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4. Mountain of the Lord

1 In the last days

   the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
   as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
   and peoples will stream to it.

    2 Many nations will come and say,

   “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
   to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
   so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
   the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3 He will judge between many peoples
   and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
   and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
   nor will they train for war anymore.
4 Everyone will sit under their own vine
   and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
   for the LORD Almighty has spoken.
5 All the nations may walk
   in the name of their gods,
but we will walk in the name of the LORD
   our God for ever and ever.

The LORD’s Plan

    6 “In that day,” declares the LORD,

   “I will gather the lame;
   I will assemble the exiles
   and those I have brought to grief.
7 I will make the lame my remnant,
   those driven away a strong nation.
The LORD will rule over them in Mount Zion
   from that day and forever.
8 As for you, watchtower of the flock,
   stronghold Or hill of Daughter Zion,
the former dominion will be restored to you;
   kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem.”

    9 Why do you now cry aloud—
   have you no king Or King?
Has your ruler Or Ruler perished,
   that pain seizes you like that of a woman in labor?
10 Writhe in agony, Daughter Zion,
   like a woman in labor,
for now you must leave the city
   to camp in the open field.
You will go to Babylon;
   there you will be rescued.
There the LORD will redeem you
   out of the hand of your enemies.

    11 But now many nations
   are gathered against you.
They say, “Let her be defiled,
   let our eyes gloat over Zion!”
12 But they do not know
   the thoughts of the LORD;
they do not understand his plan,
   that he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.
13 “Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion,
   for I will give you horns of iron;
I will give you hooves of bronze,
   and you will break to pieces many nations.”
You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the LORD,
   their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Why then has pain laid hold on thee as on one in travail? Be in pain, he says, and groan; 132132     Ingemisce, groan, mourn, or sigh and sob. גחי, burst forth, or break out; that is, into tears or mourning. “Bring forth,” as it is rendered by Newcome and Henderson, seems not to be the import of the word here. It may be rendered, as Parkhurst proposes, “labor and bring forth.” — Ed. that is, I will not prevent thee to grieve and to mourn; as though he said, “Certainly even the strongest cannot look on calamities so dreadful, without suffering the heaviest sorrow; but though God may for a time subject his children to the greatest tortures, and expose them to the most grievous evils, he will yet restore them at length from their exile.” Thou shalt depart, he says, from the city, and dwell in the field: thou shalt come even to Babylon; but there thou shalt be delivered; there shall Jehovah redeem thee from the hand of thy enemies The import of the whole is, that though God would have a care for his people, as he had promised, there was yet no cause for the faithful to flatter themselves, as though they were to be exempt from troubles; but the Prophet, on the contrary, exhorts them to prepare themselves to undergo calamities, as they were not only to be ejected from their country, and to wander in strange lands like vagrants, but were to be led away into Babylon as to their grave.

But to strengthen the minds of the faithful to bear the cross, he gives them a hope of deliverance, and says, that God would there deliver them, and there redeem them from the hand of their enemies. He repeats the adverb, שם, shem, there, twice, and not without cause: for the faithful might have excluded every hope of deliverance, as though the gate of God’s power had been closed. And this is the reason why the Prophet repeats twice, there, there; even from the grave he will deliver and redeem thee: “Extend then your hope, not only to a small measure of favor, as though God could deliver you only from a state of some small danger, but even to death itself. Though then ye lay, as it were, in your graves, yet doubt not but that God will stretch forth his hand to you, for he will be your deliverer. God then in whose power is victory, can overcome many and innumerable deaths.”
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