Observe, There is no salvation without righteousness; and, wherever there is the righteousness of God, there shall be his salvation. All those, and those only, that are justified and sanctified shall be glorified. 3. That this righteousness and salvation shall very shortly appear: My righteousness is near. It is near in time; behold, all things are now ready. It is near in place, not far to seek, but the word is nigh us, and Christ in the word, righteousness in the word, Rom 10:8. My salvation has gone forth. The decree has gone forth concerning it; it shall as certainly be introduced as if it had gone forth already, and the time for it is at hand. 4. That this evangelical righteousness and salvation shall not be confined to the Jewish nation, but shall be extended to the Gentiles; My arms shall judge the people. Those that will not yield to the judgments of God's mouth shall be crushed by the judgments of his hand. Some shall thus be judged by the gospel, for for judgment Christ came into this world; but others, and those of the isles, shall wait upon him, and bid his gospel, and the commands as well as the comforts of it, welcome. It was a comfort to God's people, to his nation, that multitudes should be added to them, and the increase of their number should be the increase of their strength and beauty. It is added, And on my arm shall they trust, that arm of the Lord which is revealed in Christ, Isa 53:1. Observe, God's arm shall judge the people that are impenitent, and yet on his arm shall others trust and be saved by it; for it is to us as we make it, a savour of life or of death. 5. That this righteousness and salvation shall be for ever, and shall never be abolished, Isa 51:8. It is an everlasting righteousness that the Messiah brings in (Dan 9:24), an eternal redemption that he is the author of, Heb 5:9. As it shall spread through all the nations of the earth, so it shall last through all the ages of the world. We must never expect any other way of salvation, any other covenant of peace or rule of righteousness, than what we have in the gospel, and what we have there shall continue to the end, Mat 28:20. It is for ever; for the consequences of it shall be to eternity, and by this law of liberty men's everlasting state will be determined. This perpetuity of the gospel and the blessed things it brings in is illustrated by the fading and perishing of this world and all things in it. Look up to the visible heavens above, which have continued hitherto, and seem likely to continue, but they shall vanish like smoke that soon spends itself and disappears; they shall be rolled like a scroll, and their lights shall fall like leaves in autumn. Look down to the earth beneath; that abides too for a short ever (Ecc 1:4), but it shall wax old like a garment that will be the worse for wearing; and those that dwell therein, all the inhabitants of the earth, even those that seem to have the best settlement in it, shall die in like manner: the soul shall, as to this world, vanish like smoke, and the body be thrown by like a garment waxen old. They shall be easily crushed (Job 4:19), and no loss of them. But when heaven and earth pass away, when all flesh and the glory of it wither as grass, the word of the Lord endures for ever, and not one iota or tittle of that shall fall to the ground. Those whose happiness is bound up in Christ's righteousness and salvation will have the comfort of it when time and days shall be no more.
III. What use they are to make of this comfort. If God's righteousness and salvation are near to them, then let them not fear the reproach of men, of mortal miserable men, nor be afraid of their revilings or spiteful taunts, theirs who bid you sing them the songs of Zion, or who ask you, in scorn, Where is now your God? Let not those who embrace the gospel righteousness be afraid of those who will call them Beelzebub, and will say all manner of evil against them falsely. Let them not be afraid of them; let them not be disturbed by these opprobrious speeches, nor made uneasy by them, as if they would be the ruin of their reputation and honour and they must for ever lie under the load of them. Let them not be afraid of their executing their menaces, nor be deterred thereby from their duty, nor frightened into any sinful compliances, nor driven to take any indirect courses for their own safety. Those can bear but little for Christ that cannot bear a hard word for him. Let us not fear the reproach of men; for, 1. They will be quickly silenced (Isa 51:8): The moth shall eat them up like a garment, Isa 50:9. The worm shall eat them like wool, or woollen cloth. If we have the approbation of a living God, we may despise the censure of dying men; the matter is not great what those say of us who must shortly be food for worms. Or it intimates the judgments of God with which they shall be visited, with which they shall be consumed, for their malice against the people of God; they shall be slowly and silently, but effectually destroyed, when God shall come to reckon with them for all their hard speeches, Jde 1:14, Jde 1:15. 2. The cause we suffer for cannot be run down. The falsehood of their reproaches will be detected, but truth shall triumph, and the righteousness of religion's injured cause shall be for ever plain. Clouds darken the sun, but give no obstruction to his progress.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv3–16 For the Lord shall comfort Zion,.... The church, by…
For the Lord shall comfort Zion,.... The church, by his Spirit, in the ministration of the word, and administration of ordinances; by the donation of the blessings of grace, and by the application of Gospel promises; by the discoveries of his love; by granting his gracious presence; by blessing his word; and by calling many souls, and adding them to his people: and in order to engage the church and people of God to believe God will do this, and that he can and will bless and increase them when in a low estate, the above instances of calling Abraham alone, and the blessing and increasing him, are produced:
he will comfort all her waste places; by rebuilding them, and restoring them to their former lustre and glory: the church may be said to be "waste" and desolate, and like "a wilderness" and "desert", as in the next clauses, when the doctrines of the Gospel are departed from, the ordinances of public worship are not attended to, and the discipline of it is not kept up; when there are great declensions among the Lord's people, in their faith, love, patience, forbearance, self-denial, spirituality, and heavenly mindedness; when divisions and animosities prevail among them; when there is a negligence in their lives and conversations; and there are but few instances of conversion, and a general unconcernedness about those things; but so it will not always be:
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and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; the church is a "garden", a small spot, in comparison of the world, distinguished and separated by the grace of God from others; in which are many precious souls, comparable to trees, herbs, and plants; and these do not grow up of themselves, but are planted there by the Lord; and much pains are taken by him, the husbandman, to cultivate this garden: for it is his, the garden of the Lord; it is of his planting; it is his property, and enclosed for his rise; it is an Eden, pleasantly situated on a fruitful hill, Christ Jesus, by the river of divine love; is full of pleasant plants, pleasant to the owner of the garden, and to the saints themselves; it becomes fruitful through the dews of divine grace, the rising of Christ, the sun of righteousness, and the blowing of the south wind, the blessed Spirit; and may be said to be in a very comfortable condition, when the word and ordinances are duly ministered; when the graces of the Spirit are in exercise, and many souls are converted: the consequence of which is,
joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody; for the pure preaching of the Gospel; the feast of fat things made in the holy mountain; the presence of God enjoyed; a lively exercise of grace in the saints; and many souls born again. The Targum is,
"joy and rejoicing shall be found in her; they that offer thanksgiving, and the voice of them that praise;''
all hearts filled with joy and gladness.
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 On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16 Therefore - For the sake of Abraham, and of…
Therefore - For the sake of Abraham, and of that covenant which I made with him. Garden - Flourishing as the garden of Eden.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 14, 16 Verse 4. My people - O my nation -…
Verse 4. My people - O my nation - "O ye peoples - O ye nations"] For עמי ammi, my people, the Bodleian MS. and another read עמים ammim, ye peoples; and for לאומי leumi, my nation, the Bodleian MS. and eight others, (two of them ancient,) and four of De Rossi's, read לאמים leummim, ye nations; and so the Syriac in both words. The difference is very material; for in this case the address is made not to the Jews, but to the Gentiles, as in all reason it ought to be; for this and the two following verses express the call of the Gentiles, the islands, or the distant lands on the coasts of the Mediterranean and other seas. It is also to be observed that God in no other place calls his people לאמי leummi, my nation. It has been before remarked that transcribers frequently omitted the final מ mem of nouns plural, and supplied it, for brevity's sake, and sometimes for want of room at the end of a line, by a small stroke thus /עמי; which mark, being effaced or overlooked, has been the occasion of many mistakes of this kind.
