They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt - The West denoted Europe; Egypt and Assyria stand, each for all the lands beyond them, and so for Africa and Asia; all together comprise the three quarters of the world, from where converts have chiefly come to Christ. These are likened to birds, chiefly for the swiftness with which they shall then haste to the call of God, who now turned away the more, the more they were called. The dove, especially, was a bird of Palestine, proverbial for the swiftness of its flight, easily aftrighted, and flying the more rapidly, the more it was frightened, and returning to its cot from any distance where it might be carried; from where Isaiah also says of the converts, “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” Isaiah 60:8. “The Hebrews,” says Jerome, “refer this to the coming of the Christ, who, they hope, will come; we shew that it hath taken place already. For both from Egypt and Aasyria, i. e., from East and West, from North and South, have they come, and daily do they come, who sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
And I will place them in their houses - “Their houses” may be their own particular Churches, in the one Church or “House of God” 1 Timothy 3:15. In this house, God says, that He will make them to dwell, not again to be removed from it, nor shaken in it, but in a secure dwelling-place here until they be suited to be removed to everlasting habitations. : “In their houses, i. e., in the mansions prepared for them. For from the beginning of the world, when He created our first parents, and blessed them and said, “Increase and multiply and replenish the earth,” He prepared for them everlasting houses or mansions. Whereof He said, just before His Death, “In My father’s house are many mansions,” and in the Last Day, He will say, “Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”