Isaiah 60

60 : 1 ARISE, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. 2 For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples : but the LORD 3 shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And nations shall come to thy 4 light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see : they all gather themselves together, they come to thee : thy sons shall come from far, and 5 thy daughters shall be carried in the arms. Then thou shalt see and be lightened, and thine heart shall tremble and be enlarged ; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto 6 thee, the wealth of the nations shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah ; they all shall come from Sheba : they shall bring 7 gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praises of the LORD. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee : they 8 shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. Who 9 are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows ? Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, for the name of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he 10 hath glorified thee. And strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister 11 unto thee : for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. Thy gates also shall be open continually ; they shall not be shut day nor night ; that men may 12 bring unto thee the wealth of the nations, and their kings led with them. For that nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. 13 The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together ; 14 to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious. And 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 ; and they shall call thee The city of 15 the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man passed through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many 16 generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the nations, and shalt suck the breast of kings : and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy saviour, and thy redeemer, the Mighty 17 One of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron : I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteous- 18 ness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, desolation nor destruction within thy 19 borders ; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day ; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee : but the 20 LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself : for the LORD shall be thine everlasting 21 light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever ; the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that 22 I may be glorified. The little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation : I the LORD will hasten it in its time.

Chap. 60. In this chapter there is commenced a most glowing and beautiful description of the “golden age” under the Messiah. The description is continued to the close of chap. 62. The future glory of the Church is displayed under the most splendid colors and with every variety of imagery. It is designed to set forth the glory of that time when the

Gentiles shall be gathered into the Church, and when the whole world shall become tributary to the Messiah and be illuminated with the light of Christian truth. The main design of the chapter is to foretell the conversion of the Gentiles or the heathen world and the happy and peaceful times which shall exist when that has occurred. In doing this, the powers of the inspired prophet seem to have been taxed to the utmost to convey a just view of the glory of the scene. That it refers to the time of the Messiah no one can doubt who reads it. In accordance with the usual mode in Isaiah, the prophet throws himself into the midst of the future scene (verse 1), and the events are described as passing in vision before his eyes. He sees the light as already shining; the glory of Jehovah as actually arisen upon the Church; he sees the Gentiles flocking to the Redeemer and pressing into the Church as clouds, and he sees them bringing their most valued and precious objects and laying them at the feet of the Messiah. The whole world is made tributary to the Church; and the whole world smiles in peace and glory under the influence of the Gospel of peace. Barnes.

This magnificent hymn of triumph, following close upon the lamentation of the prophet over the rejection of Israel, is like the accelerated movement of a symphony after the plaintive measure of the andante, when, as in the rapids above Niagara, all the waves of sound leap and rush together, crested with spray, flashing with light, glittering with rainbows, as they whirl toward the tumultuous, deafening plunge of the finale. Yet as, through all the modulations of the symphony, the theme is ever the same; so through the varying keys of this grand, prophetic poem runs the theme of redemption by Christ, from the burst of wonder over the child Immanuel, through the humiliation of the Man of sorrows, the anguish of the crucified Saviour, on to His triumph and glory in His Church. To that glory the prophet summons the true Israel—the spiritual Zion, the Church of living souls. The presence of Christ is her illumination and joy; and, through the brightness of her shining, the nations are gathered to her seat, until her heart throbs and swells with wonder and exultation. J. P. T.

The previous chapter has fully opened the way so that the next scene in the prophetic panorama will legitimately be, The duties and the glories of the Gospel age. The powers of sin have seemed to reach their maximum; Satan has done his worst; he has fearfully poisoned and paralyzed (morally) even the covenant people of God; but by so doing he has called out the justice and judgment of the Almighty and aroused the Omnipotent arm to retrieve the cause of truth and righteousness. The Church’s extremity is God’s opportunity; the conflict deepens; God’s word and Spirit are to be matched against the whole array of the powers of darkness, and the prophetic eye is thrown afar down the vista of time to sweep the field of battle and tell the ultimate result. Beyond all question, this is the starting point from which this chapter begins. The Redeemer has come to Zion (chap. 59:20); her own Messiah appears; Judaism, long since decayed and waxed old, retires, to give place to a new form of religious organization and to new modes of Christian life. The Spirit and the word (59:21)—agencies simple, yet through the power of God, most mighty—are now commissioned for the field. The last thought of the previous chapter is that these agencies—the working forces of the Almighty—are to have this field to the end of time—that is to say, till the victories of the Messiah are complete and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, or in the phrase of Isaiah, till men “shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (11:9). Now therefore with most beautiful fitness the Lord through the prophet calls upon His people, His spiritual Zion, to “arise and shine” in the light of Gospel truth already breaking forth as the very face of God upon her (verses 1, 2); for Gentiles are coming to walk in this light and to be blessed therein (verse 3); let her lift up her eyes and behold their thronging hosts, her own new-born sons and daughters (verse 4). Her heart throbs under almost overpowering emotions (verse 5); Gentile converts come with their wealth and their full hearts from Arabia on the south (verses 6, 7), and from the isles of the west (verses 8-10); by these forces of treasure and of willing hands, her walls arise (verse 10); her gates stand open continually for new accessions (verse 11), and no nation can safely withhold its contributions (verse 12); the glories of Lebanon adorn her city (verse 13); her enemies humbly acknowledge her the chosen of God (verse 14); Zion, honored and enriched by the nations, becomes surpassingly glorious (verses 15, 16); old things give place to things new and brighter (verse 17); violence and wrong are felt and feared no more (verse 18); God Himself becomes her abiding light and glory (verses 19, 20); her people all righteous and God glorifying Himself in them, crown the magnificent panorama of this wonderful vision of Gospel victories and triumphs. This unparalleled description needs no aid of commentator to make its general significance clear, its beauties apparent, its sublimity and grandeur most thoroughly thrilling and inspiring. If the reader will carefully consider and apply the scope of the context so as to see in this chapter an outline of the ultimate results of Gospel truth made mighty in human souls by the Spirit of God; and if, furthermore, he will bear in mind that the seer whose prophetic vision swept this august field and grasped these ultimate results was a Jew, of Hebrew thought, imagination and surroundings; who must therefore, by a simple law of necessity, think of and see the future Zion only as the Zion of his own time remade, extended, readorned and still the rallying centre for the nations of the earth, proselyted to her altar and to her Temple shrines, the significance of the whole will be readily seen. As to the time of fulfilment, none can say more than that it began with the Christian age, and will be complete when and only when the Gospel shall have had free course in all lands, and the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God. When the state of the world comes up to this description, men will know it, and can say with no faltering of doubt, “There hath failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord hath spoken unto the house of Israel; all is come to pass” (Josh. 21: 45). Till then there will be work for the toiling hand; prayer for the waiting but trustful heart; and the inspirations of hope, as when Christians work toward an end which they know lies fixed irreversibly in the purposes of the Holy One of Israel, awaiting fulfilment in its time. H. C.

1. Other benefits may be magnified above their just proportions; but no words can come up to the real dignity of these; and therefore the most magnificent descriptions, borrowed from objects familiar to our senses, do not adorn or exalt, but only speak of them in the most respectful manner that our capacities admit. Stanhope.—Light is the usual emblem of happiness and darkness of affliction; Jerusalem is bid to arise and give light to all about her, to communicate to others part of the honor and lustre which she had received from God, the true “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal. 4: 2). W. Lowth.

2. The perfection of the glory promised to the Church is not to arise from its contrast with the darkness of the world around it, but from the diffusion of its light until that darkness disappears. The prophet here reverts for a moment to the previous condition of the world, in order to describe with more effect the glorious change to be produced. He is not therefore to be understood as saying that Zion shall be glorious because while the nations are in darkness she is to enjoy exclusive light, but because the light imparted to her first shall draw the nations to her.

