55 Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate; and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; and you and your daughters shall return to your former estate.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
A clearer explanation of the former doctrine now follows, that the Jews, should thus feel God merciful when his mercy reached Samaria and Sodom; but that never could be done, and hence the Jews were reduced to despair; for, as I have said, the Prophet argues from what is impossible and almost absurd. Just as Virgil writes -- "The inhabitants of seas and skies shall change, And fish on shore, and stags in air shall range:" Virgil, Dryden's, Eclogue 1. V. 60 -- which can never take place: so that it implies the complete denial of what might seem doubtful. This way of speaking is proverbial, when Ezekiel says that the Sodomites and Israelites should return to their ancient state or their former dignity; and that could never be hoped for, as I have said: hence it follows, that the Jews could not be safe when God draws them into the same punishment. Besides, the Prophet speaks as if the city should be cut off and temple overthrown, since the Jews had often been threatened with this, and he had shown them the wrath of God present before their eyes. But, although they had always hoped well, yet he despises their pride by which they were blinded, and utters his prophecies openly as if God had executed whatever he had threatened. For this reason he says, the captivity of thy captivities shall be in the midst of them. But they might object, that they enjoyed their country, that they still cultivated their fields, and had sufficient food for their support although besieged by their enemies. But the Prophet looked down upon it all, because before God the city was as it were taken and all were exiles, since God had not threatened them in vain. Weakness here compels me to break off.
When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former state, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, (g) then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former state.
(g) Meaning that it would never come to pass.
When thy sisters, Sodom, and her daughters, shall return to their former estate,.... The Jews, as Jerom says, are of opinion, that in the days of their vainly expected Messiah Sodom will be restored to its ancient state, and be as the garden of God, and as the land of Egypt; and Jarchi interprets the bringing again the captivity of Sodom, in Ezekiel 16:53; by the Lord's healing the land of brimstone and salt, and placing inhabitants in it; and it is asserted by the Jews (f) that Sodom and Gomorrah shall be rebuilt in future times, in the times of the Messiah, according to the sense of this passage: but this is not to be understood in a literal sense, of the rebuilding of Sodom and cities adjacent, and of restoring them to their former fruitfulness and fertility, and of the inhabitants to their former prosperity, and much less to their former state of wickedness; but spiritually, of the conversion of Gentile sinners to their ancient and happy estate in Christ:
and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; to the knowledge of the Messiah, and the pure worship of God:
then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate; the conversion of Judah, and of Israel or the ten tribes, here meant by Samaria, is frequently prophesied of, as what will be at the same time, Jeremiah 23:6.
(f) Shemot Rabba, sect. 15. fol. 101. 3.
*More commentary available at chapter level.