Deeper Commentary
Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of Yahweh is risen upon you-
This prophecy of the arising of Zion's light out of darkness follows right on from the confession of the penitent that they would so love this, but it seemed unattainable because of their sins. See on Is. 59:9 ("we look for light, but behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity"). "Is come" is rendered by the Jewish rabbi Ibn Ezra: "Your light has set", citing a similar construction in Gen. 28:11. This means the idea is that their natural light would disappear and be replaced by the light of God's glory. Hence :19 "The sun shall be no more your light by day". Is. 51:17; 52:2 had called upon the drunk, depressed Zion to awaken herself and arise: "shake yourself from the dust and arise". Now that call is repeated. To awaken and make arise such a hopeless case... is again the work of the Spirit. See on Is. 61:1, where again the psychologically incurable is cured.
LXX "Be enlightened, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee". We could read this as the exiles having to respond to the light that had come near them. They didn't, they refused to be enlightened, and so the light didn't arise within the rebuilt temple as intended. Instead Zion’s light was reapplied to the Lord Jesus both in His ministry and His return to earth. He was the sunrise ["the dayspring from on high"] at His first coming (Lk. 1:78) and the arising sun of righteousness at His second coming (Mal. 4:2). He was "the light of the world", but in John's Gospel, the "world" is often the Jewish world. The literal visible shekinah glory could have arisen upon Zion. But it was precluded by the Jews' refusal. And so it was applied to the arising of the Lord Jesus at His first coming. He was again the light that shone in gross darkness, but failed to dissipate that darkness for all Israel: "This light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot understand it" (Jn. 1:5). And so He will arise ultimately as the literal light of the world at His return.
The idea is that Zion's faces would be enlightened [LXX "be enlightened"] in reflection of the glorious light rising upon them. This is the picture of Is. 58:8,10 where if the exiles repented, "Then your light shall break forth as the morning... your light shall rise in darkness". The dawn of God's glory would be seen in them, they would be a reflection of how the light of God's glory would arise in the darkness of the Gentile world. This would be through the "Servant" being the light of the world, and those in Him likewise being that light (Is. 42:6; 49:6). The literal possibility of this was in the shekinah glory returning to Zion as spoken of in Ez. 40-48; particularly in Ez. 43:2,4 where the glory enters the temple gates and the whole earth shines from it, as if it is so bright and transformative that it makes even the dust of the earth [which man is made of] to shine in reflection of it: "and the earth shined with his glory". This was precluded by Judah's disbelief and disobedience. They looked for light but were still in the darkness (Is. 59:9 "we look for light, but behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity"). The possibility was and is that their faces shone with the shining light of God's glory: "Then you shall see and be radiant" (:5). But it comes gloriously true in the dust of human believers today, in hearts of believers transformed by the spirit of the Lord Jesus: "But we, with an unveiled face and reflecting the glory of the Lord, are all transformed into his likeness from glory to glory by the Lord the Spirit... God that said: Light shall shine out of darkness, He shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6). And so :19,20 conclude that eternally, Zion's light is God's light, "Your sun shall no more go down... for Yahweh shall be your everlasting light". This is more than reflection; it is the light of God's glory being the personal light of Zion. They too become radiators of the light: "Then you shall see and be radiant" (:5). The light sources merge. Our lives now must be all about shining forth the light of God's glory, His characteristics, His Name, into the darkness. For this is what we shall eternally do. We "shine as lights in the [darkness of this] world" (Phil. 2:15), the only points of light.
Ezekiel's restoration prophecies in Ez. 40-48 had spoken of Yahweh's glory coming to Zion- if Israel were obedient and built. Is. 60 presents the picture of that glory having arrived, just as Is. 40 begins the prophecy with the picture of God's glory leaving Babylon and travelling to Zion. But that depended upon the way for that glory being prepared, and it was not, in that Israel didn't repent. Yet God was apparently prepared to send His glory to Zion anyway, despite the disobedience to the commands to rebuild the temple. Such was His enthusiasm to make it work. The same enthusiasm we see in His constant coaxing of men to leave Babylon and come to Zion.
Even before the exile, Israel and Judah had been invited to perceive that light, hence Is. 9:2 LXX "O people walking in darkness, behold a great light". But they didn't. And so the returned exiles, "Zion", are asked at a later stage to arise and shine because their light had come (Is. 60:1). But again they didn't, and so these prophecies of a light coming are reapplied to the Lord Jesus, who was perceived by a new Zion as the light of the world. I explained on Is. 30:26 how the coming of Zion's supernaturally bright light is to come therefore when Babylon falls; and this has therefore been deferred to the latter day fall of Babylon.