4. In this, as in the parallel passages, there is, by a strange coincidence, no word or phrase implying restoration or return, but the image evidently is that of enlargement and accession; the children thus brought to Zion being not those whom she had lost, but such as she had never before known, as is evident from chap. 49: 21.

5. All agree that it describes a great and joyful change to be produced by the accession of the Gentiles to the Church or chosen people, and the effect of this enlargement on the latter. The most natural interpretation of the verse is that which makes it a promise of indefinite enlargement, comprehending both the persons and the riches of the nations. To the assumption that commercial intercourse and navigation are here represented under forms and names derived from the Old Testament history, I am so far from objecting, that I wish to apply it to the whole prediction, and to use precisely the same liberty in understanding what is said of Zion and her sons, as in understanding what is said of Tarshish and her ships. Here, as in so many former instances, the writer does not even accidentally use any term explicitly denoting restoration or return, but only such as are appropriate to mere accession and increase ab extra. A.

The reformation was heralded and helped by a wonderful succession of inventions and discoveries, which have changed the whole face of the world and the whole order of society. Printing, gunpowder, the mariner’s compass, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope and the discovery of America would, in any case, have made revolutions, electrifying the Church into a new career; but impressed as they were at once into the service of Protestantism, they became doubly rousing and revolutionary. Commerce and the mechanic arts, though not begotten of Protestantism, were soon adopted by it, baptized at its altars, and made to fight its battles for the dominion of the world. We have only to take the world as we find it, busy, rich, rampant as it is, and subdue it, as we subdue ourselves, to Christ. We may be assured that the baptism of a better consecration is in store for us, when, on every sea, the keels of a Christian commerce shall go and come, and every land shall ring with Christian toil, and every fortune that is piled by Christian hands shall rise as a Christian temple, and every form of fraud, injustice and oppression shall melt like icebergs drifting in a summer sea. R. D. H.

6. The praises of Jehovah as good news. This form of expression is adopted in order to convey the full force of the Hebrew verb, which does not mean simply to announce or even to announce with joy, but to announce glad tidings. Retaining this sense here, the word would seem to signify not the direct praise of God, but the announcement of the fact that others praised Him, and the messengers would be described as bringing to Jerusalem the news of the conversion of their people. They are here, according to Isaiah’s practice, represented by a group of ancestral names. Ephah was the eldest son of Midian (Gen. 25:4), who was himself the son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. 25:2) and the brother of Jokshan, the father of Sheba (Gen. 25:1-4). The first two represent Northern and Central Arabia, the third Arabia Felix.

7. To the traders of Arabia, with their caravans and precious wares, he now adds her shepherds, with their countless flocks. Ezekiel also speaks of Tyre as trading with Arabia and all the chiefs of Kedar in lambs and rams and goats (Ezek. 27:21). These are here described as gathered in one vast flock to Jerusalem, or rather for her—i.e., for her use or service, which agrees best with what follows, and with the usage of the Hebrew preposition. They are then, by a bold and striking figure, represented as offering themselves, which is first expressed by the general term serve or minister, and then more unequivocally by declaring that they shall themselves ascend the altar. A.

The whole description throughout this chapter is figurative. Isaiah in vision sees far in the future the glorious diffusion of the Gospel among the nations of the earth and its wonderful fruits in the complete and unreserved consecration of wealth and of soul to the service and worship of God. But to give the idea of worshipping God, the forms must be Jewish, and Gentiles must come up for worship to the Temple at Jerusalem. Hence also the nations named are not those which are now most prominent in the heathen world, but are precisely those which were prominent then. Arabia on the south and east and the islands on the great west (verse 9) would be first and most naturally thought of by a Jew of Isaiah’s time as needing conversion. On the same principle of interpretation, we cannot assume that the Temple at Jerusalem will be the great central object in this glorious Gospel age. We cannot take in its literal sense what is said here of the flocks of Kedar and of the rams of Nebaioth, coming up with acceptance upon God’s altar. For

Temple and altar have alike gone down and passed away, as to their literal form, and nothing remains of them save their spiritual significance as indicating the pure, earnest, self-sacrificing worship and service of God. H. C.

