A new section begins with ver. 7, and celebrates to ver. 9 the sudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already a fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call to the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate their mother and to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood,--children suckled, borne and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother. _As a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass._ But this great light shines not to flood all Israel in one, but to cleave the nation in two, like a sword of judgement. _The hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants, but He will have indignation against His enemies,_--enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the fiery judgement, _For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword with all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many_. Why there should be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within Israel there are idolaters: _they that consecrate themselves and practise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle;_[296] _eaters of swine's flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I_ know, or will punish,[297] _their works and their thoughts_. In this eighteenth verse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt. The first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with ver. 17. Then begins a new subject.
_It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a sign_,--a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgement, for he immediately speaks of their survivors,--_and I will send the escaped of them to the nations Tarshish, Put_[298] _and Lud, drawers of the bow, to Tubal and Javan_,--that is, to far Spain, and the distances of Africa, towards the Black Sea and to Greece, a full round of the compass,--_the isles far off that have not heard report of Me, nor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the nations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in litters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My Holiness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the children of Israel bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. And also from them will I take to be priests, to be Levites, saith Jehovah. For like as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making shall be standing before Me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand your seed and your name._ But again the prophecy swerves from the universal hope into which we expect it to break, and gives us instead a division and a judgement: the servants of Jehovah on one side occupied in what the prophet regards as the ideal life, regular worship--so little did he mean ver. 1 to be a condemnation of the Temple and its ritual!--and on the other the rebels' unburied carcases gnawed by the worm and by fire, an abomination to all. _And it shall come to pass from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith Jehovah: and they shall go out and look on the carcases of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh._