Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 26:1

In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will [God] appoint [for] walls and bulwarks.

1. salvation will God appoint bulwarks ] Two interpretations are possible: ( a) “Salvation will He appoint in place of walls and moat” (see below), implying that Jerusalem has no material defences, but only the supernatural protection (“salvation”) assured by Jehovah (as Psa 125:2; Zec 2:4-5). ( b) “He appoints for salvation (her) walls and moat” (as ch. Isa 60:18). The choice depends on whether Jerusalem is or is not conceived as a fortified city. Since “gates” are mentioned in the next verse, ( b) seems more suitable. The word for bulwarks (a sing.) is usually understood to mean a low outer wall separated by some space from the wall proper ( in the LXX.); other authorities think it means a ditch or glacis.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1, 2. These verses might almost have been written for a dedication of the fortifications of Jerusalem. Cf. Psa 48:12 f.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

In that day shall this song be sung – By the people of God, on their restoration to their own land.

We have a strong city – Jerusalem. This does not mean that it was then strongly fortified, but that God would guard it, and that thus it would be strong. Jerusalem was easily capable of being strongly fortified Psa 25:2; but the idea here is, that Yahweh would be a protector, and that this would constitute its strength.

Salvation will God appoint for walls – That is, he will himself be the defender of his people in the place of walls and bulwarks. A similar expression occurs in Isa 60:18 (see also Jer 3:23, and Zec 2:5).

Bulwarks – This word means properly bastions, or ramparts. The original means properly a pomoerium, or antemural defense; a space without the wall of a city raised up like a small wall. The Syriac renders it, Bar shuro, – Son of a wall, meaning a small wall. It was usually a breastwork, or heap of earth thrown up around the city, that constituted an additional defense, so that if they were driven from that they could retreat within the walls.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Isa 26:1-10

In that day shall this song be sung

Periods of restoration

If it be demanded, what period of time is this which the prophet speaks of?

we must answer, that it is the time when the people, who for their provocations were thrown into the furnace of affliction, and had continued in it till they were purged from their sins, were delivered from it, and restored to the favour of God, and the enjoyment of His former mercies. Of which restoration there are three kinds or degrees plainly spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.

1. The Jews return from the land of their captivity, especially that of Babylon.

2. The restoration of the family and kingdom of David in the person of the Messiah.

3. The perfect felicity of that kingdom in astute of future glory. (W. Reading, M. A.)

Three elements in prophecy

All true prophecy, seems to have in it three elements: conviction, imagination, inspiration. The seer speaks first of all from his knowledge of, and experience with, the inherent vitality of right and righteousness. He is sure that the good in the world is destined to conquer the evil. Then when he attempts to tell how this victory is to be brought about he uses his imagination. He employs metaphors and figures which from the necessities of the case may not be literally fulfilled. And then, in addition to this, his prophecies have in them a certain comprehensiveness of plan and structure, and a certain organic relation to history, such as can be revealed only by the Divine Maker of history Himself. It took a man of large parts to see above the wreck and ruin, and through the darkness of his age, such visions of hope and promise as Isaiah saw. Everywhere around him were sensuality and oppression. The Church of the true God had been almost swallowed up by the foul dragon of paganism. And yet the prophet, with his eye upon the future, beheld a day when this song was to be sung in the land of Judah: the song of salvation.
Sure he was that God must triumph, and with the poets instinct he clothed his assurance in the language of metaphor, and set it to the rhythm of song. (C. A. Dickinson.)

The triumph of goodness

1. Those who study this song in the light of succeeding history find in it the picture of the ultimate triumph of the Church. The central figure is the strong city, the walls and bulwarks of which are salvation, and through whose open gates the righteous nation which keepeth the truth is allowed to enter. This picture reminds us at once of that vision of the new Jerusalem which fell upon the eyes of the seer of Patmos many years after, and which was evidently the type and symbol of the perfected kingdom of Christ. To attempt to give to this strong city and this new Jerusalem a literal and material significance is to involve ourselves in inextricable difficulties.

2. There are two views concerning the progress and ultimate triumph of Christianity in the world. In some respects these views are the same; in others they differ radically.

(1) The first theory is that there is to be in the near or remote future a sudden, visible appearance of Christ in the clouds of heaven to take His place upon the throne of David at the earthly Jerusalem, where He will reign with His saints for a thousand years. Meanwhile the world is to come more and more under the Satanic influence.

(2) The other theory is that of a gradual development under the spiritual forces which began to be dominant in the world on the day of Pentecost, when Christ, according to His own promise, began His reign in His new kingdom. This I believe to be the true view: the one which Christ Himself propounded when He said His kingdom should be like the seed that should grow up.

3. I am well aware that those who claim that the world is fast ripening in evil for its final catastrophe can point to many facts which seem to substantiate their theory. But just here, it seems to me, comes in one of their greatest mistakes. There is, of course, danger of generalising too much, but there is certainly great danger of allowing some near fact to blind the eyes to the great general truth which lies beyond it; to hold the sixpence so near the eye that we cannot see the sun. There is danger of confining our thoughts so exclusively to certain specific texts as to get a wrong conception of the real truth of which these special texts may be only a small part. Now, what are some of the signs that we are living today in an age of conquest?

(1) Take that law of decay which you find written upon evil everywhere, whether in the individual or the nation. He bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, He layeth it low. Rome in her arrogance was the first great organised power to make war against the new kingdom. But Rome fell, and over the ruins of her pagan temples the Christian walks today. France posed as the haughty oppressor of the weak and unfortunate, as the instigator of the horrors of St. Bartholomews day, and following close upon her dreadful sin came the death and desolation of the Revolution. Our own great nation allowed to ripen in her very heart the malignant curse of slavery, and for her sin was obliged to suffer the pangs of a civil war. These are only a few of the conspicuous illustrations of the great truth that righteousness is surely, though perhaps slowly, vindicating her everlasting strength.

(2) I might call your attention to the other side of this conquest: to the rapid increase in the present days of that strong City whose wails are salvation. I might show you a whole library filled with missionary literature which tells that the kingdom of the new King has extended its bounds into almost every habitable part of the earth. I might point you to the Year Books of our Churches, and show you what armies of men and women are yearly marching through the gates of the strong City. I might show you how the spirit of the Cross, having taken possession of the civilised nations of the world, has materialised into churches and hospitals and asylums and charitable institutions and temperance guilds and myriads of Christian homes.

(3) But further, I might speak of another phase of this conquest. When Thy judgments are in the earth, says the prophet, the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness. These Divine judgments appear as a subtle tonic atmosphere pervading the whole world, and, like the ozone of the mountains, invigorating almost unconsciously every age and generation.

(4) The influence of the Gospel is pervasive. In a certain sense we have a right to say that a community is a Christian community even though but a small minority of its inhabitants profess to accept Christ as their personal Saviour. The spirit of Christ is in that community; the leaven of the Gospel is leavening it. The new kingdom is established there, and even they who deny allegiance to it are in many ways better than they who are without it. The principles of Jesus Christ are the standard principles of morality throughout Christendom today, and men are inevitably judging them selves and being judged by others according to these standards.

4. I believe that we are in the midst of mighty spiritual forces which are working successfully for the redemption of this world from sin; and I have two great incentives to spur me on to earnest effort.

(1) The one is faith in humanity and Christ. I say humanity and Christ, because I believe they are one. That, to me, is the meaning of His incarnation. The mighty forces of righteousness are moving with their slow, crushing power as the steam roller moves over the newly macadamised road, breaking and levelling everything before it, that the chariot of the King may ride smoothly on to its destination. But this is only a part of the truth. The other part is that the new kingdom is open to all.

(2) The other thing which spurs me on is hope–that blessed hope which the apostle had of the glorious consummation of this age of conquest. (C. A. Dickinson.)

We have a strong city

A city the emblem of security

To understand this figure of a city we must remember what a city was in the earlier ages; i.e., a portion of land separate from the general surface, in which the people of a locality gathered, and put their homes into a condition of safety by building walls of immense strength, which should both resist the attacks of enemies and, to a great extent, defy the ravages of time. Such a city, then, was the emblem of security. (R. H. Davies.)

The song of salvation

I. THE GROUND OF REJOICING. Salvation; and consequently eternal security. We have a strong city. All Gods people are represented as citizens; the whole sainthood is represented as a corporate assemblage of people possessed of peculiar privileges, connected with an eternal condition, and as such are to dwell in some region of safety and bliss. Here they find not such an abode. Here they have no continuing city, but seek one to come. And, when they shall be gathered together in the presence of their Lord, they will constitute the body to form a city.

II. THE CHARACTER OF THOSE WHO ARE TO PARTAKE OF THESE BLESSINGS. The righteous nation which keepeth the truth. (R. H. Davies.)

Salvation

Salvation, i.e., freedom and safety. The original sense of the word rendered salvation (as Arabic shows) is breadth, largeness, absence of constraint. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)

Saving health

(1) Political theorists have been fond of picturing an ideal State, the government of which would be perfect.

(2) The ideal State in the mind of the average Hebrew was limited to his own race, but in the writings of the inspired psalmists and prophets it could not be so restricted, but widened itself out so as to embrace the whole world. Thus was the way prepared for the grand conception of the kingdom of heaven as first proclaimed and then established by the Son of God.

(3) But it is a difficult thing, except in moments of great exaltation, to put much intensity of feeling. Into a conception so vast. It was a great deal easier to conceive an ideal State than an ideal world, and an ideal city was still more manageable for the imagination. We need not wonder, then, that even after the great proclamation about all the kingdoms of the world becoming the kingdom of God, the seer of Patmos should fondly return to the thought of the city, and revel in anticipating the advent of the New Jerusalem. Nor shall we be astonished that the prophets, though they had the wider outlook, should even in their moods of highest exaltation cling fondly to the thought of a holy city as the best picture, the more serviceable that it was a miniature of the coming kingdom of God.

(4) In these early days of insecurity, the first requisite of a city was strength. So it is natural that this should be the feature on which the prophet here lays special stress. But wherein does its strength lie? He speaks not of ramparts or forts, of fleets or armies, but of salvation as the bulwarks of the city. We find this word salvation in other places translated by the more suggestive rendering health, or saving health.

1. The first thought suggested in this connection is that the city should be a clean place to live in, healthy from end to end and in every corner, each house in it a fitting abode for sons of God and daughters of the King. When we pass from the sanitation of the city to the saving health of the citizen, we think first of his body, and recognise the necessity of having all the conditions as conducive as possible to its health.

2. But clearly we cannot stop there. We must have the mens sana in corpore sane; hence the need of universal education, to secure intellectual sanity.

3. Nor may we end here, for moral sanity, a sound conscience, is even still more important. The nation must be a righteous nation.

4. Clearly, there must be sanitation for the will before we have reached saving health; and inasmuch as the will is swayed by desire, the sanitation must reach the heart. What sanitary measures could we here summon to our aid? The purest water will not cleanse the heart; the most bracing air will have no effect upon the soul. There must be a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, and some breath of God for inspiration to the soul.

5. And here we reach the prophets highest, dominating thought. In that day, the passage begins. What day? Look back (Isa 25:9). It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us. And look forward (Isa 26:4), Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace for us; for Thou also hast wrought all our works in us (Isa 26:12). This introduces us to one of the most important questions of the day. There are many, sound and strong on the subject of righteousness, who yet fail to realise that righteousness is so bound up with saving truth–that truth of God and His salvation through Jesus Christ His Son, and by His Holy Spirit breathed in human hearts, which they sometimes offensively set aside as mere dogma–that the one cannot be had where it does not exist already, and cannot be retained long where it does without the other. Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.

6. How can we open or help to open these gates of national strength and saving health? For individual action the answer would be such as this: First, by loving truth and keeping righteousness ourselves; next, by doing all we can to help others to a life of godliness and righteousness; further, by earnest and frequent prayer to Him who gave of old the promise, I will open to you the two-leaved gates; and lastly, by the faithful exercise of the privileges of citizens, seeing to it that in the forming of our opinions, in the giving of our votes, in the use of all our influence, not selfish interest, or class interest, or even party interest, but the interests of righteousness and truth be the determining factor. But individual action is not enough. We must combine; we must bring our united force to bear. And here the main reliance must be on the Church of Christ, on which is laid the responsibility of carrying on His great work of salvation. (J. M.Gibson, D. D.)

Our strong city

There are three things here–

I. THE CITY. No doubt the prophet was thinking of the literal Jerusalem, but the city is ideal, as is shown by the bulwarks which defend, and by the qualifications which permit entrance. And so we must pass beyond the literalities of Palestine, and must not apply the symbol to any visible institution or organisation if we are to come to the depth and greatness of the meaning of these words. No Church which is organised amongst men can be the New Testament representation of this strong city. And if the explanation is to be looked for in that direction at all, it can only be the invisible aggregate of ransomed souls which is regarded as being the Zion of the prophecy. But, perhaps, even that is too definite and hard. And we are rather to think of the unseen but existent order of things or polity to which men here on earth may belong, and which will one day, after shocks and convulsions that shatter all which is merely institutional and human, be manifested still more gloriously. The central thought that was moving in the prophets mind is of the indestructible vitality of the true Israel, and the order which it represented, of which Jerusalem on its rock was but to him a symbol. And thus for us the lesson is that, apart altogether from the existing and visible order of things in which we dwell, there is a polity to which we may belong, for ye are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, and that order is indestructible. There is a lesson for us, in times of fluctuation, of change of opinion, of shaking of institutions, and of new social, economical, and political questions, threatening day by day to reorganise society. We have a strong city; and whatever may come–and much destructive will come, and much that is venerable and antique, rooted in mens prejudices, and having survived through and oppressed the centuries, will have to go, but Gods polity, His form of human society, of which the perfect ideal and antitype, so to speak, lies concealed in the heavens, is everlasting. And for Christian men in revolutionary epochs the only worthy temper is the calm, triumphant expectation that through all the dust, contradiction, and distraction the fair city of God will be brought nearer and made more manifest to man. To this city–existent, immortal, and waiting to be revealed–you and I may belong today.

II. THE DEFENCES. Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. This evangelical prophet is distinguished by the fulness and depth which he attaches to that word salvation. He all but anticipates the New Testament completeness and fulness of meaning, and lifts it from all merely material associations of earthly or transitory deliverance into the sphere in which we are accustomed to regard it as especially moving. By salvation he means, and we mean, not only negative but positive blessings. Negatively, it includes the removal of every conceivable or endurable evil, whether they be evils of sin or evils of sorrow; and positively, the investiture with every possible good that humanity is capable of, whether it be good of goodness or good of happiness. This is what the prophet tells us is the wall and bulwark of his ideal real city. Mark the eloquent omission of the name of the builder of the wall. God is a supplement. Salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks. No need to say who it is that flings such a fortification around the city. There is only one hand that can trace the lines of such walls; only one hand that can pile their stones; only one that can lay them, as the walls of Jericho were laid, in the blood of His first-born Son. Salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks, i.e., in a highly imaginative and picturesque form, that the defence of the city is God Himself. The fact of salvation is the wall and the bulwark. And the consciousness of the fact is for our poor hearts one of our best defences against both the evil of sin and the evil of sorrow. So, let us walk by the faith that is always confident, though it depends on an unseen hand. Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks, and if we realise, as we ought to do, His purpose and His power to keep us safe, and the actual operation of His hand keeping us safe at every moment, we shall not ask that these defences shall be supplemented by the poor feeble earthworks that sense can throw up.

III. THE CITIZENS. Our text is part of a song, and is not to be interpreted in the cold-blooded fashion that might suit prose. A voice, coming from whom we know not, breaks in upon the first strain with a command, addressed to whom we know not. Open ye the gates–the city thus far being supposed to be empty,–that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. The central idea there is just this, Thy people shall be all righteous. The one qualification for entrance into the city is absolute purity. Now, that is true in regard of our present imperfect denizenship within the city; and it is true in regard to mens passing into it, in its perfect and final form. They used to say that Venice glass was so made that any poison poured into it shivered the vessel. Any drop of sin poured into your cup of communion with God shatters the cup and spills the wine. Whosoever thinks himself a citizen of that great city, if he falls into transgression, and soils the cleanness of his hands, and ruffles the calm of his pure heart by self-willed sinfulness, will wake to find himself not within the battlements, but lying wounded, robbed, solitary, in the pitiless desert. The nation which keepeth the truth,–that does not mean adherence to any revelation, or true creed, or the like. The word which is employed means, not truth of thought, but truth of character; and might, perhaps, be better represented by the more familiar word in such a connection, faithfulness A man who is true to God, that keeps up a faithful relation to Him who is faithful to us, he, and only he, will tread and abide in the city. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The walls and bulwarks of a city

Accepting the vague but universal idea that there is an abundance of sin of every sort massed together in any great city, our inquiry concerns the main lines of work by which the welfare of the city may be promoted. To the eye of the prophet there comes a vision of a strong city; and the walls and bulwarks of that strength is said to be salvation–that is, the strength and safety of a city is in the men and women in it who are saved through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. I know there are many to turn a deaf ear to any such claim as this. They reject it as being too sweeping. They say that there are many sources from which the life-giving waters come. Let us take a look at some of these things which are supposed to give safety.

I. And perhaps the first thing to be mentioned is Law. It need not be any highly moral or religious enactment, but simply plain, everyday, matter-of-fact law. The city needs it. People in the simplicity of country life, where there is an abundance of room, can get on without much law. But the city needs law. And no one will decry the beneficent effect of righteous laws. It must be said, however, that the good effect of law is very much diminished by the many bad laws which are enacted. Are we claiming too much when we say that largely the efficiency of law is due to the Christian men and women who are in the city? Righteous laws follow in the train of progress made by Christianity. The bulwark which at first seemed to stand out alone and distinct becomes identified with that bulwark in the vision of the prophet whose foundation stone, as well as its lofty capstone, is salvation.

II. We are led on to speak of another bulwark for the city. It is A BENEFICENT AND POWERFUL PUBLIC OPINION. But again, I assert that very largely all this safety is due to the presence in the city of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is the public conscience itself, and where did it come from but through Christianity?

III. But again, look at another so-called secular bulwark. Call it THRIFT, the genius of success, the ability to get on in the world. Thrift is consistent with pure selfishness. Find a society in which everybody is only thrifty, where no man cares for his neighbour, where the human heart feels nothing of the flow of generosity and love, and, while you may be able to point to fine and well-kept houses, neat little cottages, well-dressed, clean children, you are really looking upon a hollow, lifeless sham. I do not want to live there, A sea of poverty with a little stream from Calvary flowing into it would be far better. Just a touch of human sympathy and love would transform the whole. (J. C. Cronin.)

A song of salvation

I. What is the PERIOD referred to? A day which was to he remarkable for the destruction of the Churchs enemies, for the salvation of her friends, and for the glorious extension of the Gospel through all the nations of the earth.

II. What is the SUBJECT of this song? We have a strong city: salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. The inviolable security of the Church was to be the subject.

III. WHERE is this song to be sung? In the land of Judah. It was sung when the great salvation was accomplished by the one offering of Christ upon the Cross; and the risen Saviour said to His disciples, Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature; and the tidings were sent abroad; and the Gospel, which was first preached at Jerusalem, was sounded forth into all lands. And we cannot but indulge the confident persuasion, that among the Jews, though they are for the present cast out, this song shall be sung in due time, which shall be as life from the dead. But as that people have long since been cut off because of their unbelief, we remark, that the words will apply to others also; for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, etc. So that this song comes down to us. (G. Clayton.)

The Church not in danger

I. THE FIGURATIVE DESCRIPTION WHICH IS HERE GIVEN OF THE CHURCH.

1. It is a city; from which metaphor we obtain three ideas respecting it–

(1) Its amplitude. It is not a family, or a village, or a hamlet, or a provincial town; but a city. It includes as its inhabitants, all the good both in heaven and in earth, who form an exceeding great multitude. The dimensions of this city are such as comport with the largeness of the Fathers designs, the transcendent value of the Saviours merits, the variety and immensity of the Holy Spirits influences.

(2) Its order No city ever flourished long without rule. Christ is the King of this city, and He establishes His laws in the midst of it.

(3) Its magnificence. We are not to look for the magnificence of the Church in outward splendour and glory, but in its sanctity–its holy principles and practices.

2. But this city has an important appellative;–it is a strong city. And this will appear, if you consider–

(1) The foundation on which it rests. Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

(2) The protection it enjoys. God Himself dwells in this city; and His presence is our stay and our defence. All His attributes and promises are connected with this safety.

(3) The principles by which its unity is cemented. Unity is strength. And the unity subsisting between the members of this city is so strong as not to be dissolved by any earthly power. The principles by which the members of the Church of Christ are united are these two–truth and love. We have a strong city.

(4) The rude assaults it has sustained, uninjured. We hardly know the strength of anything till it is put to the test. The Church has been exposed to the opposition of earth and the fury of hell.

II. ITS IMPREGNABLE SAFETY. How do I know that this city shall continue, and its interests be advanced, until its glory is consummated? Why, for this reason: Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

1. Hostility is implied.

2. The means of preservation and defence are amply provided.

3. It implies a glorious issue. All these means shall prove effectual

III. HOW MAY WE HAVE A SATISFACTORY ASSURANCE THAT WE HAVE PERSONALLY AN INTEREST IN THIS CITY OF THE GREAT KING? You may have this–

1. If you have chosen Jesus Christ as the ground of your dependence for salvation.

2. If you are visibly incorporated with the inhabitants of this city.

3. If you are enabled to exemplify the distinguishing character of those who are citizens of Zion.

4. If you find that you have truly merged all your interests in the interests of the Church, and have identified your happiness with her successes.

5. If you find your thoughts and affections much engaged on that future State of which the Church on earth is but a type.

Conclusion–

1. Let me call upon you to be thankful to God, who has afforded you such an asylum.

2. Let me invite you to enter this city.

3. Let us dismiss our fears, when we have once got within the walls of this city.

4. Endeavour to bring as many as you can to be inhabitants of that Zion, the privileges of which you enjoy. (J. C. Cronin.)

The saving arm of God a sure defences to the Church of Christ against all her enemies

I. Mention some of those ENEMIES against whom the Church is fortified.

1. She is fortified against all the attempts of Satan.

2. A wicked world is always disposed to take part with Sam against her.

3. The Church has enemies within her own walls; and is often in the greatest perils by false brethren.

4. The Church has enemies even in the hearts of her best friends and sincerest members. That principle of corruption that is not totally subdued in the best Christians, as it is inimical to God, must also be inimical to the Church; and, as far as it prevails, its effects must be always hurtful to her.

II. Speak of that SALVATION which God has promised to appoint for walls and bulwarks to the Church.

1. Salvation bears an evident relation to misery and danger.

2. It is but a partial salvation that she can hope to enjoy in this world:–

3. But her salvation shall one day be complete. From every salvation that God has already wrought, faith draws encouragement: considering it as a pledge of what He will work in time to come.

III. CONSIDER WHAT ABOUT THE CHURCH IS SECURED AGAINST THE ATTEMPTS OF ENEMIES BY THE SALVATION OF GOD. She may lose much of what may appear to a carnal eye as most valuable to her. But in the eye of the Church herself, and of all her genuine children, all this perfectly consistent with the all-sufficiency of that salvation by which she is defended. An is still safe that is necessary either to her being or her well-being, and all that is essential to the happiness of any of her citizens.

1. Her foundation is always safe. She is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.

2. Her existence is always safe. The Church may be driven into the wilderness; but she shall never be driven out of the world.

3. Her particular citizens are all safe, under the protection of Gods saving arm.

4. Her privileges and immunities are all safe. These having been purchased for her by the blood of Christ, and bestowed upon nor by His God and Father, are also preserved by Divine power and grace; and none shall ever be suffered to deprive her of them.

5. Her treasures are all safe. She has a two-fold treasure: a treasure of grace, and a treasure of truth. Both these are lodged in the hand of Christ.

6. Her real interests are all safe and secure: and that to such a degree, that neither shall she suffer any harm, in the issue,–nor shall her enemies gain any advantage, by all their apparent success.

7. In a word, her eternal inheritance is perfectly safe and secure.

IV. Conclude with some IMPROVEMENT of what has been said.

1. The Church of Christ has but little occasion for the favour and protection of earthly princes, and little cause to regret the want of it.

2. It is neither upon ordinances nor instruments, upon her own endeavours nor those of her members, nor upon any created assistance that the Church of Christ ought to depend for safety or prosperity.

3. Neither the Church of God, nor any particular Christian, has anything to fear from the number, the power, the policy, or even the success of their enemies,

4. This subject informs us what it is that really brings the Church of Christ into danger. Nothing but her own sin can bring her into real danger; because this, and nothing else, tends to deprive her of her protection, or to cause her defence to depart from her.

5. We may here see plentiful encouragement to every member of the Church, as well as to those who bear office in her, to continue strenuous and undaunted, in opposing every enemy, in defending every privilege, that God has bestowed upon the Church, every ordinance that He has instituted in her, and every truth that He has revealed to her.

6. We have here an ample fund of consolation to all those who are affected with the low condition of the Church of God in our day. (J. Young.)

The city of salvation

In the Scriptures we read of some very strong cities, that are now levelled with the dust. But the city mentioned in the text is stronger than all the rest. The state of nature may be called the city-of-destruction; and the state of grace, the strong city, or the city of salvation.

I. The NAME of this city. Salvation. It is a very old name, it has had this name a great many thousands of years; it has never changed its name; it is a durable name; it is an unchangeable name.

II. What KIND of a city it is.

1. It is a large city. It would hold all the inhabitants of the earth for thousands of generations.

2. It is a free city. The Lord Jesus Christ welcomes you to come and live in it.

3. It is a wealthy city. The treasures of free grace are in the city of salvation.

4. It is a healthy city. They breathe good air who live in it. The Physician is the Lord Jesus Christ, who heals every disease.

5. It is a happy city.

6. This city will last foe ever. Where is Babylon? Where is Tyre? Where is Nineveh? Where are the cities of Egypt? Those mighty cities are levelled with the dust, but this city will last through all eternity.

III. The BUILDER of this city. The Lord Jesus Christ. In London there is a constant succession of streets for many miles in length, and the whole was built by man.

IV. Who are the INHABITANTS of this city? They are good men, women, and children.

1. They are called saints. The word saint means a holy person.

2. Another name given to the inhabitants of this city is righteous.

3. Another name is believers.

4. Another name is sons and daughters.

V. The WATCHMEN of the city. There are watchmen placed upon the walls of Zion–parental watchmen, teaching watchmen, and ministerial watchmen.

VI. The GUARDS of the city. Angels guard you while you sleep and while you are awake. They are wise guards; powerful guards; affectionate guards.

VII. The WAY which leads to this city. The road of repentance.

VIII. The WALL of this city. It is so high that no enemy can scale it; it is so strong that no enemy can break or injure it.

IX. The FOUNDATION of this city. The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

X. The STREETS of this city. There are some very remarkable streets.

1. The high street of Faith. This street runs from one end of the city to the other. In almost every town and city, we find a street of this name–High Street. But there is no such street, as this high street of faith; it is a very long and beautiful street. It connects the gate of conversion and the gate of Heaven. This high street is frequented by all who live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. The street of Humility. It lies alongside the high street of faith.

3. The street of Obedience. The inhabitants are very partial to this street. This street is divided into ten parts. The ten parts are the ten commandments. This is a very broad street. Thy commandments are exceeding broad. It is a remarkably clean street.

4. A fourth street is Worship street.

XI. We may now take a view of the SCHOOLS of the city.

1. Providence.

2. Revelation.

3. Affliction.

4. Experience.

XII. Come and see the PALACES of the city. When anyone gets to London, they want to see the palace of the king. I will show nobler palaces than palaces or earthly Kings. These palaces are ordinances; such as prayer, praise, reading and hearing the Holy Gospel, baptism and the Lords Supper, meditation and self-examination. Consider the reason why they are called palaces. A palace is a place where the king is to be seen. It is a place where petitions are presented; where the king bestows wealth and great gifts. Here petitions are presented and received; here King Jesus bestows wealth and honour. It is a place for conversing with the king; and here we may converse with Jesus. In a palace grand feasts are held; so in the ordinances noble feasts are provided for souls immortal, where they may eat abundantly of heavenly provisions.

XIII. The ARMOURY of the city. A beautiful piece is hanging up called the helmet–the helmet of salvation. Not far from the helmet is a breastplate–the breastplate of righteousness. Near the breastplate is a girdle or sash,with this inscription–truth. The next piece of armour is a pair of shoes with this name–preparation of the Gospel of peace. Next is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The shield of faith.

XIV. The GARDEN of the city.

1. The walks in the garden. The walks of meditation and holy fellowship.

2. The fountains. The Lord Jesus Christ is the principal fountain. There is another fountain, called the consolation of the Holy Ghost; the water is delicious. All the inhabitants drink of it.

3. The flowers. There are the flowers of the promises and doctrines; they are odoriferous flowers, and never failing.

4. The trees. The tree of knowledge; not the tree of knowledge which was in Eden, but of knowledge and wisdom. There is not a poisonous tree in the garden. The tree of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, is there–whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

XV. The BANK of this city. The name of this bank is written on the door; it is–the covenant of grace. It is so free, all may come and apply; and all who apply, receive. The bank, too, is very rich; and it is free for the poorest sinner. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Proprietor, and He is willing to give to poor sinners as much as they need. This bank cannot fail; it cannot break. Whatever is drawn out during the day, it is as full again at night. It is full of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

XVI. There is a GATE through which the inhabitants of the city pass, when they enter Heaven. It is the gate of death. There is a valley leading to the gate called the valley of the shadow of death. It is illuminated with the light of the Sun of Righteousness. Pious children pass through that valley, leaning on the arm of Jesus. (A. Fletcher, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER XXVI

This chapter, like the foregoing, is a song of praise, in

which thanksgivings for temporal and spiritual mercies are

beautifully mingled, though the latter still predominate. Even

the sublime and evangelical doctrine of the resurrection seems

here to be hinted at, and made to typify the deliverance of

the people of God from a state of the lowest misery; the

captivity, the general dispersion, or both. This hymn too,

like the preceding, is beautifully diversified by the frequent

change of speakers. It opens with a chorus of the Church,

celebrating the protection vouchsafed by God to his people;

and the happiness of the righteous, whom he guards, contrasted

with the misery of the wicked, whom he punishes, 1-7.

To this succeeds their own pious resolution of obeying,

trusting, and delighting in God, 8.

Here the prophet breaks in, in his own person, eagerly catching

the last words of the chorus, which were perfectly in unison

with the feelings of his own soul, and which he beautifully

repeats, as one musical instrument reverberates the sound of

another on the same key with it. He makes likewise a suitable

response to what had been said on the judgments of God, and

observes their different effects on the good and the bad;

improving the one, and hardening the other, 9-11.

After this, a chorus of Jews express their gratitude to God

for past deliverances, make confession of their sins, and

supplicate his power, which they had been long expecting,

12-18.

To this God makes a gracious reply, promising deliverance that

should be as life from the dead, 19.

And the prophet, (apparently alluding to the command of Moses

to the Israelites, when the destroying angel was to go through

the land of Egypt,) concludes with exhorting his people to

patience and resignation, till God sends the deliverance he

has promised, 20, 21.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXVI

Verse 1. We have a strong city] In opposition to the city of the enemy, which God hath destroyed, Isa 25:2. See Clarke on Isa 25:2.

Salvation – for walls and bulwarks] chomoth vachel, walls and redoubts, or the walls and the ditch. chel properly signifies the ditch or trench without the wall; see Kimchi. The same rabbin says, This song refers to the time of salvation, i.e., the days of the Messiah.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

In that day, when God shall do such glorious works for the comfort of his people, and for the ruin of his and their enemies, as he hath described in the foregoing chapter.

In the land of Judah; in the church of God, which in Scripture is oft signified by the titles of Judah, and Jerusalem, and Zion, or the like.

A strong city; Jerusalem, or the church, which is oft called or compared to a city, as Psa 87:3; Rev 3:12; 11:2; 21:2.

Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks; Gods immediate and saving protection shall be to his church instead of walls, &c. But I conceive, with submission, the words may very fitly be thus rendered, He will send, or put, or make her walls and bulwarks salvation, i.e. as safe as salvation itself; or, in safety, there being only a defect of the preposition, which is very frequent in Scripture.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. strong cityJerusalem,strong in Jehovah’s protection: type of the new Jerusalem (Ps48:1-3), contrasted with the overthrow of the ungodly foe(Isa 26:4-7; Isa 26:12-14;Rev 22:2; Rev 22:10-12,c.).

salvation . . . walls(Isa 60:18 Jer 3:23;Zec 2:5). MAURERtranslates, “Jehovah makes His help serve as walls”(Isa 33:20; Isa 33:21,&c.).

bulwarksthe trenchwith the antemural earthworks exterior to the wall.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah,…. When great things shall be done: for the church and people of God; and when antichrist and all their enemies are destroyed, as mentioned in the preceding chapter Isa 25:1; then this song shall be sung expressed in this throughout; which the Targum calls a “new” song, an excellent one, as the matter of it shows; and which will be sung in the land of Judah, the land of praise in the congregation of the saints, the professors and confessors of the name of Jesus: in Mount Zion, the church of God below, Ps 149:1:

we have a strong city; not an earthly one, as Jerusalem; so the Jewish writers, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi, interpret it; nor the heavenly city, which God has prepared and built, and saints are looking for, and are citizens of: but rather the holy city, the New Jerusalem, described in Re 21:2 or however, the church of Christ, as in the latter day; which will be a “strong” one, being of the Lord’s founding, establishing, keeping, and defending; and whose strength will greatly lie in the presence of God, and his protection of it; in the number of its citizens, which will be many, when Jews and Gentiles are converted; and in their union one with another, and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ; when a “small one”, as the church is now, shall become a “strong nation”, Isa 60:22:

salvation will [God] appoint [for] walls and bulwarks; instead of walls, ditches, parapets, counterscarps, and such like fortifications; what they are to cities, that is salvation to the church and people of God; it is their safety and security: as God the Father is concerned in it, it flows from his love, which is unchangeable; it is by an appointment of his, which is unalterable; is secured by election grace, which stands not upon the works of men, but the will of God; and by the covenant of grace, ordered in all things, and sure; and by his power the saints are kept unto it: as Christ is concerned in it, it is as walls and bulwarks; he is the author of it, has completely finished it, and has overcome and destroyed all enemies; his righteousness is a security from all charges and condemnation; his satisfaction a bulwark against the damning power of sin, the curses of the law, and the wrath of God; his mediation and intercession are a protection of saints; and his almighty power a guard about them. As the Spirit is concerned in it, who is the applier of it, and evidences interest in it; it is a bulwark against sin, against Satan’s temptations, against a spirit of bondage to fear, against error, and a final and total falling away; particularly the church’s “walls” will be “salvation”, and her “gates” praise, of which in the next verse Isa 26:2, in the latter day glory; to which this song refers; see Isa 60:18.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thus the second hymnic echo has its confirmation in a prophecy against Moab, on the basis of which a third hymnic echo now arises. Whilst on the other side, in the land of Moab, the people are trodden down, and its lofty castles demolished, the people in the land of Judah can boast of an impregnable city. “In that day will this song be sung in the land of Judah: A city of defence is ours; salvation He sets for walls and bulwark.” According to the punctuation, this ought to be rendered, “A city is a shelter for us;” but seem rather to be connected, according to Pro 17:19, “a city of strong, i.e., of impregnable offence and defence.” The subject of is Jehovah. The figure indicates what He is constantly doing, and ever doing afresh; for the walls and bulwarks of Jerusalem ( chel , as in Lam 2:8, the small outside wall which encloses all the fortifications) are not dead stone, but yeshuah , ever living and never exhausted salvation (Isa 60:18). In just the same sense Jehovah is called elsewhere the wall of Jerusalem, and even a wall of fire in Zec 2:9 – parallels which show that yeshuah is intended to be taken as the accusative of the object, and not as the accusative of the predicate, according to Isa 5:6; Psa 21:7; Psa 84:7; Jer 22:6 (Luzzatto).

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The Blessings of the Gospel.

B. C. 718.

      1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.   2 Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.   3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.   4 Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:

      To the prophecies of gospel grace very fitly is a song annexed, in which we may give God the glory and take to ourselves the comfort of that grace: In that day, the gospel day, which the day of the victories and enlargements of the Old-Testament church was typical of (to some of which perhaps this has a primary reference), in that day this song shall be sung; there shall be persons to sing it, and cause and hearts to sing it; it shall be sung in the land of Judah, which was a figure of the gospel church; for the gospel covenant is said to be made with the house of Judah, Heb. viii. 8. Glorious things are here said of the church of God.

      I. That it is strongly fortified against those that are bad (v. 1): We have a strong city. It is a city incorporated by the charter of the everlasting covenant, fitted for the reception of all that are made free by that charter, for their employment and entertainment; it is a strong city, as Jerusalem was, while it was a city compact together, and had God himself a wall of fire round about it, so strong that none would have believed that an enemy could ever enter into the gates of Jerusalem, Lam. iv. 12. The church is a strong city, for it has walls and bulwarks, or counterscarps, and those of God’s own appointing; for he has, in his promise, appointed salvation itself to be its defence. Those that are designed for salvation will find that to be their protection, 1 Pet. i. 4.

      II. That it is richly replenished with those that are good, and they are instead of fortifications to it; for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, if they are such as they should be, are its strength, Zech. xii. 5. The gates are here ordered to be opened, that the righteous nation, which keeps the truth, may enter in, v. 2. They had been banished and driven out by the iniquity of the former times, but now the laws that were made against them are repealed, and they have liberty to enter in again. Or, There is an act for a general naturalization of all the righteous, whatever nation they are of, encouraging them to come and settle in Jerusalem. When God has done great things for any place or people he expects that thus they should render according to the benefit done unto them; they should be kind to his people, and take them under their protection and into their bosom. Note, 1. It is the character of righteous men that they keep the truths of God, a firm belief of which will have a commanding influence upon the regularity of the whole conversation. Good principles fixed in the head will produce good resolutions in the heart and good practices in the life. 2. It is the interest of states to countenance such, and court them among them, for they bring a blessing with them.

      III. That all who belong to it are safe and easy, and have a holy security and serenity of mind in the assurance of God’s favour. 1. This is here the matter of a promise (v. 3): Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace, in perfect peace, inward peace, outward peace, peace with God, peace of conscience, peace at all times, under all events; this peace shall he be put into, and kept in the possession of, whose mind is stayed upon God, because it trusts in him. It is the character of every good man that he trusts in God, puts himself under his guidance and government, and depends upon him that it shall be greatly to his advantage to do so. Those that trust in God must have their minds stayed upon him, must trust him at all times, under all events, must firmly and faithfully adhere to him, with an entire satisfaction in him; and such as do so God will keep in perpetual peace, and that peace shall keep them. When evil tidings are abroad those shall calmly expect the event, and not be disturbed by frightful apprehensions arising from them, whose hearts are fixed, trusting in the Lord, Ps. cxii. 7. 2. It is the matter of a precept (v. 4): “Let us make ourselves easy by trusting in the Lord for ever; since God has promised peace to those that stay themselves upon him, let us not lose the benefit of that promise, but repose an entire confidence in him. Trust in him for ever, at all times, when you have nothing else to trust to; trust in him for that peace, that portion, which will be for ever.” Whatever we trust to the world for, it will be but for a moment: all we expect from it is confined within the limits of time. But what we trust in God for will last as long as we shall last. For in the Lord Jehovah-Jah, Jehovah, in him who was, and is, and is to come, there is a rock of ages, a firm and lasting foundation for faith and hope to build upon; and the house built on that rock will stand in a storm. Those that trust in God shall not only find in him, but receive from him, everlasting strength, strength that will carry them to everlasting life, to that blessedness which is for ever; and therefore let them trust in him for ever, and never cast away nor change their confidence.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

ISAIAH – CHAPTER 26

A SONG OF PRAISE FOR REDEMPTION

Vs. 1-4: AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF DIVINE PROTECTION

1. “In that day”, an expression used repeatedly in this section, is “the day of the Lord” wherein His mighty purpose is brought to its glorious climax, (Isa 24:21; Isa 25:9; Isa 26:1; Isa 27:1-2; Isa 27:12-13).

2. It is, preeminently, a day of salvation, (Isa 12:2; Isa 49:26; Isa 35:4; Jer 23:6; Jer 30:7; Eze 37:23).

3. Jerusalem, the strong, righteous, faithful “city of habitation”, and “city of the Great King” (Isa 1:26; Psa 107:7; Psa 101:8; Psa 48:1-3), is set in contrast to “the city of the nations” (Isa 25:3); the saving strength of Jehovah will be the only “wall and bulwark” that she needs.

4. A redeemed Israel, whose heart is now truly devoted to Jehovah in loving loyalty, is “the righteous nation” – though it will later be seen that a multitude “from every kindred, tongue, tribe and nation” will be engrafted, by faith, into this sphere and blessedness of covenant fellowship, (1Pe 2:7-12; Act 15:14-18; Rom 9:22-27; Rev 5:9-10; Rev 7:9-10).

5. “Perfect peace” describes the blessedness of the trusting soul:

“Stayed upon Jehovah, Hearts are fully blest -Finding, as He promised, Perfect peace and rest”, (vs. 12; Psa 72:3; Psa 72:7; Joh 14:27).

6. Thus, the admonition of verse 4: “Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting (Rock of Ages) strength”, (Isa 12:2; Isa 50:10; Psa 18:1-2; Isa 17:10; Isa 30:29; Isa 44:6-8; Deu 32:4; Deu 32:15).

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. In that day shall a song be sung. Here the Prophet begins again to shew that, after the return of the people from captivity, they will be defended by God’s power and guardianship, and that under his protection Jerusalem will be as safe as if she had been surrounded by bulwarks, ramparts, a ditch, and a double wall, so that no enemy could find entrance.

It is proper to observe the time when “this song was sung.” The Prophet had foretold the calamity that would befall the Church, which was not yet so near at hand, but happened a short time after his death. When the people were led into captivity, they would undoubtedly have despaired, if they had not been encouraged by such promises. That the Jews might cherish a hope that they would be delivered, and might behold life in the midst of death, the Prophet composed for them this song, even before the calamity occurred, that they might be better prepared for enduring it, and might hope for better things. I do not think that it was composed solely that, when they had been delivered, they might give thanks to God, but that even during their captivity, though they were like dead men, (Eze 37:1,) they might strengthen their hearts with this confidence, and might also train up their children in this expectation, and hand down these promises, as it were, to posterity.

We have formerly (154) seen the reason why these and other promises were put by Isaiah into the form of verse. It was, that, having been frequently sung, they might make a deeper impression on their memory. Though they mourned in Babylon, and were almost overwhelmed with sorrow, (hence these sounds, (Psa 137:4,) “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”) yet they must have hoped that at a future period, when they should have returned to Judea, they would give thanks to the Lord and sing his praises; and therefore the Prophet shews to them at a distance the day of deliverance, that they may take courage from the expectation of it.

We have a city of strength. By these words a full restoration of Jerusalem and of the people is promised, because God will not only deliver the captives and gather those that are scattered, but will also preserve them safe, after having brought them back to their country. But not long afterwards believers saw that Jerusalem was destroyed, (2Kg 25:9,) and the Temple thrown down, (2Ch 36:19,) and after their return nothing could meet their eye but hideous ruins; and all this Isaiah had previously foretold. It was therefore necessary that they should behold from the lofty watch-tower of faith this restoration of Jerusalem.

He hath made salvation to be walls and a bulwark. He now defines what will be “the strength of the city;” for the “salvation” of God will supply the place of a “wall,” towers, ditches, and mounds. As if he had said, “Let other cities rely on their fortifications, God alone will be to us instead of all bulwarks.” Some allege that the words may be read, “He hath set a wall and bulwark for salvation;” and I do not set aside that rendering. But as a more valuable doctrine is contained in the Prophet’s words, when nothing is supplied, it serves no good purpose to go far for a forced interpretation; especially since the true and natural interpretation readily presents itself to the mind, which is, that God’s protection is more valuable than all ditches and walls. In like manner, it is also said in the psalm, “Thy mercy is better than life,” (Psa 63:3😉 for as David there boasts of enjoying, under God’s shadow, greater safety and freedom from care than if he had been fortified by every kind of earthly defense, so Isaiah here says, that there will be good reason for laying aside fear, when God shall have undertaken to guard his people. Now, since this promise extends to the whole course of redemption, we ought to believe that at the present day God is still the guardian of his Church, and therefore, that his power is of more avail than if it had been defended by every kind of military force. Accordingly, if we wish to dwell in safety, we must remain in the Church. Though we have no outward defences, yet let us learn to be satisfied with the Lord’s protection, and with his sure salvation, which is better than all bulwarks.

(154) See vol. 1 p. 162.

FT412 See Calvin on Isaiah, vol. 1 p. 384

FT413 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace (Heb. peace, peace) whose mind (or, thought, or, imagination) is stayed on thee.” — Eng. Ver.

FT414 “For in the Lord Jehovah is (Heb. the Rock of ages) everlasting strength.” — Eng. Ver.

FT415 “For he bringeth down them that dwell on high.” — Eng. Ver.

FT416 See Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 1 p. 407

FT417 It will be observed, that this accords very nearly with our English version. — Ed

FT418 Bishop Stock’s rendering is, “The road of the just is the direct road; rightly the path of the just dost thou make even;” and he makes the following annotations: — “ The direct road to happiness, the object of all human pursuit. ‘Rightly,’ or with reason, ‘the path of the just dost thou make even,’ smooth before him, till he reaches his journey’s end. ‘The straight road is the short one,’ says the divine as well as the geometrician.” — Ed

FT419 “ A se fier en Dieu;” — “To trust in God.”

FT420 “ Encor que les choses soyent du tout hors d’espoir;” — “Even when matters are altogether beyond hope.”

FT421 “ Tous les desirs et travaux des hommes.”

FT422 “Early.” — (Eng. Ver.) In the marginal reading of the Author’s version, he renders it “earnestly.” — Ed

FT423 “ Que les hommes sont enseignez à eraindre Dieu par les verges dont il les frappe;” — “That men are taught to fear God by the scourges with which he strikes them.”

FT424 “Let favour be shewed to the wicked.” — Eng. Ver.

FT425 “ Et se retiennent en bride de crainte qu’ils ont d’estre fouettez;” — “And are kept in check through fear of being chastised.”

FT426 Accordingly, our English version, instead of “upright actions,” uses the term “uprightness,” which corresponds to the Author’s French version, “ la terre de droiture,” “the land of uprightness.” — Ed

FT427 “ La terre de droiture;” — “The land of uprightness.”

FT428 The Author refers to his exposition of Isa 5:12. See Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 1 p. 176

FT429 Μετωνυμία, or metonymy, denotes that figure of rhetoric by which one word is exchanged for another on account of a connection of idea, such as, “Moses and the prophets,” for their works, or, as in this passage, the “hand” for the works performed by it. — Ed

FT430 “(They are) dead, they shall not live.” — Eng. Ver.

FT431 “ Des fideles et des infideles;” — “Of believers and unbelievers.”

FT432 “(They are) deceased, they shall not rise.” — Eng. Ver.

FT433 Professor Alexander renders רפאים ( rĕphāīm) ghosts and remarks, “It is here a poetical equivalent to מתים ( mēthīm,) and may be variously rendered shades, shadows, spirits, or the like. The common version ( deceased) leaves too entirely out of view the figurative character of the expression. Giants, on the contrary, is too strong, and could only be employed in this connection in the sense of gigantic shades, or shadows.”

FT434 As if the reading had been not rĕphāīm, but rōphĕīm, the Seventy render it ἰατροὶ οὐ μὴ ἀναστήσουσι, “ physicians shall not rise again.” — Ed

FT435 “ Faisoyent que la demeurance estiot plus estroite et moins libre;” — “Made habitation to be narrower and less free.”

FT436 “ Que nous avons traduit Prière;” — “Which we have translated Prayer.”

FT437 “ Pour une prière articulee;” — “For an articulated prayer.”

FT438 “An obvious phrase for inanity. See below, Isa 33:11 They who think of a female disorder, termed empneumatosis, should remember that it is an uncommon disorder, and that metaphors are not drawn from objects or events of rare occurrence.” — Stock

FT439 “We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth.” — Eng. Ver.

FT440 “ Esperant avoir part de leur resurrection;” — “Hoping to share in their resurrection.”

FT441 “ En ceste vie.”

FT442 Bishop Lowth’s rendering is, “For thy dew is as the dew of the dawn.” Bishop Stock follows him very closely: “For as the dew of day-light is thy dew,” and remarks: — “ A dew of rays, that is, as I conceive, a dew able to abide the solar rays, or a steady dew, in oppostion ‘to the early dew that passeth away’ of Hos 6:4; which the Prophet there parallels with ‘the morning cloud.’ The comparison of Isaiah intimates that the refreshing of Israel should not be transient, but lasting.” Professor Alexander, with his usual learning and judgment, produces a formidable array of conflicting authorities, but vindicates the usual rendering. “There are,” he says, “two interpretations of ארות, (ō rōth,) both ancient, and supported by high modern authorities. The first gives the word the usual sense of איר, (ō r,) light; the other, that of plants, which it has in 2Kg 4:39. To the former it may be objected, that it leaves the plural form unexplained, that it arbitrarily makes light mean life, and that it departs from the acknowledged meaning of ארות (ō rōth) in the only other place where it occurs. The second interpretation, on the other hand, assumes but one sense of the word, allows the plural form its proper force, and supposes an obvious and natural allusion to the influence of dew upon the growth of plants. In either case, the reference to the dew is intended to illustrate the vivifying power of God.” — Ed

FT443 As to the interpretation of רפאים ( rĕphāīm) by giants, See page 231, note 3

FT444 “ Que ces tourbillons et orages passent, et sont de petite duree;” — “That these whirlwinds and storms pass away, and are of short duration.”

FT445 “Her blood (Heb. bloods).” — Eng. Ver.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

WHEREIN IS THE CITYS EFFECTIVE SALVATION?

Isa 26:1

IT is one of the most blessed experiences of high spiritual living that all such as enjoy it get decided glimpses of coming good and glory. The prophets of all times have been able to foretell events, not so much because they were in appointment to prophetic office, as because they lived in the white light of Gods presence.

Paul was caught up into the third heaven and permitted to hear unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter, not because he was an Apostle, but because he was spiritually minded and lived godly in Christ Jesus. For the same reason John saw Heaven open, and in its larger light the earths future revealed. The men of the Old Testament were often on the Mount of God, and got visions there of far-off events.

Isaiah, at the time of this text, was beholding the day that John saw from the isle of Patmos, and the city of Isaiahs vision is the very same that John described as the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of Heaven from God, having the glory of God as its light, in which the nations of the saved walked.

Henry Drummond, commenting on Johns speech, I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, says: The association of a blessed life with a city, the one place in the world from which Heaven seems most far away, is something wholly new in religious thought.

But Drummond is mistaken. The old prophets had just such a conception and hence, the words of our text. The Kingdom of God shall have come in this world when Christ has conquered the cities; when Minneapolis, with all her sisters, is at the Saviours feet, and salvation is the wall and the bulwark of each.

There are many theories as to how this shall be accomplished, but I believe in only onethat is the theory of our text.

It is interesting, however, to give a little study to other suggestions. Some look to

LAW AS THE SALVATION OF THE CIVIC LUMP

There are not a few who say that law grows more strong in its letter of right, and becomes more and more able in enforcement, and these think that when its execution is more certain and just, crime will practically cease from our cities. That law has larger corrective powers than it has yet put forth, none doubt. Every good citizen feels that our lawmakers and executors could accomplish much by law enforcement if they would. Now and then an honest official shows what a rod of correction law is.

Years ago, Dr. Parkhurst took the execution of law into his own hands for the city of New York, and for a while there was a renascence of applied law; but the power was temporary, and long since the terrible reaction came. Our great city centers are more and more illustrating what the great dramatist made the Duke of Vienna to say of that city, Corruption boils and bubbles till it oerruns the stew; laws for all faults, but faults so countenanced that the strong statutes stand like the forfeits in a barber shop, as much in mock as mark.

That law is not sufficient to save, history illustrates. Rome, the city of the seven hills, was established by law, and her codes were so just and her execution so sure that all succeeding centuries and cities have copied; and yet, Dr. Joseph Parker, in his Ecco Homo, says of legal Rome: Never did men live under such a crushing sense of degradation; never did they look back with more bitter regret; never were the vices that spring out of despair so rife; never was sensuality cultivated more methodically; never did poetry curdle so readily into satire; never was genius so much soured by cynicism; and never was calumny so abundant or so gross or easily believed. If the city could be saved by law, Rome would have been the city of our text.

THE POWER OF PUBLIC OPINION

There are those who put all trust for civic redemption in it.

This is neither unnatural, nor yet unreasonable. So thoughtful a man and so good a student of social questions as Dr. Josiah Strong, in his book The New Era, declared: The progress of nearly all reform depends upon the education of public opinion. The press, he says, has given a vastly enlarged meaning to publicity, and as its meaning has increased, so has its influence. Men are growing more and more sensitive to public opinion. Even the autocrat of all the Russians and the sublime Porte are not insensible to it. Among Occidental peoples, government is, for the most part, government by public opinion, and in this country, where it is altogether so, evils of every sort are amenable to it. When the popular opinion, like the sun, is found to have its rays of heat as well as of light, and when they are focalized by pulpit or press upon some iniquity and steadily held there as a mighty burning glass, that evil, no matter how deeply intrenched in human ignorance, and prejudice, and selfishness, it may be, will, at length, scorch and writhe and smoke and consume away. But, if we admit all this, and we do admit it, we still fail to find the sufficient saving power for the city in public opinion.

In the first place, it is only once in a long while, and under circumstances of the most phenomenal provocation, that public opinion can be aroused to burning heat and held like a flame to flagrant evil.

It took years of tragic traffic in girls in London to make possible William Steads appeal to a long-suffering public. Tammany ruled New York with an iron hand, and turned her offices into pockets for personal appropriation ere Parkhursts appeal to public opinion was effectual. In Chicago an out and out sale of every moral right of the better citizen to civic robbers hardly suffices to incite interest in one mass meeting; and so cities perish while public opinion sleeps, irresolute and inactive; and even if public opinion was open-eyed and constantly courageous, it could not save our cities. While it burns itself out against one vice, another is undermining the very foundation. That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.

On one occasion, in a great city, we went to a ward chairman of the Civic Federation, and asked his sympathy against the Sunday saloon. He answered, Just now the Civic Federation is giving its attention to bad literature, and it cannot turn away from this to do anything else, lest we divide public attention and fail of all result. He was right! We know of no engine of power so sure to burn itself out before any big or lasting work can be accomplished as this of popular feeling. It is like the oceans tide. It reaches a high water mark not to hold it, but to. roll back to low tide before the rising of another sun.

SOME SUPPOSE COMMUNISM TO BE THE CITYS SALVATION

The socialists of the great cities of the old world, and some of the cities of America, are communists, and insist upon a community of goods. They do not ask for a community where Christian men and women, akin in that noblest spirit and character, have all things common; and sell their possessions and goods, and part them to all men, as every man has need, but for a community of wealth, without reference to character or conduct; for a division of riches that shall disregard all personal weaknesses or worth, but leave none hungry or naked. If the communism of the New Testament Christians broke down before the very eyes of the Apostles who practiced and favored it; if Paul had to write to the Thessalonians, if any would not work, neither should he eat, there is absolutely no hope in communism with Christianity left out. Poverty is not the mother of most of our civic iniquities. To make all men comfortable is not to make all men moral. Sinful hearts hatch out the vultures of hardship, and men of means are often godless and miserable. If you have a better view of communism, and organize the social equality idea into a church, it wont save the city. In fact, it will not survive. Mr. Stead once attempted that for London, and signally failed. The Bricklayers Hall of Chicago was not a success in civic redemption. Walter Walsh was right when, concerning the laboring class of London, he said: This secularizing of the idea of life is at the lowest a doubtful and dangerous experiment. Even assuming socialistic economics to be sound, to put ethics before religion and conduct before worship, to weaken the union of the human need and the Divine motive, to seek to reveal the fatherhood of God through the brotherhood of man, is to reverse all tried and tested ways of promoting human virtue and happiness. It is to plant the tree with its roots in the air, or to cause the stream to flow backward in its channel. Christ affirmed that you cannot get an unregenerate man into the Kingdom of Grace, and by the strictest logic it follows that there can be no Kingdom of God in a city until men are made over, made anew, made holy, for, behold, the Kingdom of God is in you, if it exists at all for you.

Communism based upon Christianity failed in Jerusalem. Communism without Christianity is a foregone failure everywhere. What then is our hope? This text tells us.

THE CITYS CONVERSION TO CHRIST IS HER SALVATION

Paul said: I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. What the Gospel can do for the man in redeeming him from sin and sorrow, it can work for the centers of population.

When Phillip preached in Samaria, unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city. That is the Gospel for our city. If, in the Name of Christ, unclean spirits are vanished, and by His power the palsied and the lame are made whole, Heaven will then begin here below and our song will be We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. There are no other such walls. Christianity and that alone is the citys safety.

In the East the cities are surrounded by great walls, but they have gone down before the enemy. One frown from God and the walls of Jericho totter to their foundations and fall. One blast from the great guns, and the castles at Manila and Santiago must surrender; but one righteous man in Sodom preserves it from the flaming fire, and I dont know but it is true that ten righteous men would save any city in the world from the wrath and destruction of God. Surely that was Senator Farewells idea when he declared that he would rather have Mr. Moody in Chicago preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as a force for civic righteousness, than to have the whole police force on duty and the state militia armed with the gatling guns of Haymarket days. But Drummond was also right in saying that the Christian man should be a man of action and practical citizen. The trouble with the Christianity of our cities is its inactivity, its failure at the point of honest practice. There are enough of us in these great cities to exert a mighty saving and sanctifying power, if only we were sanctified ourselves. I use the word in its original meaning viz., set apart to sacred uses.

But the workers for God, how few after all! How many of us are moved, even in religion, by selfish motives. How many of us ask on Sunday morning, Who is the most eloquent preacher in town? What church has the best singers? Where will I see the most beautiful architecture? In what sanctuary can I smell the sweetest flowers? Did it ever occur to you that to make such inquiries discovers the utterly selfish motive in attending Gods House? Why not ask just the opposite question, if we be Christs? To what church can I go today where my contribution will count the most? To what church can I go today where my singing can most assist? To what service can I go today where my soul will be most fed? From what preacher can I receive today, inspiration to earnest living? By what means can I discover today how I may serve the city and snatch some of the sinking? Oh, it is a shame, and it is a sin to profess Christ and then live in a city like thisindifferent to them that live about us without hope and without God.

Once we read, as did many of you, the reports of the sinking of the Burgoyne, and were shocked to see that then, under such circumstances, selfishness controlled men. Helpless women and children were permitted to perish without an outstretched hand, and were even pushed to their death to make better the chances of salvation for the strong. I said, That is humanity at its lowest.

But is Christianity at its highest, when, in a city like this, there are hundreds that sink daily, going down to deaths as much more dreadful than drowning, as destruction is more dreadful than sleep; when within their very reach are men and women that might lend a helping hand? Say what we please, we could, if we followed the commands of our Christ, accomplish mighty things for the metropolis. We could, if we practiced the spirit of our Christ, see the salvation of multitudes, for Christ came into the world to seek and to save.

Dr. Hurlburt used to tell of a celebrated painting named The Great Conquerors in which the artist has presented the worlds greatest warriors riding abreast: Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon and others, over a road made of dead men, and through a desert surrounded by a sea of blood. That is the worlds empire; but that is not the triumph of our Christ. Where His chariots go, there are the living! Christ is the hope of sobriety; Christ is the settlement of social questions; Christ, and Christ alone, is the citys salvation.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

DAYS OF DELIVERANCE

Isa. 26:1-2. In that day shall this song be sung, &c.

There are days in the history of Gods people when they specially need His interposing power. This is their prayer (Psa. 30:10). This their glad confession (Psa. 90:17). At such seasons of direct deliverance the natural expression of the heart is one of gladness. If the poetic faculty be strong within them, as in the case of the king of Israel, they sing in lyric splendour, as in Psalms 18.

1. That historic period referred to by the prophet Isaiah in this chapter was such a day. They had been marvellously protected from the invading Assyrian. His host had been smitten as by the blast of the Lord. When from the city walls they saw the thin relics of that grand army hasten away, then would this song of salvation be echoed through the city. When under the imperial protection of Cyrus the exiles returned to their own land, that was another day of deliverance. They rebuilt the temple and renewed the temple service. Then they sang in their own land, the land of Judah, the songs of Zion.

2. But the first great event in their history, the birthday of their nation, their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, was specially memorable as that day. And in every subsequent national deliverance, from the times of the Judges, all through the splendid leadership of David and the heroic days of the Maccabean brothers, that first deliverance seemed to be renewed, and the old song from the Red Sea shore was again chanted (Exo. 15:6).

3. In the infant days of the Primitive Church, meeting then in the upper room in Jerusalem, when its two leaders, Peter and John, were seized and confronted with their rulers, and elders, and scribes, and sternly threatened not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus. That was a day of deliverance. Then was seen how gloriously transformed were these two Galilean fishermen under the inspiration of the Kingdom of Christ, how sublimely fit they were to lead the forlorn hope of the Church through the breach of Judaism and heathenism on to the conquest of the world. See Act. 4:19-20; Act. 4:23-24. How deeply and rapturously impressed was that little church with the conviction that the power of Him who had made heaven and earth was then resting on their own chiefs, and making them bold to speak His name. They shook the very walls of the room with the volume of their song: We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

4. Another day of deliverance came to the early Church, when the cry of the primitive martyrs was heard (Rev. 6:9-10). That little season soon passed, and their cry was answered; rest came to the martyred Church. No more holy men were thrown to the lions, no more delicate women thrust into caldrons of boiling pitch; the sword slept in its scabbard, and crucifixions were ended. Then the churches had rest, and this hymn was joyously sung. Since those early centuries, Gods Church has passed through many a fiery furnace, and has come out all the purer and all the stronger. And many a song of deliverance has floated up to heaven.

5. This season of gladness has been realised by Gods people individually.
(1.) When a consciousness of the forgiveness of sins has come. When in the temple of the soul this voice has been heard: Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace.

(2.) When the child of God has been delivered from some dark calamity, so threatening that no human help could deliver.

(3.) But the grandest deliverance is the final one. The best wine is kept for the last cup. When the death-river is crossed, and the crystal gates respond to the command, Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Then, when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, when standing within that city where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest, will the redeemed of the Lord shout this song as never before: We have a strong city, salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.William Parkes.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

C. JUSTICE AT LAST FOR JUDAH, CHAPTER 26
1. JUSTICES ORIGIN

TEXT: Isa. 26:1-6

1

In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation will he appoint for wells and bulwarks.

2

Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth faith may enter in.

3

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee.

4

Trust ye in Jehovah forever; for in Jehovah, even Jehovah, is an everlasting rock.

5

For he hath brought down them that dwell on high, the lofty city; he layeth it low, he layeth it low even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.

6

The foot shall tread it down; even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.

QUERIES

a.

What day is referred to in Isa. 26:1?

b.

What two cities are contrasted (Isa. 26:1 and Isa. 26:5)?

PARAPHRASE

In that day when Jehovah makes a feast and removes the covering spread over all nations and swallows up death forever, this jubilant song of praise to Jehovah will be sung by Jehovahs people: Zion, our everlasting city, is strong; her strength is in the salvation He has made. Those of you in the city already, open the gates that all who are righteous and those who keep faith may enter in. Thou, O Jehovah, will keep in complete peace the man who bases his thinking on Thy will, because such a man has put all his reliance on Thee. Rely totally and eternally on Jehovah; for it is the Covenant-God, Jehovah, who is exclusively the eternal rock-of-hiding. He humbles the proud and brings the haughty, antagonistic world of opposition down to dust and oblivion. The poor and lowly, once scoffed at by the world and the lofty city, will walk on the ruins of the enemies of God.

COMMENTS

Isa. 26:1-2 STRONG CITY: That day has as its antecedent the day of Isa. 25:9. On the day when God makes a feast for all nations, removes the covering from all nations, swallows up death forever, and when those who waited on Him rejoice in His salvationthey will sing this song! The land of Judah then must be symbolic of the covenant people of God, the church, in the Messianic age. The new Zion, the Jerusalem that is preeminent, (cf. Heb. 12:22-24; Gal. 4:26-27), the Church, will be Gods city of divine strength and power. Her strength and power will be in the divine salvation God

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and walk across the rubble-heaps of the once haughty enemies of God. A remnant of faithful ones endured the Babylonian captivity and walked upon the ruins of once proud, powerful, pagan Babylon. Christians today may go to Rome and walk among the ruins of the once cruel, calculating, Roman empire which vowed to exterminate Christianity from the face of the earth.

So the contrast in this section is between the city of God which we take to be the righteous, faithful covenant-keeping people of God, especially those of that day when God makes them a feast, removes their veil and swallows up death foreverthe churchand the high and lofty city representing all that is Satanic and human and stands in opposition to the redemptive purposes of God. Justice, salvation and peace will come to the remnant in the new order to be brought by the Messiah. When it comes, the messianic people will sing about it.

QUIZ

1.

What does the land of Judah probably symbolize considering the context in which it is used?

2.

What makes the city strong?

3.

What character is possessed by those invited to enter the city?

4.

Where does perfect peace originate?

5.

How are we to get perfect peace?

6.

Why use rock as a figure to represent God?

7.

What is meant by the poor treading down the high and lofty city?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XXVI.

(1) In that day shall this song be sung . . .The prophet appears once more, as in Isa. 5:1; Isa. 12:4, in the character of a psalmist, and what he writes is destined for nothing less than the worship of the new city of the heavenly kingdom.

Salvation will God appoint for walls.Better, salvation He appoints. The walls of the heavenly city are not of stone or brick, but are themselves as a living force, saving and protecting. The same characteristic thought appears in Isa. 60:18.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. In that day Continuous with, or immediately successive to, the period spoken of Isa 25:9-12.

This song This joyous acclaim.

We have a strong city That is, we too, as well as those of the world-kingdoms now prophetically thrown down. Ours is impregnable, never possible to be destroyed.

Salvation for walls God himself is set in our defence and safety, in place of man-made walls and earthworks.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Song Of Deliverance And The Strong City ( Isa 26:1-4 ).

The first four verses of chapter 26 with their description of the strong city of God with its walls and bulwarks of salvation, which is for the righteous who hold the truth to enter, connect back to Isa 25:9, and are in contrast with Isa 25:10-12. But they may also be contrasted with the lofty city of Isa 26:5, which stands proudly on its summit but will be dragged to the ground. They thus connect the previous passage with what follows, and must be seen in the light of both.

Isa 26:1-4

‘In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah,

We have a strong city,

He will appoint salvation,

For its walls and bulwarks.

Open the gates,

That the righteous nation which keeps truth,

May enter in.

You will keep him in perfect peace,

Whose mind is stayed on you,

Because he trusts in you.’

Trust in Yahweh for ever,

For in Yah Yahweh,

Is an everlasting rock (literally ‘a rock of ages’).

In direct contrast we are now lifted in this song from the devastated fortress of Isa 25:12 to the strong city of Isa 26:1, from the dungpit to the glory. Here the city where Yahweh is reigning (Isa 24:23) is described. They had waited for Him and He had saved them (Isa 25:9). Its walls and bulwarks are Salvation, for it is the city of salvation. The righteous (those who are true believers) enter it and will be saved (Pro 18:10). In that city there is no more death (Isa 25:8). It epitomises all that Isaiah has previously spoken of, the future ideal. All the redeemed flow to it from among all peoples (Isa 2:2). It will be under Yahweh’s wedding canopy and full of the presence of God Who will protect it from all harm (Isa 4:5-6). In New Testament terms it is Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22).

(We cannot too often reiterate that the prophets revealed heavenly truth in earthly terms. The conceptions that they presented were necessarily limited by their background and by the backgrounds of those to whom they spoke. They had no concept of life in Heaven. Thus they used picture language by which they said what they had to say. While we pride ourselves on the fact that we are above that, we too have to think in such pictures because the true reality is beyond us as well. That is why we speak of the city of gold with its pearly gates in Revelation 21. The reality is greater beyond all imagining).

‘In that day.’ This refers back to ‘in that day’ in Isa 25:9 and has in mind the glorious day when death will be defeated in Isa 25:8, and the future days of deliverance . ‘That day’ begins with the time when Jesus Christ was on earth, when the King had come, and when through His death and resurrection sin and death were vanquished once for all, and He began to feast His people on good things. They had waited for Him and He had come. Those were the beginning of the days of deliverance. From then on those who entered under the Kingly Rule of God would be like those who entered the city of salvation. They would enter into the fold of God’s protection and care. They would know that for them death had lost its sting. They would become a city set on a hill which cannot be hidden (Mat 5:14). This is thus a city that can be entered now by those who come in submission to the King Messiah. But its final fulfilment will be in the new heaven and the new earth, when death is no more, and when His people live in everlasting triumph.

‘We have a strong city (literally ‘a city of strength’), He will appoint salvation for its walls and bulwarks.’ Compare Isa 60:18; Psa 48:12-13. This city is in contrast with all others. Isaiah has described the ruin of the world in terms of a city. It is the city of wasteness, wasted and empty (Isa 24:10), a heap, a ruin, a ‘no city’ (Isa 25:2). Babylon will be a wasted city never to be rebuilt (Isa 13:19-22; Isa 14:23), Philistia is a city that has melted away (Isa 14:31) (in contrast with Zion – Isa 14:32), Moab’s cities are laid waste (Isa 15:1-2; Isa 25:12), the city of Damascus is a ruinous heap (Isa 17:1), all the glory of Kedar will fail (Isa 21:16), the earthly city of Jerusalem is helpless and defenceless (Isa 22:9), a harlot, the home of murderers (Isa 1:21); Tyre is a harlot city (Isa 23:17). Only God’s city will triumph and be perpetually strong. It will be the city of deliverance, the city of salvation. It is the hope of the world. But as salvation is ‘its walls and bulwarks’ it is clearly not too literal a city, it is the place where the redeemed are, wherever they are, God’s stronghold. From this point of view Jesus Christ is God’s city and all who are truly ‘in Him’ are saved.