8. Fly as a cloud and as doves to their windows. It is a fine conception of Vitringa, that the ships expressly mentioned in the next verse are here described in their first appearance at a distance resembling with their outspread sails and rapid course a fleecy cloud driven by the wind, and a flight of doves returning to their young. Both comparisons are elsewhere used as here to indicate rapidity of motion. A.

Morier, in his “Second Journey,” p. 140, has well illustrated this passage. “In the environs of the city” (Ispahan), says he, “to the westward, near Zainderood, are many pigeon houses, erected at a distance from habitations. They are large, round towers, rather broader at the bottom than the top, crowned by conical spiracles, through which the pigeons descend. Their interior resembles a honey-comb, pierced with a thousand holes, each of which forms a snug retreat for a nest. The extraordinary flights of pigeons which I have seen upon one of these buildings, afford perhaps a good illustration of Isa. 60:8. Their great numbers and the compactness of their mass literally looked like a cloud at a distance and obscured the sun in their passage.” This has already in part at least been fulfilled. The rapid conversions in the time of the apostles, the accessions to the Church from the Gentiles, accorded with this prediction. In numerous revivals of religion also has there been a fulfilment of it; and we are yet to anticipate a far more striking and glorious completion of it in the conversion of the heathen world to the Christian faith. Barnes.

I have seen in Egypt dovecots rising, gallery upon gallery, so that thousands of pigeons could flock together to their shelter; and when, at evening, they came flying to their windows, the air was thick as with a cloud. Even so, while neighboring countries shall yield their tributes of flocks and merchandise, the fleets of the ocean, dense as clouds, swift as doves, shall come freighted with treasures from distant lands. And so spontaneous and universal shall be the homage of the nations to Zion, that the abundance shall require no precautions for its safety. Her gates shall stand wide open the livelong night; her very enemies shall serve her; her old oppressors shall bow at her feet. Such a consummation may well find utterance in such a song. J. P. T.

9. A virtual though not a formal answer to the question in the one before it. As if He had said, Wonder not that these are seen approaching, for the whole world is only awaiting My command to bring thy sons, etc. A.

In this great work of winning the world, commerce, it seems, is to take a conspicuous part. While “the isles” wait for Christ, “the ships of Tarshish” are to be “first” in bringing the sons of Zion from far, with their silver and their gold as an offering unto “the name of the Lord their God,” and as consecrated means in the hands of Him who hath steadfastly purposed to “glorify the house of His glory.” Among all the means used in converting the human race to Christ, commerce, no doubt, is to be one of the most important. Three fifths of the earth’s surface are covered with waters, while the remaining fifths lie in the shape of two vast continents, and of innumerable isles—the abodes of men, and the depositories of those treasures which God has given for the use of men. Between these the great deep is a broad highway, and commerce, with her ships, the only system of intercommunication. Without commerce, neither science nor art, neither civilization nor religion, could spread beyond the boundaries of the land of their birth. All other agencies, not purely spiritual, are, when left to themselves, local. Commerce has the only created arm that can reach round the globe. This, then, is the grand agent which God has prepared for Himself, and which He purposes to use in the work of gathering in the nations to Christ, and in collecting the gold and silver, the redundant means, which that work demands. J. S. Stone.

11. So great is the pressure upon her of these throngs of returning converts, that her gates must needs stand open day and night. The last clause assigns the reason—to bring in unto thee the masses of the Gentiles, their kings also being led in. The word translated “forces” is naturally a war term, and may mean either the armies or the wealth and military stores which are the sinews of war. The thought probably includes both the people themselves and their wealth, cattle and gold with them. H. C.—Upon this verse, perhaps combined with Zech. 14:7, is founded that beautiful and grand description, the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there (Rev. 21:25). A.

