John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 42:11

"Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up [their voice], the villages that Kedar doth inhabit; let the inhabitants of Sela sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains." — Isaiah 42:11 (ASV)

Let the desert and its cities cry aloud. While the Prophet includes all the parts of the world, he mentions particularly those which were better known to the Jews; for on the west Judea had the sea, and on the east the desert and Arabia. When he speaks of the tents of Kedar, the desert, and the rocks, he means Arabia; but it is a figure of speech by which a part is taken for the whole, for it includes the whole of the east. It is as if he had said, that from the rising to the setting of the sun these praises shall be heard; for God shall be worshipped everywhere, though formerly he was worshipped in Judea alone; and thus the state of affairs shall be changed, and that praise shall be heard in the most distant parts of the earth.

The towns where Kedar dwells. He mentions Kedar, because the Scenite Arabians, as is well known, dwelt in tents. But he employs the word towns, while he is speaking of a desert; and therefore it should be remarked, that desert denotes not only the vast wilderness which lay between Judea and Arabia, but the more distant countries which were commonly designated from that part which was adjoining to them, as some people give the name of “mountainous” to those plains which lie beyond the mountains; for the common people have their attention so much directed to what they see close at hand, that they suppose them to resemble other places that are more distant. Yet the Prophet here exalts and magnifies the greatness of the grace of God, in reaching even rude and barbarous nations, whose savage cruelty was well known.