John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 61:4

"And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." — Isaiah 61:4 (ASV)

And they shall build the deserts of the age. He goes on to describe more fully that restoration of the Church, primarily so that the Jews may have confident hope of deliverance, because those promises appeared completely incredible. This is why he describes the benefit of redemption with such extensive and magnificent terms.

It is a mistake to suppose that these words, “the age” and “many ages,” refer to a future period, as if he had said that the building he speaks of will be firm and permanent. The Prophet's meaning was very different, for he shows (as I have explained elsewhere) that the long-continued ruins of the city will not prevent it from rising anew.

When the inhabitants of any city, scattered in all directions, have been absent for a very long time, there can be no hope of rebuilding it, just as no one today gives any thought to rebuilding Athens. Thus, when the Jews had been banished to a distant country, and Jerusalem had been forsaken for seventy years, who would have hoped that it would be rebuilt by its own citizens?

For this reason, Isaiah uses the terms “deserts of the age, ancient wildernesses, cities of desolation, wildernesses of many ages,” to show that all this cannot prevent the Lord from restoring the city to be inhabited by His elect at the proper time.

Yet these statements should also be applied to our time. Even if the Lord allows His Church, after it has fallen, to lie in ruins for a long time, and even if no hope of rebuilding it remains, we should still take heart from these promises.

For it is God’s special work to raise up and renew what was previously destroyed and seemed destined for eternal decay. We have, however, previously discussed these matters in the fifty-eighth chapter.