Verse 12
12. From far He brings them from every quarter on their way to the heavenly Jerusalem. With fair reason these words are supposed to mean, from the South symbolized in the queen of Sheba; from the north and west Asia Minor and Europe, the chief nursery, for long ages, of the Christian Church.
And these from the land of Sinim Was this the name of any country east? Very difficult to answer. The Septuagint renders it Persia γη περσιων a good authority against the Vulgate, which renders it “south.” This is scarcely probable, unless by the “south” is meant the southern parts of the great eastern regions. Without detailing the argument by Gesenius that China us intended in the word סינימ , Sinim, a conclusion adopted by Alexander also after a thorough sifting of the subject, also by other distinguished scholars Ewald excepted we may likewise here rest (?) till other more learned philology shall differently determine the case. “Sinim,” hence, is China; at least its westernmost borders, or a name given to the eastern-most parts of the world known to Semitic people in Isaiah’s times, perhaps as far back as 800 B.C.
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