Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.

Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified? thou hast removed all the ends of the earth far off.

Thou hast added to the nation, O Jehovah, Thou hast added to the nation, Thou hast been honoured, Thou hast put far off all the ends of earth.

You have increased the nation, O LORD, you have increased the nation: you are glorified: you had removed it far to all the ends of the earth.

You have made the nation great, O Lord, you have made it great; glory is yours: you have made wide the limits of the land.

Thou hast gotten Thee honour with the nations, O LORD, Yea, exceeding great honour with the nations; Thou art honoured unto the farthest ends of the earth.

You have been lenient to the people, O Lord, lenient to the people. But have you been glorified? You have removed all the limits of the earth.

Addidisti genti, Iehova; addidisti genti; glorificatus es; dilatasti omnes fines terræ.

Thou hast added to the nation. This verse is explained in various ways. Some think that the Prophet here declares that the godly are not merely oppressed by one kind of affliction, but are plunged, as it were, into the lowest misery, and that they see no end of their distresses. Others explain it simply to mean, "O Lord, thou hast bestowed on thy nation various blessings," and think that the Prophet mentions the blessings which God bestowed on his people in various ways, as if he had said, "The people have experienced, not only in one instance, but in innumerable ways, the Lord's kindness and bounty." But when I attend to what follows, Thou hast enlarged, that is, "Thou hast extended thy kingdom, which formerly was confined within narrow limits," I choose rather to view the two statements as closely connected; for the latter clause is an interpretation of the former. Besides, it agrees well with what follows, that God is glorified; for we know that in nothing does the glory of God shine more conspicuously than in the increase of the Church. It is as if he had said, "Thou hadst formerly a small people, but thou hast multiplied and increased it;" for the Gentiles were admitted and joined to the Jews on condition that they should be united into one people. Thus the Lord added a vast multitude, for the children of Abraham were called out of all nations. We must therefore supply, not "Thou hast added blessings," but "Thou hast added a greater number;" and the meaning is, "O Lord, thou wast not satisfied with that small number, and hast gathered for thyself out of all nations an innumerable people." This relates to the kingdom of Christ, which has been spread through the whole world by the preaching of the gospel; and in this passage the Prophet speaks highly of this wide extension, and expresses it by the phrase, Thou hast enlarged. This mode of expression is not at variance with the ordinary way of speaking, when an enlargement of a kingdom or of territories is expressed. And yet the Prophet does not mean that the land was enlarged, but that, by spreading the worship of God on all sides, mutual intercourse produced larger space and greater freedom of habitation; for contentions had the effect of narrowing it. [1] We have here a promise of the calling of the Gentiles, which must have greatly comforted godly men during that banishment and miserable dispersion of the Church, so that, although they saw it to be amazingly weakened and diminished, still they were convinced that it would be increased in such a manner that not only would they become innumerable, but foreign and distant nations would be added to them.

Footnotes

1 - "Faisoyent que la demeurance estiot plus estroite et moins libre;" -- "Made habitation to be narrower and less free."

Thou hast increased the nation - That is, the Jewish nation (see the note at Isaiah 9:3). The nation was not only enlarged by its regular increase of population, but many converts attended them on their return from Babylon, and probably many came in from surrounding nations on the rebuilding of their capital.
Thou hadst removed it far - Or rather, thou hast extended far all the borders of the land. The word rendered 'removed' (רחק râchaq) means usually to put far away, and here it may mean to put far away the borders or boundaries of the nation; that is, to extend them far. The word 'unto' is not in the original; and the phrase rendered 'ends of the earth,' may mean the borders. or boundaries of the land. The parallelism requires this construction, and it is indeed the obvious one, and has been adopted by Lowth and Noyes.

Thou hast increased (o) the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed [it] far [to] all the ends of the earth.
(o) That is, the company of the faithful by the calling of the Gentiles.

Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, thou hast increased the nation,.... The righteous nation, Isaiah 26:2 the church of God, by the numerous conversions of Jews and Gentiles; when the nation of the Jews shall be born at once, and the fulness and forces of the Gentiles are brought in; when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ: this increase is repeated, to denote the certainty of it, and because a matter of great moment and importance:
thou art glorified; as by the destruction of the antichristian powers, so by the enlargement of the church and kingdom of Christ; for now will the voices be heard in heaven, giving praise and glory to God: even those that are frightened with his judgments, as well as those that are affected with his goodness, will give glory to the God of heaven, Revelation 11:13,
thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth: not the Jewish people now scattered throughout the world, but the righteous nation increased and enlarged, which now will be spread to the ends of the world; for Christ's kingdom will be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, Psalm 72:8 it may be rendered, "thou hast removed afar off all the ends of the earth": so De Dieu, who interprets it of the great men of the earth, the excellent in it, the cornerstones of it; but perhaps it may be better to understand hereby every island and mountain fleeing away at the destruction of antichrist, and the enlargement of Christ's kingdom, Revelation 16:20.

hast--prophetical preterite (Isaiah 9:3).
hast removed . . . far . . . ends of . . . earth--rather, "Thou hast extended far all the borders of the land" [VITRINGA].

Israel, when it has such cause as this for praising Jehovah, will have become a numerous people once more. "Thou hast added to the nation, O Jehovah, hast added to the nation; glorified Thyself; moved out all the borders of the land." The verb יסף, which is construed in other cases with על, אל ,, here with ל, carried its object within itself: to add, i.e., to give an increase. The allusion is to the same thing as that which caused the prophet to rejoice in Isaiah 9:2 (compare Isaiah 49:19-20; Isaiah 54:1., Micah 2:12; Micah 4:7; Obadiah 1:19-20, and many other passages; and for richaktâ, more especially Micah 7:11). Just as Isaiah 26:13 recals the bondage in Egypt, and Isaiah 26:14 the destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, so Isaiah 26:16 recals the numerical strength of the nation, and the extent of the country in the time of David and Solomon. At the same time, we cannot say that the prophet intended to recall these to mind. The antitypical relation, in which the last times stand to these events and circumstances of the past, is a fact in sacred history, though not particularly referred to here.

The nation - This nation seems to be the people of Israel. Removed - Thou hast removed thy people out of their own land, and suffered them to be carried captive to the ends of the earth.