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49. Restoration of Israel

¹ Listen to me, you islands;
   hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the LORD called me;
   from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
² He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
   in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
   and concealed me in his quiver.
³ He said to me, “You are my servant,
   Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”
⁴ But I said, “I have labored in vain;
   I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand,
   and my reward is with my God.”

    ⁵ And now the LORD says—
   he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
   and gather Israel to himself,
for I am Or him, / but Israel would not be gathered; / yet I will be honored in the eyes of the LORD
   and my God has been my strength—
⁶ he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
   to restore the tribes of Jacob
   and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
   that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

    ⁷ This is what the LORD says—
   the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,
   to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up,
   princes will see and bow down,
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
   the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Restoration of Israel

⁸ This is what the LORD says:

   “In the time of my favor I will answer you,
   and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you
   to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land
   and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’
   and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

   “They will feed beside the roads
   and find pasture on every barren hill.
¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst,
   nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
   and lead them beside springs of water.
¹¹ I will turn all my mountains into roads,
   and my highways will be raised up.
¹² See, they will come from afar—
   some from the north, some from the west,
   some from the region of Aswan. Dead Sea Scrolls; Masoretic Text Sinim”

    ¹³ Shout for joy, you heavens;
   rejoice, you earth;
   burst into song, you mountains!
For the LORD comforts his people
   and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

¹⁴ But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”

    ¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
   and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
   I will not forget you!
¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
   your walls are ever before me.
¹⁷ Your children hasten back,
   and those who laid you waste depart from you.
¹⁸ Lift up your eyes and look around;
   all your children gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the LORD,
   “you will wear them all as ornaments;
   you will put them on, like a bride.

    ¹⁹ “Though you were ruined and made desolate
   and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
   and those who devoured you will be far away.
²⁰ The children born during your bereavement
   will yet say in your hearing,
‘This place is too small for us;
   give us more space to live in.’
²¹ Then you will say in your heart,
   ‘Who bore me these?
I was bereaved and barren;
   I was exiled and rejected.
   Who brought these up?
I was left all alone,
   but these—where have they come from?’”

²² This is what the Sovereign LORD says:

   “See, I will beckon to the nations,
   I will lift up my banner to the peoples;
they will bring your sons in their arms
   and carry your daughters on their hips.
²³ Kings will be your foster fathers,
   and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
   they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the LORD;
   those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”

²⁴ Can plunder be taken from warriors,
or captives be rescued from the fierce Dead Sea Scrolls, Vulgate and Syriac (see also Septuagint and verse 25); Masoretic Text righteous?

²⁵ But this is what the LORD says:

   “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,
   and plunder retrieved from the fierce;
I will contend with those who contend with you,
   and your children I will save.
²⁶ I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;
   they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine.
Then all mankind will know
   that I, the LORD, am your Savior,
   your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

18. Lift up thine eyes round about. He arouses the Church to survey this magnificent work, as if it were actually before her eyes, and to behold the multitudes of men who shall flock into it from every quarter. Now, as this assemblage must have encouraged godly hearts during the dispersion, so they who were eye-witnesses must have been excited to gratitude. This shews clearly that this prediction was useful at both periods, not only while the event was still concealed by hope, but when it had been actually accomplished. Though he speaks to the whole Church at large, yet this discourse relates also to individuals, that all with one accord, and each person separately, may embrace these promises.

When he bids them “lift up their eyes,” he means that the reason why we are so much cast down is, that we do not examine the Lord’s work with due attention, but have a vail placed, as it were, before our eyes, to hinder us from seeing what lies at our feet. In consequence of this, we do not cherish any confidence, but in adversity are almost overwhelmed by despair. And if these things are said to the whole Church, let every man consider in his own heart how far he is chargeable with this vice, and let him forthwith arouse and awaken himself to behold the works of the Lord, that he may rely with all his heart on his promises.

All are gathered together. When he says that the elect of the Church are “gathered together,” he means that, in order to their becoming one body under Christ, and, as it were, “one fold under one shepherd,” (John 10:16,) they must be, if we may so express it, “gathered” into one bosom. Christ reckons and treats as his followers none but those who are joined in one body by unity of faith. Whoever then shall choose to be regarded as belonging to the number of the children of God, let him be a son of the Church; for all who are separated from it will be aliens from God.

Thou shalt be clothed as with an ornament. The Prophet shews what is the true ornament of the Church, namely, to have a great number of children, who are brought to her by faith and guided by the Spirit of God. This is true splendor; this is the glory of the Church, which must be filthy and ugly, ragged and dishevelled, if she have not these ornaments. Hence we see how well the Papists understand what is the true manner in which the Church ought to be adorned; for their whole attention is given to painted tables, to statues, to fine buildings, to gold, precious stones, and costly garments; that is, they give their whole attention to puppets, like children. But the true dignity of the Church is internal, so far as it consists of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and of progressive faith and piety. Hence it follows, that she is richly provided with her ornaments, when the people, joined together by faith, are gathered into her bosom, to worship God in a proper manner.

I live, saith Jehovah. ⁸⁸ חי-אני (chai ani) ‘I the Living One,’ is here, as in many other passages, the form of an oath, employed both by God and by men; and the meaning of it is: ‘as truly as I live, so certainly will I perform this or that, and this or that event shall happen.’ The particle כי (ki) here denotes the object of the oath, and is equivalent to ὅτι in Greek after the verbs εἶπον λέγω etc..” — Rosenmuller. In order that this promise may be more certain, the Lord employs an oath, which is intended to warn us against distrust, and that, when we shall consider that her end is near, we may be certain that she shall be fully restored. And if this doctrine was ever necessary, it is especially necessary at the present time; for, wherever we tum our eyes, we meet with nothing but frightful desolation.

What then must we do, but, relying on this oath of God, struggle against despair, and not be terrified by our being inconsiderable in number, which makes us despised by the world, and not doubt that there are many of the elect, now wandering and scattered, whom God will at length assemble into his Church? And therefore we ought to encourage our hearts, and to lift up our eyes by faith, that we may extend our hope not only to a single age, but to the most distant period.