Isaiah 65:19

Rejoice in Jerusalem. At the time of Isaiah there was little reason for rejoicing over Jerusalem. The armies of Sennacherib came against the city, and the Assyrian king boasted of having shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage (see on 2 Kings 18:13). When the Babylonian envoys visited Hezekiah, Isaiah foresaw the time when the armies of Babylon would come against Jerusalem and carry away its treasures and its people (ch. 39:6, 7). Micah, Isaiah’s contemporary, foresaw the time when Zion would be “plowed as a field” and Jerusalem and its Temple would be destroyed (Micah 3:12). But the Lord was planning a glorious future for Jerusalem (Isa. 52:9; 62:1, 7). The city might have been established as the great metropolis of the earth. She might have been “the world’s diadem of glory” (DA 577; see p. 30). But when the Jews rejected the Messiah, Jerusalem’s day of grace ended (Matt. 23:37, 38; DA 578). However, the new Israel of God looks to the heavenly Jerusalem as the fulfillment of its joy.