"Arise" is the word used often of the 'rising up' of the exiles to rebuild Jerusalem (Ezra 1:5; 3:2; 9:5; Neh. 2:18; 3:1). This was a fulfilment of the command to "Arise... Jerusalem!" (Is. 51:17; 52:2; 61:4). But this 'arising' was to be associated with the dawning of Zion's light in the form of Yahweh's glory literally dwelling over Zion (Is. 60:1). This didn't happen at the time, because the appearance of 'arising' by the exiles was only external and wasn't matched by a spiritual revival.
Let’s remember that the exiles were symbols of us. We in this life are
passing through “the time of our exile” (1 Pet. 1:17 RSV). The restoration
command to the exiles in Babylon to arise and shine, as their light had
come (Is. 60:1) went unheeded by them; they preferred to stay in Babylon.
And so this is reapplied to us as the new Israel in Eph. 5:14.
The LXX suggests that the coming of this light of Zion depended upon their
being willing to accept it: "Be enlightened, be enlightened, O Jerusalem,
for thy light is come".
Isaiah 60:2 For behold, darkness shall cover the land, and gross darkness
the peoples; but Yahweh will arise on you, and His glory shall be seen on
you- As always, the blessing of
Judah is to be for the blessing of the nations. Their light was to impact
the gross darkness of the Gentile world. We are called to mission, for our
very experience of God's light is so that we may not just rejoice in it
ourselves, but by its nature, light dissipates darkness. And the darkness
is the state of the Gentile world. But light rises upon the new Zion, the
true people of God. The Jewish exiles were still in darkness, because they
were of the spirit of Babylon still. They had to repent and confess that
they had been looking “for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but
we walk in deep shadows” (Is. 59:9). If they had done this, then
Yahweh's glory would have visibly been seen above Zion.
The darkness contrasts with the light which dawns mentally, internally, in minds which have desired to be enlightened (:1 LXX). Darkness covering the earth is the language of Gen. 1; we as the readers / audience are left in expectation of a new creation being spoken about. But we are also given the impression that Israel was being treated as Egypt whom they trusted in, suffering the plague of darkness. But 'covering with darkness' is a phrase only used elsewhere of death (Job 23:17; Ecc. 6:4). It was through death and judgment that the new life and creation could come forth. The land, of Israel, and "the peoples" (Gentiles) are paralleled here; for it was the Divine intention that the judgments upon the surrounding world would also be those upon Israel, and yet out of that was to emerge a repentant remnant of Jews and Gentiles who would merge into a new multiethnic people of God in the day when Yahweh would arise in glory. In a literal sense there was to be the light of God's glory in Zion when He personally dwelt there.
Isaiah 60:3 Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness
of your rising-
Isaiah 60:1-3 reasons that Zion's light was soon to come, but Judah were
to reflect that light as if it had already come; in the same way as God's
light was to rise, so Judah were to arise as if they were that light. The
message is that they were to believe that the Messianic light of the world
was to arise soon, and were to act as if that time had already come; they
were called to live the Kingdom now life, to showcase God's Kingdom to the
world. In this sense, Zion's sons are described as coming from all parts
of their dispersion and being about to come to Zion; and yet they are
described as having already "come" (Is. 60:4). The mixing of the tenses,
present and future, is to suggest that they were to believe that this
would happen
and to act now as if it was already happening. "You shall see and be
lightened" (Is. 60:5 RV)- and yet they were to act as if their light had
in fact already come (Is. 60:1). Yet Judah sadly didn't believe that the
restoration prophecies would come to pass, and so they didn't act as if
they would come true. Instead of being a light to the world, they accepted
the Gentile darkness instead of God's light. Mazdak, the Persian god of
light, effectively became their god, instead of Yahweh.
The image is of Jerusalem as the sun ["your sunrising"], the centre of a solar system in which the other nations flowed to her, bringing tribute. This is all a deconstruction of how Persia saw herself, as shown in the uncovered reliefs. The problem was that the ease of life in Babylon had led the Jewish exiles to prefer to remain there, rather than giving it all up for life in the ruins of a peripheral, marginalized Jerusalem. The Persians had made Mizpeh and not Jerusalem the administrative capital of Yehud [their name for Judah]. Jerusalem was marginalized. But the exiles were being shown by these prophecies that Babylon or Persepolis in fact was not the sun at the centre of a solar system of Babylonian or Persian empire. A new order was to be established, with the once peripheral, marginalized Jerusalem at the centre, and the nations with their tribute flowing to her. The Gospel of the Kingdom of God is likewise a total, radical reversal of the 'gospel' of this world. Archaeological evidence, especially from Persepolis, reveals that the Persian kings portrayed themselves as sun disks, with nations and kings streaming to them bearing tribute. This image is in turn deconstructed by the Biblical prophecies of the nations willingly and eagerly submitting to the Messianic king, and eagerly bringing tribute offered from the heart and not simply because they have been defeated. Nations and kings would instead freely choose to flow to Jerusalem (:3).