A law shall proceed from me] The new law, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. Kimchi says, "After the war with Gog and Magog the King Messiah will teach the people to walk in the ways of the Lord."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14 Isa 51:3. For, &c. — The prophet, in these…
Isa 51:3. For, &c. — The prophet, in these words, seems to be giving a reason why they should look unto, or consider, that famous example of Abraham and Sarah; namely, because they should find the like wonder wrought on their behalf. Or the meaning may be, therefore, for the sake of Abraham and of that covenant which God made with him, and by which he promised to bless him and his seed for ever; the Lord shall comfort Zion — His church, frequently, as we have seen, called by that name. He will make her wilderness like Eden — Although she may be waste and desolate like a wilderness or desert for a time, yet she shall be restored and made as pleasant and flourishing as the garden of Eden was. The expressions are figurative, and, according to Vitringa, “in their primary sense, refer to the state of Zion after their restoration from Babylon; in their secondary and spiritual sense, to the redemption of the church by the Messiah, and the consequent blessings of grace.” See Isa 49:19; Isa 52:9.
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 On vv3–16 For the Lord shall comfort Zion - On the…
For the Lord shall comfort Zion - On the word ‘Zion,’ see the notes at Isa 1:8. The meaning here is, that he would again restore it from its ruins. The argument is drawn from the statement in the previous verses. If God had raised up so great a nation from so humble all origin, he had power to restore the waste places of Judea to more than their former beauty and prosperity (see the notes at Isa 40:1).
And he will make her wilderness - Judea is here represented as lying waste. It is to be remembered that the time to which the prophet here refers is that of the captivity, and near its close. Of course, as that would have continued seventy years, in so long a period Judea would have become almost an extended wilderness, a wide waste. Any country, that was naturally as fertile as Judea, would in that time be overrun with briers, thorns, and underbrush, and even with a wild and luxuriant growth of the trees of the forest.
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Like Eden - Gen. 2 Like a cultivated and fertile garden - distinguished not only for its fertility, but for its beauty and order.
Her desert like the garden of the Lord - Like the garden which the Lord planted Gen 2:8. Septuagint, Ὡς παράδεισον κυρίου Hōs paradeison kuriou - ‘As the paradise of the Lord.’ The idea is. that it should be again distinguished for its beauty and fertility.
Joy and gladness - The sound of rejoicing and praise shall be again heard there, where are now heard the cries of wild beasts.
The voice of melody - Hebrew, ‘A psalm The praises of God shall again be celebrated.
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 On vv4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16 Nations. This was verified when the Bible was translated…
Nations. This was verified when the Bible was translated into Greek, and still more by the preaching of the gospel.
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 On vv3–16 For--See for the argument, see on Isa 51:2.
For--See for the argument, see on Isa 51:2.
the garden of the Lord--restoration of the primeval paradise (Gen 2:8; Eze 28:13; Rev 2:7).
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melody--Hebrew, "psalm." God's praises shall again be heard.
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 On vv4, 7, 9, 12, 14 4-6. Hearken unto me — Another change; or rather,…
4-6. Hearken unto me — Another change; or rather, another stage of growth as to the importance of this glorious message. The great work of the future is the offer of salvation to all, not to Israel of holy inclination only, but to all the good and the bad alike. All Israel is summoned to learn the extension of the promise. It is here asserted that out of Israel springs the Saviour, and doubtless, (though critics differ — see Lowth, Gesenius, Ewald, Alexander,) the apostleship to the whole Gentile world.
Law… judgment — See Isa_42:1-3. As there, so here, “law” and “judgment” are used in the sense of the true religion, yet to be everywhere firmly established, and the world to be filled with blessings flowing from it.
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My righteousness is near — Not in point of time near at hand; but in God’s time there is actually approaching a realm of peace and purity, equity and truth, to all the good and obedient, but a sore retribution to all who resist the truth to the last.
The isles… wait upon me — See Isa_42:4. The command to look on the unchanging order of the heavens — the sun and the stars — has respect to the impression they make of God’s constancy as to his promises. The heavenly bodies are the greatest of objects; yet these, being created and limited, are sometime to end. Not so the divine promises; the true religion shall never fail. The things material and earthly shall grow old, die, and vanish from sight: but salvation and true religion shall not be abolished.
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 On vv3–16 3. shall comfort … will comfort … will make]…
3. shall comfort … will comfort … will make] lit. as R.V. hath comforted … hath made (perf. of certainty).
like the garden of the Lord] Gen_13:10; cf. Eze_28:13; Eze_31:8 f.
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joy and gladness &c.] Cf. Jer_33:11.
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 On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 (3) He will make her wilderness like Eden.—Interesting as…
(3) He will make her wilderness like Eden.—Interesting as showing Isaiah’s acquaintance with Genesis 1-3. (Comp. Eze_31:9; Eze_31:16; Eze_36:35; Joe_2:3.) “Paradise” has already entered into the idea of future restoration (Rev_2:7).
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 On vv3–16 The Lord shall comfort Zion. (comp. Isa_40:1 Isa_49:3 Isa_51:12…
The Lord shall comfort Zion. (comp. Isa_40:1 Isa_49:3 Isa_51:12 Isa_52:9, etc.) Literally, the word used is has comforted; i.e. has so determined the matter in his counsels that it may be considered as already accomplished. Her waste places... her wilderness... her desert. Though Nebuchadnezzar "left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen", (2Ki_25:12 Jer_52:16) yet the population was not sufficient to maintain cultivation generally. Thus, much of Judaea, during the absence of the exiles, became a wilderness" and a desert". (see Eze_36:34) Like Eden... like the garden of the Lord. The Prophet Joel compares Judaea before its desolation to the garden of: (Joe_2:3) and Ezekiel, like Isaiah, prophesies that it shall once more become "like the garden of Eden," when the exiles have returned to it. (Eze_37:3-5) With the last-named writer, Eden represents all that is glorious, not in nature only, but in art. (Eze_28:13 Eze_31:8, Eze_31:9, Eze_31:16, Eze_31:18) The voice of melody. (comp. Isa_35:10, and infra, ver. 11) As music ceases out of the land in time of affliction, (Isa_24:8) so when a "time of refreshing from the Lord" arrives, there is at once singing and "melody". (comp. Rev_5:8 Rev_14:2 Rev_15:2)
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Ver. 3. "The garden of the Lord.
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The Lord would comfort Zion, and make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness would. be found therein. The expression, "garden of the Lord," signified everything that was choice, inviting, eligible, that ministered to peace and satisfaction. It may be taken as suggestive of the Church of Christ, which ought to be, to the outside and unreclaimed world, what the cultivated garden is to the surrounding wilderness. The Church each separate Church of Christ should be as the garden of Lord in respect of
I CULTURE, DIVINE AND HUMAN. The garden is marked out from other spaces by the superior culture which it receives; every square inch of it has attention flora the gardener"s hand. The ideal garden is carefully and regularly weeded, digged, planted, pruned, etc. The Church of Christ should show the signs of heavenly, of spiritual culture. On it the Divine Husbandman has bestowed the greatest care. He has wrought upon it, suffered for it, watched over it, tended it with wondrous condescension and inexhaustible love. Human culture has also been expended upon it: the ministry of man, the watchful love, the earnest "prayer, the faithful admonition, the solemn vows of its own members, have been given to improve and perfect it: it is, or it should be, well-cultivated ground.
II SECURITY. The garden is fenced on all sides, that no wild animal, that no intruder of any kind, may enter, to steal or to ravage. The Church of Christ should be a sphere of the greatest possible security. In it there should be no occasion to be dreading the presence of the marauder, of "the thief who comes... to steal or to destroy," of the enemy that undermines faith, or that wins away holy love, or that deadens sacred zeal. There we should be free to walk without apprehension, without fear of harm.
III BEAUTY. We aim to make our gardens as beautiful as the finest taste can make them; to exclude all that is unsightly, and so to introduce and arrange everything that, in part and in whole, it shall be attractive and inviting. From the Church of Christ should be excluded all that is distasteful to the Divine Lord all that is irreverent, untruthful, discourteous, ungenerous, inconsiderate. Within the Church should grow and flourish all these graces of the Spirit of God which are fair and comely in the sight of God and man.
