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It is the Gentile nations for whom the blessings of "the last days" have just been predicted (vers. 2-4). The new Mount Zion of the Messiah's days will have a magnetic power on "the East and the West" (Matthew 8:11; John 12:32). But Israel, through whom these blessings reach the nations, shall not be excluded from a share in them. Yet the form of the prediction reminds us of the abject condition of God's ancient people and of the gradual extension of the glories of Messiah's reign over them.

I. THEIR ABJECT CONDITION. They are described as:

1. Halting. This was the result of internal infirmity or of injury from without, or of both. The Jewish people at the advent were suffering both from ecclesiastical and moral corruptions, which made them figuratively like the folk at Bethesda, "halt, withered, impotent."

2. "Driven out." Multitudes had been driven out of their heritage in Palestine by the decrees of conquerors or the oppressions of foreign tyrants. Centuries before, Jeremiah had declared, "Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the King of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar King of Babylon hath broken his bones" (Jeremiah 50:17). In subsequent centuries similar captivities or oppressions were endured at the hands of the Ptolemies, the Seleucidae, the Idumeans, and the Romans. Those who remained were as strangers in their own fatherland. And soon a far more fearful catastrophe scattered them from one end of the heavens to the other, after the destruction of their city by the Romans.

"But we must wander witheringly
In other lands to die;
And where our fathers' ashes be
Our own must never lie:
Our temple hath not left a stone,
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne."

(Byron)

3. "Stricken of God, and afflicted." Unfaithful "shepherds" among their own rulers (Ezekiel 34:1-6) or heathen conquerors were the scourges; but "shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" Devout men recognized this, and uttered such penitential wails as we find in Psalm 44., 74.; Lamentations 1., 2., etc.

II. THEIR RESTORATION. The establishment of the new kingdom of God - Christ's kingdom - on Mount Zion was itself a pledge of the restoration of the Jews and of their participation in its blessings. For it could not be that Christ should reign over the Gentile nations and leave "his own people" (John 1:11) to perish finally in unbelief. This would be opposed both to the ancient promises of God (Isaiah 45:17; Isaiah 59:20, 21, etc.) as well as to the predictions and the heart of Christ (Matthew 23:37-39). Yet there are stages in this process of restoration.

1. The halting ones are restored, but they are only a remnant. (Cf. Micah 5:3, 7, 8.) The immediate effect of the establishment of Christ's kingdom was seen in a great religious revival among the Jews from Pentecost onwards. But all the converts were but a remnant of the nation which, because of its unbelief, was "broken off" (Romans 11:1-5, 17-20). Yet in the fact of the salvation of the few the Apostle Paul sees the pledge of the final salvation of the many.

2. The banished ones shall be made a strong nation. Trace St. Paul's inspired argument in Romans 11. till he arrives at the sublime conclusion in vers. 32-36. The nation's restoration to God will be accompanied by a restoration to their own land (Zechariah 12:10-14; Zechariah 14:8-11, etc.).

3. "The Lord shall reign ever them in Mount Zion. We look for the restoration of Israel to their Saviour and to their land as one of the marvellous evidences of the truth of the prophetic word which God is reserving for the scepticism of these latter days. We need not anticipate a literal and local throne of Christ at Jerusalem. But the Lord Christ, being enthroned in the hearts of his long faithless yet much beloved people, will as truly reign over them in Mount Zion" as though they had his glorified humanity always manifested in their midst. And then his reign shall be "from henceforth, even forever." "I the Lord will hasten it in his time."

"O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice: Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!" E.S.P.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted;

WEB: "In that day," says Yahweh, "I will assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted;