(27) Yet will I not make a full end.--The thought is echoed from Amos 9:8; Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 10:21, and repeated in Jeremiah 5:18. There was then hope in the distance. The destruction, terrible as it seemed, was not final. The penalty was a discipline. (Comp. Leviticus 26:44.)
Verse 27. - The vision breaks off, and the prophet emphasizes its truthfulness by the announcement of the Divine decree. "Desolation, and yet not a full end," is its burden. This is the same doctrine of the" remnant" which formed so important a part of the prophetic message of Isaiah and his contemporaries. However severe the punishment of Judah may be, there will be a "remnant" which shall escape, and become the seed of a holier nation (Amos 9:8; Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 10:20; Isaiah 11:11; Hosea 6:1, 2).
4:19-31 The prophet had no pleasure in delivering messages of wrath. He is shown in a vision the whole land in confusion. Compared with what it was, every thing is out of order; but the ruin of the Jewish nation would not be final. Every end of our comforts is not a full end. Though the Lord may correct his people very severely, yet he will not cast them off. Ornaments and false colouring would be of no avail. No outward privileges or profession, no contrivances would prevent destruction. How wretched the state of those who are like foolish children in the concerns of their souls! Whatever we are ignorant of, may the Lord make of good understanding in the ways of godliness. As sin will find out the sinner, so sorrow will, sooner or later, find out the secure.
For thus hath the Lord said,.... What follows is an explanation and confirmation of the above vision the prophet had:
the whole land shall be desolate; as he had seen; it should not be manured, ploughed, and sown, or bring forth fruit; and should be without inhabitants, at least have very few:
yet I will not make a full end; there should be some inhabitants, who, with those that should hereafter return from captivity, would repeople it, rebuild the temple, and restore it to its pristine form and order, both as to things natural, civil, and ecclesiastical; but though a full end of them, as a church and people, was not to be made now by the Chaldeans, yet it would be; as it has been done by the Romans, in the times of Vespasian and Hadrian.
the whole land shall be desolate; as he had seen; it should not be manured, ploughed, and sown, or bring forth fruit; and should be without inhabitants, at least have very few:
yet I will not make a full end; there should be some inhabitants, who, with those that should hereafter return from captivity, would repeople it, rebuild the temple, and restore it to its pristine form and order, both as to things natural, civil, and ecclesiastical; but though a full end of them, as a church and people, was not to be made now by the Chaldeans, yet it would be; as it has been done by the Romans, in the times of Vespasian and Hadrian.