IV FRUITFULNESS. What the fruitage of the productive garden is to the house-bolder, that the many-sided usefulness of the active and earnest Church is to the Lord of the vineyard.
V VARIETY. That is a poor and imperfect garden in which are only two or three kinds of flowers, and where the beds and lawns are laid out so as to suggest monotony. That is a poor and imperfect Church where only one or two orders of intelligence or moral excellence or piety are found. Our Lord does not want to see all the flowers and shrubs and trees in his garden cut and trimmed so as to be of an unvarying pattern.
VI PEACE AND HAPPINESS. We associate with the garden the thought of tranquility and peace. It is the abode of domestic felicity; there friendship spends its golden hours; it is the resort of happy love. The Church should be the home of peace and joy. To it we should be glad to retire from the bustle and strife of life; in its fold we should find the purest and the sweetest satisfaction which earth can yield. There have been Churches which might justly be called the arena of conflict or the wilderness of neglect. The ideal Church that at which we should aim, and for which we should strive and sacrifice is one that might be appropriately designated, "The garden of the Lord. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16 For the Lord shall comfort Zion
Isa_51:3
For the Lord shall comfort Zion
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Zion comforted
I.
THERE IS A LOW ESTATE, OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSAL CHURCH, AND OF PARTICULAR BRANCHES OF IT, AND LIKEWISE OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS.
II. THERE ARE GRACIOUS PROMISES OF REVIVAL, of restored fertility and productiveness.
III. THE MODE IT WHICH THESE BLESSED EFFECTS MAY BE LOOKED AND SOUGHT FOR. When the eye of faith is directed towards Christ, when we believe in Him as the Lord our righteousness, when the prayer of faith ascends to heaven, when the ear hearkens to the inspired Word, then we may expect that God will be gracious to His inheritance, and refresh it when it is weary. We may not look for the supplies of the Spirit of God unless we earnestly ask for them. (H. J. Hastings, M.A.)
The depression, prosperity and delight of the Church
Taking these words as the prophets statement with regard to the spiritual Church of God, under the appellation of Zion, we propose from these words to call attention--
I. TO THE DEPRESSION OF THE CHURCH.
1. This depression arises from the small number of those who belong to the Church.
2. The depression consists also in the want of spiritual vigour on the part of those who belong to the Church.
II. TO THE PROSPERITY OF THE CHURCH. Observe--
1. The source to which the prosperity of the Church is assigned. For the Lord shall comfort Zion, etc. Christianity is, emphatically, the ministration of the Spirit.
2. The nature of the prosperity by which the Church will be distinguished. What: is the precise import of this comforting of Zion, this comforting of her waste places, making her wilderness like the garden of Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord? Here you will observe, that a vast augmentation of the numbers of the Church must plainly be regarded as included. A great purification and refinement in the characters of those who do pertain to the Church will signalize those future days.
3. The means to be adopted by the true friends of the Church in order that the period of this predicted prosperity may arrive.
III. TO THE DELIGHT OF THE CHURCH. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. This emotion may properly arise from contemplating--
1. The wonderful change which shall have been accomplished in the condition of the Church itself.
2. The connection between the prosperity of the Church and the glorification of God.
3. The connection between the prosperity of the Church and the happiness of mankind.
Conclusion:
1. Our first anxiety, of course, must be, that you may individually belong to the Church of God yourselves.
2. What we next desire of you is, that you will labour in all the appointed means and instrumentalities by which the prosperity of the Church of God is to be secured. (J. Parsons.)
Zion comforted
(1) The land of bliss is
(2) full of human beings
(3) in festive frame and active enjoyment. (E. Delitzsch, D.D.)
A cheerful prospect
I. HEAVENLY COMFORT PROMISED. This is a promise to Gods Church. The Church of God--captured as it has been by Christ from the world, chosen to be the palace where He dwells, builded together for a temple wherein He is worshipped--is frequently called Zion.
1. The object of this comfort. The Lord will comfort Zion. Well He may, for she is His chosen. The Lord has chosen Zion. He would have those upon whom His choice is fixed be glad and happy.
2. The Lord Himself is the Comforter. There are sorrows for which there is no solace within the reach of the creature; there is a ruin which it would baffle any mortal to retrieve. Happy for us that the Omnipotent comes to our aid.
3. How does the Lord propose to comfort Zion? If you read the verse through you will find it is by making her fertile. The true way to comfort the Church is to build her synagogues, restore the desolation of former times, to sow her fields, plant her vineyards, make her soil fruitful, call out the industry of her sons and daughters, and fill them with lively, ardent zeal.
4. The promise is given in words that contain an absolute pledge. He shall and He will are terms that admit of no equivocation.
II. THE MOURNFUL CASES FAVOURED. He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.
1. Are there not to be found in the visible Church persons whose character is here vividly depicted?
(1) There are those who once were fruitful, hut are now comparable to wastes. I remember one Monday afternoon, when we had been waiting upon the Lord in prayer ever since seven oclock in the morning, that there came a most remarkable wave of prayer over the assembly. And then two backsliders got up and prayed one aider the other. According to their own account, they had been very bad fellows indeed, and had sorely transgressed against God; but there they were, broken-hearted and fairly broken down. It was a sight to make angels rejoice as their tears flowed. Certainly their sobs and cries touched the hearts of all of us who were assembled. I thought to myself, Then God is blessing us, for when backsliders come back it is a proof that God has visited His people.
(2) Then a second department of the promise is, He will make her wilderness like Eden. I take the wilderness here to be a place of scanty vegetation. Oh, how many there are in the Church of God who are just like that! They are Christians, but sorry Christians they are.
(3) A third character is implied in the desert--the deserted places where no man dwells, where the traveller does not care to linger. How many professors of religion answer to this description of the soil! They are like deserts. You not only never did bring forth fruit, but you never concerned yourself to do so.
2. Ask ye now, what does the Lord say He will do for them? He says that He will make the wilderness like Eden. You know what Eden was. It was the garden of the earth in the days of primeval probity. So the Lord says that when He visits His Church He will make these poor backsliders, these immature Christians, these nominal professors, like Eden. Moreover, as if to strengthen the volume of His grace and of our hope, He says that He will make her desert like the garden of the Lord. He shall come to you and delight your heart and soul with His converse.
III. CERTAIN DESIRABLE RESULTS WHICH ARE PREDICTED. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. You notice the doubles. The parallelism of Hebrew poetry, perhaps, necessitated them. Still I remember how John Bunyan says that all the flowers in Gods garden bloom double. We are told of manifold mercies, that is, mercies which are folded up one in another, so that you may unwrap them and find a fresh mercy enclosed in every fold. Here we have joy and gladness, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. The Lord multiplies His grace. Oh, what a delightful thing must a visitation from God be to His Church! Without God all she can do is to groan. Nay, she will not always do that. She sometimes indulges a foolish conceit, and says: I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing. After that will soon be heard the hooting of dragons and the cry of owls. Let God visit His Church, and there is sure to be thanksgiving and the voice of melody. This is the mark of a revived Church everywhere. New impetus is given to the service of song. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The garden of the Lord
The garden of God
(for children):--Here and elsewhere Holy Scripture pictures a gathering of the upright and holy as a garden, and Christly people, whether men or children, as the trees and plants and flowers in such a garden. In His garden--
I. GOD WILL HAVE NO WEEDS. This reminds us--
1. What a number of evils must be destroyed. Idleness, falsehood, cowardice, disobedience, etc., are weeds that must be plucked up and destroyed.
2. The ways by which evils are to be destroyed.
(1) Like weeds, they are to be plucked up and burnt. There must be no half measures in dealing with sin. We must get at the roots and then burn the whole.
