When thy sisters, Sodom, and her daughters, shall return to their former estate,.... The Jews, as Jerom says, are of opinion, that in the days of their vainly expected Messiah Sodom will be restored to its ancient state, and be as the garden of God, and as the land of Egypt; and Jarchi interprets the bringing again the captivity of Sodom, in Eze 16:53; by the Lord's healing the land of brimstone and salt, and placing inhabitants in it; and it is asserted by the Jews that Sodom and Gomorrah shall be rebuilt in future times, in the times of the Messiah, according to the sense of this passage: but this is not to be understood in a literal sense, of the rebuilding of Sodom and cities adjacent, and of restoring them to their former fruitfulness and fertility, and of the inhabitants to their former prosperity, and much less to their former state of wickedness; but spiritually, of the conversion of Gentile sinners to their ancient and happy estate in Christ:and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; to the knowledge of the Messiah, and the pure worship of God:then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate; the conversion of Judah, and of Israel or the ten tribes, here meant by Samaria, is frequently prophesied of, as what will be at the same time, Jer 23:6.
Shemot Rabba, sect. 15. fol. 101.