John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 51:19

"These two things are befallen thee, who shall bemoan thee? desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; how shall I comfort thee?" — Isaiah 51:19 (ASV)

These two things have happened to you. Nearly the same thing was already asserted concerning Babylon,

These two things shall befall you suddenly in one day, childlessness and widowhood (Isaiah 47:9).

But here Isaiah promises the Church that there will eventually be a different outcome, for the Lord will rescue her from the deepest abyss. He threatens extreme wretchedness so that believers may gird themselves for patience and not cease to send up prayers and supplications from the depth of their distresses.

The general meaning is that the Church will be burdened with afflictions of every kind, so that she will appear to be on the brink of utter ruin; because from without she will endure very heavy calamities, and from within will obtain no aid or sympathy from her own children.

These are two very severe evils which the Prophet relates. But it appears as if the division is not quite appropriate; for, after having related one evil—that there is none to bewail her,—he enumerates four kinds—

Desolation and destruction, and the sword and famine.

Some explain this to mean that the Church is visited by famine within and harassed by enemies without. But I interpret it differently, as I have already hinted.

For it is very customary among Hebrew writers to pose a question when they wish absolutely to deny something; and among them, this is an elegant practice, though in Greek or Latin authors it would be considered ungraceful.

Isaiah therefore describes “two evils”: one external, for by both the devastations of “war” and by “famine” they will be brought to the verge of “destruction” and “desolation” (which he describes by these four classes); and another internal, because she is deprived of consolation, and “there is none to bewail her.”

By posing the question, “Who shall bewail her?” he affirms that she will have no consolation; and this verse agrees with the former, in which we have already explained the Prophet's purpose in describing this highly calamitous and wretched condition of the Church.