Behold, I will gather them out of all countries
At the end of the seventy years' captivity; and which will have a greater accomplishment in the latter day, when the Jews shall be converted, and gathered from their present dispersion all over the earth: whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great
wrath:
or "whither I shall drive them", or "shall have driven them" {m}; for as yet they were not thus driven and dispersed. A heap of words is made use of to express the greatness of the Lord's indignation at them for their sins, the cause of their expulsion out of the land: and I will bring them again unto this place;
the city of Jerusalem; as they were at the end of the seventy years' captivity; and when the promise was fulfilled, that they should purchase and possess fields and vineyards; and as they will likewise at the time of their conversion in the latter day: and I will cause them to dwell safely;
which yet they did not for any continuance after their return from Babylon; being, as Jerom observes, often molested by the Persians, Macedonians, and Egyptians; and at last destroyed by the Romans: their troubles in the times of the Maccabees are very notorious; so that this refers either to the first times of the Gospel, and to the Jews that then believed in Christ; or rather to times yet to come, and which are prophesied of at ( Jeremiah 32:37-43 ) .