XXXIV. 11 The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

As for those hostile countries, that have made havock of Jerusalem, they shall be laid waste in the mean time; and turned to a habitation of solitary, doleful, and dismal birds: God shall condemn them to perpetual confusion and ruin, never to be either built or inhabited.

XXXIV. 14, 15 The wild beasts, &c. the satyr shall cry to his fellow. There shall the great owl make her nest, &c.

See chap. xiii. 21.

XXXIV. 16 Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.

Inquire after this prophecy, which I have delivered to you from the Lord, and compare it with the event: ye shall find none of these particulars to fail; but these fowls of solitude and desolation shall nest and breed here: none of them shall want her mate: I have spoken it as from God, and his power shall call them thither, and fasten them there.

XXXIV. 17 And he cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from ge neration to generation shall they dwell therein.

He hath distributed the land to them for their use, and his just providence hath divided it to them, by line: there they shall take up their abode for ever.

XXXV. 1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. The kingdom of Christ shall come, wherein he shall rule by the Gospel of peace; at what time all things shall flourish: even those places, which now seem to be forlorn deserts, shall then rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

XXXV. 2 The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon.

That, which was once a dry sandy desert, shall be now as fresh and green as Lebanon, and as plentiful and rich as Carmel and Sharon, XXXV. 3 Strengthen ye the weak hands, &c.

Comfort yourselves therefore in the Lord, O ye that are weak and dejected.

XXXV. 7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of waters: in the habitations of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

That barren soil, that was parched and burnt up with drought, shall flow with abundance of water; and those desolate and dry deserts, which were wont to be the habitation of dragons, shall now turn moist and fruitful, so as the rushes and reeds shall cover it.

XXXV. 8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass

over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

It shall not only be civil and accessible, but holy and gracious: none shall dare to set their foot there, who are unclean and perversely wicked, but it shall be for those that are holy and conscionable; and the path shall be so beaten with frequent passengers, that those, which are otherwise simple and ignorant, cannot err therein.

XXXV. 9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.

Neither shall it retain so much of the nature and use of a wilderness, as to give harbour to lions, or any other ravenous beasts: men of a cruel and bestial disposition shall find no place there; only the redeemed shall be meet inhabitants thereof.

XXXVI. See 2 Kings xviii.

XXXVII. See 2 Kings xix.

XXXVII. 30 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which springeth of the same.

And now for thee, O Hezekiah, that thou mayest know that this deliverance comes only from the Lord, let me tell thee, that God shall second this mercy with another; thy freedom, with a plentiful increase of this land of thine, which is now wasted and defaced with war; which yet shall, through the miraculous blessing of God, become so fruitful, as that, for two years together, it shall yield thee a large and rich crop, without the labour or seed of the husbandman.

XXXVIII. See 2 Kings xx.

XXXVIII. 11 I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living.

pre

I said, I shall no more have the comfortable fruition of God's sence in his house, amongst the men that live here on earth. XXXVIII. 13 From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. This very day, ere the night come, wilt thou make an end of me. XXXVIII. 16 O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.

O Lord, by those words and powerful acts, that proceed from thee, is the life of man both had and maintained; and, in special, this life of mine, whereby my breath is still kept in me, is an immediate work of thine.

XXXVIII. 18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee.

Man, when he is once dead, can do thee no more service here upon earth.

XXXIX. 8 Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days.

I do, in all humility, submit myself to the good pleasure of God, and do acknowledge that God hath dealt very graciously with me, howsoever; for, though I had deserved a present punishment, yet it hath pleased him in mercy to respite it, and to vouchsafe to grant, that true religion and peace shall be continued all my days.

XL. 2 For she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

She hath received from the hand of God's justice a large proportion of misery; double to that, which, if their sins had not forced him to this necessary infliction, he would have imposed on them.

XL. 3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,

God shall have his prophets, who, in the most forlorn estate of his Church, shall excite those princes and governors, under whom his people shall be, for a preparation for their return out of the Babylonish captivity; and, as that return shall be a type and figure of the delivery of God's Church from spiritual tyranny, he shall have his evangelical harbinger, before the coming of the Messiah, which shall be the voice of a crier in the wilderness.

