The Lord shall comfort Zion (comp. Isaiah 40:1; Isaiah 49:3; Isaiah 51:12; Isaiah 52:9, etc.). Literally, the word used is has comforted; i.e. has so determined the matter in his counsels that it may be considered as already accomplished.
Her waste places … her wilderness … her desert. Though Nebuchadnezzar "left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen" (2 Kings 25:12; Jeremiah 52:16), yet the population was not sufficient to maintain cultivation generally.
Thus, much of Judaea, during the absence of the exiles, became a "wilderness" and a "desert" (see Ezekiel 36:34). Like Eden … like the garden of the Lord. The Prophet Joel compares Judaea before its desolation to "the garden of Eden" (Joel 2:3): and Ezekiel, like Isaiah, prophesies that it shall once more become "like the garden of Eden," when the exiles have returned to it (Ezekiel 37:1-28:35).
With the last-named writer, Eden represents all that is glorious, not in nature only, but in art (Ezekiel 28:13; Ezekiel 31:8, Ezekiel 31:9, Ezekiel 31:16, Ezekiel 31:18). The voice of melody (comp. Isaiah 35:10, and infra, verse 11).
As music ceases out of the land in time of affliction (Isaiah 24:8), so when a "time of refreshing from the Lord" arrives, there is at once singing and "melody" (comp. Revelation 5:8; Revelation 14:2; Revelation 15:2).