Isaiah 55:13

As to the multiplied restoration of goods: instead of the shrub, shall come up the fir tree, that is, your former goods are few in comparison to what you will have: the glory of this last house shall be more than of the first (Hag …

Instead - Whereas your land was filled with thorns and briars, as was foretold, they shall be rooted out, and it shall be planted with fir-trees and myrtle-trees, and such other trees, as are useful either for fruit or for delight. The church shall be delivered from pernicious things, and replenished with all divine graces and blessings.

Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree,....

These promises of mercy and grace shall have as real an effect upon the souls of believers, for their sanctification and comfort, as ever the rain had upon the earth, to make it fruitful. [2.] That according to the different errands on which the word is sent it will have its different effects.

The accomplishment of the predictions relating to that great deliverance would be a pledge and earnest of the performance of all the other promises; for thereby it shall appear that he is faithful who has promised. [2.] It shall be a representation of the blessings promised and a type and figure of them.

Instead of the thorn - (Compare the notes at Isa 11:6-8; Isa 35:1-2; Isa 41:19; Isa 42:20). The word rendered ‘thorn’ (נעצוּץ na‛ătsûts) occurs only here and in Isa 7:19. It evidently means a thorn, hedge, or thorny-bush. Shall come up the fir tree - (ברושׁ berôsh; see the notes at Isa 14:8; Isa 37:24; Isa 60:13; Zec 11:2). A change would be produced in the moral condition of man as great as if in the natural world the rough and useless thorn should be succeeded by the beautiful and useful cypress (compare Isa 60:13).

Type of the Christian Church; for it is a lowly, though beautiful, fragrant, and evergreen shrub (Ps 92:13, 14). for a name . . . everlasting sign--a perpetual memorial to the glory of Jehovah (Jer 13:11;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

THESE words are a poetical description of great moral changes which the Gospel works wherever it comes. It transforms human nature and makes society to become as though a desert suddenly blossomed into a cultivated field. At the same time, the words of the text are not solely and alone poetical, for it is a great Truth of God that wherever the spiritual change comes the physical change is almost sure to follow. As men are elevated the earth yields her increase more largely. The earth was cursed for man's sake, and in proportion as man forsakes his sloth, his drunkenness, his savageness, the ground rewards his diligence with plenteous harvests. Look at the field of the sluggard and the garden of the industrious! Look over the wild wastes of Africa, and then see the fertility of the same soil when tilled by the missionary's converts! The surest way to benefit men in their outward circumstances is to bless them spiritually—for as they draw near to God in obedience to His will, He will, as a rule, bless and prosper them. England will always flourish while she honors the Word of God. If she departs from the Gospel to follow after Popery she may expect her prosperity to decline. If we desire our land to maintain her eminent position among the nations, we must go on to do everything which is just and right towards all classes. We must break down every old abuse and build up the good and the true. Doing this, and upholding the Word of God, we may expect that this land will inherit a future brighter than the past. The text certainly touches upon changes in the soil, yet it has mainly to do with the great moral world. The Gospel transforms the whole state of man, so that instead of the thorn of sin comes up the fir tree of Divine Grace—and instead of the brier of lust comes up the myrtle tree of holiness. I.

THIS is a text for the springtime! If you read it through tomorrow morning, before the smoke has clouded the heavens, while yet the earliest birds are calling up their mates to sing, you will understand its meaning better than I can make you comprehend it by any words of mine. The whole four verses seem to describe a scene in nature which is only to be witnessed about this time of the year, yet I am not going to look into the poetical meaning of the text so much as to use it as a description of personal experience. I think, no—I am sure that there are many of us who have passed through our spiritual winter. We have also had our spring—we are even coming to our summer—and there are some whose ripe and mellow experience has the peacefulness of autumn about it. Our lives are, in miniature, like the years that so quickly follow one another and every year does but repeat the changes in our lives! I want, at this time, to speak about springtime in our spiritual experience—touching, however, upon a more advanced period, as it will be necessary to do—but my first word is to be concerning our springtime experience. Brothers and Sisters, by nature we lie in the cold and death of winter—everything is frost-bound, withered, dead. We are nothing. We yield nothing. We can do nothing. The Word of God comes to us as the beams of the sun pour down their warmth from the heavens and, by a mighty and mysterious influence, that Word begins to work upon us and we soon feel that we have entered upon quite another season of life. We are no longer in the cold winter—we have come to a blessed springtime! That is the theme upon which I am going to now speak. I. First, notice in the text the descent of the Word, THE DOWNCOMING—"As the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven." Our spring begins with April showers alternating with rough winds.

THESE words are a poetical description of great moral changes which the Gospel works wherever it comes. It transforms human nature and makes society to become as though a desert suddenly blossomed into a cultivated field. At the same time, the words of the text are not solely and alone poetical, for it is a great Truth of God that wherever the spiritual change comes the physical change is almost sure to follow. As men are elevated the earth yields her increase more largely.

THIS is a text for the springtime! If you read it through tomorrow morning, before the smoke has clouded the heavens, while yet the earliest birds are calling up their mates to sing, you will understand its meaning better than I can make you comprehend it by any words of mine. The whole four verses seem to describe a scene in nature which is only to be witnessed about this time of the year, yet I am not going to look into the poetical meaning of the text so much as to use it as a description of personal experience.

Instead of the thorn “Instead of the thorny bushes” - These likewise (see note on Isa 55:12, and on Isa 54:11 (note)) are general poetical images, expressing a great and happy change for the better. The wilderness turned into a paradise, Lebanon into Carmel: the desert of the Gentiles watered with the heavenly snow and rain, which fail not to have their due effect, and becoming fruitful in piety and righteousness: or, as the Chaldee gives the moral sense of the emblem, “instead of the wicked shall arise the just; and instead of sinners, such as fear to sin.” Compare Isa 35:1, Isa 35:2; Isa 41:19. And instead of - The conjunction ו vau is added, ותחת vetachath, in forty-five MSS. of Kennicott’s several of De Rossi’s, and five editions; and it is acknowledged by all the ancient Versions. The Masoretes therefore might have safely received it into the text, and not have referred us for it to the margin. But this is no uncommon case with them. Even in our own Version the best reading is very often found in the margin.