(2) Like weeds, they must be cleared by better life taking their place. In New Zealand, where the hoe of the settlers failed to destroy the rank vegetation that had rooted there for centuries, they have successfully adopted the plan of planting among it our common English clover. And as it grows it actually is rooting out the formidable flax-weed with its fibrous leaves and strong woody roots. So truth, courage, love, will root out lying, cowardice, selfishness. We get rid of evil from hearts and lives by the expulsive power of a new affection.
II. THERE IS A GREAT VARIETY OF FLOWERS. Rich rose, stately tulip, sweet lily of the valley, etc.
a thousand varieties all helping us to understand the famous preacher who said, Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into. So there is great variety in the virtues; no monotony in Christian character. There are virtues that, like lofty trees and brilliant flowers, make heroes and martyrs. And there are others like flowers with tiny petals and delicate tints. St. Francis of Sales said, How carefully we should cherish the little virtues which spring up at the foot of the Cross. What are they? some one asked him. Humility, meekness, kindness, simplicity, candour, he replied.
III. HE HIMSELF HAS JOY. Over true souls He rejoices. The prophet says, God rejoices over them with singing. God seems to sing over those of whom He says, as of, David, a man after God s own heart; as of Daniel, O man greatly beloved; as of the Lord Jesus Christ, My well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
IV. ALL THE BEAUTY OF ALL THE FLOWERS IS TO BE TRACED TO HIS CARE.
1. He is the Owner.
2. He is the Sower.
3. He is the Gardener--Christ called God the Husbandman.
4. He is the Source of all life and beauty. For He is Sun, and Wind: is as dew--and showers also. (U. R. Thomas, B.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14 Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12, and Isa_52:9. For the Lord shall comfort…
COMFORT IN TROUBLE
Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12, and Isa_52:9. For the Lord shall comfort Zion, &c.
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The prophecy is addressed to those who are striving after the right kind of life and seeking Jehovah, and not turning from Him to make earthly things and themselves the object of their pursuits; for such only are in a condition by faith to regard that as possible, which seems impossible to human understanding, because the very opposite is lying before the eye of the senses (Delitzsch).
I. The people of God often stand in urgent need of Divine comfort. They not only have their full share of the sorrows which are common to humanity, but they have troubles to which the people of the world are strangers. Hence we are told that “many are the afflictions of the righteous,” &c. The Saviour prepared His people for this: “In the world,” &c., “Whosoever will be my disciple,” &c The people of God have to fight every inch of their way to heaven: “These are they,” &c. Their chief sorrows spring from sources unknown to and incomprehensible by the world. They are soul sorrows, having their origin in the vivid views which they have of the evil of sin, and of their own individual guilt in the sight of God, &c. Sometimes they fear that after all they shall never reach the celestial Canaan. Therefore they have the need of all the comfort which can be given them on the way to heaven. (See pp. 2, 4, 386; cf. Rom_7:22-24; Gal_5:17; Gal_4:29; Rom_8:36; 2Co_4:8-14; 2Ti_3:12; Psa_88:18; Pro_17:1; Isa_38:14-15; 2Ti_4:10; 2Ti_4:16; Psa_51:5-8; 2Co_7:5.)
II. It is God’s will that His people should to comforted amid all their tribulations. “See how God resolves to comfort His people: ‘I, even I, will do it.’ He had ordered His ministers to do it (Isa_40:1), but because they cannot reach the heart, He takes the work into His own hands. See how He glories in it; He takes it among the titles of His honour to be “the God that comforteth them that are cast down;” He delights in being so (M. Henry). Because He would have His people happy. His people should remember this, and cultivate the spirit of Christian cheerfulness, because,
1. Uncomfortable Christians often dishonour the Lord.
2. Uncomfortable Christians cannot be as diligent as they ought to be in the duties of religion. Working out their own salvation. Working for God in seeking to save others (Psa_51:12-13; P. D. 450–453).
III. The bestowment of Divine comfort inspires them with grateful and exultant joy (Isa_51:12; Isa_52:9). “Where there is joy and gladness to their satisfaction, it is fit there should be thanksgiving to God’s honour; for whatever is the matter of their rejoicing, ought to be the matter of their thanksgiving, and the returns of God’s favour ought to be celebrated with the voice of melody; which will be the more melodious when God gives songs in the night, songs in the desert” (M. Henry).
There may be elevated joy in the midst of deep affliction (Rom_5:3; Php_3:1; Php_4:4, &c.) Eleven of the thirteen epistles of Paul begin with exclamations of praise and thanksgiving (2Co_1:3-4). Take to praising God under all circumstances, and thus you will lift your soul right out of your sorrow, and taste the pleasures of immortality. “In everything give thanks.” Let this be your constant occupation. He well deserves our warmest praise.
CONCLUSION:
1. The duty and privilege of believers to seek Divine comfort. God has given us express assurances that it is His purpose that His people should have ample and unceasing comfort amid all their sorrows and sufferings (Isa_40:1; Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12; Php_3:1; Php_4:4). Most ungracious on our part not readily and gladly to receive the comfort so provided. To refuse to be comforted, is to be guilty of a frustration of the merciful purposes of God towards us.
2. The duty and privilege of comforted believers to comfort others. God comforts you, that you may comfort others—that He may use you as comforters. Experimental knowledge helps us to speak with authority and power—fits us to be able and ready comforters. What we have received we must give (2Co_1:3-4).—Alfred Tucker.
God will give His people, I. Consolation. II. Fruitfulness. III. Gladness—J. E. Page.
PARADISE RESTORED
Isa_51:3. For the Lord shall comfort Zion, &c.
The Church is a garden planted by the Lord, luxuriant in beauty and fruitfulness, and filled with happy occupants. The promise is as yet only in process of fulfilment; and that we may look more clearly into the future, we are called to look into the past. Eden was the garden of the Lord, the primeval paradise, the place of consummate beauty and happiness, ere sin had blighted its joys and stained its purity. To make Zion like Eden is to bring back the vanished glories of that happy place. To the extent that this is accomplished, the Church is—
I. A PLACE OF DIVINE COMFORT AND FELLOWSHIP. No sooner do we press in by faith, through Christ, the door, than we enjoy the comforts of Divine love, and are admitted to heavenly fellowships (Heb_6:18). Did Adam hear the voice of the Lord God? Here the intercourse is renewed. Life conducts through an Eden radiant with the Divine presence. What a change since the day when the Lord drove forth the man from Eden! That door has been again unbarred, and Christ has secured for us a welcome into a fairer paradise than that then was lost. The Church is “a habitation of God.” Enter, then, and you will enjoy this rich comfort and lofty fellowship. So long as you stand outside, you cannot know the beauties of the garden; you cannot survey its landscapes, nor breathe its perfumes. God has not disowned and forsaken this fallen world: it is not, as we might have expected, desolated by His wrath: we can still find an Eden in it—a garden of God’s presence and favour.
II. A PLACE OF HELPFUL SOCIAL LIFE. Such was the life of the first pair, and such would have been the life of their children, but for the entrance of sin. Alas, how that fact has altered the course of human history! What jarring discords in our domestic and social life! But if the Church is to be as Eden, human society will be regenerated: the love, peace, and helpful companionship that were found in the garden of the Lord will be restored, when this promise is accomplished to the full. The Church will yet leaven society with her principles of brotherly love and mutual help. The world around is like a wilderness, where the wild plants of nature grow in rank profusion. But God has engaged to reclaim Zion’s waste places. This garden is ever extending its walls, and will do so till the whole earth becomes an Eden.
III. A PLACE OF JOY. “Joy and gladness shall be found therein.” No jarring strife shall mar its harmony: love to God and to each other shall reign among the happy inmates of the restored Paradise. We naturally think of a garden as a place of joy. Surrounded by all that is fair and peaceful, the mind depressed by trial is relieved by the cheerful notes of the birds, the luxuriance of the foliage, and the forms and hues of the flowers. The Church of Christ is such a garden, in which we taste joys unknown by the world. “The fruit of the Spirit is joy,”—the joy of sin forgiven and heaven secured,—the joy of communion with Christ, and assurance of His love—the joy of mutual endearment and mutual service. What joy can surpass that which is the heritage of all who dwell within this happy inclosure?
IV. A SCENE OF WORSHIP. There shall be found therein “thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” What a delightful exercise is that of praise! What a happy garden, ever jubilant with sacred song!
These, then, are the features of this garden of the Church. Not on earth can we behold them in all their perfection. The earthly paradise, reopened to us by Christ, will soon become the heavenly paradise (Rev_2:7; Rev_22:1-2). May we all at last become inmates of the Eden above, the paradise of beauty and splendour, the abode of love and joy and worship unending!—William Guthrie, M.A.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v9 Isa 51:9. - Isa 52:1.
Isaiah
THE AWAKENING OF ZION
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Isa 51:9. - Isa 52:1.
Both these verses are, I think, to be regarded as spoken by one voice, that of the Servant of the Lord. His majestic figure, wrapped in a light veil of obscurity, fills the eye in all these later prophecies of Isaiah. It is sometimes clothed with divine power, sometimes girded with the towel of human weakness, sometimes appearing like the collective Israel, sometimes plainly a single person.
We have no difficulty in solving the riddle of the prophecy by the light of history. Our faith knows One who unites these diverse characteristics, being God and man, being the Saviour of the body, which is part of Himself and instinct with His life. If we may suppose that He speaks in both verses of the text, then, in the one, as priest and intercessor, He lifts the prayers of earth to heaven in His own holy hands-and in the other, as messenger and Word of God, He brings the answer and command of heaven to earth on His own authoritative lips-thus setting forth the deep mystery of His person and double office as mediator between man and God. But even if we put aside that thought, the correspondence and relation of the two passages remain the same. In any case they are intentionally parallel in form and connected in substance. The latter is the answer to the former. The cry of Zion is responded to by the call of God. The awaking of the arm of the Lord is followed by the awaking of the Church. He puts on strength in clothing us with His might, which becomes ours.
The mere juxtaposition of these verses suggests the point of view from which I wish to treat them on this occasion. I hope that the thoughts to which they lead may help to further that quickened earnestness and expectancy of blessing, without which Christian work is a toil and a failure.
We have here a common principle underlying both the clauses of our text, to which I must first briefly ask attention, namely-
I. The occurrence in the Church’s history of successive periods of energy and of languor.
It is freely admitted that such alternation is not the highest ideal of growth, either in the individual or in the community. Our Lord’s own parables set forth a more excellent way-the way of uninterrupted increase, whereof the type is the springing corn, which puts forth ‘first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear,’ and passes through all the stages from the tender green spikelets that gleam over the fields in the spring-tide to the yellow abundance of autumn, in one unbroken season of genial months. So would our growth be best, healthiest, happiest. So might our growth be, if the mysterious life in the seed met no checks. But, as a matter of fact, the Church has not thus grown. Rather at the best, its emblem is to be looked for, not in corn, but in the forest tree-the very rings in whose trunk tell of recurring seasons when the sap has risen at the call of spring, and sunk again before the frowns of winter. I have not to do now with the causes of this. These will fall to be considered presently. Nor am I saying that such a manner of growth is inevitable. I am only pointing out a fact, capable of easy verification and familiar to us all. Our years have had summer and winter. The evening and the morning have completed all the days since the first.
We all know it only too well. In our own hearts we have known such times, when some cold clinging mist wrapped us round and hid all the heaven of God’s love and the starry lights of His truth; when the visible was the only real, and He seemed far away and shadowy; when there was neither confidence in our belief, nor heat in our love, nor enthusiasm in our service; when the shackles of conventionalism bound our souls, and the fetters of the frost imprisoned all their springs. And we have seen a like palsy smite whole regions and ages of the Church of God, so that even the sensation of impotence was dead like all the rest, and the very tradition of spiritual power had faded away. I need not point to the signal historical examples of such times in the past. Remember England a hundred years ago-but what need to travel so far? May I venture to draw my example from nearer home, and ask, have we not been living in such an epoch? I beseech you, think whether the power which the Gospel preached by us wields on ourselves, on our churches, on the world, is what Christ meant it and fitted to exercise. Why, if we hold our own in respect to the material growth of our population, it is as much as we do. Where is the joyful buoyancy and expansive power with which the Gospel burst into the world? It looks like some stream that leaps from the hills, and at first hurries from cliff to cliff full of light and music, but flows slower and more sluggish as it advances, and at last almost stagnates in its flat marshes. Here we are with all our machinery, our culture, money, organisations-and the net result of it all at the year’s end is but a poor handful of ears. ‘Ye sow much and bring home little.’ Well may we take up the wail of the old Psalm, ‘We see not our signs. There is no more any prophet; neither is there any among us that knoweth how long-arise, O Lord, plead Thine own cause.’
If, then, there are such recurring seasons of languor, they must either go on deepening till sleep becomes death, or they must be broken by a new outburst of vigorous life. It would be better if we did not need the latter. The uninterrupted growth would be best; but if that has not been attained, then the ending of winter by spring, and the suppling of the dry branches, and the resumption of the arrested growth, is the next best, and the only alternative to rotting away.
And it is by such times that the Kingdom of Christ always has grown. Its history has been one of successive impulses gradually exhausted, as by friction and gravity, and mercifully repeated just at the moment when it was ceasing to advance and had begun to slide backwards. And in such a manner of progress, the Church’s history has been in full analogy with that of all other forms of human association and activity. It is not in religion alone that there are ‘revivals,’ to use the word of which some people have such a dread. You see analogous phenomena in the field of literature, arts, social and political life. In them all, there come times of awakened interest in long-neglected principles. Truths which for many years had been left to burn unheeded, save by a faithful few watchers of the beacon, flame up all at once as the guiding pillars of a nation’s march, and a whole people strike their tents and follow where they lead. A mysterious quickening thrills through society. A contagion of enthusiasm spreads like fire, fusing all hearts in one. The air is electric with change. Some great advance is secured at a stride; and before and after that supreme effort are years of comparative quiescence; those before being times of preparation, those after being times of fruition and exhaustion-but slow and languid compared with the joyous energy of that moment. One day may be as a thousand years in the history of a people, and a nation may be born in a day.
So also is the history of the Church. And thank God it is so, for if it had not been for the dawning of these times of refreshing, the steady operation of the Church’s worldliness would have killed it long ago.
Surely, dear brethren, we ought to desire such a merciful interruption of the sad continuity of our languor and decay. The surest sign of its coming would be a widespread desire and expectation of its coming, joined with a penitent consciousness of our heavy and sinful slumber. For we believe in a God who never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them, and in whose merciful providence every desire is a prophecy of its own fruition. This attitude of quickened anticipation, diffusing itself silently through many hearts, is like the light air that springs up before sunrise, or like the solemn hush that holds all nature listening before the voice of the Lord in the thunder.
And another sign of its approach is the extremity of the need. ‘If winter come, can spring be far behind?’ For He who is always with Zion strikes in with His help when the want is at its sorest. His ‘right early’ is often the latest moment before destruction. And though we are all apt to exaggerate the urgency of the hour and the severity of our conflict, it certainly does seem that, whether we regard the languor of the Church or the strength of our adversaries, succour delayed a little longer would be succour too late. ‘The tumult of those that rise up against Thee increaseth continually. It is time for Thee to work.’
The juxtaposition of these passages suggests for us-
II. The twofold explanation of these variations.
That bold metaphor of God’s sleeping and waking is often found in Scripture, and generally expresses the contrast between the long years of patient forbearance, during which evil things and evil men go on their rebellious road unchecked but by Love, and the dread moment when some throne of iniquity, some Babylon cemented by blood, is smitten to the dust. Such is the original application of the expression here. But the contrast may fairly be widened beyond that specific form of it, and taken to express any apparent variations in the forth-putting of His power. The prophet carefully avoids seeming to suggest that there are changes in God Himself. It is not He but His arm, that is to say. His active energy, that is invoked to awake. The captive Church prays that the dormant might which could so easily shiver her prison-house would flame forth into action.
