Isaiah 51:19

19 A double disaster has fallen on you: your land has been devastated by war, and your people have starved. There is no one to show you sympathy.

Isaiah 51:19 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 51:19

These two things are come unto thee
Affliction from the hand of God, though by means of enemies, and no friends to help, support, and comfort, as before hinted: or else this respects what follows, after it is said, who shall be sorry for thee?
lament or bemoan thee? they of the earth will rejoice and be glad, and others will not dare to show any concern outwardly, whatever inward grief may be in their breasts, ( Revelation 11:10 ) , desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword;
which may be the two things before mentioned, for though there are four words, they are reducible to two things, desolation, which is the sword, and by it, and destruction, which is the famine, and comes by that, as Kimchi observes: or the words may be rendered thus, "desolation, and destruction, even the famine and the sword"; so that there is no need of making these things four, and of considering them as distinct from the other two, as the Targum makes them, which paraphrases the whole thus,

``two tribulations come upon thee, O Jerusalem, thou canst not arise; when four shall come upon thee, spoiling and breach, and the famine and the sword, there shall be none to comfort thee but I.''
All this was literally true of Jerusalem, both at the destruction of it by the Chaldeans and by the Romans, and will be mystically true of the church at the slaying of the witnesses by the sword of antichrist; when there will be a famine, not of bread, nor of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord; and which will bring great devastation and desolation on the interest of Christ: by whom shall I comfort thee?
there being no ministry of the word, nor administration of the ordinances, the usual means of comfort, the witnesses being slain; see ( Lamentations 1:9 Lamentations 1:16 Lamentations 1:21 ) ( 2:13 ) .

Isaiah 51:19 In-Context

17 Jerusalem, wake up! Rouse yourself and get up! You have drunk the cup of punishment that the Lord in his anger gave you to drink; you drank it down, and it made you stagger.
18 There is no one to lead you, no one among your people to take you by the hand.
19 A double disaster has fallen on you: your land has been devastated by war, and your people have starved. There is no one to show you sympathy.
20 At the corner of every street your people collapse from weakness; they are like deer caught in a hunter's net. They have felt the force of God's anger.
21 You suffering people of Jerusalem, you that stagger as though you were drunk,
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.