Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
Speak ye comfortably - literally, to the heart; not merely to the intellect. Speak ye comfortably - literally, to the heart; not merely to the intellect.
To Jerusalem - though then in ruins, regarded by God as about to be rebuilt; her people are chiefly meant, but the city is personified.
Cry - publicly end emphatically, as a herald cries aloud (Isaiah 40:3).
Her warfare - the appointed time of her misery; tsªbaa'aah (H6635), her term service and hardship-a military metaphor (Job 7:1, margin; 14:14; 10:1). The ulterior and Messianic reference probably is, the definite time of the legal economy of burdensome rites is at an end (Galatians 4:3-4).
Her iniquity is pardoned. The Hebrew ( nirtsaah (H7521), from raatsah (H7521), to accept, or be pleased with as an atonement, Leviticus 1:1-17; Leviticus 4:1-35; Leviticus 26:41; Leviticus 26:43) expresses that her iniquity is so expiated that God now delights in restoring her.
Double for all her sin. This can only, in a very restricted sense, hold good of Judah's restoration after the first captivity. For how can it be said her 'warfare was accomplished,' when as yet the galling yoke of Antiochus, and also of Rome, was before them? The 'double for her sins' must refer to the two-fold captivity-the Assyrian or Babylonian and the Roman. At the coming close of this latter dispersion, and then only, can her "iniquity" be said to be 'pardoned' or fully expiated (Houbigant). It does not mean double as much as she deserved, but ample punishment in her two-fold captivity. Messiah is the antitypical Israel (cf. Matthew 2:15 with Hosea 11:1). He indeed has "received" of sufferings amply more than enough to expiate "for our sins" (Romans 5:15; Romans 5:17). Otherwise (Cry unto her), 'that she shall receive (blessings) of the Lord's hand, double to the punishment of all her sins' (so "sin" is used, Zechariah 14:19. margin.) (Lowth). The English version is simpler: but cf. Isaiah 61:7; Zechariah 9:12, end. The Chaldaic, Vulgate, the Septuagint, Arabic, Syriac, support the English version.