He confirms and shows again the same thing more clearly, He will be at rest (or silent) in his love. The proper meaning of חרש, charesh, is to be silent, but it means here to be at rest. The import is, that God will be satisfied, as we say in French, Il prendra tout son contentement; as though he had said that God wished nothing more than sweetly and quietly to cherish his Church. As I have already said, this feeling is indeed ascribed to God with no strict correctness; for we know that he can instantly accomplish whatever it pleases him: but he assumes the character of men; for except he thus speaks familiarly with us, he cannot fully show how much he loves us. God then shall be at rest in his love; that is, “It will be his great delight, it will be the chief pleasure of thy God when he cherishes thee: as when one cherishes a wife most dear to him, so God will then rest in his love.” He then says, He will exult over thee with joy This is a very remarkable passage. Perhaps the more literal version would be the following,— 16. In that day he will say to Jerusalem, “Fear thou not; Sion! relaxed let not thy hands be: 17. He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will renew thee in his love, He will exult over thee with acclamation.” The verb [יאמר] is rendered as above by the Septuagint, ερει, meaning the Lord. The last line but one is according to the Septuagint and the Syriac; and this sense has been adopted by Houbigant, Dathius, and Newcome. There is the difference only of one letter, [ד] for [ר], which are very alike. The law of parallelism is in favor of this meaning. The verse contains four lines: there is an evident correspondence of meaning in the second and the last line; and so there is between the first and the third according to the preceding version, but not otherwise. The word rendered “acclamation” is a noun from the verb [רכה], to cry aloud, used at the beginning of verse 14.—Ed.