12. This stands related to the previous verse as the penalty for not doing what is there required. All kings and all people must come to Christ to serve Him in His Zion, or must perish. The grand crisis hour has come. Whoever yields to the truth and Spirit of God will receive Jesus as Lord and King, and join His people heartily in true homage, love and service to Him; but whoever among all the nations of the earth will not bow to Christ must perish utterly. This law of God’s moral kingdom takes effect even now in its own way, and more and more palpably as the Lord’s converting agencies become more powerful. Hence in those latter days of their final, transcendent power this law must obtain universally and none escape its decisive, resistless sway. H. C.

No nation can flourish and long continue that does not obey the law of God, or where the true religion does not prevail and the worship of the true God is not maintained. History is full of affecting illustrations of this. The kingdoms of Babylon, Assyria, Macedonia and Egypt, the Roman Empire and all the ancient monarchies and republics, soon fell to ruin because they had not the salutary restraints of the true religion, and because they lacked the protection of the true God. It is a maxim of universal truth that the nation which does not admit the influence of the laws and the government of God must be destroyed. No empire is strong enough to wage successful war with the great Jehovah; and sooner or later, notwithstanding all that human policy can do, corruption, sensuality, luxury, pride and far-spreading vice will expose a nation to the displeasure of God and bring down the heavy arm of His vengeance. Barnes.

Why have the names of Chaldea, Assyria and Egypt been starred upon the catalogue of nations? Children still continue to be born, and lullabies may still be heard upon the banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Nile. Why, since the people are living, have the nations died? One verdict will answer for them all; one verdict and one epitaph. To say all in a single word, they died of immorality; and immorality is suicide. Seldom do nations die in any other way than by suicide. Nations that are bad may be employed by providence, as every nation has been employed in its turn; but the service rendered, not being a voluntary service, brings no honor to the instrument. Egypt, Assyria and Babylon stood simply upon their own moral character; and when this, by steady decline, had reached a certain point of baseness, they collapsed and fell. R. D. Hitchcock.

The nation that does not come up to the ideas of God for national life will sooner or later, empire, republic, monarchy or what, it matters not, disappear from the map of the world. No form of government will save it, or political wisdom, if it gets in the way of the march of the kingdom of heaven and the purpose of God. S. Burnham.

13. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee.** This expression denotes that all the cedars and other choice trees of Lebanon should contribute to the rebuilding and beautifying of God’s Temple, which implies, in a spiritual sense, that everything should tend to adorn and render perfect the Church, which is called the house and building of God (1 Tim. 3 : 15 ; 1 Cor. 3 : 9). W. Lowth.—Many a Lebanon on earth, many a beauty of nature, has its own glory, wherein the glory of God in days to come will shine out once more, that a requital may follow for its long abuse through sin ; and that the beautiful creation, not having been made in vain, may receive at length its due honor. Stier.

14. The Jerusalem or Zion of this passage is perfectly appropriate to the New Jerusalem, the Christian Church, not as it was, or is, or will be at any period of its history exclusively, but viewed in reference to the whole course of that history, and in contrast with the many disadvantages and hardships of the old economy.

16. All interpreters agree with the Targum in applying this verse to the influx of wealth and power and whatever else the kings and nations of the earth can contribute to the progress of the true religion. The figure is derived from De. 33 : 19, they shall suck the abundance of the seas. A.—The figures in the first clause need not be mistaken. She shall draw abundantly from the resources of all the Gentile nations and their kings ; shall be enriched by their wealth and labors, and built up by their consecration to her interests. (See the same sentiment, chaps. 49 : 23 ; 61 : 6 and 66 : 12.) In her own joyful experience Zion shall know that Jehovah is her Saviour ; that her own Messiah is the Almighty God. H. C.

17. For brass I will bring gold. This commences the description of the happy state of those times when the Gentiles should be led to embrace the true religion, and when the wealth of the world should be consecrated to the service of the true God. Barnes.—Dropping the figure, the sense will be that the piety of the Church will be of a type far more pure and true than in her former ages, less alloyed with human corruptions. Doubtless also it is implied here that her resulting morality is indefinitely purer, for God is wont to estimate piety by the morality which results from it.

