And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
In that day - namely, that of Messiah's advent. Therefore the restoration here foretold cannot be that from Babylon. Nor can it refer to Messiah's first advent, for then Judah was dispersed, not restored. It therefore can only refer to Christ's second coming.
The Lord shall set his hand - take in hand the work.
Again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria. Therefore the coming restoration of the Jews is to be distinct from that after the Babylonian captivity, and yet to resemble it. The first restoration was literal, therefore so shall the second be; the latter, however, it is implied here, shall be much more universal than the former (Isaiah 43:5-7; Isaiah 49:12; Isaiah 49:17-18; Ezekiel 37:21; Hosea 3:5; Amos 9:14-15; Micah 4:6-7; Zephaniah 3:19-20; Zechariah 10:10; Jeremiah 23:8).
From Pathros - one of the three divisions of Egypt: Upper Egypt.
Cush - either Ethiopia, south of Egypt, now Abyssinia, or the southern parts of Arabia, along the Red Sea.
Elam - Persia, especially the southern part of it, now called Susiana.
Shinar - Babylonian Mesopotamia, the plain between Euphrates and the Tigris: in it Babel was begun (Genesis 10:10). In the Assyrian inscriptions Rawlinson distinguishes three periods:
(1) The Chaldean, from 2300 BC to 1500, in which falls Chedorlaomer (Genesis 14:1-24), called in the cuneiform characters Kudur of Hur, or Ur of the Chaldees, and described as the conqueror of Syria. The seat of the first Chaldean empire was in the south, toward the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.
(2) The Assyrian, down to 625 BC
(3) The Babylonian, from 625 to 538 B.C., when Babylon was taken by the Persian Cyrus.
And from the islands of the sea - the far western regions beyond the sea (Jerome). As to the "remnant" destined by God to survive the judgments on the nation, cf. Jeremiah 46:28, "I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished."