10 Your holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion is become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
They burnt the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces of it with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels of it. Those who had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths: [for] as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
> God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, The flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth. Their blood they have shed like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them. We have become a reproach to our neighbors, A scoffing and derision to those who are around us. How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your wrath on the nations that don't know you; On the kingdoms that don't call on your name; For they have devoured Jacob, And destroyed his homeland.
How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces is become tributary! She weeps sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers she has none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; She dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: All her persecutors overtook her within the straits. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right hand as an adversary, Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire. The Lord is become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. He has violently taken away his tent, as if it were of a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly: Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, Has despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. The Lord has cast off his altar, he has abhorred his sanctuary; He has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Yahweh, as in the day of a solemn assembly. Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.
After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One{"Anointed One" can also be translated "Messiah" (same as "Christ").} shall be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end of it shall be with a flood, and even to the end shall be war; desolations are determined. He shall make a firm covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease; and on the wing of abominations [shall come] one who makes desolate; and even to the full end, and that determined, shall [wrath] be poured out on the desolate.
A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, "Rise, and measure God's temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don't measure it, for it has been given to the gentiles. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 64
Commentary on Isaiah 64 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 64
This chapter goes on with that pathetic pleading prayer which the church offered up to God in the latter part of the foregoing chapter. They had argued from their covenant-relation to God and his interest and concern in them; now here,
And this was not only intended for the use of the captive Jews, but may serve for direction to the church in other times of distress, what to ask of God and how to plead with him. Are God's people at any time in affliction, in great affliction? Let them pray, let them thus pray.
Isa 64:1-5
Here,
Isa 64:6-12
As we have the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so here we have the Lamentations of Isaiah; the subject of both is the same-the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the sin of Israel that brought that destruction-only with this difference, Isaiah sees it at a distance and laments it by the Spirit of prophecy, Jeremiah saw it accomplished. In these verses,