We said in our last Lecture that God here promises pardon and salvation to alien nations, provided they repented, and that he did this, that he might more fully confirm his promises to his elect people. We indeed know that all nations were then excluded from the covenant of God: as, then, he would extend his mercy even to them, the Jews might with some confidence entertain hope, since they were already as it were near to God, he having adopted them as his peculiar people and heritage.

And this is what may be easily gathered from the context; for God declares that he would draw forth his own elect from these nations; and then he adds, that he would proceed still further, that he would even receive into favor those who had been previously his enemies. Hence he says, After 1 shall draw them out, I will return, [68] and shew mercy to them. He speaks this of aliens: And I will restore them, he says, every one to his heritage and to his own land It now follows --

---

Footnotes:

[68] Rather, "I will turn," i.e., from the course he had pursued. This is often the meaning of svv. It is rendered here adverbially by Blayney and others; though it may at times be so rendered, yet not suitably in this place. It means here a change in God's proceedings: he had plucked them up; but now he will deal differently with them. -- Ed