I have blotted out … thy sins (comp. Isaiah 43:25). The promise there made is here represented as having its fulfilment. Before God reverses his sentence and restores his people, he must first forgive them.
As a thick cloud … as a cloud. It would be better to translate, as a cloud … as a thick cloud. The latter of the two Hebrew words used is the more emphatic. Return unto me. This is an underlying condition, both of restoration and of forgiveness.
Only the penitent can be received back into favour. The knowledge, however, that God has, in Iris counsels, "redeemed" his people generally, may act as a stimulus on individuals to repent and turn to him.