Isaiah 65:19

And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

65:17-25 In the grace and comfort believers have in and from Christ, we are to look for this new heaven and new earth. The former confusions, sins and miseries of the human race, shall be no more remembered or renewed. The approaching happy state of the church is described under a variety of images. He shall be thought to die in his youth, and for his sins, who only lives to the age of a hundred years. The event alone can determine what is meant; but it is plain that Christianity, if universal, would so do away violence and evil, as greatly to lengthen life. In those happy days, all God's people shall enjoy the fruit of their labours. Nor will children then be the trouble of their parents, or suffer trouble themselves. The evil dispositions of sinners shall be completely moritified; all shall live in harmony. Thus the church on earth shall be full of happiness, like heaven. This prophecy assures the servants of Christ, that the time approaches, wherein they shall be blessed with the undisturbed enjoyment of all that is needful for their happiness. As workers together with God, let us attend his ordinances, and obey his commands.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And I will rejoice in Jerusalem - (See the notes at Isaiah 62:5).

And the voice of weeping shall no more be heard - (See the notes at Isaiah 25:7-8).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. (Isa 62:5).

weeping … no more—(Isa 25:7, 8; 35:10; Re 7:17; 21:4), primarily, foretold of Jerusalem; secondarily, of all the redeemed.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The nature of joy lying in the satisfaction and. well pleasedness of the soul in the obtaining of the thing it hath willed, agreeth unto God, and joy and rejoicing are applied to him, Isaiah 62:5, and in this text; so also Jeremiah 32:41 Zephaniah 3:17.

The voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying: such kind of promises are to be found Isaiah 35:10 51:11 Jeremiah 31:12 Revelation 21:4, which must be understood either comparatively, they shall endure no such misery as formerly; or (if interpreted to a state in this life) as signifying only some long or eminent state of happiness; if as to another life, they may be taken strictly, as signifying perpetuity and perfection of joy and happiness.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people,.... God himself rejoices in his people, as they are considered in Christ; so he did from all eternity, and so he does at the conversion of them; which is the day of their espousals, and when he manifests his love to them, and rejoices over them to do them good, and continues to do so; and he rejoices in the exercise of his own grace in them, and will do so throughout the New Jerusalem state, and to all eternity. This seems chiefly to respect the time of the Jews' conversion, and the latter day glory; and will have its most complete accomplishment when the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and he shall dwell among them. Revelation 20:3, and then what follows will be perfectly fulfilled,

and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying; either on account of outward afflictions and persecutions; or on account of inward darkness, desertion, and temptation, or the prevalence of corruptions, Revelation 21:4.

Geneva Study Bible

And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. God Himself rejoices in the new city and people; cf. Isaiah 62:5.

and the voice of weeping &c.] Cf. ch. Isaiah 25:8, Isaiah 35:10.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The voice of weeping shall be no more heard (comp. Revelation 21:4). The reasons there given are satisfactory: "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow... neither shall there be any more pain." But these reasons scarcely apply here. For Isaiah's "new Jerusalem" is not without death (ver. 20), nor without sorrow, since it is not without sin (ver. 20), nor, as there is death there, is it without pain. Isaiah's picture, according to Delitzsch, represents the millennial state, not the final condition of the redeemed; but this trait - the absence of all weeping - can only be literally true of the final state. Isaiah 65:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The fact that they have thus passed away is now still further explained; the prophet heaping up one kı̄ (for) upon another, as in Isaiah 9:3-5. "For behold I create a new heaven and a new earth; and men will not remember the first, nor do they come to any one's mind. No, be ye joyful and exult for ever at that which I:create: for behold I turn Jerusalem into exulting, and her people into joy. And I shall exult over Jerusalem, and be joyous over my people, and the voice of weeping and screaming will be heard in her no more." The promise here reaches its culminating point, which had already been seen from afar in Isaiah 51:16. Jehovah creates a new heaven and a new earth, which bind so fast with their glory, and which so thoroughly satisfy all desires, that there is no thought of the former ones, and no one wishes them back again. Most of the commentators, from Jerome to Hahn, suppose the ri'shōnōth in Isaiah 65:16 to refer to the former sorrowful times. Calvin says, "The statement of the prophet, that there will be no remembrance of former things, is supposed by some to refer to the heaven and the earth, as if he meant, that henceforth neither the fame nor even the name of either would any more be heard; but I prefer to refer them to the former times." But the correctness of the former explanation is shown by the parallel in Jeremiah 3:16, which stands in by no means an accidental relation to this passage, and where it is stated that in the future there will be no ark of the covenant, "neither shall it come to mind, neither shall they remember it," inasmuch as all Jerusalem will be the throne of Jehovah, and not merely the capporeth with its symbolical cherubim. This promise is also a glorious one; but Jeremiah and all the other prophets fall short of the eagle-flight of Isaiah, of whom the same may be said as of John, "volat avis sine meta." Luther (like Zwingli and Stier) adopts the correct rendering, "that men shall no more remember the former ones (i.e., the old heaven and old earth), nor take it to heart." But ‛âlâh ‛al-lēbh signifies to come into the mind, not "to take to heart," and is applied to a thing, the thought of which "ascends" within us, and with which we are inwardly occupied. There is no necessity to take the futures in Isaiah 65:17 as commands (Hitzig); for אם־שׂישׂוּ כּי (כי with muach, as in Ven. 1521, after the Masora to Numbers 35:33) fits on quite naturally, even if we take them as simple predictions. Instead of such a possible, though not actual, calling back and wishing back, those who survive the new times are called upon rather to rejoice for ever in that which Jehovah is actually creating, and will have created then. אשׁר, if not regarded as the accusative-object, is certainly regarded as the object of causality, "in consideration of that which" (cf., Isaiah 31:6; Genesis 3:17; Judges 8:15), equivalent to, "on account of that which" (see at Isaiah 64:4; Isaiah 35:1). The imperatives sı̄sū vegı̄lū are not words of admonition so much as words of command, and kı̄ gives the reason in this sense: Jehovah makes Jerusalem gı̄lâh and her people mâsōs (accusative of the predicate, or according to the terminology adopted in Becker's syntax, the "factitive object," Ges. 139, 2), by making joy its perpetual state, its appointed condition of life both inwardly and outwardly. Nor is it joy on the part of the church only, but on the part of its God as well (see the primary passages in Deuteronomy 30:9). When the church thus rejoices in God, and God in the church, so that the light of the two commingle, and each is reflected in the other; then will no sobbing of weeping ones, no sound of lamentation, be heard any more in Jerusalem (see the opposite side as expressed in Isaiah 51:3).