I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;

I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth;

I will say to the north: Give up: and to the south: Keep not back: bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth,

I am saying to the north, 'Give up,' And to the south, 'Restrain not.' Bring in My sons from afar, And My daughters from the end of the earth.

I will say to the north, Give them up; and to the south, Do not keep them back; send back my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth;

I will say to the North, "Release him," and to the South, "Do not turn him away." Bring my sons from far away, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

Dicam Aquiloni, Da, et Austro, Ne prohibeas. Adducito filios meos e longinquo, et filias meas ab extremo terrae.

I will say to the north. Under these four parts he includes the whole world, which is very customary in all languages. But Isaiah speaks in somewhat loftier language than Moses, because he wished the people to view the event as if it had actually occurred; and, to such a purpose those lively descriptions which may be said to place it before our eyes, are admirably adapted. He might, indeed, have said it in a single word, but this manner of address is far more forcible; for he represents God as commanding, with supreme authority, all the creatures, and every part of the world, to set his people free. Bring my sons. He means that not all Israel shall be gathered, but only that which is the true Israel; for not all who are the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh are true Israelites, but very many of them are bastards. (Romans 9:6, 7.) These belong to the true and lawful seed; for that vast multitude of people was not saved, but only "a remnant," as we saw in a former chapter. (Isaiah 10:21, 22.) There was a vast number of people who were carried away into captivity, but there were few who were brought back. Among them was preserved a seed; and the Lord would not suffer that seed to perish, or the covenant which he had made with their fathers to be broken. These things were very hard to be believed by the Jews, who were despised by all, and were exposed not only to the hatred but to the curses of almost the whole world, and were scarcely reckoned to belong to the number of men; and therefore they must have depended solely on the promises. They knew that Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1) would come, but who he was they were not yet able to conceive, for he had not yet been born; and therefore they needed to be armed with very excellent and steadfast faith, in order to wait for the Lord with unshaken confidence, while many reckoned these predictions to be fables. Let us learn also flora this example to look to God alone, so as not to doubt that he will assist us and will abide by his promises at the proper time.

I will say to the north, Give up - Give up my people, or restore them to their own land.
Bring my sons - Bring all my people from the distant lands where they have been driven in their dispersion. This is a beautiful passage. As if all lands were under the control of God, and he could at once command and they would obey, he calls on them to yield up his people to their own country. He issues a commandment which is heard in all quarters of the globe, and the scattered people of God come flocking again to their own land.

I will say to the north, give up: and to the south, keep not back,.... That is, give up, and not retain, those that belong to the Lord; here the winds are spoken to by a personification; or the inhabitants of the northern and southern climates are called upon to deliver up the Lord's people to him, for whose sake the Gospel was sent into these parts, to find them out, and bring them home; by the "north" may be meant the Goths, Swedes, Muscovites, and those northern isles of ours, with others; and by the "south" the Egyptians, Africans, and Ethiopians. Manasseh ben Israel (h) thinks the passage is thus expressed, which he supposes refers to the universal gathering of the Jews in the latter day to the holy land; because Media, Persia, and China, lie to the east of it; Tartary and Scythia to the north; the kingdom of the Abyssines to the south; and Europe to the west:
bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; such whom the Lord had predestinated to the adoption of children, and had taken into his family, and whom he regenerated by his Spirit and grace, of either sex; to whom he beareth the strongest love and affection, as a parent to his children; and of whom he takes the utmost care, so that not one shall be lost; let them be in ever so distant a part of the world, he will send his Gospel to them, his ministers after them, and his Spirit shall accompany them, to bring them to himself, his Son, and his churches. Manasseh, before mentioned, understands this of America, and of the Jews there; but may be much better applied to converted Gentiles there; for God has many sons and daughters in those parts.
(h) Spes Israelis, sect. 24. p. 76.

Give up--namely, My people.
sons . . . daughters--The feminine joined to the masculine expresses the complete totality of anything (Zac 9:17).