We may, then, see here implied the cause of these alternations, of which we have been speaking, on its divine side, and then, in the corresponding verse addressed to the Church, the cause on the human side.
As to the former, it is true that God’s arm sometimes slumbers, and is not clothed with power. There are, as a fact, apparent variations in the energy with which He works in the Church and in the world. And they are real variations, not merely apparent. But we have to distinguish between the power, and what Paul calls ‘the might of the power.’ The one is final, constant, unchangeable. It does not necessarily follow that the other is. The rate of operation, so to speak, and the amount of energy actually brought into play may vary, though the force remains the same.
It is clear from experience that there are these variations; and the only question with which we are concerned is, are they mere arbitrary jets and spurts of a divine power, sometimes gushing out in full flood, sometimes trickling in painful drops, at the unknown will of the unseen hand which controls the flow? Is the ‘law of the Spirit of life’ at all revealed to us; or are the reasons occult, if there be any reasons at all other than a mere will that it shall be so? Surely, whilst we never can know all the depths of His counsels and all the solemn concourse of reasons which, to speak in man’s language, determine the energy of His manifested power, He has left us in no doubt that this is the weightiest part of the law which it follows-the might with which God works on the world through His Church varies according to the Church’s receptiveness and faithfulness.
Our second text tells us that if God’s arm seems to slumber and really does so, it is because Zion sleeps. In itself that immortal energy knows no variableness. ‘He fainteth not, neither is weary.’ ‘The Lord’s arm is not shortened that He cannot save.’ ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’ But He works through us; and we have the solemn and awful power of checking the might which would flow through us; of restraining and limiting the Holy One of Israel. It avails nothing that the ocean stretches shoreless to the horizon; a jar can hold only a jarful. The receiver’s capacity determines the amount received, and the receiver’s desire determines his capacity. The law has ever been, ‘according to your faith be it unto you.’ God gives as much as we will, as much as we can hold, as much as we use, and far more than we deserve. As long as we will bring our vessels the golden oil will flow, and after the last is filled, there yet remains more that we might have had, if we could have held it, and might have held if we would. ‘Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in yourselves.’
So, dear brethren, if we have to lament times of torpor and small success, let us be honest with ourselves, and recognise that all the blame lies with us. If God’s arm seems to slumber, it is because we are asleep. His power is invariable, and the Gospel which is committed to our trust has lost none of its ancient power, whatsoever men may say. If there be variations, they cannot be traced to the divine element in the Church, which in itself is constant, but altogether to the human, which shifts and fluctuates, as we only too sadly know. The light in the beacon-tower is steady, and the same; but the beam it throws across the waters sometimes fades to a speck, and sometimes flames out clear and far across the heaving waves, according to the position of the glasses and shades around it. The sun pours out heat as profusely and as long at midwinter as on midsummer-day, and all the difference between the frost and darkness and glowing brightness and flowering life, is simply owing to the earth’s place in its orbit and the angle at which the unalterable rays fall upon it. The changes are in the terrestrial sphere; the heavenly is fixed for ever the same.
May I not venture to point an earnest and solemn appeal with these truths? Has there not been poured over us the spirit of slumber? Does it not seem as if an opium sky had been raining soporifics on our heads? We have had but little experience of the might of God amongst us of late years, and we need not wonder at it. There is no occasion to look far for the reason. We have only to regard the low ebb to which religious life has been reduced amongst us to have it all and more than all accounted for. I fully admit that there has been plenty of activity, perhaps more than the amount of real life warrants, not a little liberality, and many virtues. But how languid and torpid the true Christian life has been! how little enthusiasm! how little depth of communion with God! how little unworldly elevation of soul! how little glow of love! An improvement in social position and circumstances, a freer blending with the national life, a full share of civic and political honours, a higher culture in our pulpits, fine chapels, and applauding congregations-are but poor substitutes for what many of us have lost in racing after them. We have the departed prophets’ mantle, the outward resemblance to the fathers who have gone, but their fiery zeal has passed to heaven with them; and softer, weaker men, we stand timidly on the river’s brink, invoking the Lord God of Elijah, and too often the flood that obeyed them has no ear for our feebler voice.
I speak to many who are in some sort representatives of the churches throughout the land, and they can tell whether my words are on the whole true or overstrained. We who labour in our great cities, what say we? If one of the number may speak for the rest, we have to acknowledge that commercial prosperity and business cares, the eagerness after pleasure and the exigencies of political strife, diffused doubt and widespread artistic and literary culture, are eating the very life out of thousands in our churches, and lowering their fervour till, like molten iron cooling in the air, what was once all glowing with ruddy heat is crusted over with foul black scoriae ever encroaching on the tiny central warmth. You from rural churches, what say you? Have you not to speak of deepening torpor settling down on quiet corners, of the passing away of grey heads which leave no successors, of growing difficulties and lessened power to meet them, that make you sometimes all but despair?
I am not flinging indiscriminate censures. I know that there are lights as well as shades in the picture. I am not flinging censures at all. But I am giving voice to the confessions of many hearts, that our consciousness of our blame may be deepened, and we may hasten back to that dear Lord whom we have left to serve alone, as His first disciples left Him once to agonise alone under the gnarled olives in Gethsemane, while they lay sleeping in the moonlight. Listen to His gentle rebuke, full of pain and surprised love, ‘What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?’ Listen to His warning call, loving as the kiss with which a mother wakes her child, ‘Arise, let us be going’-and let us shake the spirit of slumber from our limbs, and serve Him as those unsleeping spirits do, who rest not day nor night from vision and work and praise.
III. The beginning of all awaking is the Church’s earnest cry to God.
It is with us as with infants, the first sign of whose awaking is a cry. The mother’s quick ear hears it through all the household noises, and the poor little troubled life that woke to a scared consciousness of loneliness and darkness, is taken up into tender arms, and comforted and calmed. So, when we dimly perceive how torpid we have been, and start to find that we have lost our Father’s hand, the first instinct of that waking, which must needs be partly painful, is to call to Him, whose ear hears our feeble cry amid the sound of praise like the voice of many waters, that billows round His throne, and whose folding arms keep us ‘as one whom his mother comforteth.’ The beginning of all true awaking must needs be prayer.
For every such stirring of quickened religious life must needs have in it bitter penitence and pain at the discovery flashed upon us of the wretched deadness of our past-and, as we gaze like some wakened sleepwalker into the abyss where another step might have smashed us to atoms, a shuddering terror seizes us that must cry, ‘Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.’ And every such stirring of quickened life will have in it, too, desire for more of His grace, and confidence in His sure bestowal of it, which cannot but breathe itself in prayer.
Nor is Zion’s cry to God only the beginning and sign of all true awaking: it is also the condition and indispensable precursor of all perfecting of recovery from spiritual languor.
I have already pointed out the relation between the waking of God and the waking of His Church, from which that necessarily follows. God’s power flows into our weakness in the measure and on condition of our desires. We are sometimes told that we err in praying for the outpouring of His Holy Spirit, because ever since Pentecost His Church has had the gift. The objection alleges an unquestioned fact, but the conclusion drawn from it rests on an altogether false conception of the manner of that abiding gift. The Spirit of God, and the power which comes from Him, are not given as a purse of money might be put into a man’s hand once and for all, but they are given in a continuous impartation and communication and are received and retained moment by moment, according to the energy of our desires and the faithfulness of our use. As well might we say, Why should I ask for natural life, I received it half a century ago? Yes, and at every moment of that half-century I have continued to live, not because of a past gift, but because at each moment God is breathing into my nostrils the breath of life. So is it with the life which comes from His Spirit. It is maintained by constant efflux from the fountain of Life, by constant impartation of His quickening breath. And as He must continually impart, so must we continually receive, else we perish. Therefore, brethren, the first step towards awaking, and the condition of all true revival in our own souls and in our churches, is this earnest cry, ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord.