The last clause shows that the thought is upon public morality ; her officers, magistrates, will not be iniquitous and oppressive, as they were in the days of the old prophets, but will ensure peace and righteousness ; or in this strong language, will be peace and will be righteousness. H. C.

18. Though waves may dash against them, and hosts, like overflowing billows, may come, yet God shall be the strength and the security of those walls, and they shall be for the safety of the people. And whenever those citizens have occasion to go forth in the presence of an enemy, it shall be with the voice of joy and of praise. Not only do the walls protect them, but they are joyful within them ; and from the open gates no sound of lamentation or repining is heard, no effort to sue for terms of peace, no begging of terms with an encircling enemy, but the voice of praise and of joy ever rings forth ; so that the walls are salvation and the gates are praise. The two ideas, it seems to me, that occur to every mind are these : that the Christian Church is a place of safety and a place of joy. M. Simpson.

19. And thy God thy glory. The honor of the Church shall be that it has the true God for its protector. Its joys shall be found, not in the beauty of created things, but in the glory of the Divine perfections, and in the laws and plans of the Almighty. The glory of the Church is its great head. His name, His attributes, His laws, His protecting care, constitute her main glory. It is an honor to the Church to have such a God and Redeemer ; an honor to share His favor and to be under His ever-watchful care. The glory of the Church is not her wealth, her numbers, her influence, nor the rank and talent of her ministers and members ; it is the character of her sovereign Lord, and in His perfections it is right that she should exult and rejoice. Barnes.

19,20. Raising to its sublimest height the common Hebrew figure which represents calamity as darkness and prosperity as light, the prophet here sees such light and glory as no earthly sun and moon could produce. Hence the sun and the moon fade out as our stars are wont to do when the sun arises, and now God alone becomes the great Sun in the heavens of His Zion, irradiating her city by day and by night, for really there is no night there. The reader will note in this chapter the twofold use of light as a figure ; first, to represent moral truth—its source and its power ; and, secondly, its results in the blessedness of the people thus enlightened. First, Christ rises with His Gospel as a light upon Zion, and through her instrumentality, upon the Gentile nations; and then the blessed fruits of this light are represented as a glorious and perpetual day, of which God Himself is the sun that never sets. H. C.

The Christian Church is not the conqueror of the Jewish polity, but the heir and successor. The new covenant has been developed out of the old. There was no break when Christ came, but a fulfilment and a completion. And so the promises were handed down in the Christian line, among which these from the latter part of Isaiah, relating to the stability of the ancient Church, are not the least remarkable. They declare that God is an everlasting light to His people, that their permanence is like the permanence of the creation of God. Woolsey.

There are no phrases on which the sacred writers delight so constantly to dwell, when they would express the excellencies of God, as those derived from the external light. It is (as it were) consecrated into being the material representative and index of God in His inanimate creation; and the Christian, who loves to hallow everything that is seen and heard and felt by associations of spiritual truth, is permitted to find in that which reveals all else, a faint revelation of that ineffable Supreme whom “no man hath seen or can see.” “Jehovah”—cries the great prophet, rapt in vision of the future Church—“shall be to thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory!” W. A. B.

By the religion which brings us to God, we have the assurance of spheres of life beyond the present, whose glories as yet we cannot measure. It cannot be for less than such a transcendent effect that this religion has come from realms above our mortal sight! It cannot be for less than that, that such unspeakable powers are in it! The same supreme Person who has made His word the soul of history, who has been, as He claimed to be, “the Light of the world,” declared that in the Father’s house are many mansions, and that they who have followed Him here in spirit shall there at length behold His face, partake His glory. It seems to me to glorify life, it seems to me to banish the shadow of gloom from death, to feel that that majestic figure—of Brother, Teacher, Friend, Redeemer—which towers supremely over the centuries, which made the earth sublime by its advent, which seemed in ascending to unite it to the heavens, has equal place in worlds to come! that we may trust His imperative word; that we may serve His kingly cause; that we may see the illumined universe, for us as for Him, a house of victory and of peace! that we may stand, by and by, with Him, amid the light as yet unreached, and say, each one: “I believed in Thy religion! I saw its triumphs in the earth; I felt its power in my heart; I rose to God in love upon it; I foreknew by it what now I find—eternal life!” Then all these wonders of the past shall lose themselves in vaster wonders still to come; and saint and seer shall be our fellows in that immortal consummation! R. S. S.

