I will restore thy judges as at the first. — The prophet looks back to the good old days, the time probably of David, or the early years of Solomon (1 Kings 10:9) — as Englishmen look back to those of Elizabeth — when judges were faithful, and princes upright, and the people happy — to such an ideal polity as that of Psalms 15, 24.
The city of righteousness, the faithful city. — The two nouns are not the same, and the second has rather the meaning of “citadel,” the acropolis of Jerusalem. There is possibly an allusive reference to the idea embodied in the names of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18; Hebrews 7:2) and Adonizedec (Joshua 10:3), as connected with Jerusalem. So in Jeremiah 33:16 the ideal city, no less than the ideal king, is to be called Jehovah Tsidkenu (“the Lord our righteousness”).