Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice,.... The eastern part of the world, Arabia Deserta, and the inhabitants of the cities which were in it:the villages that Kedar doth inhabit; or the "courts" , or tents, the Kedarenes inhabited, who were Arabians, and dwelt in tents, which they pitched here and there, for the convenience of their flocks; and so the Targum,"the Arabians that inhabit the wilderness shall praise:''let the inhabitants of the rock sing: or of Petra, which Jerom says was a city of Palestine.
It was the metropolis of Arabia Petraea, which whole country may be here meant, and the inhabitants of it, who had reason to sing for joy, when the Gospel was preached unto them; as it was by the Apostle Paul in Arabia, Ga 1:17:let them shout from the top of the mountains; the wild, savage, and barbarous people that dwell there, but now become civilized, as well as evangelized, by the Gospel; or the messengers and ministers of the word, whose feet on those mountains were beautiful, bringing the good tidings of peace and salvation by Christ.
The Targum interprets this of the resurrection of the dead,"the dead, when they shall go out of the house of their world, from the tops of the mountains shall lift up their voice .'' Myrux "atria", Montanus; "tentoria", Grotius.