immediate connection with the prophecy regarding the Servant of God who bears the sin of the world, it is said: "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing, and shout thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord." Comp. also chap. lxvi. 7-9, and Ezek. xxxvii. 25, 26: "And my servant David shall be their prince for ever. And I make a covenant with them and multiply them." Several interpreters, _e. g._ _Calvin_, _Vitringa_, suppose that the Prophet in this verse (and so likewise in the two following verses) speaks, in the first instance, of a nearer prosperity, of the rapid increase of the people after the Babylonish captivity. _Vitringa_ directs attention to the fact, that the Jewish people after the captivity did not only fill Judea, but spread also in Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. And surely we cannot deny that in this increase, no less than in the new flourishing of the people after the defeat of Sennacherib also, there is a _prelude_ to the real fulfilment; [Pg 82] and that so much the more that these precursory increases, happening, as they did, regularly after the decreases, were bestowed upon the covenant-people with a view to the future appearance of Christ. These increases enter into a still closer relation to the prophecy under consideration, if we keep in mind that in chap. vii. the Prophet anticipates in spirit the appearance of Christ, and that it is with this representation that, in the Section before us, chap. viii. 8, 10 are connected. In order to refute the explanation of _Umbriet_: "Thou hast multiplied the _heathen_, and thereby thou hast removed all joy; but now," &c., it will be quite sufficient to refer to the parallel passage, chap. xxvi. 15: "Thou increasest the _people_, O Lord, thou art glorified, thou removest all the boundaries of the land," where, just as in the verse before us, by הגוי "the people," Israel is designated; and that is frequently the case where the notion of the multitude, the mass only is concerned, comp. Gen. xii. 2.--"_Thou didst not increase the joy_" stands for: to whom thou formerly didst not increase the joy, to whom thou gavest but little joy, upon whom thou inflictedst severe sufferings. The antithesis is quite the same as in chap. viii. 23 (ix. 1), where the former distress is contrasted with the light which is now to shine upon them, the former disgrace with the later glory; and in the same manner in chap. ix. 1 (2), where the present _light_ is rendered brighter by being contrasted with the former _darkness_. The contrast of the present _increase_ with the former absence of joys shows that the joy is to be viewed as being connected with the increase, and that if formerly the joy was less, the reason of it was chiefly in the _decrease_. Ps. cvii. 38, 39, 41, shews how affliction and decrease, joy and increase, go hand in hand; farther, Jerem. xxx.