Isaiah 11:12

11:10-16 When the gospel should be publicly preached, the Gentiles would seek Christ Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and find rest of soul. When God's time is come for the deliverance of his people, mountains of opposition shall become plains before him. God can soon turn gloomy days into glorious ones. And while we expect the Lord to gather his ancient people, and bring them home to his church, also to bring in the fulness of the Gentiles, when all will be united in holy love, let us tread the highway of holiness he has made for his redeemed. Let us wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, looking to him to prepare our way through death, that river which separates this world from the eternal world.

For the nations; all nations, Jews and Gentiles, who shall then embrace the true faith and the Messiah, as was said, Isaiah 11:10 . The outcasts; that were driven and banished out of their own land into foreign parts, as the word implies. Of Israel; strictly so called, or of the ten tribes, as is manifest, both from their opposition to Judah in this verse, and from the mention of Ephraim in the next verse.

12. In the first restoration Judah alone was restored, with perhaps some few of Israel (the ten tribes): in the future restoration both are expressly specified (Eze 37:16-19; Jer 3:18). To Israel are ascribed the "outcasts" (masculine); to Judah the "dispersed" (feminine), as the former have been longer and more utterly castaways (though not finally) than the latter (Joh 7:52). The masculine and feminine conjoined express the universality of the restoration. from the four corners of the earth—Hebrew, "wings of the earth."

12 . The meaning of the “signal” here is explained by ch. Isaiah 49:22 ; it is a signal to the nations to release or even to bring back the exiles . the dispersed of Judah ] The participle in Hebr. is fem. This may be “a short way of expressing that both sexes will be included” (Cheyne). Giesebrecht, however, explains it by the favourite emblem (with later writers) of a scattered flock ( Ezekiel 34:4 ff.; Zephaniah 3:19 ). the four corners (lit. “edges,” Deuteronomy 22:12 ) of the earth ] The expression occurs only in Ezekiel 7:2 (of the land); Job 37:3 ; Job 38:13 (cf. Isaiah 24:16 ).

Verse 12. - He shall set up an ensign for the nations (comp. ver. 10). Christ is the Ensign. God sets it up to draw the nations to his standard. The outcasts of Israel... the dispersed of Judah . "Outcasts" is masculine, "the dispersed" feminine. The meaning is, "He shall gather together the outcasts and dispersed of both Israel and Judah, both male and female." Isaiah 11:12

(12) And he shall set up an ensign . . . —The thought of Isaiah 11:10 re-appears. The “signal” is, as before, “the root of Jesse,” and the exiles gather round it. In the Hebrew the “outcasts” are men, and the “dispersed” are women, the prophet thus implying that in the case of both Israel and Judah both sexes should alike be sharers in the blessings of restoration.

And he shall set up an ensign - See Isaiah 11:10 . The Messiah shall stand in view of the nations, as a standard is erected by a military leader. An ensign or standard was usually lifted up on the mountains or on some elevated place (compare Isaiah 18:3 ); and the meaning here is, that the Messiah would be the conspicuous object around which the nations would rally. And shall assemble - This word, אסף 'âsaph, properly means, to gather, collect, to assemble together, as fruits are collected for preservation Exodus 23:10; to collect a people together Numbers 21:16; to gather or collect gold; 2 Kings 22:4. It may also mean to gather or collect anything for destruction Jeremiah 8:13; and hence, to take out of the way, to kill, destroy; 1 Samuel 15:6. Here, it is evidently synonymous with the word 'recover' in Isaiah 11:11. It cannot be proved that it means that God will "literally" re-assemble all the scattered Jews, for the "collecting them," or regathering them to himself "as his people," though they may be still scattered among the nations, is all that the words necessarily imply.

Thus when the word is used, as it is repeatedly, to denote the death of the patriarchs, where it is said they were 'gathered to their fathers,' it does not mean that they were buried in the same grave, or the same vicinity, but that they were united to them in death; they partook of the same lot; they all alike went down to the dead; Genesis 25:8; Genesis 35:29; Genesis 49:29; Numbers 20:24; Deuteronomy 32:50. The outcasts of Israel - The name 'Israel,' applied at first to all the descendants of Jacob, came at length to denote the 'kingdom of Israel,' or of the 'ten tribes,' or of 'Ephraim,' as the tribes which revolted under Jeroboam were called. In this sense it is used in the Scriptures after the time of Jeroboam, and thus it acquired a technical signification, distinguishing it from Judah. The dispersed of Judah - 'Judah,' also, though often used in a general sense to denote the Jews as such, without reference to the distinction in tribes, is also used technically to denote the kingdom of Judah, as distinguished from the kingdom of Israel. The tribe of Judah was much larger than Benjamin, and the name of the latter was lost in the former. A considerable part of the ten tribes returned again to their own land, with those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; a portion remained still in the countries of the East, and were intermingled with the other Jews who remained there.