Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 49:19
For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
19. For as for thy waste and thy desolate places and thy land that hath been destroyed, surely now shalt thou be too strait for the inhabitants, &c. ] So R.V. But there appears to be some textual disorder, the subjects in the first half of the verse having no predicate. The R.V. gets over the difficulty by taking “thy waste places” &c. as a sort of casus pendens, resumed in the “thou” of the last clause; but this is a forced construction. The most probable solution is that the original conclusion of the first clause has been lost in copying (Duhm); the second would then commence with the words For now.
the land of thy destruction ] lit. “thy land of destruction,” i.e., as R.V., thy land that hath been destroyed.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
19, 20. In place of her present solitude, the ideal Zion shall yet look down on a densely peopled city, whose inhabitants are embarrassed for want of room.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For thy waste and thy desolate places – Thy land over which ruin has been spread, and ever which the exile nation mourns.
And the land of thy destruction – That is, thy land laid in ruins. The construction is not uncommon where a noun is used to express the sense of an adjective. Thus in Psa 2:6, the Hebrew phrase (margin) is correctly rendered my holy hill. Here the sense is, that their entire country had been so laid waste as to be a land of desolation.
Shall even now be too narrow – Shall be too limited to contain all who shall become converted to the true God. The contracted territory of Palestine shall be incapable of sustaining all who will acknowledge the true God, and who shall be regarded as his friends.
And they that swallowed thee up – The enemies that laid waste thy land, and that absorbed, as it were, thy inhabitants, and removed them to a distant land. They shall be all gone, and the land shall smile again in prosperity and in loveliness.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Thy waste and thy desolate places; thy own land, which is now waste and desolate, and whereof divers parts lay formerly waste and desolate for want of people to possess and manage them.
The land of thy destruction; or rather, thy land of destruction; so called because it is devoted and shall be exposed to destruction. Shall be far away, to wit, from thee.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. land of thy destructionthyland once the scene of destruction.
too narrow (Isa 54:1;Isa 54:2; Zec 10:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction,…. Or “thy land of destruction, or thy destroyed land” n; laid waste and desolate by the enemy, without inhabitants; such countries in which there were few professors of the true religion:
shall even now be too narrow, by reason of the inhabitants; because of the multitude of them; a hyperbolical expression, setting forth the great numbers of Christian converts everywhere: this straitness will not be on account of strangers or enemies having taken possession; but on account of those who are true and proper possessors: for it follows,
and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away; from the church; the Heathen, the Gentiles, or Papists,
shall now perish out of his, Jehovah’s, “land”; “sinners shall be consumed out of the earth, and the wicked be no more”,
Ps 10:16. Antichrist and his abettors, which “swallowed” up the people, their riches, and substance, like beasts of prey, to which he is compared, shall go into perdition, and never disturb the church any more, Re 13:1.
n “terra tua destructa”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, De Dieu “et terram destructionis tuam”, Cocceius; “et terram tuam quae destructa est”, Vitringa.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thus will Zion shine forth once more with the multitude of her children as with a festal adorning. “For thy ruins and thy waste places and thy land full of ruin – yea, now thou wilt be too narrow for the inhabitants, and thy devourers are far away. Thy children, that were formerly taken from thee, shall say in thine ears, The space is too narrow for me; give way for me, that I may have room.” The word “for” ( k ) introduces the explanatory reason for the figures just employed of jewellery and a bridal girdle. Instead of the three subjects, “thy ruins,” etc., the comprehensive “thou” is employed permutatively, and the sentence commenced afresh. is repeated emphatically in (for now, or yea now); this has essentially the same meaning as in the apodosis of hypothetical protasis (e.g., Gen 31:42; Gen 43:10), except that the sense is more decidedly affirmative than in the present instance, where one sees it spring out of the confirmative. Zion, that has been hitherto desolate, now becomes too small to hold her inhabitants; and her devourers are far away, i.e., those who took forcible possession of the land and cities, and made them untenable. is to be understood in accordance with Psa 42:6, and in accordance with Psa 54:2 (see at Isa 5:9). It will even come to this, that the children of which Zion was formerly robbed will call to one another, so that she becomes a witness with her ears to that which they have so clearly seen: the space is too narrow, give way ( g e shah , from nagash , to advance, then to move generally, also to move in an opposite direction, i.e., to fall back, as in Gen 19:9) for me, that I may be able to settle down.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
19. For thy desolate places, he confirms by other words what we have already seen, that the change which he promised is in the hand of God, that the Church, which was for a long time waste and desolate, may speedily have many inhabitants; so that the place may be too narrow to contain them all. He employs the metaphor of a ruinous city, whose walls and houses are rebuilt, to which the citizens return in such vast numbers that its circumference must be enlarged, because its former extent cannot contain them all. Thus he means not only the return of the people from Babylon, but the restoration which was effected through Christ; that is, when the Church was spread far and wide, not only throughout Judea, but throughout the whole world.