Thy mourning ended. Zion is not always to sit upon the ground and mourn in dust. The day of her redemption draweth nigh. Her prayer shall at length be heard, and God will come down for her deliverance. He will raise up hosts of faithful laborers to help us do this work. He will open wide and ripened fields for them to reap and garner. “The Lord shall make bare His holy arm, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God.” Then will be realized the vision of the revelator in the apocalypse. That mighty angel, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, shall take His great commission from the throne, commence His flight in the midst of heaven, and bend His way and bear His message to every nation and kindred and tongue and people. Zion shall become an eternal excellency, the joy of many generations. Her sun shall no more go down, neither shall her moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be her everlasting light, and the days of her mourning shall be ended. Such shall be the eventual harvest of all our trials, hopes and tears. Our work is great in its object—great in its difficulties, and great also in its promised results. E. Thurston.

21. In the plainest literal language we have here the elementary ideas of the whole chapter, the secret of this wonderful prosperity in Zion and this unsullied glory and universal joy. All lies in two facts, the “people all righteous” and God, the glorious author of this stupendous moral transformation. His honor is involved in this grand moral enterprise, and He will never desist, will never deem the work done till the truth and Spirit of the Lord have won these sublime immortal victories over the powers of human depravity and of the prince of darkness. H. C.

21. That I may be glorified.** We best glorify Him when we grow most like Him; and we then act most for His glory when a true spirit of sanctity, justice and meekness runs through all our actions; when we so live as becomes those that converse with the great mind and wisdom of the whole world; with that Being from whence all good flows, and in which there is no spot, stain or shadow of evil; and so, being captivated and overcome by the sense of Divine loveliness and goodness, endeavor to be like Him and to conform ourselves as much as may be to Him. As God’s seeking His own glory in respect of us is most properly the flowing forth of His goodness upon us, so our seeking the glory of God is most properly our endeavoring a participation of His goodness, and an earnest, incessant pursuing after the Divine perfection. When God becomes so great in our eyes and all created things so little, that we reckon nothing as worthy of our aims and ambition but a serious participation of the Divine nature and the exercise of Divine virtues—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness and the like; when the soul, beholding the infinite beauty and loveliness of the divinity, and then looking down and beholding all created perfection mantled over with darkness, is ravished into love and admiration of that never-setting brightness, and endeavors after the greatest resemblance of God, in justice, love and goodness; when conversing with Him by a secret feeling of the virtue, sweetness and power of His goodness we endeavor to assimilate ourselves to Him—then we may be said to glorify Him indeed J. Smith.

22. Under this Divine religion, whatever has in itself truth and righteousness and is carried forward according to God’s mind, has assurance of outgrowth and multiplication in time to come. “A little one shall become a thousand”—or as the Hebrew runs—“the littlest of all,” the superlatively insignificant, this shall become mighty and increase in power, even with the power of God. History has shown this to be true. Compare the weakness of England at the beginning of the Elizabethan age with Spain, strong, grasping, aggressive. Not so now. The scale has turned. So far as a people express in their life the principles of Christianity, in that measure they are strong. What a shining, golden harvest for the long hereafter was sown by our Colonial fathers two hundred and forty years ago! Rightly founded, they believed that these colonies would grow to great commonwealths. A little one did become a thousand and a small one a great nation. So is it with every institution planted in the fear and love of God, with an aim to advance His glory and man’s good. Its life and increase are assured, for it becomes God’s work and enlists God’s aid. So, notably, the growth of the missionary enterprise. The latter was almost unknown a century ago. It began in the “reveries” of men or the dreams of Christian women, who began by collecting small amounts and consecrating them to Christ. Now modern missions are a power, immense, world-embracing. They emphatically illustrate the grace of Christ, present and dominant in the world. So it is with every endeavor. That which has the element of righteousness in it God will care for. It has a vast future before it. R. S. S.

