Isaiah 54:11

It is often the condition of Christian churches and of particular believers; without are fightings, within are fears; they are like the disciples in a storm, ready to perish; and where is their faith? The glorious state the church is here advanced to by the promise of God.

O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted,....

O thou afflicted - In the previous verses, Yahweh had merely promised protection, and had in general terms assured them of his favor. Here he shows that they should not only be defended, but that his church would rise with great beauty, and be ornamented like a most splendid palace or temple. This is to be regarded as addressed primarily to the exiles in Babylon near to the close of their seventy years’ captivity.

not comforted--by anyone; none gave her help or comfort. lay . . . with fair colours--rather, "lay . . . in cement of vermilion" [LOWTH]. The Hebrew for "fair colors" means stibium, the paint with which Eastern women painted their eyelids and eyelashes (2Ki 9:30).

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Who can doubt that this promise belongs to the Gentile Church, since it has been so richly fulfilled in her history? For many an age the light did not shine upon heathen lands. One spot, alone, upon all the earth received the genial beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Vast continents, thickly populated, full of life, bustle and enterprise, lay spread out as a moral waste, barren and neglected. But little Revelation of God had found its way among the teeming multitudes of the population. To them the dispensation of the Grace of God had not been proclaimed. The mystery of Christ was not as yet made known unto the sons of men. The Israelites had a monopoly of Covenant privileges. But now in these latter days, how wondrously are the tables turned! The branches of the wild olive have been grafted in "that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel." Thus the Lord has taken unto Himself a numerous seed once ignored by Israel, "which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." Not after the lineage of the flesh, but according to the nobler lineage of faith, the same are the children of Abraham—and with faithful Abraham do they inherit the Covenant mercy of God. This day the barren woman keeps house and is the joyful mother of many children. The Gentile Church has her stones of sapphire—God is in the midst of her to make her glad! Not less fully persuaded am I that this promise belongs to the Jewish Church. Among the natural descendants of the old Hebrew Patriarch, the Lord has preserved to Himself a spiritual people. Glory be to His name, He has not cast off His people whom He did foreknow! Even at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of Grace.

Who can doubt that this promise belongs to the Gentile Church, since it has been so richly fulfilled in her history? For many an age the light did not shine upon heathen lands. One spot, alone, upon all the earth received the genial beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Vast continents, thickly populated, full of life, bustle and enterprise, lay spread out as a moral waste, barren and neglected. But little Revelation of God had found its way among the teeming multitudes of the population. To them the dispensation of the Grace of God had not been proclaimed.

Behold, I will lay thy stones “Behold, I lay thy stones” - These seem to be general images to express beauty, magnificence, purity, strength, and solidity, agreeably to the ideas of the eastern nations; and to have never been intended to be strictly scrutinized, or minutely and particularly explained, as if they had each of them some precise, moral, or spiritual meaning. Tobit, in his prophecy of the final restoration of Israel, describes the New Jerusalem in the same oriental manner: “For Jerusalem shall be built up with sapphires, and emeralds, and precious stones; thy walls, and towers, and battlements, with pure gold. And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with beryl, and carbuncle, and stones of ophir.” Tob. 13:16, 17. Compare also Rev 21:18-21.