9 Give sounds of joy, make melody together, waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord has given comfort to his people, he has taken up the cause of Jerusalem.
For the Lord has given comfort to Zion: he has made glad all her broken walls; making her waste places like Eden, and changing her dry land into the garden of the Lord; joy and delight will be there, praise and the sound of melody.
Let all the earth send out a glad cry to the Lord; sounding with a loud voice, and praising him with songs of joy.
All the earth is at rest and is quiet: they are bursting into song.
Make a song, O heavens, for the Lord has done it: give a loud cry, you deep parts of the earth: let your voices be loud in song, you mountains, and you woods with all your trees: for the Lord has taken up the cause of Jacob, and will let his glory be seen in Israel.
Who makes the word of his servants certain, and gives effect to the purposes of his representatives; who says of Jerusalem, Her people will come back to her; and of the towns of Judah, I will give orders for their building, and will make her waste places fertile again:
Go out of Babylon, go in flight from the Chaldaeans; with the sound of song make it clear, give the news, let the word go out even to the end of the earth: say, The Lord has taken up the cause of his servant Jacob.
For you will go out with joy, and be guided in peace: the mountains and the hills will make melody before you, and all the trees of the fields will make sounds of joy.
Make a new song to the Lord, and let his praise be sounded from the end of the earth; you who go down to the sea, and everything in it, the sea-lands and their people. Let the waste land and its flocks be glad, the tent-circles of Kedar; let the people of the rock give a glad cry, from the top of the mountains let them make a sound of joy.
Let your voice be loud in song, O woman without children; make melody and sounds of joy, you who did not give birth: for the children of her who had no husband are more than those of the married wife, says the Lord. Make wide the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your house be stretched out without limit: make your cords long, and your tent-pins strong. For I will make wide your limits on the right hand and on the left; and your seed will take the nations for a heritage, and make the waste towns full of people.
But men will be glad and have joy for ever in what I am making; for I am making Jerusalem a delight, and her people a joy. And I will be glad over Jerusalem, and have joy in my people: and the voice of weeping will no longer be sounding in her, or the voice of grief.
Have joy with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you her lovers: take part in her joy, all you who are sorrowing for her: So that you may take of the comfort flowing from her breasts, and be delighted with the full measure of her glory. For the Lord says, See, I will make her peace like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream, and she will take her children in her arms, gently caring for them on her knees. As to one who is comforted by his mother, so will I give you comfort: and you will be comforted in Jerusalem.
Make melody, O daughter of Zion; give a loud cry, O Israel; be glad and let your heart be full of joy, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away those who were judging you, he has sent your haters far away: the King of Israel, even the Lord, is among you: you will have no more fear of evil.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 52
Commentary on Isaiah 52 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 52
The greater part of this chapter is on the same subject with the chapter before, concerning the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, which yet is applicable to the great salvation Christ has wrought out for us; but the last three verses are on the same subject with the following chapter, concerning the person of the Redeemer, his humiliation and exaltation. Observe,
Isa 52:1-6
Here,
Isa 52:7-12
The removal of the Jews from Babylon to their own land again is here spoken of both as a mercy and as a duty; and the application of v. 7 to the preaching of the gospel (by the apostle, Rom. 10:15) plainly intimates that that deliverance was a type and figure of the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ, to which what is here said of their redemption out of Babylon ought to be accommodated.
Isa 52:13-15
Here, as in other places, for the confirming of the faith of God's people and the encouraging of their hope in the promises of temporal deliverances, the prophet passes from them to speak of the great salvation which should in the fulness of time be wrought out by the Messiah. As the prophecy of Christ's incarnation was intended for the ratification of the promise of their deliverance from the Assyrian army, so this of Christ's death and resurrection is to confirm the promise of their return out of Babylon; for both these salvations were typical of the great redemption and the prophecies of them had a reference to that. This prophecy, which begins here and is continued to the end of the next chapter, points as plainly as can be at Jesus Christ; the ancient Jews understood it of the Messiah, though the modern Jews take a great deal of pains to pervert it, and some of ours (no friends therein to the Christian religion) will have it understood of Jeremiah; but Philip, who hence preached Christ to the eunuch, has put it past dispute that of him speaks the prophet this, of him and of no other man, Acts 8:34, 35. Here,