Isaiah 60:4 Lift up your eyes all around, and see: they all gather
themselves together, they come to you- "Lift up your eyes"
suggests a dejected Zion, looking at the ground, unwilling to see her
great future potential. The 'coming / assembling' and
'drawing near / gathering' of the exiles (s.w. Is. 43:5) would have been
primarily fulfilled at the restoration (same words in Neh. 1:9). But most
of the exiles remained in the lands of their captivity, just as people
resist the Gospel's call today. They had to themselves bring and gather
themselves (Is. 45:20; 49:18; 60:4), so that God would confirm this by
bringing and gathering them (Is. 43:5; Jer. 31:8; Ez. 34:13; 36:24; 37:21;
Zech. 10:10). See on Is. 56:8. And so today with all who wish to be in God's Kingdom; our
desire to be there and first moves towards it will be confirmed many times
over by God's work through His Spirit.
Your sons shall come from far, and
your daughters shall be carried in the arms- Literally "shall
be nursed on the side", i.e. carried on the hip, the Eastern way of
carrying young children. See on :3. The LXX
suggests it would be as a result of the children born in exile returning
along with the repentant Gentiles of the lands of their captivities: "lift
up thine eyes round about, and behold thy children gathered: all thy sons
have come from far, and thy daughters shall be borne on men's shoulders".
This is a commonly expressed prophetic vision. It didn't however come
about, and the essence of it has therefore been delayed and reapplied. The later
feeding miracle occurred on the other side of Galilee to Magdala (Mt.
15:39), suggesting the miracle occurred in Gentile territory, with people
present from "far off" (Mk. 8:3; hence the guests "glorified the God
of Israel", Mt. 15:31). Surely there were Gentiles present at that
meal, and the LXX uses this phrase to speak of how Gentiles from "far off"
would come and sit down at the Messianic banquet of the last days (Is.
60:4; Jer. 26:27; 38:10; 46:27).
Isaiah 60:5 Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart shall thrill
and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you-
"You shall see and be lightened" (Is. 60:5 RV). See on :3. "Turned"
is AV "converted", suggesting there would be repentance amongst the
nations of their captivity; see on :4. The nations around Israel were to
repent and bring their presents to them. This began to happen after the
destruction of the Assyrians in Hezekiah's time, but he entered into
covenant with the Gentiles rather than bringing them to the God of Israel,
the light of Zion.
Perhaps Nehemiah was some kind of potential Messiah- for in Neh. 5:17 the
surrounding Gentiles ‘came up’ to him and shared in the luxurious temple
meals (a common Kingdom prophecy- the same Hebrew words are used for the
Gentiles ‘coming up’ to the temple in Is. 60:5,11; Jer. 16:19; Hag. 2:7;
Zech. 8:22). Those meals could have been the Messianic banquets. But
finally at the last day, all these prophecies shall be fulfilled in the
coming of the Lord Jesus, despite all the previous failures in fulfilment.
"Shall thrill" is literally to throb. It is the same idea as in Jer. 33:9, where the new covenant would result in the same feeling for the Gentiles as they entered the covenant: "they shall fear and tremble [throb] for all the good and for all the peace that I procure". This was the possibility for the Jewish exiles had they accepted the new covenant. It is possible for us too if we accept it, and is a picture of that glorious day when these things shall become a reality for us, when faith shall be turned to sight. The new covenant offered God's law to be written in human hearts; it is about the transformation of the heart through the gift of the Spirit. The idea of the heart being "enlarged" is found in Ps. 119:32, where David asks for an enlarged heart in the sense of a heart big enough to keep God's commands; to be obedient to His law: "I will run the way of your commandments, for You enlarge my heart". Another way of saying that the law would be written in his heart. Our hearts / minds are now so narrow, we are all naturally small minded, tending to focus simply on the immediate; the gift of the Spirit changes our hearts to a far wider spiritual horizon. Paul has this image in view in 2 Cor. 6:11-13, where the Corinthians were being small minded and not seeing the bigger spiritual picture: "O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also". Spiritual maturity, not being children, involves having a wider heart and removing the limitations and restrictions that the flesh places upon us.
