The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness... — The words gain greater emphasis as being those which the prophet had himself used (Jeremiah 7:34; Jeremiah 16:9; Jeremiah 25:10) in foretelling the desolation of the city. He points, as it were, by implication to the fulfilment of the one prediction, as a guarantee that the other also will, in due season, have its fulfilment.
Praise the Lord of hosts... — The words were used as the ever-recurring doxology of the Temple-services (Ezra 3:11; 2 Chronicles 7:6; 2 Chronicles 20:21; Psalms 136:2-3; 1Ma. 4:24). The Courts of the Temple, now hushed in silence, should once again re-echo with the Hallelujahs of the Priests and Levites. The “sacrifice of praise” (the same phrase as in Jeremiah 17:26; Psalms 56:12) may be either “the sacrifice which consists in praise,” or the “sacrifices of thanksgiving” of Leviticus 7:12, which were offered in acknowledgment of special blessings. The ground of the thanksgiving in either case would be that the Lord had “turned again the captivity” of Jacob. The phrase was a familiar one, as in Psalms 14:7; Psalms 53:6; Deuteronomy 30:3. The words “as at the first” (literally, as at the beginning) do not refer to any previous restoration, like that of the Exodus from Egypt, but to the state before the exile.