The prophet, for the comfort of the believing Gentiles, prophesieth the amplitude of the church, their safety, their certain deliverance out of affliction, their fair edification, and their sure preservation.
Before Christ 719.
THE great mystery of the obedience and passion of the Messiah having been set forth, the fruits, effects, and consequences of that obedience and passion, with respect to the church, are here related for the comfort of true believers; God himself, therefore, whom we left speaking at the end of the last section but one, chap. 51: addresses the church of the true sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah, whom he considers as barren, afflicted, deprived of her husband, desolate, and promises, under an elegant figure, a great increase and amplification of her state. The third section, contained in the present chapter, may be divided into two apostrophes; the first contains a promise of the church's remarkable fruitfulness and amplification; where we have first the promise itself, proposed under a two-fold figure, of a woman long barren becoming extremely fruitful, Isaiah 54:1 and of the enlargement of a tent, capable to hold this increased offspring, Isaiah 54:2-3. Secondly, The foundation of the promise, the union of Jehovah as a husband with the church; Isaiah 54:4-6. The first apostrophe contains another promise of the constant love of God toward faithful believers; which is explained, Isaiah 54:7-8 and is illustrated from the covenant with Noah, Isaiah 54:9-10. The second apostrophe contains the promises of the Son of God to the same church; first, of beauty, splendor, and singular ornament, figuratively proposed, Isaiah 54:11-12. Secondly, of immediate dependence upon, and illumination by God, Isaiah 54:13. Thirdly, of true and internal peace;—middle of Isaiah 54:13. And fourthly, of defence against every hostile attempt, tending to its destruction: to which is added an elegant conclusion, the seal of these promises: Isaiah 54:14-17.