Isaiah 58:12

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places,.... As the cities in Israel and Judea, which had been long laid waste by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, were rebuilt by those of the

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

They that shall be of thee, i.e. either, 1. A remnant of thee among the captivity, that shall be as persons raised from the dead; or, 2. Thy posterity, expressed thus, because they sprang or proceeded from them. The old waste places, Heb. wastes of eternity, i.e. which have lain long waste; for holam doth not always signify what is bounded by no time, but what respects a long time, looking either forward, as , or backward, as here, viz. the space of seventy years, and so may truly be rendered the wastes of an age. By waste places he means the city and temple, with cities and places adjacent, turned as it were all into a waste, or wilderness, void and untilled, and which was done not only by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, but by Sennacherib also, and the other kings of Assyria. They had lain so long desolate, that the foxes inhabited them instead of men, . And it was turned so much into a desert, that they were forced to fight with the beasts that possessed it to get their food, . The foundations of many generations; either the foundations that were laid many generations ago, as those of Jerusalem, which was not only built, but was the head of a kingdom, in the days of Melchizedek, who was king thereof in the days of Abraham, as appears, ; if that Salem were Jerusalem, as is generally agreed, and Josephus writes, lib. 1. Antiquit. cap. 10; who was born about the three hundredth year after the flood: the superstructures were now destroyed, viz. of Jerusalem, and divers other cities. Or, that shall continue for many generations yet to come. Thou shalt be called; thou shalt be honoured with this title, as we use to say the father of our country, i.e. deservedly so called, because thou art so; the like phrase . The repairer of the breach: breach is put here collectively for breaches, which were made by God’ s judgment breaking in upon them in suffering the walls of their towns and cities to be demolished, and their state broken, . The restorer of paths; such a one was Moses, . And this tends to the same sense with the former expression, because men were wont to make paths over those breaches, to go the nearest way. Or it may more particularly point at the recovering of the ancient paths, and bringing them into their wonted course, which were either those chief streets through the gates of the cities, or other lanes out of those streets, which were now forgotten and lost, partly by being covered with rubbish, and partly by those shorter paths that were trod and made over the breaches; such a restorer of paths was Nehemiah, . And we read of the several repairers he made use of, Ne 3.

Isaiah 58:12 And [they that shall be] of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.Ver. 12. And they that shall be of thee.] Thy posterity, that have taken their being and beginning from thee. Shall build the old waste places.] Heb., The wastes of antiquity, i.e., the ruinous places of Jerusalem. The apostles, also, as master builders, and others as builders together with them, have a happy hand in rearing the fair fabric of the new man, that "hidden man of the heart." See Ephesians 2:20-22. And thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach.] The father of thy country, the repairer of peace, the restorer of lost liberty, &c. Such honour had Nehemiah of old; Hunniades of late, who, having overthrown Mesites, the Turkish general, at his return into the camp a wonderful number of the poor captives came, and falling at his feet and kissing them, gave God thanks for their deliverance by him; some called him the father, some the defender of his country; the soldiers, their invincible general; the captives, their deliverer; the women, their protector; the young men and children, their most loving father. He again, with tears standing in his eyes, courteously embraced them, rejoicing at the public good; and himself giving most hearty thanks to God, commanded the like to be done in all the churches of that province, &c. On the contrary, our Henry III, for his ill managing of matters, was called Regni dilapidator, destroyer of the kingdom; and Richard III, the calamity of his country. Turkish History, 269.

(12) Shall build the old waste places.—The prophet contemplates primarily the restoration of the public and private buildings of Jerusalem, but the words have obviously a wider spiritual application. The foundations of many generations—i.e., those that had been lying in ruins, with no superstructure, for even a longer period than the seventy years of exile. Thou shalt be called . . .—This was to be the special work, and was to constitute the enduring fame, of the new Israel. Paths to dwell in—i.e., the streets of the city shall be once more flanked with houses on either side, and not merely roads from one point to another.

Verse 12. The restorer of paths to dwell in - "The restorer of paths to be frequented by inhabitants."] To this purpose it is rendered by the Syriac, Symmachus, and Theodotion.

12. Comp. ch. Isaiah 61:4, Isaiah 49:8. The importance attached to the restoration of the ruined places shews that what the prophet has in view is chiefly the recovery of temporal and political prosperity. It may also throw some light on the date of the prophecy. The description of the ruins as “ancient” suggests a period considerably later than the Exile (which only lasted half a century), although the argument is not one that can be rigorously pressed. they that shall be of thee] Strictly “some of thee.” Weir and Cheyne emend the text and read “thy children” (απικ for ξξκ). Kφnig on the other hand (Syntax, p. 37) suggests a change of the verb (reading επαπε): “and the wastes shall be built by thee.” the old waste places] Better, the ancient ruins (Isaiah 44:26). the foundations of many generations] might mean places which had been founded many generations back, but the correspondence with ch. Isaiah 61:4 seems to shew that foundations which have lain waste for many generations are referred to. The repairer of the breach &c.] The restoration of the walls and highways will be an achievement by which the community is remembered. paths to dwell in] Cf. Job 24:13.

And they that shall be of thee - They that spring from thee; or thy people. Shall build the old waste places - Shall repair the old ruins, and restore the desolate cities and fields to their former beauty.

12. Build the old waste places — The beautiful figures used here are unsurpassable.