Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 65:9

9 And I will bring a seed out of Jacob , and out of Judah , an inheritor of my mountains g: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.

No seed beareth a proportion to the tree, or plant that it produceth, but in comparison with that is very little, yet it is enough through the vertue which the God of nature hath put into it, to preserve and uphold the species to which it doth relate. They are but a remnant (saith God) that shall be saved, see Rom. 11. 5. but a small number that shall come out of the Captivity of Babylon, or (which I rather chuse) they will be but a few that shall believe in my Son, yet they shall be enough for my promise to live in; this, Paul argueth, Rom. 11. as the plant yet lives in the seed, when the root is pluckt up, the leaves dropt off, and the Stalk is burnt up, so the promise of God lives in a few, when the generality of a people for their sins are cast off and destroyed. The favour of God to men, and the promise of God to good men, lived in one family of Lot, when the five Cities were burned, and in the one family of Noah, when the world was drowned, the favour and promise of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Iacob, and David, lived in the few that returned out of Babylon, and in those few who under the Gospel received Christ, and believed in him, though the generality of them rejected the counsel of God against themselves.

God further promiseth to bring out of Iudah an inheritor of his Mountains, which the most, and best interpreters do interpret of the Jews return o[illegible: 1+ letters]t of the Captivity of Babylon to Hierusalem, and into their own Country, and particularly to worship God in his Temple, upon Mount Sion, the Country of Iudea was a Mountainous Country, Ezek. 36. 1. 8. The Mountains were round about Hierusalem, Psal. 125. 2. See also Ezekiel 38. 8. God calls these Mountains his Mountains, because he had chosen that Country before all others, and was once truly worshipped there.

Mine Elect signifieth here Gods chosen Ones, as in Psal. 106. 23. ch. 48. 10. The term doth not always signify such as belong to the Election of Grace, but such as are dignified with some special favour. The whole Nation of the Jews are called a chosen people. But possibly this promise is to be interpreted, with relation to the sincerer part of that people, after that the others should be wasted by the Captivity.