XL. 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.

God shall remove every difficulty and impediment, which shall lie in the way of the restoration of his Church and people.

XL. 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. As the grass withereth and as the flower fadeth, upon every nipping wind or scorching sun; so do and shall the most glorious of the sons of men, if God, in his displeasure, shall but breathe upon them never so little.

XL. 9 0 Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

O Zion and Jerusalem, do ye proclaim to all the world the infinite goodness of your God to you; and therefore take all advantage of the highest mountains, to publish it, that it may be most and best heard since it is to you, that God imparts the first tidings of a Saviour, do ye gladly and zealously divulge it to all the earth; and say to the other cities of Judah, concerning the Messiah to be exhibited in the flesh, Behold your God.

XL. 11 He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. If there be any of his elect ones, that is weak and distressed, and that is over-pressed with the conscience of his own unworthiness, such a one will he pity and relieve.

XL. 15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.

What needest thou care, O Israel, for all the world, if thy God be for thee? Alas, how poor a thing are all the nations of the earth, if they be compared to the power of the Almighty! they are but as one drop of a bucket to a whole spring; yea, to the sea itself.

XL. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

Lift up your eyes to heaven, and consider the mighty power of him, that made all this glorious frame; that hath marshalled all those bright and goodly stars, like some mighty and innumerable host he knows them all severally and distinctly, and hath or dained their several times of rising; and when he bids them come forth, not one of them do or can fail of his appearance.

XLI. 1 Keep silence before me, O ye lands; and let the people renew their strength.

I have a contestation with my people, which I would have the very heathen to be the witnesses of; come therefore, O ye foreign nations, and give ear, &c.

XLI. 2 Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings?

Who was it, that fetched faithful Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and caused him to travel to the promised land, and gave him the victory over divers kings?

XLI. 4 I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

I, the Lord, am he, that alters not with time and occasions: as I was to the first, so am I to the last: as I was before all things, and had my being of myself, so I give being and sustentation to all things, that shall be unto the very end.

XLI. 5 The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came.

The nations round about were witnesses of the great works I did for my people, in their deliverance; and feared: even the remotest of them were afraid, and combined together and assembled;

XLI. 6 They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.

And encouraged themselves mutually, notwithstanding, in their idolatry, as though they would make head against the true God.

XLI. 7 So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil.

The foolish artificers agreed amongst themselves to make an idol," and one of them heartened another to the work, &c.

XLI. 14 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Be not dismayed, O ye my despised people of the Jews: how base and despicable soever ve seem in the eyes of your enemies, the world shall see and find, that ye are dear to me, and that I will help and deliver you.

XLI. 15 Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff

And, however the world do now insult upon you, I will raise you up, to a power of just revenge; and will enable you to subdue your greatest and proudest enemies, so as ye shall humble them to the very dust.

XLI. 19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together.

And, whereas the dry and barren wilderness may seem a just discouragement of your passage and return, I will cause that to be pleasantly planted, and coolly shaded, with variety of goodly trees, of all growths and statures.

XLI. 24 An abomination is he that chooseth you.

He, that maketh choice of such gods as ye are, to worship and adore, shall be no other than an abomination unto the true God. XLI. 25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name : and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.

I will, in the fulness of time, raise up a Messiah, who shall call mine elect out of all coasts of the world, to my holy service; and he shall, by his mighty power, subdue those great potentates of the earth, who have opposed themselves to him.

XLII. 2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

He shall make no noise in the world, but shall come without either pomp or tumult.

XLII. 3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. Those, that are humbled and contrite, shall he rather relieve and comfort, than add any thing to their sorrow and affliction; and those, that have received but the weakest beginnings of grace, shall have no discouragement from him, but shall be rather cheered up by him yet, so shall he be gracious to the penitently dejected, that he shall not bear with the obstinate sinner; but shall give severe judgment upon him, according to the justice of his demerits. XLII. 4 And the isles shall wait for his law.

The foreign nations, even of the Gentiles, shall yield themselves over joyfully to his government.

XLII. 6 And give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.

I will give thee for that Saviour of the World, in whom my covenant of saving mankind was founded of old; even in those an¬