Isaiah 60:6 The multitude of camels shall cover you, the dromedaries of
Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and
frankincense, and shall proclaim the praises of Yahweh- The gold and
frankincense brought from the east recalls the gifts of the wise men to
the infant Jesus. The conversion of the Gentiles [proclaiming the praise
of Yahweh] which was possible at the
restoration didn't happen, and so it was reapplied and reinterpreted. They
would proclaim Yahweh's praise just as the Israelites themselves would
(Is. 63:7) because the Gentiles would now identify themselves with the
Israelites in forming the new multiethnic people of God which was to be
formed on the basis of repentance and acceptance of the new covenant.
This giving of tribute was not forced;
it was not the subjugated having to give up all they had as spoil. They
willingly give this as a proclamation of their praise of Yahweh; the
flocks they bring are in order to offer freewill sacrifices to Yahweh (:7)
because they have from the heart accepted Him as their God. This is a
deconstruction of the common idea of tribute payments after a change of king.
Isaiah 60:7 All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together to you, the
rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you- Kedar and Nebaioth were sons
of Ishmael. The idea may be that finally the Jew - Arab conflict within
the family of Abraham is resolved, and they too come to offer sacrifice to
Israel's God.
They shall come up with acceptance
on My altar; and I will glorify the house of My glory- Is. 60:7
prophesied that God would “glorify the house of my
glory”, LXX "my house of prayer shall be glorified". But this was in fact a conditional prophecy, capable of fulfilment
through the freewill efforts of the returning exiles. For they were
empowered by Artaxerxes “to beautify [s.w. “glorify”] the house
of the Lord” (Ezra 7:27). All their efforts to glorify / beautify the
house, therefore, would have had God’s special and powerful blessing
behind them. But was the house ultimately glorified? No- for Israel would
not. They got sidetracked by beautifying their own homes, building “cieled
houses” for themselves (Hag. 1:4). The word for “cieled” occurs in 1 Kings
6:9; 7:3,7 to describe the roofing of the first temple- which they were to
be rebuilding, rather than building their own houses. The glory would have
entered the house of God’s glory as it did at the inauguration of the
first temple (2 Chron. 7:1-3). Ezekiel prophesied that ultimately the
glory would fill the temple as it had done then (Ez. 43:4,5). But God’s
prophesy of this in Is. 60:7, that He would glorify His house, meant that
He was prepared to work through men to glorify it. The fulfilment of
Ezekiel’s vision of the cloud of glory entering the temple again could
have been fulfilled if the exiles had done what Artaxerxes empowered them
to do- to glorify the house of glory. And so the fulfilment was delayed.
The glory of the temple the exiles built was tragically less than the
glory of the first temple; and so it would only be in the last day of
Messiah’s second coming that the house shall truly be filled with glory
(Hag. 2:3,7,9). And the lesson ought to be clear for us, in the various
projects and callings of our lives: it becomes crucial for us to discern
God’s specific purposes for us, and insofar as we follow His leading, we
will feel a blessing and power which is clearly Divine.
Isaiah 60:8 Who are these who fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their
windows?- This may be descriptive of the sails of the ships
bringing Zion's children home. The reference is to the exiles returning to Judah along with
the repentant Gentiles. LXX "Who are these that fly as clouds, and as
doves with young ones to me?"; GNB "What are these ships that skim along
like clouds, Like doves returning home?". Perhaps in view is the dove
returning to Noah's window once the flood of Divine judgment receded.
Isaiah 60:9 Surely the islands shall wait for Me, and the ships of
Tarshish first, to bring your sons from far- No specific location may
be in view, as "ships of Tarshish" was a phrase used like "an Indiaman"
was once used to refer to a long distance trading vessel. Thus GNB "They
are ships coming from distant lands, bringing God's people home". The text
can also read "the ships of Tarshish as at the first", referring
to how they brought gold and silver in the days of Solomon and the earlier
kingdom of God which was now to be restored. There is another such
allusion to Solomon's times in :13.
Their silver and their gold with them, for the name of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He has glorified you- The Gentiles will be converted because of how God had saved and glorified His sinful people; for these Gentiles had been host nations for the Jewish exiles and were well aware of their sins. It is God's grace to sinners which is observed by others and causes them to turn to Him- and this is always the most powerful tool in the work of conversion, rather than advertising theological, abstract truths and expecting the general public to fall down in amazement before them. It is this grace to Israel which is at the core of Yahweh's Name. The nations will be deeply impressed by God's amazing grace to Israel and will come to their wonderful God. This verse isn't saying that they will come to as it were congratulate the Jews and the state of Israel.
Isaiah 60:10 Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall
minister to you-
It
could be that their refusal of Gentile help to build the temple, insisting
that
only Jews work in it (Ezra 4:3 cp.
