What is the context?
The warning against Babylon is followed by a promise of compassion for Jacob. The Lord will choose Israel again and settle the people in their own land. Foreigners will join them, and the nations will help bring them home.
The reversal includes hard language about service and captivity: Israel will possess servants and make captives of those who had held them captive. The focus is the overturning of the relationship between an oppressed people and their oppressors.
These verses introduce the rest from pain and forced labor described in verse 3. Babylon’s loss of power means more than the fall of a ruler; it opens the way for the people he oppressed to return.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Gill understands the first setting as Israel’s return from captivity, with foreigners joining the restored community. He also sees a wider application to Gentiles joining believing Jews in the people gathered through the gospel.
Wesley likewise distinguishes a historical reversal from a fuller spiritual application in the gospel’s spread. Henry emphasizes God’s mercy in restoring His people and urges the church to receive those whom God receives. These applications extend the passage toward the gathered people of God; they do not all work out the details of the reversal in the same way.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.