2. comfortably--literally, "to the heart"; not merely to the intellect.
Jerusalem--Jerusalem though then in ruins, regarded by God as about
to be rebuilt; her people are chiefly meant, but the city is
personified.
cry--publicly and emphatically as a herald cries aloud
(Isa 40:3).
warfare--or, the appointed time of her misery
(Job 7:1,
Margin;
Job 14:14;
Da 10:1).
The ulterior and Messianic reference probably is the definite
time when the legal economy of burdensome rites is at an end
(Ga 4:3, 4).
pardoned--The Hebrew expresses that her iniquity is so expiated that God now delights in restoring her.
double for all her sins--This can only, in a very restricted
sense, hold good of Judah's restoration after the first captivity. For
how can it be said her "warfare was accomplished," when as yet the
galling yoke of Antiochus and also of Rome was before them? The "double
for her sins" must refer to the twofold captivity, the Assyrian and the
Roman; at the coming close of this latter dispersion, and then only,
can her "iniquity" be said to be "pardoned," or fully expiated
[HOUBIGANT]. It does not mean double as much as
she deserved, but ample punishment in her twofold
captivity. Messiah is the antitypical Israel (compare
Mt 2:15,
with Ho 11:1).
He indeed has "received" of sufferings amply more than enough to
expiate "for our sins"
(Ro 5:15, 17).
Otherwise (cry unto her) "that she shall receive
(blessings) of the Lord's hand double to the punishment of
all her sins" (so "sin" is used,
Zec 14:19,
Margin) [LOWTH]. The English
Version is simpler.
JFB.
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