Neh. 2:20), was actually going too far; by being so exclusive, they were
disallowing the fulfilment of the prophecies both in Zech. 6 and in
Isaiah, that Gentiles would help in the final rebuilding of Zion. As with
some of us, their quite correct refusal to allow “the adversaries of
Judah” (Ezra 4:1) to fellowship with us in the work can lead us to an
exclusive approach to fellowship, that actually disallows the essentially
outgoing and inclusive spirit of the God we serve. The Jews returned from
Babylonian having swung to the opposite extreme from their earlier
worldliness; they returned proud and refusing contact with the Gentile
world, considering themselves saved by their own strength. And this is
perhaps reflected in the way they refused on principle to allow any
Gentiles to help them in the building work. Is. 60:10,11 had foretold:
“And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall
minister unto thee [as in the decree of Cyrus]...Therefore thy gates shall
be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night”; and them as
Ez. 43 had also described, “I will glorify the house of my glory” (Is.
60:7).
The reality was that the walls were built from a motive not of glorifying Zion in fulfilment of prophecy, but for defence against the Gentiles. But the gates had to be shut to keep the Gentiles out (Neh. 13:19), lest they yet further corrupted the Jews who were eager to trade with them on the Sabbath rather than convert them to the God of Israel. Instead of bringing their goods through the gates to lay before Yahweh, they brought in their goods to sell to His people in trade. But returned Judah didn’t act as a nation of priests, the food the Gentiles brought in to Zion was to be sold for profit to the Jews. They failed to be a missionary nation, and rather were mere trading / economic partners on an equal footing [cp. the church today?]. The prophecy that the gates would be always open will now only come true in the future Kingdom of God on earth (Rev. 21:25,26).
For in My wrath I struck you, but in My grace have I had mercy on you- As explained on :9, the Gentiles will be converted because ["for in My wrath..."] of how God had saved and glorified His sinful, condemned people by grace; for these Gentiles had been host nations for the Jewish exiles and were well aware of their sins. It is God's grace to sinners which is observed by others and causes them to turn to Him- and this is always the most powerful tool in the work of conversion, rather than advertising theological, abstract truths and expecting the general public to fall down in amazement before them.
God had struck them, they had not repented as planned- and so by grace He has mercy on them. That's the idea. Earlier in Isaiah there has been the lament that "the people turn not unto Him that strikes / smote them [s.w.], they do not seek Yahweh" (Is. 9:13). The implication is that they have not turned to Yahweh and experience His grace. The intention of the striking / smiting was that the people repented: "Come let us return unto Yahweh... for He has smitten, and He will bind up" (Hos. 6:1). But the people didn't return / repent. "I have smitten you... yet you have not returned / repented unto Me" (Am. 4:9). This is specifically stated as true of the exiles who returned to Judah: "I smote / struck you with blasting and mildew... yet you turned / repented not to me" (Hag. 2:17). What was God to do? It's not simply that the Divine smiting of His people ceased if they repented. That hadn't worked: "In vain have I smitten your children [s.w.], but they received no correction" (Jer. 2:30); "You have stricken them, but they have not grieved" (Jer. 5:3). Because of this, the prophecies came true that said Yahweh would smite His people without pity (Ez. 7:9; 9:5,7). When Ezekiel saw this in vision, he begged God to somehow cease from this, lest God's people cease to exist (Ez. 9:8). That prayer was answered, in that Yahweh still sought a way to end the smiting and to save them. We may therefore reflect how this word for "struck" is used of the suffering servant, who "gave my back to the smiters" (s.w., Is. 50:6), "they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek" (Mic. 5:1), so that He was considered "smitten / struck by God" (Is. 53:4). His suffering servant, the Lord Jesus on the cross, took that striking / smiting for them. So that by simple identification with Him, they might be saved from that Divine punishment. For He had taken it. This all explains God says here in :9 that God has struck them, but by grace will have mercy upon them. The grace was in the fact that they had not repented at the 'striking' as intended; but He did not strike them His people to total destruction as He had planned. By grace He saved them, through the work of His Son.
Isaiah 60:11 Your gates also shall be open continually; they shall not be
shut day nor night; that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations,
and their kings led captive-
AV
"Therefore your gates...". The “therefore” connects with the preceding
verse, as if the gates would always be open in order to constantly welcome
repentant Gentiles. When the city and temple were rebuilt, Gentiles would
come and feed Israel’s flocks and name them all “the priests of the Lord”
and bring them food to eat in tribute (Is. 61:4-6). And yet Nehemiah had
to close the gates of Jerusalem to stop Sabbath trading, thereby
precluding the fulfilment of this prophecy at the time. The prophecy will
therefore come to final fulfilment in the new Jerusalem to be established
at the Lord's return (Rev. 21:25). Although clearly the fulfilment may not
be strictly literal, but will be a reinterpretation and reapplication of
these words which initially could have had a literal fulfilment at the
restoration.
