Isaiah 54:1

Who is this who before was "barren" and "desolate"? Clearly it is the church of the Gentiles, which was before deprived of the knowledge of God. Who is "she who has the husband"? Plainly the synagogue. Yet the barren woman surpassed her in the number of her children, for the other embraces one nation, but the children of the church have filled the country of the Greeks and of the barbarians, the earth and the sea, the whole habitable world.

So when he was not a desert or a land made dry to Israel, he was, with respect to what is particular, a desert and land made dry to the pagan nations. But when he turned away from Israel and became to that Israel like a desert and land made dry, then grace was poured forth on the pagan nations, and Jesus Christ became now to us not a desert but abundance, and not a land made dry but one that bears fruit.

976. Give praise, O you barren. Here against the dejection of their affairs, he promises the remedy of exaltation. And first, he promises multitude as a remedy against their fewness in number; second, restoration of honor against their confusion: fear not (Isa 54:4); third, prosperity …

45 ): It is written in the prophets, They shall be all taught of God, whence he infers that those, and those only, come to him by faith that have heard and learned of the Father, that are taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, Eph. iv. There shall be a plentiful effusion of the Spirit of grace upon Christians, to teach them all things, John xiv.

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Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear,....

That though sometimes God might seem to withdraw from her, and suspend the tokens of his favour, he would return in mercy and would not return to contend with them any more,

IT was a great sorrow to an Eastern woman to be childless. In modern times that affliction is endured with cheerful equanimity, but in those days it was regarded as a dreadful curse and the feelings of those afflicted by it were of the most painful kind, as we find in the case of Hannah. Alas, for human nature! Those who were favored with children were often guilty of cruel haughtiness and taunting derision towards those who were not so blessed. We may instance the cases of Peninnah over Hannah and Hagar over her mistress, Sarah.

Sing--for joy (Zep 3:14). barren--the Jewish Church once forsaken by God, and therefore during that time destitute of spiritual children (Isa 54:6). didst not bear--during the Babylonian exile primarily. Secondarily, and chiefly, during Israel's present dispersion. the children--the Gentiles adopted by special grace into the original Church (Isa 54:3;

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IT was a great sorrow to an Eastern woman to be childless. In modern times that affliction is endured with cheerful equanimity, but in those days it was regarded as a dreadful curse and the feelings of those afflicted by it were of the most painful kind, as we find in the case of Hannah. Alas, for human nature! Those who were favored with children were often guilty of cruel haughtiness and taunting derision towards those who were not so blessed. We may instance the cases of Peninnah over Hannah and Hagar over her mistress, Sarah. We must therefore endeavor to bring our minds to the Eastern idea and we shall then have before us a case of very great, deep, constant, abiding, bitter sorrow. And yet the person in that case is bid to sing and to rejoice aloud, because the visitation of God's mercy should soon come to make desolation itself glad! I. The text shall first of all be taken in its reference TO THE CHURCH OF GOD. For a long season before the coming of Christ the Church of God was desolate. Few were her sons and daughters. Her solemn feast days were attended by a multitude of hypocrites and her courts were crowded with formalists—the genuine children of Israel were sadly few. And when the Lord, the Husband of the Church, Himself arrived, the Church was in no happy condition. And even while He remained with her, her joy was not complete, for Christ's ministry was, with all reverence to His name, by His own appointment, doubtless comparatively an unsuccessful one. After all His preaching there were but some hundred and twenty persons who believed on Him. "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." The children of the married wife were but very, very few.

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear “Shout for joy, O thou barren, that didst not bear” - The Church of God under the Old Testament, confined within the narrow bounds of the Jewish nation, and still more so in respect of the very small number of true believers, and which sometimes seemed to be deserted of God her husband, is the barren woman, that did not bear, and was desolate. She is exhorted to rejoice, and to express her joy in the strongest manner, on the reconciliation of her husband, (see Isa 54:6), and on the accession of the Gentiles to her family. The converted Gentiles are all along considered by the prophet as a new accession of adopted children, admitted into the original Church of God, and united with it. See Isa 49:20, Isa 49:21.