I the Lord will hasten it in its time. I will do it in the proper time (LXX). The sense is, that this would be done at the proper time, called in Gal. 4:4 “the fulness of time.” There were preparations to be made before it could be accomplished. The nations, under the Divine arrangement, were to be put into a proper position to receive the Messiah. He was not to come until the experiment had been fairly made to show how weak and feeble man was without a revelation—to show that philosophy, and learning, and the policy of statesmen could do nothing effectual for the salvation of men. He was not to come until the world should be at peace, and until there would be facilities for the rapid propagation of religion in all lands. Nor until all that had been said in prophecy should be fulfilled, until all the circumstances should combine which had been foretold as favorable to the introduction of the reign of the Messiah. But when that period should arrive, when the world should be in a proper state to receive the new system, then the Lord would “hasten” it. There would be no unnecessary delay; none which the circumstances of the case did not call for. So it will be in the universal spread of the Gospel referred to in this chapter. When the world shall be moulded into a proper state to welcome the Gospel, when the nations are prepared to receive it, and welcome it, and profit by it, then the universal propagation shall be hastened, and a nation shall be born in a day. Then truth shall be diffused like the spreading light of the morning, and the world shall be brought under the saving power of the Gospel. Meantime for the coming of that day we should pray and labor. By the diffusion of truth; by schools; by the spread of the Bible; by preaching; by the translation of the word of God into every language; by establishing the press in all the strong points of pagan influence; by placing missionaries in all the holds of power in the heathen world, and by training up many to enter into the harvest, the

Christian world should prepare for the universal conversion of the world to God. In due time it shall be hastened, and “He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10 : 37). Barnes.

It is well known, by the instrumentality of how incompetent persons, a few fishermen of no authority, address or education, and in how short a compass of time, this great revolution, the greatest that ever was in the religious world, was effected. In about forty years the Gospel was preached in almost every region of the world then known; this speedy propagation of it could never have been effected by persons so unequal to the task, had not the same Divine Spirit who foretold it assisted them in it, according to the promise here given, “I the Lord will hasten it in its time.” Bp. Newton.

God is hastening the time when not only the doctrine of popular liberty, but the greater and inclusive doctrine of a Divine redemption, enunciated through a purely taught Gospel, shall become the open faith of mankind. And for the furtherance of this blessed result how wondrous the work of God’s providence, wrought through these later years in compacting the nations of the world, in multiplying the facilities for their mutual intercourse, and in the transmission of thought in common to all. Into how few centres is He concentrating political power, and into what close relations and sympathies is He bringing all the nations! By the setting of voicing wires beneath the pathway of all the seas and oceans, not only the doings of men in every nation, the transactions of government and commerce, are instantly known in every other, but what is of vaster moment far, the world itself becomes a great whispering gallery for the interchange of thought and opinion among its varied peoples. And for what purpose are these facilities of intercourse, this exchange of thought, to what end this binding of the nations together, this making the world one, save that predicted by the prophet concerning the time of the approaching end, “that many should run to and fro, and knowledge, the knowledge of a Redeeming God,” shall be increased; “that that knowledge of the Lord may cover the earth as the waters the sea;” nay more, that all flesh may glory in the coming of the Lord, and all nations accept His sovereign sway! B.

This wonderful, towering prophecy is embosomed on each side, before and after—flanked we might say—with promises of the Spirit. Immediately before it we read, “This is My covenant with them, saith the Lord; My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever.” Then opens chap. 60, with an implied and most emphatic therefore: Therefore, “Arise, shine, for thy light is come; and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee,” etc. At the other end of this majestic prophecy we read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good things to the meek,” etc.—of which you will remember that Jesus said at Capernaum (Luke 4 : 17-22): “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.”

The Spirit of God upon Jesus and upon His people, their crowning glory, the high tower of their strength—such is the strain of Old Testament prophecy. H. C.