Isaiah 60:12 For that nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall
perish; yes, those nations shall be utterly wasted- Connecting with
:11 ["for..."], the nations of the land would either perish, or enter into
the open gates of Zion in covenant relationship with Yahweh. Thus a
situation would come about whereby the earth was only populated by those
in covenant relationship with God. This
again is a reversal of how things were under the "light" of the Babylonian
and Persian sun god Mazda. For under that empire, the very same words are
used of how "that nation and kingdom that will not serve you [Babylon]
shall perish" (Jer. 27:8,10). Now Zion was to replace Babylon.
Isaiah 60:13 The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the fir tree, the
pine, and the box tree together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary;
and I will make the place of My feet glorious-
But
Haggai lamented that instead, Judah dwelt in “cieled houses”, they used
the exotic trees of the land for their own homes, whilst the house of
Yahweh lay desolate. Thereby the prophecy of Ez. 43:7 was precluded from
fulfilment: "the place of His throne, the place of the soles of His feet,
where He will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever". The
intention was that the ark would no longer be His footstool (Jer. 3:16;
Ps. 99:5; 132:7; 1 Chron. 28:2), but He Himself would be dwelling in the
temple. The idea was that as cedars had been sent from Lebanon for the
building of the first temple, so they would again; the impression is of a
restored Kingdom of God in Israel as it previously was, but to an even
greater extent. See on :9. The place of Yahweh's feet is His
footstool, and that is the place of worship (Ps. 99:5; 132:7; 1 Chron.
28:2). In that worship will be God's glory.
Isaiah 60:14 The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending to
you; and all those who despised you shall bow themselves down at the soles
of your feet; and they shall call you The city of Yahweh, The Zion of the
Holy One of Israel-
This prophecy started to come true after Haman’s demise: “the sons of them
that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that
despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet”. But
Judah didn’t do their part in fulfilling the rest of the prophecy, which
speaks of a rebuilt Zion. The promise that Judah's persecutors would bow
before them was only partially fulfilled in Haman's destruction; the main
fulfilment now awaits the Kingdom, although in a reinterpreted form (Rev. 3:9).
The renaming of the city is like that of Ez. 48:35 "Yahweh is there",
because the idea was that He would literally come and dwell in Zion; the
kingdom of heaven was to be transferred to earth. This wonderful
possibility didn't come about at the restoration because the returned
exiles didn't rebuild the temple and operate it according to the
commandments of Ez. 40-48.
Isaiah 60:15 Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, so that no man
passed through you, I will make you an eternal excellency, a joy of many
generations-
The
hatred was by God as well as man: “I hated them” (Hos. 9:15). This was the
wrath of love unrequited and spurned. God is emotional and speaks in
anger, and truly had these feelings; but the pole of His love is greater
than that of His judgment. We note how God as it were takes the blame for
Israel being "forsaken"; they had forsaken Him (s.w. Is. 1:28), but He
expresses it in terms of Him having forsaken them.
Isaiah 60:16 You shall also drink the milk of the nations, and shall nurse
from royal breasts-
At first blush, this seems a strange change of image; Zion likened to a baby being nursed by foreigners. The implication is that she has been reborn, which may be connected with the idea elsewhere that she is given new names (Is. 61:6; 62:4,11,12). This continues the figure of Is. 49:21: "Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children, and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth? Who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they?’". Children born through another were still reckoned as the wife's children (Gen. 16:1; 30:1). The children of Zion were therefore suckled by the Gentiles (Is. 60:16).
And you shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Saviour and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob- As Hosea ‘redeemed’ Gomer in His attempt to force through His fantasy for her (Hos. 3:1), so Yahweh is repeatedly described in Isaiah as Israel’s go’el, redeemer (Is. 41:14; Is. 43:14; Is. 44:6,24; Is. 47:4; Is. 48:17; Is. 49:7,26; Is. 54:5,8). The redeemer could redeem a close relative from slavery or repurchase property lost during hard times (Lev. 25:25,26, 47-55; Ruth 2:20; Ruth 3:9,12). The redeemer was also the avenger of blood (Num. 35:9-28; Josh. 20:3,9). All these ideas were relevant to Yahweh’s relationship to Judah in captivity. But the promised freedom didn’t come- even under Nehemiah, Judah was still a province within the Persian empire. And those who returned complained: “We are slaves this day in the land you gave…” (Neh. 9:36). The wonderful prophecies of freedom and redemption from slavery weren’t realized in practice, because of the selfishness of the more wealthy Jews. And how often is it that the freedom potentially enabled for those redeemed in Christ is in practice denied them by their autocratic and abusive brethren.