Thank God for the outpouring of a long unwonted spirit of prayer in many places. It is like the melting of the snows in the high Alps, at once the sign of spring and the cause of filling the stony river beds with flashing waters, that bring verdure and growth wherever they come. The winter has been long and hard. We have all to confess that we have been restraining prayer before God. Our work has been done with but little sense of our need of His blessing, with but little ardour of desire for His power. We have prayed lazily, scarcely believing that answers would come; we have not watched for the reply, but have been like some heartless marksman who draws his bow and does not care to look whether his arrow strikes the target. These mechanical words, these conventional petitions, these syllables winged by no real desire, inspired by no faith, these expressions of devotion, far too wide for their real contents, which rattle in them like a dried kernel in a nut, are these prayers? Is there any wonder that they have been dispersed in empty air, and that we have been put to shame before our enemies? Brethren in the ministry, do we need to be surprised at our fruitless work, when we think of our prayerless studies and of our faithless prayers? Let us remember that solemn word, ‘The pastors have become brutish, and have not sought the Lord, therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.’ And let us all, brethren, betake ourselves, with penitence and lowly consciousness of our sore need, to prayer, earnest and importunate, believing and persistent, like this heaven-piercing cry which captive Israel sent up from her weary bondage.
Look at the passionate earnestness of it-expressed in the short, sharp cry, thrice repeated, as from one in mortal need; and see to it that our drowsy prayers be like it. Look at the grand confidence with which it founds itself on the past, recounting the mighty deeds of ancient days, and looking back, not for despair but for joyful confidence, to the generations of old; and let our faint-hearted faith be quickened by the example, to expect great things of God. The age of miracles is not gone. The mightiest manifestations of God’s power in the spread of the Gospel in the past remain as patterns for His future. We have not to look back as from low-lying plains to the blue peaks on the horizon, across which the Church’s path once lay, and sigh over the changed conditions of the journey. The highest watermark that the river in flood has ever reached will be reached and overpassed again, though to-day the waters may seem to have hopelessly subsided. Greater triumphs and deliverances shall crown the future than have signalised the past. Let our faithful prayer base itself on the prophecies of history and on the unchangeableness of God.
Think, brethren, of the prayers of Christ. Even He, whose spirit needed not to be purged from stains or calmed from excitement, who was ever in His Father’s house whilst He was about His Father’s business, blending in one, action and contemplation, had need to pray. The moments of His life thus marked are very significant. When He began His ministry, the close of the first day of toil and wonders saw Him, far from gratitude and from want, in a desert place in prayer. When He would send forth His apostles, that great step in advance, in which lay the germ of so much, was preceded by solitary prayer. When the fickle crowd desired to make Him the centre of political revolution, He passed from their hands and beat back that earliest attempt to secularise His work, by prayer. When the seventy brought the first tidings of mighty works done in His name, He showed us how to repel the dangers of success, in that He thanked the Lord of heaven and earth who had revealed these things to babes. When He stood by the grave of Lazarus, the voice that waked the dead was preceded by the voice of prayer, as it ever must be. When He had said all that He could say to His disciples, He crowned all with His wonderful prayer for Himself, for them, and for us all. When the horror of great darkness fell upon His soul, the growing agony is marked by His more fervent prayer, so wondrously compact of shrinking fear and filial submission. When the cross was hid in the darkness of eclipse, the only words from the gloom were words of prayer. When, Godlike, He dismissed His spirit, manlike He commended it to His Father, and sent the prayer from His dying lips before Him to herald His coming into the unseen world. One instance remains, even more to our present purpose than all these-’It came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him.’ Mighty mystery! In Him, too, the Son’s desire is connected with the Father’s gift, and the unmeasured possession of the Spirit was an answer to His prayer.
Then, brethren, let us lift our voices and our hearts. That which ascends as prayer descends as blessing, like the vapour that is drawn up by the kiss of the sun to fall in freshening rain. ‘Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and hidden things which thou knowest not.’
IV. The answering call from God to Zion.
Our truest prayers are but the echo of God’s promises. God’s best answers are the echo of our prayers. As in two mirrors set opposite to each other, the same image is repeated over and over again, the reflection of a reflection, so here, within the prayer, gleams an earlier promise, within the answer is mirrored the prayer.
And in that reverberation, and giving back to us our petition transformed into a command, we are not to see a dismissal of it as if we had misapprehended our true want. It is not tantamount to, Do not ask me to put on my strength, but array yourselves in your own. The very opposite interpretation is the true one. The prayer of Zion is heard and answered. God awakes, and clothes Himself with might. Then, as some warrior king, himself roused from sleep and girded with flashing steel, bids the clarion sound through the grey twilight to summon the prostrate ranks that lie round his tent, so the sign of God’s awaking and the first act of His conquering might is this trumpet call-’The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us put off the works of darkness,’-the night gear that was fit for slumber-’and put on the armour of light,’ the mail of purity that gleams and glitters even in the dim dawn. God’s awaking is our awaking. He puts on strength by making us strong; for His arm works through us, clothing itself, as it were, with our arm of flesh, and perfecting itself even in our weakness.
Nor is it to be forgotten that this, like all God’s commands, carries in its heart a promise. That earliest word of God’s is the type of all His latter behests: ‘Let there be light,’ and the mighty syllables were creative and self-fulfilling. So ever, with Him, to enjoin and to bestow are one and the same, and His command is His conveyance of power. He rouses us by His summons, He clothes us with power in the very act of bidding us put it on. So He answers the Church’s cry by stimulating us to quickened zeal, and making us more conscious of, and confident in, the strength which, in answer to our cry, He pours into our limbs.
But the main point which I would insist on in what remains of this sermon, is the practical discipline which this divine summons requires from us.
And first, let us remember that the chief means of quickened life and strength is deepened communion with Christ.
As we have been saying, our strength is ours by continual derivation from Him. It has no independent existence, any more than a sunbeam could have, severed from the sun. It is ours only in the sense that it flows through us, as a river through the land which it enriches. It is His whilst it is ours, it is ours when we know it to be His. Then, clearly, the first thing to do must be to keep the channels free by which it flows into our souls, and to maintain the connection with the great Fountainhead unimpaired. Put a dam across the stream, and the effect will be like the drying up of Jordan before Israel: ‘the waters that were above rose up upon an heap, and the waters that were beneath failed and were cut off,’ and the foul oozy bed was disclosed to the light of day. It is only by constant contact with Christ that we have any strength to put on.
That communion with Him is no mere idle or passive attitude, but the active employment of our whole nature with His truth, and with Him whom the truth reveals. The understanding must be brought into contact with the principles of His word, the heart must touch and beat against His heart, the will meekly lay its hand in His, the conscience draw at once its anodyne and its stimulus from His sacrifice, the passions know His finger on the reins, and follow, led in the silken leash of love. Then, if I may so say, Elisha’s miracle will be repeated in nobler form, and from Himself, the Life thus touching all our being, life will flow into our deadness. ‘He put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.’ So, dear brethren, all our practical duty is summed up in that one word, the measure of our obedience to which is the measure of all our strength-’Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.’
Again, this summons calls us to the faithful use of the power which, on condition of that communion, we have.
There is no doubt a temptation, in all times like the present, to look for some new and extraordinary forms of blessing, and to substitute such expectation for present work with our present strength. There is nothing new to look for. There is no need to wait for anything more than we possess. Remember the homely old proverb, ‘You never know what you can do till you try,’ and though we are conscious of much unfitness, and would sometimes gladly wait till our limbs are stronger, let us brace ourselves for the work, assured that in it strength will be given to us that equals our desire. There is a wonderful power in honest work to develop latent energies and reveal a man to himself. I suppose, in most cases, no one is half so much surprised at a great man’s greatest deeds as he is himself. They say that there is dormant electric energy enough in a few raindrops to make a thunderstorm, and there is dormant spiritual force enough in the weakest of us to flash into beneficent light, and peal notes of awaking into many a deaf ear. The effort to serve your Lord will reveal to you strength that you know not. And it will increase the strength which it brings into play, as the used muscles grow like whipcord, and the practised fingers become deft at their task, and every faculty employed is increased, and every gift wrapped in a napkin melts like ice folded in a cloth, according to that solemn law, ‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’
Then be sure that to its last particle you are using the strength you have, ere you complain of not having enough for your tasks. Take heed of the vagrant expectations that wait for they know not what, and the apparent prayers that are really substitutes for possible service. ‘Why liest thou on thy face? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.’
