Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 43:5

"Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;" — Isaiah 43:5 (ASV)

From the east ... —Even from Isaiah’s standpoint, the dispersion of Israel might well be contemplated in all this wide extent. The Ten Tribes were already carried off to the cities of the Medes (2 Kings 17:6). The Babylonian exile had its beginning under Esarhaddon (2 Chronicles 33:11); others may have been found before the time of Zephaniah (Zephaniah 3:10) beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. Even in the time of Joel the slave-trade of the Phoenicians had carried the sons of Judah and Jerusalem to the western isles of Javan, or Ionia (Joel 3:6).