And your eyes shall see - Malicious pleasure in looking on at the misery of Judaea and Jerusalem, had been a special sin of Edom: now God would show Judah the fruit of its reversal, and His goodness toward themselves. , "Ye have assurance of His love toward you and providence over you, when ye see that ye are returned to your own land, and can inhabit it, but they cannot do this: but "they build and I throw down," and ye, therefore, praise and magnify My name for this, and ye shall say, "The Lord shall be magnified on the border of Israel, i. e., His greatness shall be always manifest upon you;" high above and exalted over the border of Israel which shall retain its name, while Edom shall have ceased to be. Wickedness gives its name to Edom's border, as in Zechariah's vision it was removed and settled in Babylon Zechariah 5:8, Zechariah 5:11.

Your eyes - Ye Israelites shall see, in your succeeding generations, that: -

The Lord will be magnified - By his kindness in Israel, and his judgments beyond.

And your eyes shall see,.... The destruction of the Edomites, and their fruitless attempts to rebuild their desolate places; and the difference between them and the Israelites, who were returned to their own land, and inherited it, when they could not; and the love of God to the one, and his hatred of the other:

and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel; Aben Ezra interprets it, ye that dwelt in the border of Israel shall say, the Lord shall be magnified, or let him be magnified; let greatness and glory be ascribed to him for what he has done: or, as Kimchi, give him praise and greatness because you are dwelling in your border, and their border is desolate; and your border is called the border of Israel, but theirs the border of wickedness; and so the Targum,

"let the glory of the Lord be multiplied, because he hath enlarged the border of Israel;''

and, according to Jarchi, the sense is, he shall show his greatness from our border, to make it known that we are his people: all show and own that God had loved them more than others, and therefore they ought to have honoured and obeyed him, in which they were deficient, and so ungrateful.

These ineffectual attempts on the part of Edom to recover its standing again will Israel see with its eyes, and then acknowledge that Jehovah is showing Himself to be great above the land of Israel. מעל לגבוּל does not mean "beyond the border of Israel" (Drus., Hitzig, Ewald, and others). מעל ל does not mean this, but simply over, above (cf. Nehemiah 3:28; Ecclesiastes 5:7). יגדּל is not a wish, "Let Him be great, i.e., be praised," as in Psalm 35:27; Psalm 40:17, etc. The expression מעל לגבוּל י does not suit this rendering; for it is an unnatural assumption to take this as an apposition to יהוה, in the sense of: Jehovah, who is enthroned or rules over the border of Israel. Jehovah is great, when He makes known His greatness to men, by His acts of power or grace.

And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel.

1:5 From the border of Israel - Let Israel from all his borders give God praise.

from: or, upon: Heb. from upon

5. from the border of Israel-Ye, restored to your own "borders" in Israel, "from" them shall raise your voices to "magnify the Lord," acknowledging that Jehovah has shown to you a gratuitous favor not shown to Edom, and so ought to be especially "magnified from the borders of Israel."

1:1-5 All advantages, either as to outward circumstances, or spiritual privileges, come from the free love of God, who makes one to differ from another. All the evils sinners feel and fear, are the just recompence of their crimes, while all their hopes and comforts are from the unmerited mercy of the Lord. He chose his people that they might be holy. If we love him, it is because he has first loved us; yet we all are prone to undervalue the mercies of God, and to excuse our own offences.