And he said to me: These waters that issue forth toward the hillocks of sand to the east, and go down to the plains of the desert, shall go into the sea, and shall go out, and the waters shall be healed.

“to the...frontier [Heb. הֳגְלִילָה,] la marche, frontier (province). the eastern [Heb. הַקַּדְמוֹנָה,] the eastern. Our Rabbis taught in the Tosefta of Succah (3:3): Where do they flow? To the Sea of Tiberias (Kinnereth), the Sea of Sodom (Dead Sea), and to the Great Sea, to heal their salty waters and to sweeten them. [“Will descend upon the plain”] this is the Sea of Tiberias. [“And come to the sea”] this is the Sea of Sodom. to the sea that is brought out This is the אוֹקיַינוּס ocean, which is brought out from civilization to encompass the world. And [it will come] to heal the waters of their saltiness. The Midrash Aggadah [says] Yerushalmi Shekalim (6:2): Why does he call them הַמוּצָאִים (in the plural)? Because of the two times that they went out.”

“Then said he unto me,.... The man that measured the waters spoke to the prophet again, and showed him the course of the waters; the quickening and healing virtue of them, and the multitude of fish in them: these waters issue out toward the east country; the Gospel was first preached in the eastern parts of the world; See Gill on Eze 47:3, or "towards the first, or east Galilee" (f); in Galilee Christ began to preach, and wrought his first miracle; here he called his disciples, and chiefly conversed; and here he had the greatest followers, and some of the first Christian churches were formed here after his ascension, Mat 4:12, and go down into the desert; or wilderness, the wilderness of the people, the Gentiles; to whom the Gospel was carried when rejected by the Jews, and who before were like a desert, but now became as a fruitful field, Isa 35:1. The Jews (g) interpret this of the plain, or the sea of Galilee or Tiberius, at which Christ called his disciples; near to this he delivered his discourses concerning himself, the bread of life, and eating his flesh, and drinking his blood; here he met with his disciples after his resurrection, and enjoined Peter to feed his sheep and lambs; see Mat 4:18, and go into the sea; the Dead sea, or sea of Sodom, the lake Asphaltites, where nothing is said to live; an emblem of dead sinners; and may represent the worst of sinners, as the Sodomites were; and to such the Gospel was sent, and became effectual to salvation: or it may rather design the great ocean, and may signify the whole world, and all the nations of it, to which the Gospel, by the commission of Christ, was to be preached; see Dan 7:2. The Targum is, "and go through the sea into the great sea;'' it may be rendered, "and go toward the west" (h); the Mediterranean sea being to the west of Judea, it is often put for the west; and so the sense may be, that these waters should flow east and west, as the living waters in Zac 14:8, the same with those, are said to do; and all the Jewish writers think there is such a division of the waters intended, and that they had two streams or rivers; which may receive some confirmation from the next verse, where the word for rivers is of the dual number, and signifies two rivers. The sense of the whole is, that the Gospel should be first preached in Judea and Galilee; then among the Gentiles throughout the Roman empire; and in the latter day especially throughout the world, when it shall be covered with it as the waters cover the sea, Isa 11:9, which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed; that is, which waters of the river being directed and brought into, either the Dead sea, or the great ocean, the waters of the one, or of the other, were healed; and of bituminous and bitter waters were made clear, sweet, and wholesome; and signify the change made in sinful men by means of the Gospel, who are thereby quickened, made partakers of the grace of God, and have their sins pardoned, which is often meant by healing in Scripture, Psa 103:2, pardon of sin flows from the love and grace of God; is the great doctrine of the Gospel, and by which the Lord speaks peace and pardon, and communicates healing of all spiritual diseases to sinners sensible of them; see Psa 107:20. (f) "in Galileam prinam", Junius & Tremellius; "ad Galileam anteriorem", Cocceius, Piscator, Starckius; "Galileam orientalem", Munster; so some in Vatablus, Tigurine version; so the Targum. (g) Tosaphta Succa in Jarchi & Kimchi in loc.; so in Ben Melec. (h) .”

“The. Hebrew, “the east country,” (Protestants; Haydock) or “the frontiers ( Gelilah ) eastward,” by which some improperly suppose that one rivulet went to the sea of Galilee. — And shall. Hebrew, “the sea of the going out,” where the Jordan River empties itself into the Dead Sea; or, the second rivulet ran into the Mediterranean, Zacharias xiv. 8. But this passage relates to the Dead Sea alone, (ver. 18.) and Gelilah is a place near it, where the Israelites erected an altar of union, Josue xxii. 10. (Calmet) — Healed. No fish can live in the sea of Sodom. (Solin xxxviii.) — Yet, let the place be ever so noxious, this water shall cure it; (see 4 Kings ii. 19.; Calmet) which must be taken in a mystical sense. (Haydock)”

“the desert--or "plain," Hebrew, Arabah (Deu 3:17; Deu 4:49; Jos 3:16), which is the name still given to the valley of the Jordan and the plain south of the Dead Sea, and extending to the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea. the sea--the Dead Sea. "The sea" noted as covering with its waters the guilty cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. In its bituminous waters no vegetable or animal life is said to be found. But now death is to give place to life in Judea, and throughout the world, as symbolized by the healing of these death-pervaded waters covering the doomed cities. Compare as to "the sea" in general, regarded as a symbol of the troubled powers of nature, disordered by the fall, henceforth to rage no more, Rev 21:1.”