to rush upon · verb, pual perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
comforted
נֻחָ֑מָהnu.Cha.mah
H5162
properly · verb, pual perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
lay
מַרְבִּ֤יץmar.Bitz
H7257
to crouch (on all four legs folded · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular absolute
stones
אֲבָנַ֔יִךְ'a.va.Na.yikh
H68
a stone · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
colours
בַּפּוּךְ֙ba.puKh
H6320
dye (specifically · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
foundations
וִיסַדְתִּ֖יךְvi.sad.Tikh
H3245
to set (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
sapphires
בַּסַּפִּירִֽיםba.sa.pi.Rim
H5601
a gem (perhaps used for scratching other substances) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Peter 2:4-6 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,
Jeremiah 30:17 For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This i…
Acts 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the…
Isaiah 54:6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
1 Chronicles 29:2 Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, a…
Psalms 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
Exodus 2:23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cr…
Revelation 21:18-21 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 54:11–end
Very precious promises are here made to the church in her low condition, that God would not only continue his love to his people under their troubles as before, but that he would restore them to their former prosperity, nay, that he would raise them to greater prosperity than any they had yet enjoyed. In the foregoing chapter we had the humiliation and exaltation of Christ; here we have the humiliation and exaltation of the church; for, if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him. Observe,
I. The distressed state the church is here reduced to by the providence of God (Isa 54:11): "O thou afflicted, poor, and indigent society, that art tossed with tempests, like a ship driven from her anch…
not comforted--by anyone; none gave her help or comfort.
lay . . . with fair colours--rather, "lay . . . in cement of vermilion" [LOWTH]. The Hebrew for "fair colors" means stibium, the paint with which Eastern women painted their eyelids and eyelashes (Kg2 9:30). The very cement shall be of the most beautiful color (Rev 21:18-21).
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 54:11
Behold, I will lay thy stones "Behold, I lay thy stones" - These seem to be general images to express beauty, magnificence, purity, strength, and solidity, agreeably to the ideas of the eastern nations; and to have never been intended to be strictly scrutinized, or minutely and particularly explained, as if they had each of them some precise, moral, or spiritual meaning. Tobit, in his prophecy of the final restoration of Israel, describes the New Jerusalem in the same oriental manner: "For Jerusalem shall be built up with sapphires, and emeralds, and precious stones; thy walls, and towers, and battlements, with pure gold. And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with beryl, and carbuncle,…
O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted,.... Or, "O thou poor" (s) church; for the first Christian churches chiefly consisted of poor persons, not many mighty and noble being called; and which were greatly "afflicted" with false teachers, who broached errors and heresies, and made schisms among them; and "tossed with tempests" like a ship at sea; or "stormed" (t) with the rage and fury of violent persecutors, such as the Roman emperors were; and not "comforted", having none to administer any external comfort or relief to them; none of the kings or princes of the earth, or any civil magistrate to protect and defend them; what comfort they had was internal and spiritual; what…
The Church Fathers
"Behold, I will transform your stones into beryl," that is, the place is stony, and God will transform the ordinary stones into beryl, both in reality and for the fact that this is imagined as a consequence of their great joy.
"I will place you as a carbon stone." It is fitting to want to signify Jesus through this stone that was set, the Scriptures say, as the foundation of Zion. If anyone trusts in this foundation, he will not be ashamed. He calls him a foundation stone among them. And he is also mentioned by the holy prophets. For he says through the voice of Amos, "Look, I am setting a diamond in the middle of my people Israel." And through the voice of Zechariah, "Behold, I will bring my servant the sunrise." "I have placed a stone before the face of Jesus; on the one stone there are seven eyes." For the all-seeing one is Christ who is able to survey all things everywhere. For the carbon is placed to be a stone and a fixed foundation of the holy city. On it are the stones of sapphire, which perhaps signify the ranks of the apostles who are set. For they were very close to Christ, and when they followed him they became foundations in the earthly realm.
We should understand all these things of which Isaiah speaks as worthy and precious souls, with whom God commits himself to build the heavenly citizenry. He compares them with sapphire on the grounds of its likeness to the color of heaven. Their intercourse is heavenly and angelic, as Paul teaches, saying, "Our citizenship is in heaven." In Ezekiel the place under the throne of God is said to be like sapphire.… And the parapets of this new Jerusalem would be of jasper or, in Symmachus's translation, karchēdonion, a special, shining stone. This means those who belong to the church, whom in a spiritual manner strengthen their faith and are like the battlements of the heavenly citizenry, destroy "every obstacle raised against the knowledge of God" and refute any false opinion contrary to the truth. Since parapets are designed to resist the enemy, those who in the church are equipped with wisdom may be rightly called "parapets." Alongside these others is a comparison drawn with crystals, with which he foretells that the gates of the city will be built and denotes the clarity and purity of sure faith of those who believed the foundational and elementary doctrine. Isaiah also declares that the wall of the new city of God will be made from special stone. Such are they who through their prayers surround and confirm, just like an enclosure, the city's edifice and its great, precious and worthy building.
Dictionary and topics
Stones, Precious — Frequently referred to (1 Kings 10:2; 2 Chr. 3:6; 9:10; Rev. 18:16; 21:19). There are about twenty different names of such stones in the Bible. They are figuratively introduced to denote value,…
Precious Stones · Illustrative of: Beauty and stability of the church — Illustrative of: Beauty and stability of the church
Sapphire · A precious stone — A precious stone
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Thou wretched. He continues the same subject, and promises not only that the Church shall be restored to her ancient splendor, but that God will cause her to be adorned with attire of greater magnificence, as if it had been wholly composed of precious stones. All this was expressed by Haggai in a single word, when he said,
"The glory of the latter temple shall be greater than the glory of the former." (Haggai 2:10)
As to the names of the jewels [72] which are here described by the Prophet, and about which even the Hebrew writers are not agreed, we need not give ourselves much trouble, provided we understand the meaning of the passage.
This earnest address is exceedingly well fitted for so…
"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted, behold, I lay thy stones in stibium, and lay thy foundations with sapphires; and make thy minarets of ruby, and thy gates into carbuncles, and all thy boundary into jewels." At the present time the church, of which Jerusalem is the metropolis, is sunk in misery, driven with tempest like chaff of the threshing-floor (Hos 13:3), without comfort; because till now it has waited in vain for any act of consolation on the part of God, and has been scorned rather than comforted by man (סערה is a part. kal, not pual; and נחמה 3rd pers. praet. like נעזבה, Isa 62:12, and רחמה, Hos 1:6; Hos 2:3). But this will be altered; Jerusalem will rise again f…
This is a vision of the renewed Jerusalem as a city under God’s protection, a place of peace and righteousness (see 59:21–60:22). This section forms the background of John’s vision of the new Jerusalem (Rev 21:10-21).
54:11 The Lord himself would rebuild the city (see Heb 11:10). • Lapis lazuli is a semi-precious stone.
Rashi on Isaiah 54:11
tempestuous one whose heart storms with many troubles.
I will set with carbuncle I pave your floor with carbuncle stones.