The Church’s resources are sufficient for the Church’s work, if the resources are used. We are tempted to doubt it, by reason of our experience of failure and our consciousness of weakness. We are more than ever tempted to doubt it to-day, when so many wise men are telling us that our Christ is a phantom, our God a stream of tendency, our Gospel a decaying error, our hope for the world a dream, and our work in the world done. We stand before our Master with doubtful hearts, and, as we look along the ranks sitting there on the green grass, and then at the poor provisions which make all our store, we are sometimes tempted almost to think that He errs when He says with that strange calmness of His, ‘They need not depart, give ye them to eat.’ But go out among the crowds and give confidently what you have, and you will find that you have enough and to spare. If ever our stores seem inadequate, it is because they are reckoned up by sense, which takes cognizance of the visible, instead of by faith which beholds the real. Certainly five loaves and two small fishes are not enough, but are not five loaves and two small fishes and a miracle-working hand behind them, enough? It is poor calculation that leaves out Christ from the estimate of our forces. The weakest man and Jesus to back him are more than all antagonism, more than sufficient for all duty. Be not seduced into doubt of your power, or of your success, by others’ sneers, or by your own faint-heartedness. The confidence of ability is ability. ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place,’ and you will not fail-and see to it that you use the resources you have, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. ‘Put on thy strength, O Zion.’
So, dear brethren, to gather all up in a sentence, let us confidently look for times of blessing, penitently acknowledge that our own faithlessness has hindered the arm of the Lord, earnestly beseech Him to come in His rejoicing strength, and, drawing ever fresh power from constant communion with our dear Lord, use it to its last drop for Him. Then, like the mortal leader of Israel, as he pondered doubtingly with sunken eyes on the hard task before his untrained host, we shall look up and be aware of the presence of the sworded angel, the immortal Captain of the host of the Lord, standing ready to save, ‘putting on righteousness as a breastplate, an helmet of salvation on His head, and clad with zeal as a cloak.’ From His lips, which give what they command, comes the call, ‘Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.’ Hearkening to His voice, the city of the strong ones shall be made an heap before our wondering ranks, and the land shall lie open to our conquering march.
Wheresoever we lift up the cry, ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,’ there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, ‘Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!’ Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful chorus, as in this context, ‘Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; the Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv9–10 Art thou not
Art thou not
The ref. is to Egypt Isa 30:7 at the Exodus:
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v12 The Loosing of the Exiles
The Loosing of the Exiles
v. 12. I, even I, am He that comforteth you, so Jehovah Himself announces in taking up the topic of the chapter once more. Who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, why should Zion as such or any individual believer fear any mortal enemy, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass, withering after a very brief life,
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v. 13. and forgettest the Lord, thy Maker, the almighty Creator of the universe, that hath stretched forth the heavens, 40:22; 42:5, and laid the foundations of the earth, established it most firmly; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, of the tyrant among men, of whom Babylon is a type, as if he were ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor? This rebuke of the Lord may well be applied in the case of all His children; for their occasional fear of the enemies is equivalent to a lack of trust in the power of Jehovah. The rage of the tyrant is unable to hinder the deliverance which God has planned for those who believe in Him.
v. 14. The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, literally, Soon the one bowed down (as captive) shall be loosed, the heavy fetters which bore him down to the ground being removed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail, that is, he should be delivered from prison and have all the bread that he needs.
v. 15. But I am the Lord, thy God, the gracious Sovereign, that divided the sea, whipping it into fury, whose waves roared. The Lord of hosts is His name, He who has command of both the heavenly and the earthly powers, He who directs the elements at His will.
v. 16. And I have put My words in thy mouth, entrusting them to His people, and I have covered thee in the shadow of Mine hand, sustaining Israel in faith and in His grace, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, as the Creator of the universe, and say unto Zion, with whom He is united by the bonds of His merciful love, Thou art My people. The entire description pictures the perfection of the new order which was to be established by Christ in His spiritual kingdom.
v. 17. Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, this call being intended for the time immediately after the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury, namely, in the punishment meted out by the Babylonian army. Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, the terror brought about by the wrath of the Lord, and wrung them out, drained the dregs to the last drop. The misery of the situation is intensified by the fact that the sufferer is all alone in her tribulation.
v. 18. There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth, none to direct her while she was in this helpless state of drunken terror; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand, to uphold and strengthen her, of all the sons that she hath brought up. It is impossible to bring salvation to mankind by a mere outward morality, by a mere social uplift as it is proclaimed in our days. The wrath of God over the sins of mankind may be appeased only by the atonement of the Savior, which turns the wrath into grace.
v. 19. These two things are come unto thee, things of two kinds which are presently mentioned; who shall be sorry for thee? Not one showed sympathy with Zion in her deep disgrace. The two varieties of affliction are now named. Desolation and destruction, on the one hand, and the famine and the sword, on the other, the first pair striking the city, the second its inhabitants; by whom shall I comfort thee? There was none to comfort her in her misery.
v. 20. Thy Sons have fainted, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem being overcome; they lie at the head of all the streets, at the intersection of all thoroughfares, as a wild bull in a net, as a gazelle which is helplessly enmeshed; they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God, for this invariably brings about death and destruction. But now the Lord turns to Jerusalem with the fullness of His mercy.
v. 21. Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, one who has experienced the depths of misery and tribulation, and drunken, but not with wine, the wrath of God alone being the cause of her miserable condition:
v. 22. Thus saith thy Lord, the Husband and Sovereign of Jerusalem, the Lord, the God of the covenant, and thy God, that pleadeth the cause of His people, taking their part against the tyrants, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, the terror being induced by the wrath of the Lord over the sins of His people, even the dregs of the cup of My fury, which Zion was just represented as draining; thou shalt no more drink it again, since the Lord now promised His merciful deliverance,
v. 23. but I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee, who had brought all this tribulation upon her, which have said to thy soul, Bow down that we may go over, their backs thus serving to be trampled under foot by the enemies, and thou hast laid thy body as the ground and as the street, like a pavement, to them that went over. So great had been the humiliation of Zion-Jerusalem, representing the Church of God. But the Lord was determined to bring salvation to His people through the work of the Messiah.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 Yahweh will comfort Zion
Yahweh will comfort Zion
The city of Zion, which is also called Jerusalem, here represents the people of Zion. AT: "Yahweh will comfort the people of Zion" (See: Metonymy)
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he will comfort all her waste places
Here "waste places" represents the people who live in those desolate areas. AT: "he will comfort the people who live in all her waste places" (See: Metonymy)
her waste places ... her wilderness ... her desert plains
The word "her" refers to Zion. Cities are often spoken of as if they were women. (See: Personification)
waste places
places that have been destroyed
her wilderness he made like Eden, and her desert plains ... like the garden of Yahweh
These phrases mean that God will make the empty places in Israel beautiful. In prophecy, events that will happen in the future are often described as being in the past. This emphasizes that they will certainly happen. AT: "he will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert plains ... like the garden of Yahweh (See: Parallelism and Predictive Past)
joy and gladness will be found in her
Joy and gladness mean the same thing. Being found there represents being there. AT: "there will be joy and gladness in Zion again" (See: Doublet and Active or Passive)
translationWords
Yahweh
comfort
Zion
waste
Eden
desert
Jordan River
joy
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 On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16 51:3 Eden . . . the garden of the…
51:3 Eden . . . the garden of the Lord: God’s salvation will one day reestablish conditions like those in which human beings first lived (see Gen 2–3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.