20. Behold Zion, the city of our festivals! Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet home, a tent that shall not be removed. Its stakes shall not be pulled up for ever, and all its cords shall not be broken. 21. But there shall Jehovah be mighty for us; a place of rivers, streams broad (on) both sides; there shall not go in it an oared vessel, and a gallant ship shall not pass through it. 22. For Jehovah our Judge, Jehovah our Lawgiver, Jehovah our King, He will save us.
23. Thy ropes are cast loose; they do not hold upright their mast; they do not spread the sail; then is shared plunder of booty in plenty; the lame spoil the spoil.
24. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. The people dwelling in it (is) forgiven (its) iniquity.
threatenings against the enemies of the church, with promises to the church itself.—chaps. xxxiv., xxxv.
1. Come near, ye nations, to hear; and ye peoples hearken. Let the earth hear, and its fulness, the world and all its issues. 2. For Jehovah is angry against all the nations, and has wrath against all their host; He has doomed them, He has given them to the slaughter. 3. And their slain shall be cast out, and their carcasses, their stench shall go up; and mountains shall be melted with their blood. 4. And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll, and all their host shall fade like the fading of a leaf from off a vine, and like a fading (leaf) or a withered (fig) from a fig-tree.
5. For My sword is steeped in heaven; behold, upon Edom shall it come down, and upon the people of My curse. 6. Jehovah has a sword; it is full of blood, it is smeared with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 7. And unicorns shall come down with them, and bullocks with blood, and their dust with fat shall be fattened. 8. For there is a day of vengeance to Jehovah, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. 9. And her streams shall be turned to pitch, and her dust to brimstone, and her land shall become burning pitch. 10. Day and night it shall not be quenched; for ever shall its smoke go up; from generation to generation shall it lie waste; for ever and ever there shall be no one passing through it. 11. Then shall possess it the pelican and the porcupine, the crane and the crow shall dwell in it. And One shall stretch upon it the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness. 12. Her caves—and there is no one there they will (still) call a kingdom, and all her chiefs will cease to be. 13. And in her palaces shall come up thorns, nettles, and brambles in her fortresses; and she shall be a home of wolves, a grass-plot for ostriches. 14. And wild creatures shall (there) meet with howling creatures, and the shaggy monster shall call to his fellow; only there reposes the night-monster, and finds for herself a resting place. 15. [As to the particular species of animals referred to in this whole passage, there is no need, as Calvin well observes, of troubling ourselves much about them. The general sense evidently is, that a human population should be succeeded by wild and lonely animals, who should not only live but breed there, implying total and continued desolation.] 16. Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah and read; by number will Jehovah call them. For My mouth, it has commanded; and His Spirit it has gathered them. 17. He too has cast the lot for them and His hand has divided it to them by line. For ever shall they hold it as a heritage, to all generations they shall dwell therein.
XXXV.—1. Desert and waste shall rejoice (for) them; and the wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. 2. (It shall) blossom, it shall blossom and rejoice; yea (with) joy and shouting. The glory of Lebanon is given unto it, the beauty of Carmel and of Sharon. They shall see the glory of Jehovah, the beauty of our God.
3. Strengthen hands (now) sinking, and knees (now) tottering make firm. 4. Say ye to the hasty of heart, Be firm, fear not; behold your God; He (Himself) is coming, and will save you.
5. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6. Then shall the lame bound as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall shout (for joy), because waters have burst forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
7. And the mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water, (even) in the haunt of wolves, their lair, a court for reeds and rushes. 8. And there shall be there a highway and a way; it shall be called the Way of Holiness; and there shall not pass through it an unclean (thing or person); it shall be for them; the travellers, yea, those who are ignorant (or foolish) shall not be able to go astray. 9. There shall not be there a lion, and a ravenous beast shall not ascend it, nor be found there; and (there) shall walk redeemed (ones).