60. Isaiah Chapter Sixty
Chapter 60 As a result of what has just preceded a rousing message comes at once to Zion. Long has it remained in darkness and desolation, but the Millennial glory is coming, and the command “Arise” (Isaiah 60:1) is a word imparting power in the very command. She is to rise out of the dust and to shine, for her light, or Light-giver, is come, causing the glory of the Lord to rise upon her, a contrast to the condition in Isaiah 59:10 (cp. ch. Isaiah 2:5)!
Isaiah 60:2 reveals the condition of the Gentiles in their gross darkness which will exist especially under the Antichrist and which will linger until the Lord “arises upon Israel and His glory will be seen upon them.” Then “nations shall come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising.”
Until the Lord comes to receive His Church to Himself the light of Gospel testimony shines into individual hearts, while nations still lie in darkness. At the time of the removal of the Church, the deceptive power of the Devil and the rule of the Man of Sin will plunge them into gross darkness. Scripture does not justify the idea that the Gospel will spread through the world until whole nations receive the light. Only when Israel is restored will whole nations receive the light of Divine testimony and acknowledge the truth relating to the living God and His Christ. All earthly might will yield subjection by sheer compulsion, to the Lord and His glorified people. Not only will the nations come up to Jerusalem as their center, but they will bring God’s people from all the countries where they have been scattered. “Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be carried in the arms,” probably as little ones cling to the side of those who are carrying them (Isaiah 60:4). Thus the passage recalls Isaiah 49:22-23. The statement is metaphorical of the care and security to be provided by Gentile powers.
Isaiah 60:5 describes the awestruck joy with which God’s earthly people will find themselves delivered and so abundantly blessed. The prophecy “Then thou shalt see and be lightened [r.v.], and thine heart shall tremble and be enlarged,” is not suggestive of fear, but of a trembling for joy, as the following passage makes clear. The tremendous change in the circumstances of the nation will produce not only a joyous thrill but an enlargment of heart to apprehend the infinite goodness of God. The Gentile nations will devote their energies to the enrichment of God’s people, and above all the Lord will thereby glorify and beautify the House of His glory, and upon the altar raised in connection with it commemorative sacrifices will be offered continually (Isaiah 60:7). The question in Isaiah 60:8, “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” can well be realized in view of the enormous development of passenger aviation in our times. The transference of the scattered Jews to their own territory could be accomplished in the course of a few days by this means.
“Surely the isles shall wait for Me” (Isaiah 60:9). This indicates that the far-off nations of the world will act under God’s decree and direction and Gentile activity will be exercised in these matters, not by way merely of a political scheme, but with the definite object of honoring the Lord. They will minister of their wealth and substance, “for the Name of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee.” In Isaiah 60:10 the promise “strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee” does not refer to the post-captivity decrees of Cyrus, Darius and others, but to the beginning of the Millennium and the activity on the part of Gentile nations in rendering assistance to Israel. That such assistance will be voluntary rather than by way of subjection is indicated in Isaiah 60:6. The Lord then contrasts His mercy with His wrath, as in several other places in Scripture (see, e.g., Isaiah 54:7-8 and cp. Isaiah 63:4). In a special sense mercy will glory against judgment (James 2:13, r.v.). That the gates of the city will be open continually (Isaiah 60:11) implies a state of peace, of freedom from attack, so that the wealth of the nations (r.v.) may have free entrance, and that their kings may come in triumphal procession (cp. Revelation 21:25-26).
Isaiah 60:12 shows that God’s judgments will be exercised during the Millennium upon nations that manifest a spirit of rebellion and refuse to render help to Israel (see also Zechariah 14:17-19). The promise of this ministry of the Gentiles is resumed in Isaiah 60:14. There is, however, an interlude in Isaiah 60:13, in which the Lord delights to foretell the glory of His sanctuary, the beautiful Millennial Temple, and to indicate His presence there by speaking of it as “the place of My feet.” That the glory of Lebanon, with its splendid trees (cp. Isaiah 41:19) will be brought to beautify the place of the sanctuary, would seem to indicate that these trees will be planted in the environment of the Temple, perhaps by way of avenues. What is referred to here is not timber for the structure itself, but “the place,” that is, the vicinity.
Isaiah 60:14 briefly looks back to the time of the great tribulation, to those who afflicted God’s people. Now it will be their sons that come bending to them. Their fathers will have perished in the judgments of the day of the Lord. There will be a multitude of people who, while not having gathered themselves together against the Lord, will yet have despised God’s people during the time of hostility. These will bow themselves down at the feet of Israel and will call Jerusalem “The city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” Instead of being forsaken and hated like a slighted wife (cp. Deuteronomy 21:15), the Lord will make the city “an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations” (Isaiah 60:15). The nations and their kings will bestow their vital energy upon God’s people, just as a mother gives her milk to a child. And above all, instead of being in a state of blind ignorance of God, they will recognize Jehovah as “thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
We may gather from Isaiah 60:17 that (instead of wood and stone) gold, silver, bronze, and iron will be used for the building of the city, so that it will be indestructible by the elements of nature and by every sort of foe. Peace, here personified, will act as magistrates, and righteousness will act as bailiffs. Violence, desolation and destruction will be absent. The walls of the city will be called “Salvation,” for the city will be impregnable; the gates will be called “Praise,” for God will glorify His name there continually (Isaiah 60:18). The sun and the moon will still exist, but will not be needed, owing to the effulgence radiating from the presence of the Lord and the Church, with His uncreated Shekinah glory (Isaiah 60:20; cp. Revelation 22:5). This will be verily the triumph of light over darkness.
Under such conditions there could be no such thing as mourning; “sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” and will give place to everlasting joy (see Isaiah 35:10). Joy is always intensified by the fact of the preceding sorrow and trial from which deliverance has come. The trusting believer can ever say of his trials “I was brought low, and He helped me.” In the Millennial state the fruitfulness and glory of nature will be accompanied by the moral excellence of the nation. The people will be “all righteous” (Isaiah 60:21). The word “Jew” will never again be a term of national and moral reproach. Israel will be in permanent possession of the land, and that by what is here metaphorically described as “the Lord’s planting.” It will be by reason of this that they are righteous. They will be like a green shoot or sprout (Eng. text, “branch”). The same word is used of Christ in Isaiah 11:1. God’s grace will do the planting, and that for His glory. The nation will become abundantly fruitful from the point of view of population; “The little one [perhaps the one with few children] shall become a thousand, and the small one [perhaps one in humble position] a strong nation” (Isaiah 60:22). That means not only numerical increase in population but the extension of joyous fellowship. Moreover all this blessedness will be accomplished with great rapidity: “I the Lord will hasten it in its time.”