15 Why do you cry about your affliction?
Your sorrow is incurable.
Because of the multitude of your iniquities,
Because your sins have increased,
I have done these things to you.
…
17 For I will restore health to you
And heal you of your wounds,’ says the Lord,
‘Because they called you an outcast saying:
“This is Zion;
No one seeks her.” ’
…
19 Then out of them shall proceed thanksgiving
And the voice of those who make merry;
I will multiply them, and they shall not diminish;
I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
O Lord, How rich your praise shall be, how rich it must be! How longsuffering and truly patient you were with Israel and with we, our people if this day! These absolute and extensive promises in verses 16 and following have yet to be fulfilled in history; they look forward to the reign of Christ, the greater David, in the millennial kingdom of the “latter days.” How much it demonstrates your character as one who takes the undeserving, the wretched and lifts them up. You surely did that with Israel. They were your people no matter what they did and they remained your people no matter what they did. You chose them, rooted in your own mind and purpose, not in their own.
We cry about our afflictions, but they are just! Our sufferings in this world are there because of our sins and because of our sinfulness, and further because you do what you are well justified in doing!
Our situation is incurable! We cannot make ourselves well - But glory! You can! You are both source of our affliction in that you are scourging us (not the cause but the scourging one) as well as the solution for the problem.
These things didn't just happen because Israel removed herself from God's protection. God did them. If He did them then, then unless He stopped relating to national Israel, unless everlasting covenant stopped meaning everlasting covenant, He is still doing them.
The idea that this stuff "just happens" or that it happens because we remove ourselves out from under God's protection is foreign to the Bible. There is no such thing as God being passive in these events. He is sovereign and He is the one who is proactive. It is he who acts and causes. He does not sit and watch and wring his hands while things happen to his people, wishing that they would only allow him to "let him" fix it.
Of course, it is not that simple either. There is the mechanism of sin involved. There is the causality of sin and the direct mechanism that brings about judgment and chastening as is reflected here as well.
Thanks be to God that we serve a God who will "heal our wounds" and not simple cause them!
A part of the reason why, and perhaps a large part, God heals and restores is to vindicate himself in the eyes of those watching. Notes the uses of "Zion", a name for the promised land. God will heal and restore so that those looking round about see that God fulfills his promises, that he has not forgotten and cast Israel away, as well as to make his people well.
"Then" - What a fabulous word! "Then" Upon seeing all of the above! When the they are restored and enjoy the fruits of being in the land again. When they are God's people once more. When God has restored to them all that he has promised. Remembering that what is in view here is far more than just a return to the physical land, that it culminated with the promise of the New Covenant in a couple chapters…the person of the Messiah - one can see why there would be great praise and thanksgiving! It is easily understandable why there would be merrymaking and great happiness.
That this is not speaking primarily of the return to the land after Babylon is evidenced by the next couple phrases…for they did diminish again. Either God speaks in rhetorical flourishes and cannot be taken seriously or literally, or this passage is talking about some other time. Note also the reference to "Glorifying them" There was not glory for Israel at this point. That await the Millennial age.
Likewise, this passage demonstrates that the time immediately after the Babylonian captivity is not in view for Israel was not faithful at that time. They were not, sadly, God's people then (spiritually speaking). That awaits a time yet future when God will miraculously call them to faith and bring them to the place of embracing their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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