Isaiah 49:20

The children who were born while you were ◄exiled/in Babylonia► [MET] will return to Jerusalem and say, ‘This city is too small for us; We need more space to live in!’

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

In Context

19Your land has been ruined and caused to become desolate/abandoned [DOU], but some day it will be filled with people, and those who conquered you will be far away.

21Then you will think to yourselves [MTY], ‘It is amazing that we have [RHQ] all these children! Most of our children were dead, and the rest were exiled. We were left here alone; so we do not know [RHQ] where all these children have come from! Who raised them?'”

Read all of Isaiah 49

Cross References

Joshua 17:14The people of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh said to Joshua, “You allotted to us only one area of land, but there are a lot of us. Yahweh has blessed us very much with the result that our tribe has grown very large. So why did you give us only a small part of the land [RHQ]?”

Isaiah 51:3Some day I, Yahweh, will encourage his descendants again, and I will comfort all the people who live in the ruins of Jerusalem. The desert in that area will become like Eden, like the garden that I, Yahweh, made/planted. All the people there will be joyful and happy; they will thank me and sing.

Isaiah 60:4Yahweh says, “Look around and you will see the people who will be returning from ◄exile/countries to which they have been forced to go►! Your sons will come from distant countries; others will carry your little daughters home.

Matthew 3:9God promised to give Abraham many descendants. In order to fulfill that promise, God does not need you! I tell you that he can change these stones to make them descendants of Abraham. So do not start to say to yourselves, ‘Since we are descendants of our ancestor Abraham, God will not punish us even though we have sinned.’

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 49:19-24

Encouragement to Zion. ( b. c. 706.) 18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord , thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. 19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Isaiah 49:20