Glorify ye the Lord: these are the words either,
1. Of the remnant, who being themselves delivered, do encourage and exhort their brethren to glorify God with them; or,
2. Of the prophet, directing and exciting God's people to glorify God in their afflictions, because of that deliverance which he had promised, and would assuredly give to them. In the fires; when you are in the furnace of affliction; although this word is never used in Scripture in this sense. Others therefore render the word, in the valleys; and others, in the holes, you that are now forced to hide yourselves in holes. Possibly it may be better rendered, for light or illumination; which may be understood either of the light of the truth which God would reveal to them, or for the comfort and felicity which God would confer upon them; light being frequently taken both ways in Scripture. For this Hebrew word, in all other places of Scripture where it is found, signifies that Urim which was in the high priest's breastplate, and which properly signifies illumination, as both Jews and Christians render it, whereof that was both a sign and instrument; of which See Poole on "Exodus 28:30". Add to this, that this part of the prophecy seems to concern the days of the gospel, and that light which the Jews should then receive by the Messias, of whom the high priest with his ephod and Urim was a type. And so this is an exhortation to the converted Jews to bless God for the true Urim, even for Christ and the gospel. And some of the ancient translators had this signification of the word in their eye, as the vulgar Latin, who render it, in doctrines; and the Chaldee, who translate it, when light shall come to the just. But this I propose with submission. In the isles of the sea; in remote countries beyond the sea, which in Scripture are commonly called isles, as hath been formerly and oft observed; whereby he seems to imply that he here speaks not so much of a temporal felicity which the Jews should receive and enjoy in their own country, as of a spiritual advantage which they should have by the Messias in the places where they were dispersed.