Isaiah 49:20

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) The children which thou shalt have . . .—Better, the children of thy bereavement (i.e., born when Zion thought herself bereaved) shall yet say . . .

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

49:18-23 Zion is addressed as an afflicted widow, bereaved of her children. Numbers flock to her, and she is assured that they come to be a comfort to her. There are times when the church is desolate and few in number; yet its desolations shall not last for ever, and God will repair them. God can raise up friends for returning Israelites, even among Gentiles. They shall bring their children, and make them thy children. Let all deal tenderly and carefully with young converts and beginners in religion. Princes shall protect the church. It shall appear that God is the sovereign Lord of all. And those who in the exercise of faith, hope, and patience, wait on God for the fulfilment of his promises, shall never be confounded.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The children which thou shalt have - The increase of the population shall be so great.

After thou hast lost the other - Hebrew, 'The sons of thy widowhood.' That is, after thou hast lost those that have been killed in the wars, and those that have died in captivity in a distant land, there shall be again a great increase as if they were given to a widowed mother. And perhaps the general truth is taught here, that the persecution of the people of God will be attended ultimately with a vast increase; and that all the attempts to obliterate the church will only tend finally to enlarge and strengthen it.

Shall say again in thy ears - Or, shall say to thee.

The place is too strait for me - There is not room for us all. The entire language here denotes a vast accession to the church of God. It is indicative of such an increase as took place when the gospel was proclaimed by the apostles to the Gentiles, and of such an increase as shall Yet more abundantly take place when the whole world shall become converted to God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. children … after … other—rather, "the children of thy widowhood," that is, the children of whom thou hast been bereft during their dispersion in other lands (see on [834]Isa 47:8) [Maurer].

again—rather, "yet."

give place—rather, "stand close to me," namely, in order that we may be the more able to dwell in in the narrow place [Horsley]. Compare as to Israel's spiritual children, and the extension of the gospel sphere, Ro 15:19, 24; 2Co 10:14-16. But Isa 49:22 (compare Isa 66:20) shows that her literal children are primarily meant. Gesenius translates, "Make room."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, Heb. The children of thine orbity or barren and childless state. Those children which thou shalt have when thou art grown past the ordinary age and state of childbearing, as Sarah was made the mother of a most numerous posterity; . to which he seems here to allude. Those Gentiles which shall be begotten by thee, to wit, by the ministry of thy children, Christ and his apostles, when thou shalt be deprived of thine own natural children, when thou shalt become barren and unfruitful as to conversion of natural Jews, when the generality of the Jews shall cut themselves off from God, and from his true church, by their apostacy from God, and by their unbelief and obstinate refusal of their Messiah.

Shall say again, or rather,

shall yet say, though for the present it be otherwise.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other,.... Which "other lost" are not the Jews, the broken branches, rejected and cut off for unbelief; and the "children after" them not the Gentiles converted, which took their place; but "the other" are such who have been destroyed by the Heathen persecutions, and especially by the antichristian cruelties; and the "children after", the great numbers of converts upon the fall of antichrist. The words may be rendered, "the children of thine orbity" (o), or "childless state"; such as were born unto her in an uncommon, extraordinary, and unexpected way, when the church seemed to be in a widowhood estate, or like a woman that is past bearing children:

shall say again in thine ears; or, "shall yet say" (p); that is, hereafter, in time to come: for this is a prophecy of what should be said in the church's hearing, and such as had never been said before; and therefore improperly rendered "again"; for there never has been as yet such a time as this, or such a large number of converts, as to say,

the place is too strait for me to dwell in; there is not room enough for us, as in 2 Kings 6:1,

give place to me that I may dwell; one and another of the children or converts should say, make room for me, that I may have a name and a place among you, and dwell with you, and abide in the house of the Lord, and partake of the privileges and ordinances of it: but the word used signifies drawing nigh, and not giving way or removing; and should rather be rendered, "draw nigh to me that I may dwell"; or "and I shall dwell" (q), or "sit"; come close to one another, and we shall all sit and dwell comfortably together; just as when a house is well filled with agreeable company, and there is an unwillingness to part with or lose any, they are desired to sit close together, that there may be room for all: and this is, and will be, the case with the church and her members; they will be desirous to sit regularly, and close together, in Gospel order, that everyone may be comfortable, and partake of the benefit of communion, and none be obliged to depart: and to this sense Gussetius (r) interprets the phrase.

(o) "filii orbitatis tuae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Vitringa; "orbitatum tuarum", Pagninus, Montanus; "tui orbati", Munster. (The word "orbity" means "childless" or "without parents", Webster's 1828 Dictionary, Editor) (p) "adhuc dicent", Gataker, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Vitringa. q) "accede mihi & habitabo", Montanus; "contrahe te mea causa ut sedeam", Cocceius. (r) Ebr. Comment. p. 496.

Geneva Study Bible

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. The children … other] Lit. the sons of thy bereavement, i.e. those born to thee in the time of thy bereavement (see Isaiah 49:21).

shall yet say in thine ears] The mother overhears the talk of her vigorous and enterprising offspring.

the place is too strait for me] Cf. 2 Kings 6:1.

Give place to me] This peculiar sense of the verb (usually “draw near”) finds an exact parallel in Genesis 19:9. Comp. Isaiah 65:5, “draw near to thyself” = “stand off,”—a different, but synonymous verb.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other; literally, the children of thy bereavement; i.e. the Gentiles who shall replace those many faithless Israelites who refused to return when Cyrus issued his edict, and became lost to the Church of God. The place is too strait for me (see the comment on ver. 19). Isaiah 49:20

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Thus will Zion shine forth once more with the multitude of her children as with a festal adorning. "For thy ruins and thy waste places and thy land full of ruin - yea, now thou wilt be too narrow for the inhabitants, and thy devourers are far away. Thy children, that were formerly taken from thee, shall say in thine ears, The space is too narrow for me; give way for me, that I may have room." The word "for" (kı̄) introduces the explanatory reason for the figures just employed of jewellery and a bridal girdle. Instead of the three subjects, "thy ruins," etc., the comprehensive "thou" is employed permutatively, and the sentence commenced afresh. כּי is repeated emphatically in עתּה כּי (for now, or yea now); this has essentially the same meaning as in the apodosis of hypothetical protasis (e.g., Genesis 31:42; Genesis 43:10), except that the sense is more decidedly affirmative than in the present instance, where one sees it spring out of the confirmative. Zion, that has been hitherto desolate, now becomes too small to hold her inhabitants; and her devourers are far away, i.e., those who took forcible possession of the land and cities, and made them untenable. עוד is to be understood in accordance with Psalm 42:6, and בעזניך in accordance with Psalm 54:2 (see at Isaiah 5:9). It will even come to this, that the children of which Zion was formerly robbed will call to one another, so that she becomes a witness with her ears to that which they have so clearly seen: the space is too narrow, give way (geshâh, from nâgash, to advance, then to move generally, also to move in an opposite direction, i.e., to fall back, as in Genesis 19:9) for me, that I may be able to settle down.