3 It will happen in the day that Yahweh will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve,
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And it shall be in that day. He adds a confirmation of the former promises. In this way the Lord provides for our weakness; for we find it difficult to render a full belief to his word, especially when the state of our affairs appears to contradict it. But by this method the Lord chooses to put our faith to the test, when he still promises the salvation of which all hope has been taken away. From thy sorrow, and from thy trembling, and from thy hard bondage. He confirms what he has said by a variety of expressions, that, by removing all doubt, we may not cease to rely on his promises, even when our affairs are desperate. Yet by the same considerations he at the same time exhorts the Jews to gratitude, that they may never bury in forgetfulness a work of God so excellent and so worthy of remembrance. He expressly intended to mention the yoke and bondage, that the Jews might be fully aware that the Lord would take away these obstructions whenever he pleased, and that they could not at all prevent him from immediately delivering his people, when he thought fit. We ought also to apply this to our own use, in the present day, with reference to the wretched bondage and wicked yoke of Antichrist by which Christians are bound. Though they are confined and bound by snares and chains in every direction, they have God for their deliverer, who will quickly remove all difficulties and every kind of annoyances; and this ought to be extended to all sorrows, distresses, and afflictions.
And it shall come to pass - That is, then thou shalt take up a taunting song against the king of Babylon Isaiah 14:4.
That the Lord shall give thee rest - (compare Isaiah 38:12). The nature of this predicted rest, is more fully described in Ezekiel 28:25-26.
From thy sorrow - The long pain of thy captivity in Babylon.
And from thy fear - Hebrew, 'Trembling.' That is, the apprehension of the ills to which they were continually exposed. Trembling is usually one effect of fear.
And from thy hard bondage - The severe and galling servitude of seventy years.
In the day "In that day" - ביום ההוא bayom hahu. The word ההוא hahu is added in two MSS. of Kennicott's, and was in the copies from which the Septuagint and Vulgate translated: εν τῃ ἡμερᾳ εκεινῃ, in die illa, (ᾑ αναπαυσει, MS. Pachom. adding ה), in that day. This is a matter of no great consequence: however, it restores the text to the common form, almost constantly used on such occasions; and is one among many instances of a word apparently lost out of the printed copies.
And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow,.... In captivity, and on account of that, being out of their own land, deprived of the free exercise of their religion, and at a distance from the house of God, and continually hearing the reproaches and blaspheming of the enemy, and seeing their idolatrous practices, and their ungodly conversation; all which must create sorrow of heart to the sincere lovers and worshippers of God:
and from thy fear; of worse evils, most cruel usage, and death itself, under the terror of which they lived:
and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve; as before in Egypt, so now in Babylon; but what that was is not particularly expressed anywhere, as the former is, see Exodus 1:13 and when they had rest from all this in their own land, then they should do as follows:
rest-- (Isaiah 28:12; Ezekiel 28:25-26).
The whole earth rejoices; the cedars of Lebanon taunt him.
The song of the redeemed is a song concerning the fall of the king of Babel. Isaiah 14:3, Isaiah 14:4. Instead of the hiphil hinniach (to let down) of Isaiah 14:1, we have here, as in the original passage, Deuteronomy 25:19, the form hēniach, which is commonly used in the sense of quieting, or procuring rest. עצב is trouble which plagues (as עמל is trouble which oppresses), and rōgez restlessness which wears out with anxious care (Job 3:26, cf., Ezekiel 12:18). The assimilated min before the two words is pronounced mĭ, with a weak reduplication, instead of mē, as elsewhere, before ח, ה, and even before ר (1-Samuel 23:28; 2-Samuel 18:16). In the relative clause עבּד־בך אשר, אשר is not the Hebrew casus adverb. answering to the Latin ablative qu servo te usi sunt; not do בך אשר belong to one another in the sense of quo, as in Deuteronomy 21:3, qu (vitul); but it is regarded as an acc. obj. according to Exodus 1:14 and Leviticus 25:39, qu'on t'a fait servir, as in Numbers 32:5, qu'on donne la terre (Luzzatto). When delivered from such a yoke of bondage, Israel would raise a mâshâl. According to its primary and general meaning, mâshâl signifies figurative language, and hence poetry generally, more especially that kind of proverbial poetry which loves the emblematical, and, in fact, any artistic composition that is piquant in its character; so that the idea of what is satirical or defiant may easily be associated with it, as in the passage before us.
The words are addressed to the Israel of the future in the Israel of the present, as in Isaiah 12:1. The former would then sing, and say as follows. "How hath the oppressor ceased! The place of torture ceased! Jehovah hath broken the rod of the wicked, the ruler's staff, which cmote nations in wrath with strokes without ceasing subjugated nations wrathfully with hunting than nevers stays." Not one of the early translators ever thought of deriving the hap. leg. madhebâh from the Aramaean dehab (gold), as Vitringa, Aurivillius, and Rosenmller have done. The former have all translated the word as if it were marhēbâh (haughty, violent treatment), as corrected by J. D. Michaelis, Doederlein, Knobel, and others. But we may arrive at the same result without altering a single letter, if we take דּאב as equivalent to דּהב, דּוּב, to melt or pine away, whether we go back to the kal or to the hiphil of the verb, and regard the Mem as used in a material or local sense. We understand it, according to madmenah (dunghill) in Isaiah 25:10, as denoting the place where they were reduced to pining away, i.e., as applied to Babylon as the house of servitude where Israel had been wearied to death. The tyrant's sceptre, mentioned in Isaiah 14:5, is the Chaldean world-power regarded as concentrated in the king of Babel (cf., shēbet in Numbers 24:17). This tyrant's sceptre smote nations with incessant blows and hunting: maccath is construed with macceh, the derivative of the same verb; and murdâph, a hophal noun (as in Isaiah 9:1; Isaiah 29:3), with rodeh, which is kindred in meaning. Doederlein's conjecture (mirdath), which has been adopted by most modern commentators, is quite unnecessary. Unceasing continuance is expressed first of all with bilti, which is used as a preposition, and followed by sârâh, a participial noun like câlâh, and then with b'li, which is construed with the finite verb as in Genesis 31:20; Job 41:18; for b'li châsâk is an attributive clause: with a hunting which did not restrain itself, did not stop, and therefore did not spare. Nor is it only Israel and other subjugated nations that now breathe again.
*More commentary available at chapter level.