(11) Will multiply upon you.--The promises of abundant blessing of this, with the previous and following verses, certainly received a partial fulfilment at the time following the return from the exile, and in the subsequent Maccabean period; yet one cannot but feel that the language of promise, if taken only in a literal sense, goes far beyond the historic fulfilment, and hence that these earthly blessings are the shadow and type by which is set forth the higher spiritual blessing given to the Church without stint.

Settle you after your old estates.--This does not mean that particular families are to have again each their own former inheritance--though, doubtless, this was true, as far as circumstances allowed, of the comparatively small number of families who returned--but that they shall in general be settled and prosperous, as of old. And even this promise is eclipsed by the next clause: "I will do better unto you than at your beginnings," which can only be considered as fulfilled in the spiritual blessings, far higher and better than anything of earth, of the Messianic kingdom.

36:1-15 Those who put contempt and reproach on God's people, will have them turned on themselves. God promises favour to his Israel. We have no reason to complain, if the more unkind men are, the more kind God is. They shall come again to their own border. It was a type of the heavenly Canaan, of which all God's children are heirs, and into which they all shall be brought together. And when God returns in mercy to a people who return to him in duty, all their grievances will be set right. The full completion of this prophecy must be in some future event.And I will multiply upon you man and beast,.... Not only men, but beasts also, of which the mountains had been deprived, being killed by the enemy for present use, or drove off for future subsistence; but now there should be an increase of them, which should feed upon the herbage of the mountains, and the rich pastures on them, to the great advantage of the proprietors:

and they shall increase and bring forth; or, "multiply and increase" (h); both men and beasts:

and I will settle you after your old estates; that is, you mountains shall be inhabited by those that formerly dwelt in you, and you shall be enjoyed by your right owners; by those who had you in possession from the beginning, from the times of Joshua; by whom you were settled on them by lot, according to their several tribes:

and will do better unto you than at your beginnings; not that the land should be better or more fruitful than in the times of Joshua, who led the people into and found it a land flowing with milk and honey, and abounding with all kind of fruit; or that the people should be more flourishing in temporal things than in the times of David and Solomon; for no such fruitfulness and prosperity took place upon the return from the Babylonish captivity: but rather this is to be understood of spiritual blessings and privileges in the times of the Messiah; and particularly when the Jews will be converted in the latter day:

and ye shall know that I am the Lord; that is, the inhabitants of the mountains of Israel, the converted Jews, shall know and own the Messiah, and that he is Jehovah, the eternal God, and not a mere man.

(h) "multiplicabuntur et crescent", Pagninus, Montanus; "multiplicabunter et fructificabunt", Cocceius.