Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people, х harªniynuw (H7442) gowyim (H1471) `amow (H5971)] - shout for joy, ye nations, his people. The Hebrew text has not the preposition with. [Our translation is evidently taken from the Septuagint, which has: eufrantheete ethnee meta tou laou autou, rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His people; and is quoted by Paul, Romans 15:10.]
The Septuagint version differs to a remarkable degree from the Hebrew text in this passage (see the note at Hebrews 1:6), where the reading of the Septuagint is adopted by the inspired author, and reasons are assigned by Bleek and Ebrard for giving it a preference, in point of antiquity, to the text in our present Hebrew Copies. (See also Bengel's 'Gnomon,' and Alford, in loco citato.)
The Hebrew text seems more fully in accordance with the concluding strain of the song, where God's people alone are addressed, and a call is made upon them to raise their jubilant song of praise - "Rejoice, ye pagan (who are now), his people." The burden of the song related to the severe and protracted chastisement of God's ancient people for the abuse of their distinguished privileges, and to the unmistakeable evidence that would be furnished, even by His judgments upon them, that He was the true God.
The latter portion describes the compassion and returning mercy of God toward multitudes of the Jews, who, separated in the furnace of affliction from the mass of that apostate and obdurate race, should, through the public avowal of their faith, be received into the Church; and their conversion, accompanied, as many think, by a restoration to the land of their fathers, pave the way for the spiritual regeneration of all the Gentile nations.
The ultimate design of the chequered dispensations of Providence is to preserve the true Israel, throughout the extended family of man, from the doom which sin has entailed upon the world; and hence, at the close of the song, the redeemed of the Lord are called to raise their triumphal song, "Rejoice, ye nations, (as) his people."
And will be merciful unto his land, and to his people, х wªkiper (H3722)] - and will make atonement for, will pardon or forgive; i:e., as the verb is used in the reflexive sense, will be propitious to 'his land and his people.' So long as the Jews shall persist in their sinful state of unbelief and apostasy, the divine vengeance will fall with unabated severity upon their polluted land: both the justice and the holiness of God must be opposed to the cessation of the heavy judgment inflicted upon that people and their country. But when those judgments shall have produced their intended effect in the destruction of the enemies of God, and in the nascent spirit of repentance and faith among the descendants of Jacob, their transgressions are covered, and "The Lord will have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come."
In this inspired composition-which is not a lyric, but a song of a unique description, a historico-prophetical poem-written on the eve of the occupation of Canaan, and well calculated by its poetical form, as well as its striking imagery, to take a deep hold of the popular mind-every successive generation of the Jewish people was reminded of their close relations to Yahweh as the Founder, Benefactor, and Ruler of their common-wealth, and of the vital importance of a faithful allegiance to Him, as, according to the fundamental principle of its constitution, the source of their national stability and prosperity.
They found traced out in broad and distinct outline the diversified course of their national experience, from its commencement at the exodus, and the weary pilgrimage in the wilderness, to their happy settlement in the promised land, with all the marvelous tokens of the divine presence and favour, and the special privileges by which their nation was pre-eminently distinguished. While they would dwell with rapture on the bright picture drawn of the halcyon days of young Israel, they would observe the horizon gradually overcast and troubled by gloomy and threatening clouds in the advanced times of the monarchy, until there supervened the dark, disastrous, long night of the dispersion; and in contemplating this sad picture of the decline and fall of their nation, the painful truth was enforced upon them that they were the guilty authors of their own misfortunes, by severing, through willful apostasy and blind unbelief, the bonds of their covenanted relations with God.
Thus this song would serve as a seasonable and useful monitor to all classes of the people, and in every succeeding age, of the character of God, as inviolably true and faithful to His promises, as well as His threatenings; and as it was given to be a prophetic witness, embracing the whole future of the kingdom of God, it may yet be destined to exert a potent influence on the reflecting minds or awakened consciences of the existing or future race of Jews, who, in pondering over the literal fulfillment of the prophetic Word in the severe and long-continued judgment, may be led to hope for a still more signal display of the divine love in the redemption of Israel.
Then, when, being converted, they shall have professed their faith in Jesus as the true Messiah; when the name of Jew shall be dropped from the vocabulary of the world; when persecution shall have been put down without, ignorance and superstition banished within, and all mankind are united in one glorious Church by the bonds of Christian brotherhood-then shall be raised the triumphal song, 'Rejoice, O ye nations, now his people: for the Lord has avenged the blood of his servants; he has rendered vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful (propitious) to his land, and to his people.'