but the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break out and cry, thou that travailest not; because the children of the desolate are more numerous than [those] of her that has a husband.
Paul backs his contrast between the two Jerusalems with a strange line from the prophets, where a childless woman gets a command to sing. Who is she, and why does God's richest harvest come in a season that looks like abandonment?
Paul takes the words from Isaiah 54. One writer points out what comes just before it.
Notice where this comes in the prophet's writings. In chapter 53 we have Israel bowing to the truth of the atonement, owning the once smitten One as having died for them. Then we hear the remarkable call quoted by the apostle in this letter. The truth is that in the coming day Israel will learn with astonishment what God has been doing during their long widowhood. They will find countless children born to Abraham — true children of promise.
Most readers assume the barren woman is Sarah, since Sarah fills the verses around it. Commentators differ here. Some read her as Sarah. Others insist the link runs elsewhere:
Verse 27 gives many minds some difficulty, because people confuse it with Hagar and Sarah. But it is a separate matter, suggested by the idea of the Jerusalem above. … The apostle quotes it to show that Jerusalem had more children during the time of her desolation than when she had a husband. … Sarah was not without a husband. Here is a different order of thought.
Another writer names the barren woman and traces the marriage language through Israel's history.
Paul quotes Isaiah 54 here. The barren one is not Sarah. It is Israel, as the context shows — the one who was without a husband. Israel had a husband. God took Israel as His wife (Jeremiah 2) — when He entered into that covenant relationship with her, she became His wife. But then she became unfaithful, and God had to send her away. … So she became desolate, without a husband, and so she had no children. … In the future Israel will come back to God. Then she will see what happened in the meantime: in the two thousand years that she was set aside as a nation, God brought in this harvest from the nations.
The verse reverses what anyone would expect. The empty years produced more than the favoured ones.
During this time God has set Israel aside. … Their house has indeed been left to them desolate (see Matthew 23:38). In that day it will seem amazing to them. They will find far more children born through the gospel in their desolation than in their days of greatest prosperity. The children brought in by grace are "more numerous" than those ever were under law. But these children do not belong to the earthly Jerusalem. They belong to the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is free.
Commentators also differ over which Jerusalem Isaiah 54 addresses. Some read it as the restored earthly city. One writer argues for the heavenly one, and counts the harvest twice over:
When God fulfils the prophecy in the millennial day, He will count those who now believe as Jerusalem's children, as well as the race to come in that day. … Think of her most flourishing times, say under David or Solomon. What fruit of those days could compare with the gathering in of Christian believers since the Jews lost their place as the recognised witness and wife of Jehovah?
Notice where the harvest began.
Jerusalem on earth and her children boasted in the law. Through the law they fell into bondage, and by breaking the law they became desolate. Still, the words of the prophet Isaiah show that during the time of her desolation there will be more children than when God owned the city as His earthly centre. Is this not because the very city that proved man's guilt became the place from which the gospel of God's grace went out to all the world?
The verse does more than report a fact. It commands singing. One writer ties that song to the difference between law and grace.
The barren woman bearing can only find utterance in praise. Outward greatness and glory can go with bondage. Men are slaves of sin, or of the law, or of the world, until they know redemption. … The law knew nothing of praise. Hagar's son was born of the flesh. Sarah's child was the child of God's grace and power.
- Desolate. The story starts with a wife sent away for unfaithfulness and a city left desolate. Nothing here begins with human strength.
- Fruitful. In those very years of desolation God has been gathering children. They outnumber all that came in the days of favour and law.
- Free. These children belong to the Jerusalem above, not to the earthly city. They are children of promise, born by God's grace and power, not of the flesh.
- Global. The message of grace went out from the very city that had proved man's guilt, and reached all the world.
- Singing. So the command is to rejoice. Only grace puts a song in a barren mouth, because the law knew nothing of praise.