3:7-12 The men of that generation turned away from God, they had not kept his ordinances. God gives them a gracious call. But they said, Wherein shall we return? God notices what returns our hearts make to the calls of his word. It shows great perverseness in sin, when men make afflictions excuses for sin, which are sent to part between them and their sins. Here is an earnest exhortation to reform. God must be served in the first place; and the interest of our souls ought to be preferred before that of our bodies. Let them trust God to provide for their comfort. God has blessings ready for us, but through the weakness of our faith and the narrowness of our desires, we have not room to receive them. He who makes trial will find nothing is lost by honouring the Lord with his substance.

Verse 12. - Shall call you blessed; or, happy, as ver. 15 (comp. Deuteronomy 33:29; Zechariah 8:13, 23). A delightsome land; γῆ θελητή (Septuagint); literally, a land of good pleasure - a land in which God is well pleased (comp. Isaiah 62:4; Jeremiah 3:19).

And all nations shall call you blessed,.... When they shall see the land freed from the devouring locust, and other hurtful creatures; the former and the latter rains given in their season, and the earth yielding a large increase:

for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts; or a desirable (n) one; not only pleasant to themselves, being fruitful, but wished for by others, by their neighbouring nations, who, seeing their prosperity, could not but desire to dwell with them; or delightsome to the Lord of hosts: thus Jarchi interprets it, the land that I delight in; and so Aben Ezra; to which agrees the Targum,

"and all nations shall praise you, because you dwell in the land of the house of my Shechinah or majesty, and do my will in it;''

and the Syriac version renders it, "the land of my delight": see Isaiah 62:4.

(n) "terra desiderabilis", V. L. Pagninus, Drusius; "terra beneplaciti", Montanus, Vatablus, Burkius; "oblectationis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

12. Fulfilling the blessing (De 33:29; Zec 8:13).

delightsome land—(Da 8:9).

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