Isaiah 60:17 For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring
silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron-
Possibly the idea is that for the brass taken away from the
temple, the Jews would be repaid as if it had been gold. The generous
provisions of Cyrus may have been an initial fulfilment of this. The
language of Israel’s return from captivity as found in Isaiah and Ezekiel
all has evident reference to the second coming and the final establishment
of the Kingdom. It isn’t just that Israel’s return under Ezra and
Zerubbabel was a type of that final homecoming. It could have been the
Kingdom- had they obeyed the prophecies. It was all about a potential
Kingdom of God. But they were too caught up with their own self-interest,
with building their own houses rather than God’s; and so it was all
deferred. Using the prophetic perfect, God had prophesied that at the time
of the restoration, He would come and dwell in rebuilt Zion (Zech. 8:3)-
just as Ezekiel’s prophecy had concluded: “The name of the city from that
day shall be, Yahweh is there” (Ez. 48:35). Clearly, Ezekiel’s
prophecies could have been fulfilled at the restoration; God was willing
that they should be. But human apathy and self-interest stopped it from
happening as it could have done. When the foundation stone of the temple
was laid, there should have been excited acclamation: “Grace, grace unto
it” (Zech. 4:7). But instead the old men wept when the foundation was
laid, knowing that the temple was nothing compared to what it ought to be
(Ezra 3:12). The glory of the restored temple was prophesied as being far
greater than that of the former (Hag. 2:9); Is. 60:17 alluded to this in
prophesying that “For brass [in Solomon’s temple] I will bring gold, and
for iron [that was in Solomon’s fixtures] I will bring silver, and for
wood brass, and for stones iron”. But it simply didn’t happen, because
God’s people were satisfied with a small, inglorious temple so that they
could get on with building their own “cieled houses” (the same word is
used in describing how the temple of Solomon was “covered”, or cieled,
with cedar). And the old men wept at the fact that the glory of the new
house was
less than
that of the earlier one.
I will also make your officers peace, and righteousness your ruler- "Officers" is the word commonly used for "visitation", in the sense of the enemies of Judah judging and dominating her in the day of her visitation. "Ruler" or AV "exactor" is the word for "taskmaster" and has been used by Isaiah of Judah's dominators and abusers (Is. 9:4; 14:2,4); the reference is to the repentance of Israel's historical abusers and their being given peace with God and imputed righteousness, so that they might also enter covenant with Yahweh along with a repentant Judah. All this was due to the way the Lord Jesus was "oppressed" as Israel's representative (Is. 53:7) and thus became the basis for righteousness to be imputed to all who had been oppressed and had oppressed others. Or the idea may be that instead of a taskmaster or "exactor" forcing tribute and taxation from subject peoples, the Gentiles instead would be motivated by "righteousness" to give all they have freely for God. The experience of peace with God, which usually refers to the peace of sin forgiven, would be instead of "officers", of men enforcing submission and tribute.
Isaiah 60:18 Violence shall no more be heard in your land, desolation nor
destruction within your borders; but you shall call your walls Salvation,
and your gates Praise- "Salvation" is literally "Jesus". But Nehemiah
records how the walls and gates were given very mundane names, connected
to what merchandise was traded there [e.g. fish]. And so they chose not to
make 'Jesus' their wall- and so His coming was deferred or re-interpreted.
Isaiah 60:19 The sun shall be no more your light by day; neither for
brightness shall the moon give light to you: but Yahweh will be to you an
everlasting light, and your God your glory- It seems that
Yahweh
Himself would have dwelt in Zion, the "brightness" of the cherubim would
have returned there (s.w. Ez. 1:4,13) resulting in a visible light which
would have eclipsed the need for light from the sun and moon (Is. 4:5,6,
"shining" is s.w. "brightness"). Such great potentials were wasted. But
these things will come true in the last days and are alluded to in Rev.
21:4 as having literal truth when the Lord Jesus returns. This would be
the fulfilment of the promise to David, that his glorified kingdom would
be as the "brightness" after the rain of judgment (2 Sam. 23:4 s.w.). But
until then these things are reapplied in a spiritual sense to the way the
Lord Jesus, who is the light of God's glory, is to be the light of our
world in which we live, move and understand life. He who has no light can
find "brightness" in Him (s.w. Is. 50:10). This was hinted at even in
Prov. 4:18, where the path of the just is as the "brightness" (s.w.)
shining more and more unto the perfect day.
