‏ Isaiah 65:17-19

17. As Caleb inherited the same land which his feet trod on (De 1:36; Jos 14:9), so Messiah and His saints shall inherit the renovated earth which once they trod while defiled by the enemy (Is 34:4; 51:16; 66:22; Eze 21:27; Psa 2:8; 37:11; 2Pe 3:13; He 12:26-28 Re 21:1).

not be remembered--See on Is 65:16, note on "troubles"; the words here answer to "the former ... forgotten," &c. The former sorrows of the earth, under the fall, shall be so far from recurring, that their very remembrance shall be obliterated by the many mercies I will bestow on the new earth (Re 21:4-27).

18. rejoice for ever ... Jerusalem--(Is 51:11). "Everlasting joy ... Zion." Spiritually (1Th 5:16).

19. (Is 62:5).

weeping ... no more--(Is 25:7, 8; 35:10; Re 7:17; 21:4), primarily, foretold of Jerusalem; secondarily, of all the redeemed.

‏ Jeremiah 3:17

17. Jerusalem--the whole city, not merely the temple. As it has been the center of the Hebrew theocracy, so it shall be the point of attraction to the whole earth (Is 2:2-4; Zec 2:10, 11; 14:16-21).

throne of ... Lord--The Shekinah, the symbol of God's peculiar nearness to Israel (De 4:7) shall be surpassed by the antitype, God's own throne in Jerusalem (Psa 2:6, 8; Eze 34:23, 24; Zec 2:5).

imagination--rather, as Margin, "the obstinacy" or stubbornness.

‏ Revelation of John 21:1-2

CHAPTER 21

Re 21:1-27. The New Heaven and Earth: New Jerusalem Out of Heaven.

The remaining two chapters describe the eternal and consummated kingdom of God and the saints on the new earth. As the world of nations is to be pervaded by divine influence in the millennium, so the world of nature shall be, not annihilated, but transfigured universally in the eternal state which follows it. The earth was cursed for man's sake; but is redeemed by the second Adam. Now is the Church; in the millennium shall be the kingdom; and after that shall be the new world wherein God shall be all in all. The "day of the Lord" and the conflagration of the earth are in 2Pe 3:10, 11 spoken of as if connected together, from which many argue against a millennial interval between His coming and the general conflagration of the old earth, preparatory to the new; but "day" is used often of a whole period comprising events intimately connected together, as are the Lord's second advent, the millennium, and the general conflagration and judgment. Compare Ge 2:4 as to the wide use of "day." Man's soul is redeemed by regeneration through the Holy Spirit now; man's body shall be redeemed at the resurrection; man's dwelling-place, His inheritance, the earth, shall be redeemed perfectly at the creation of the new heaven and earth, which shall exceed in glory the first Paradise, as much as the second Adam exceeds in glory the first Adam before the fall, and as man regenerated in body and soul shall exceed man as he was at creation.

1. the first--that is the former.

passed away--Greek, in A and B is "were departed" (Greek, "apeelthon," not as in English Version, "pareelthe").

was--Greek, "is," which graphically sets the thing before our eyes as present.

no more sea--The sea is the type of perpetual unrest. Hence our Lord rebukes it as an unruly hostile troubler of His people. It symbolized the political tumults out of which "the beast" arose, Re 13:1. As the physical corresponds to the spiritual and moral world, so the absence of sea, after the metamorphosis of the earth by fire, answers to the unruffled state of solid peace which shall then prevail. The sea, though severing lands from one another, is now, by God's eliciting of good from evil, made the medium of communication between countries through navigation. Then man shall possess inherent powers which shall make the sea no longer necessary, but an element which would detract from a perfect state. A "river" and "water" are spoken of in Re 22:1, 2, probably literal (that is, with such changes of the natural properties of water, as correspond analogically to man's own transfigured body), as well as symbolical. The sea was once the element of the world's destruction, and is still the source of death to thousands, whence after the millennium, at the general judgment, it is specially said, "The sea gave up the dead ... in it." Then it shall cease to destroy, or disturb, being removed altogether on account of its past destructions.

2. And I John--"John" is omitted in A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and Andreas; also the "I" in the Greek of these authorities is not emphatic. The insertion of "I John" in the Greek would somewhat interfere with the close connection which subsists between "the new heaven and earth," Re 21:1, and the "new Jerusalem" in this verse.

Jerusalem ... out of heaven--(Re 3:12; Ga 4:26, "Jerusalem which is above"; He 11:10; 12:22; 13:14). The descent of the new Jerusalem out of heaven is plainly distinct from the earthly Jerusalem in which Israel in the flesh shall dwell during the millennium, and follows on the creation of the new heaven and earth. John in his Gospel always writes [Greek] Hierosoluma of the old city; in the Apocalypse always Hierousaleem of the heavenly city (Re 3:12). Hierousaleem is a Hebrew name, the original and holy appellation. Hierosoluma is the common Greek term, used in a political sense. Paul observes the same distinction when refuting Judaism (Ga 4:26; compare Ga 1:17, 18; 2:1; He 12:22), though not so in the Epistles to Romans and Corinthians [Bengel].

bride--made up of the blessed citizens of "the holy city." There is no longer merely a Paradise as in Eden (though there is that also, Re 2:7), no longer a mere garden, but now the city of God on earth, costlier, statelier, and more glorious, but at the same time the result of labor and pains such as had not to be expended by man in dressing the primitive garden of Eden. "The lively stones" were severally in time laboriously chiselled into shape, after the pattern of "the Chief corner-stone," to prepare them for the place which they shall everlastingly fill in the heavenly Jerusalem.

‏ Revelation of John 21:10

10. The words correspond to Re 17:3, to heighten the contrast of the bride and harlot.

mountain--Compare Eze 40:2, where a similar vision is given from a high mountain.

that great--omitted in A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and Cyprian. Translate then, "the holy city Jerusalem."

descending--Even in the millennium the earth will not be a suitable abode for transfigured saints, who therefore shall then reign in heaven over the earth. But after the renewal of the earth at the close of the millennium and judgment, they shall descend from heaven to dwell on an earth assimilated to heaven itself. "From God" implies that "we (the city) are God's workmanship."