And thy destroyers shall remove far away. He adds that a garrison will be provided, if any enemies shall molest her; yea, that she shall be secure against their attacks and molestation, because God will “drive them far away.” Not that the Church shall ever enjoy perfect peace, and be secured against all the attacks of enemies; but yet God, bearing with the weakness of his people, defended them from wicked men, and restrained or warded off their attacks, so that at least the kingdom of Satan might not grow out of the ruins of the Church.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(19) Shall even now be too narrow.Literally, with a vivid abruptness, thou shalt be . . . The over population of the future is contrasted with the depopulation of the past (Isa. 3:6; Isa. 4:1).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. In the import of Isa 49:16-18 our Version and the Hebrew quite accurately coincide, though the Hebrew is occasionally broken; as for example:
Thy waste and thy desolate places More literally, Thy wastes and thy desolations, and the land of thy wasteness.
Shall even now be too narrow So great should be the number of her converts, here termed inhabitants, that not only the more attractive parts of the land, but even the “waste places” should overflow with people. Not the newly built-up city alone, but all the land around, so long lying waste, shall be renewed in beauty, both of holy citizens and their substance and productiveness, just as in her former palmiest days when God was sole theocratic king: only no more hovering enemies shall, as of old, be around. They shall be far away.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 49:19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
Ver. 19. For thy waste and thy desolate places. ] Heb., Thy wastenesses and thy desolations. The true Church then may lie waste and desolate and not be so gloriously visible, as the Papists falsely say it always is.
Shall even now be too narrow.
And they that swallowed thee up.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
thy waste: Isa 49:8, Isa 51:3, Isa 54:1, Isa 54:2, Jer 30:18, Jer 30:19, Jer 33:10, Jer 33:11, Eze 36:9-15, Hos 1:10, Hos 1:11, Zec 2:4, Zec 2:11, Zec 10:10
they that: Isa 49:17, Isa 49:25, Isa 49:26, Psa 56:1, Psa 56:2, Psa 124:3, Pro 1:12, Jer 30:16, Jer 51:33, Jer 51:44, Eze 36:3
Reciprocal: 2Ki 6:1 – too strait for us Isa 54:3 – make Isa 66:12 – the glory Jer 9:10 – so Lam 2:16 – We have swallowed Mic 4:1 – and people Zec 10:8 – and they
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 49:19-21. For thy waste and desolate places, &c. He alludes to the land of Judea lying waste during the Babylonish captivity. Thus the church of God was in a waste, desolate, and barren state, till the coming of the Messiah, the introduction of the gospel, and the conversion of the Gentiles; and the land of thy destruction Or, thy land of destruction. He still alludes to Judea, thus characterized, because it was devoted, and should be exposed to destruction, first by the Chaldeans, and again by the Romans, a lively emblem of the ruined state of their church; shall even now be too narrow To contain the multitude of converts that shall be made. The middle wall of partition that separated the Jews from the Gentiles shall be broken down, and the pale of the church shall be enlarged. The children which thou shalt have, &c. Hebrew, , The children of thy orbity, or, barren and childless state. Those children which thou shalt have when thou art past the ordinary age and state of childbearing, as Sarah in her old age was made the mother of a most numerous posterity; to which he seems to allude: those children which shall be begotten to thee by the gospel when thou shalt be deprived of thine own natural children, or when thou shalt become barren as to the conversion of natural Jews; when the generality of the Jews shall cut themselves off from God and his true church, by their apostacy from him, and by their unbelief and rejection of their Messiah; shall say again Or rather, shall yet say, though for the present it be far otherwise, The place is too strait for me, &c. This is figuratively spoken, merely to signify the great enlargement of the church by the accession of the Gentiles. See Isa 54:1. Then shalt thou say in thy heart Not without admiration, Who hath begotten me these Whence, or by whom, have I this numerous issue? Seeing I have lost my children Seeing it is not long since that I was in a manner childless? And am desolate Without a husband, being forsaken of God, who formerly owned himself for my husband, Isa 54:5; Jer 31:32; a captive, and removing to and fro In an unsettled condition, and not likely to bear and bring up children for God or myself. Who hath brought up these? The same thing is repeated in these words to express the miraculousness of this work, and the great surprise of the Jews at it: which shows that he speaks of the conversion of the Gentiles.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jerusalem’s waste and desolate places would one day be full of people. Her destroyers would be gone and in their place would be so many inhabitants that the land would overflow with people.
"The city’s growth is cited as an unmistakable sign of Yahweh’s grace." [Note: Watts, Isaiah 34-66, p. 189.]