Isaiah 60:20 Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon
withdraw itself; for Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and the days
of your mourning shall be ended- "The
sun" and "the moon" of :19 were to be replaced in importance by "your
sun...
your
moon". Their relationship with God would never again go down or be
withdrawn. Constancy in relationship with God is one great joy of our
eternal state. This will be what eternity is all about; the sun and moon
may still exist, but such physical things will have no significance
compared to the wonder of constant relationship with God. We need to
remember this when constructing pictures of the future "Kingdom of God" in
purely literal, physical terms. See on :1,19. Sun and moon were not to
be destroyed, but to be replaced in function by the light of Yahweh. Hence
LXX "nor shall the moon be eclipsed". The sun and moon, as in Joseph's
dreams, may refer to the leadership of Israel. They would no longer be
eclipsed by captivity and exile, although they would be replaced in
function.
"Withdraw" is the word for "gather", used of the gathering of Judah into
captivity (Is. 16:10; 17:5; 24:22; 33:4).
These words are quoted as being true of God's future Kingdom on earth
(Rev. 21:4); they were reapplied to a later fulfilment rather than coming
true at the restoration.
The days of mourning refer to the days of exile, as demonstrated by the mourning of the book of Lamentations and Ps. 137:1. But the exiles preferred to stay in exile; and thus precluded the possibility of these words having any primary fulfilment. "Days of mourning" is a phrase used several times for funeral mourning. There would be final comfort over the loss brought about by death- ultimately, through the resurrection of the dead. "The days of mourning" refer to the ritual of mourning for a set number of days. God is saying that the mourning period has now ended. And yet they refused that good news, and continued to mope and deny themselves the joy of relationship with God.
Isaiah 60:21 Your people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit
the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I
may be glorified-
"Your people" means the people of Zion. Zion is now interpreted as God's people, seeing that God's offer to re-create literal Zion as His dwelling place had been spurned by the Jewish exiles and those few who had returned to the land. Literal Zion was the place God had chosen to dwell in (2 Sam. 7:10,11; Ps 132:13; 68:16; 87:2,3). But now His "chosen" place for dwelling was the hearts of His people. Zion was His people. Is. 60:21; 62:11,12 is clear: "Your [Zion's] people shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever... Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes...'. They shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of Yahweh: and you shall be called Sought out, A city not [any longer] forsaken". Is. 60:14 LXX likewise: "And the sons of them that afflicted thee, and of them that provoked thee, shall come to thee in fear; and thou shalt be called Sion, the city of the Holy One of Israel". The parallel between Zion and His people had always been there: "He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved" (Ps. 78:68).
"All righteous" again shows that the salvation of God's people is through being declared totally spotless, through their association with "Yahweh our righteousness". The earlier "servant" of Isaiah's prophecies is now all those in Him. In our day, this requires baptism "into" Him and a life lived in Him, moved by the same Spirit which is in Him, as His body. Their salvation would be on account of their identity with the Messianic "branch", the Lord Jesus; they would be "in Christ" and thereby saved. Inheritance of the land forever is the language of the Abrahamic covenant; this would come true because of righteousness being imputed to them. And the end result of that system of salvation, as Paul brings out in Romans, would be glory to God.
LXX suggests that what we plant in this life will be eternally preserved: "they shall inherit the land for ever, preserving that which they have planted". There is some continuity between life and personality now, and how we shall eternally be. The seeds we sow now, if sown to the Spirit, will grow into eternal things.
Isaiah 60:22 The little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a
strong nation; I, Yahweh, will hasten it in its time-
The spirit of this is fulfilled in the Lord's teaching that from a tiny beginning, like a grain of mustard seed, the Kingdom would grow. Also clearly in view is the promise to Abraham, the foundation of the new covenant now being offered to the exiles: "And I shall make you a great nation" (Gen. 12:2).
Hastening in its time could mean that when the time comes, the establishment of the Kingdom will be sudden ['hastened']; a nation born in a day, as Isaiah says elsewhere: "Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children" (Is. 66:8). But the idea of hastening of itself shows that God's plans are open to change and speeding up or slowing down. He doesn't have a hard and fast chronological timetable. Despite LXX "I the Lord will gather them in due time", this connects back to Is. 5:19, where we read that the Jews mocked Isaiah and his God, saying "Let Him make speed, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it". There was clearly opposition to Isaiah's prophecies. The idea of judgment coming would have been mocked in these kinds of words. But we wonder whether this is really a verbatim quotation from these people; or whether God read their thoughts as effectively saying this, and as being the real implication of their positions. For there is no evidence that Judah abandoned Yahweh; rather did they claim obedience and loyalty to Him, although they claimed the same about their idols whom they worshipped in His Name. But God was not deaf to their words, or the implications of their thoughts and actions. He in fact heard their mocking 'prayer', because He here says that He will "hasten His work" (s.w.).
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