The judgment upon Judah bears a comprehensive character. [Pg 150] As the single phases of the world's power, by which the sins of the people of God are visited, there had been mentioned in the cycle of the _burdens_, Asshur in chap. xiv. 25; Babylon in chap. xiii., xiv., xxi., (the circumstance that the first _burden_ of the first half of the _burdens_, and likewise the first _burden_ of the second half of the _burdens_--the ten _burdens_ being thus divided into twice five--is directed against Babylon, shows that specially heavy judgments were to be inflicted by Babel); Elam in chap. xxii. 6 (comp. remarks on chap. xi. 11). Here the idea of judgment upon the covenant-people is viewed _per se_, and irrespective of the particular forms of its realisation. In vers. 14, 15, there is a sudden transition from the threatening to the promise: "They (the remnant left according to ver. 13) shall lift their voice, they shall shout for the majesty of the Lord, they shall cry aloud from the sea,"--from the sea into which they were driven away by the storm of the judgments of the Lord. To the "sea" here, correspond the "islands of the sea," in ver. 15; compare the mention of the islands in chap. xi. 11. Ver. 15. "Therefore, in the light praise ye the Lord, in the isles of the sea the name of the Lord God of Israel." The words are addressed to the elect in the time of salvation. The Plural ארים denotes the _fulness_ of light or salvation, comp. chap. xxvi. 19; ב is, in both instances, used in a local sense. The light is the spiritual territory; the isles of the sea, the natural. Ver. 16 returns to the threatening: "From the uttermost parts of the earth we hear songs: Glory to the righteous! And I say: Misery to me, misery to me, woe to me! the treacherous are treacherous, and very treacherous are the treacherous." The song of praise of the redeemed, which is heard coming forth from a far distant future, is suppressed by the same affliction which is immediately impending, by the look to the rod of chastisement by the world's power with its treachery, its policy feigning love and concealing hatred, with which the Lord is to visit His people, and the floods of which, like a new flood, are, according to ver. 15, to overflow the whole earth. Compare the very similar transition from triumphant hope to lamentation over the misery of the future more immediately at hand, in Hab. iii. 16. In ver. 21, ff. the promise breaks forth anew. Ver. 21: [Pg 151] "_And it shall come to pass in that day: the Lord shall visit the host of the height in the height, and the kings of the earth upon the earth._ Ver. 22. _And they are all of them gathered together as prisoners in the pit, and are shut up in the prison, and after many days they are visited._ Ver. 23. _And the moon blusheth, and the sun is ashamed, for the Lord of hosts reigneth on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients is glory._"