Isaiah 51:3 - Exposition

The Lord shall comfort Zion (comp. Isaiah 40:1 ; Isaiah 49:3 ; Isaiah 51:12 ; Isaiah 52:9 , etc.). Literally, the word used is has comforted; i.e. has so determined the matter in his counsels that it may be considered as already accomplished. Her waste places … her wilderness … her desert. Though Nebuchadnezzar "left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen" ( 2 Kings 25:12 ; Jeremiah 52:16 ), yet the population was not sufficient to maintain cultivation generally. Thus, much of Judaea, during the absence of the exiles, became a " wilderness " and a " desert " (see Ezekiel 36:34 ). Like Eden … like the garden of the Lord. The Prophet Joel compares Judaea before its desolation to " the garden of Eden" ( Joel 2:3 ): and Ezekiel, like Isaiah, prophesies that it shall once more become "like the garden of Eden," when the exiles have returned to it ( Ezekiel 37:1-28 :35). With the last-named writer, Eden represents all that is glorious, not in nature only, but in art ( Ezekiel 28:13 ; Ezekiel 31:8 , Ezekiel 31:9 , Ezekiel 31:16 , Ezekiel 31:18 ). The voice of melody (comp. Isaiah 35:10 , and infra , verse 11). As music ceases out of the land in time of affliction ( Isaiah 24:8 ), so when a "time of refreshing from the Lord" arrives, there is at once singing and "melody" (comp. Revelation 5:8 ; Revelation 14:2 ; Revelation 15:2 ).