‘Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps truth may enter in.’ Compare Psa 118:19; Rev 22:14. The city has been prepared by God. Man has had no part in it. But now the gates are flung open so that ‘the righteous nation that keeps truth’ may enter in. None can enter who are unrighteous, none can enter who do not hold to the truth, there will in no wise enter in anything that defiles (Rev 21:27). But the redeemed can enter, for they have been ‘put in the right’ by God (2Co 5:21). They have been vindicated. They have been accounted righteous because of the sacrifice of their representative, the Servant of God (Isa 53:11). The ‘righteous nation’ represents the holy seed (Isa 6:13), purified and refined (Isa 4:3-4), but it also incorporates God’s own people from all nations, for they too can enter in (Isa 2:2-3). This is the ‘ideal’, the spiritual, the heavenly Jerusalem, entered now by those who come under the Kingly Rule of God, and which one day they will enjoy in its perfection everlastingly. And for them death will have been swallowed up for ever (Isa 35:8).

‘You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.’ It is a city entered by faith. All who truly respond to God march in. They are transferred from the ‘powerful rule of darkness’ to being under ‘the Kingly Rule of His Beloved Son’ (Col 1:13). And those who dwell in that city have their minds stayed on God, their trust is fully in Him, and thus they enjoy perfect peace while they are in such a state, because God Himself will keep them in it. If we do not enjoy perfect peace we must look to what our hearts are stayed on, and to what we trust in. For if our hearts are stayed on Him we will enjoy perfect peace, whatever the world throws at us, the ‘peace which passes all understanding’ (Php 4:7).

When the troops of Assyria surrounded Jerusalem Isaiah could afford to laugh and rejoice. For he knew that they could never enter it. God had made it a temporary ‘city of deliverance’. But many in that city were terror-stricken and distraught. They were just as safe as Isaiah was, but because they did not believe it they walked in fear. If you are a Christian and remember that your life is hid with Christ in God (Col 3:4) you too will be able to rejoice in the face of the Enemy. For there he cannot touch you. All he can do is yell at you over the wall and sink your spirits. So your peace and your strength will depend on whether you trust God.

‘Trust in Yahweh for ever, for in Yah Yahweh, is an everlasting rock.’ His people are now urged to trust Yahweh for ever because He is an everlasting, unfailing rock, He is a firm foundation on which to build, and firm and strong in the day of trouble. The city with walls and bulwarks of salvation is founded on the everlasting rock.

The picture of the ‘rock of ages’ might also remind Israel of how God had twice provided them with water from a rock in the wilderness (Exo 17:6; Num 20:11). Thus the rock also spoke to them of a source of life-giving water (Isa 48:21; Psa 78:15-16; Psa 78:20; Psa 78:35; Psa 105:41).

But here the symbol of the rock primarily indicates firm dependability (Deu 32:4), strength (Isa 17:10; Psa 31:2-3; Psa 62:7), shelter (Isa 32:2) and permanence (it is a ‘rock of ages’). It is an idea regularly used of God elsewhere (Deu 32:15-31; 1Sa 2:2; 2Sa 22:2-3 ; 2Sa 22:32; 2Sa 22:47; 2Sa 23:3; Psa 18:2; Psa 18:31; Psa 18:46; Psa 28:1; Psa 42:9; Psa 62:6; Psa 71:3; Psa 89:26; Psa 92:15; Psa 94:22; Psa 95:1) although rarely by the prophets other than Isaiah.

Note again the use of Yah Yahweh, emphasising that He is their covenant God. The repetition stresses the significance of the name. He will be everything to His people.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Certainty of Yahweh’s Salvation and the Humiliation of Moab ( Isa 25:9 to Isa 26:2 ).

In that day when death is defeated His people will be glad and rejoice in His salvation, and sing of Him Who is their strong city in which they can be safe, while Moab and all who are like them will be trodden down in the dung. For Moab is the picture of all that is low, it is Yahweh’s washpot (Psa 60:8).

Analysis.

a And each will say in that day, “See, this is our God, we have waited for Him and He will save us. This is Yahweh, we have waited for Him. We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa 25:9).

b For in this mountain will the hand of Yahweh rest. And Moab will be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dungpit (Isa 25:10).

c And he will spread out his hands in its midst, as the swimmer spreads out his hands to swim

c And He will lay low his pride, together with the craft of his hands (Isa 25:11).

b And the fortress of the fort of your high walls has He brought down, laid low and brought to the ground, even to the dust (Isa 25:12).

a In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah, “We have a strong city, He will appoint salvation for its walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps truth may enter in. You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in Yahweh for ever, for in Yah Yahweh, is an everlasting rock (literally ‘a rock of ages’)” (Isa 26:1-4)

In ‘a’ ‘in that day’, the day that death is swallowed up for ever, will His people rejoice in Yahweh’s salvation, and in the parallel ‘in that day’ they will glory in the strong City which is their salvation. In ‘b’ Moab is trodden down in all his dirt, and in the parallel his fortress is laid low even to the dust. In ‘c’ he will try to swim in his dirt, and in the parallel Yahweh will bring him low.

Isa 25:9

‘And each will say in that day,

“See, this is our God.

We have waited for him and he will save us.

This is Yahweh,

We have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” ’

‘Each will say in that day’, that is in the day when death is in process of defeat. In that day each of God’s people will declare and proclaim their confidence in Him. They will declare that this is the work of their God, Yahweh, for Whom they have waited for so long. And they will declare their confidence and faith in the fact that they will share in His deliverance, and find gladness and rejoicing in it. Note the emphasis on God’s sovereignty in salvation. He has done it and they have waited on Him for it. Note the emphasis on ‘waiting’. It is a work of God and therefore has to be waited for, and not a work of man which can be accomplished by man. It is something that is received from Him as a gift.

Isa 25:10-12

‘For in this mountain will the hand of Yahweh rest. And Moab will be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dungpit. And he will spread out his hands in its midst, as the swimmer spreads out his hands to swim, and he will lay low his pride, together with the craft of his hands. And the fortress of the fort of your high walls has he brought down, laid low and brought to the ground, even to the dust.’

‘For in this mountain will the hand of Yahweh rest.’ There is a good case for tacking this on to the previous verse. Certainly it goes there in thought. It is confirming that in the mountain where God gave to His people the good things of Isa 25:6, and in the mountain where He defeated death so that it was swallowed up for ever (Isa 25:7-8), there the hand of Yahweh will rest. His work will have been done and His hand will no longer need to be active to save, just as at the end of His work of creation He rested on the seventh day with no further need to create (Exo 20:11). It is the end of all things as a new heaven and earth open up in which dwell righteousness. The resting of the hand of Yahweh may also be seen as a resting on His land and on His people in love and protection.

But in contrast is Moab. Whereas God’s hand is on His people, His feet are on Moab. They too will be put in their place. They who refused the opportunity of uniting with the people of God and with the Davidic house (chapters 15-16), will be trodden down where they have remained, in the dungpit (the pit where men relieve themselves, the outside toilet). The picture is deliberately unpleasant. ‘Like straw trodden down in the water of the dungpit.’ The straw would be put down to cover the contents of the dungpit, but it soon gets trodden down and then fails in its purpose, becoming soiled with the contents of the dungpit. So will it be with Moab. Indeed their state will be such that they will try to swim in that water, becoming themselves also soiled by it. This is the pathetic lot of those who reject Yahweh and His offer of salvation. They finish up swimming in the dungpit!

We can compare how in the Psalms Moab is seen as Yahweh’s washpot (Psa 60:8; Psa 108:9). Perhaps Moab were particularly noted for behaviour seen as disgusting by others. The idea is the same. They receive the dirt and waste which is dispensed by others. They are the equivalent of the refuse pit.

Note the sudden move from the general to the particular. Since Isa 24:1 all has been anonymous, but now Moab has been singled out. Isaiah wishes us to recognise that we are here dealing with real people, including Israel’s neighbours. But they have been selected because their behaviour in chapter 16 has illustrated what Isaiah is trying to say. It may also be because of their strength at this time and their resulting pride and belligerence against Judah.

‘And he will lay low his pride, together with the craft of his hands.’ Compare ‘we have heard of the pride of Moab’ (Isa 16:6) whereby they were too proud to accept God’s offer to unite with His people. Now that pride will be laid low in the dungpit, along with their hand-made gods, the craft of their hands.

How this will happen is then described more literally, ‘and the fortress of the high fort of your walls has He brought down, laid low and brought to the ground, even to the dust.’ Even their topmost towers, the strongpoint of their defences, will be brought down, made to collapse and finish up in the dust in the day when Yahweh acts. All will be levelled to the ground.

So Moab are here selected as an example because of their behaviour in chapter 16, and possibly because of their strong opposition to Judah, but in essence they represent all who have refused God’s offer of mercy. The whole rebellious world will be laid low, together with their hand-made gods.

Note the regular triplication, ‘brought down’, ‘laid low’ and ‘brought to the ground’ so typical of Isaiah.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Isa 26:1  In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

Isa 26:1 Comments – This is a song.

Isa 26:20-21 Comments Divine Protection for God’s People – Isa 26:20-21 reveals that God protects His people during the judgment upon the earth, which is described in Isa 13:1 to Isa 24:23 as the judgment of the nations. These verses might as well describe God’s judgment upon Israel, which is describing in the early chapters of Isaiah.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Prophecies Against the Nations Isa 13:1 to Isa 27:13 records prophecies against twelve nations, culminating with praise unto the Lord. God planted the nation of Israel in the midst of the nations as a witness of God’s plan of redemption for mankind. Instead of embracing God’s promises and commandments to mankind, the nations rejected Israel and their God, then they participated in Israel’s destruction. Although God judges His people, He also judged these nations, the difference being God promised to restore and redeem Israel, while the nations received no future hope of restoration in their prophecies; yet, their opportunity for restoration is found in Israel’s rejection when God grafts the Church into the vine of Israel (Rom 11:11-32). The more distant nations played little or no role in Israel’s idolatry, demise, and divine judgment, so they are not listed in this passage of Scripture.

It is important to note in prophetic history that Israel’s judgment is followed by judgment upon the nations; and Israel’s final restoration is followed by the restoration of the nations and the earth. Thus, some end time scholars believe that the events that take place in Israel predict parallel events that are destined to take place among the nations.

Here is a proposed outline:

1. Judgment upon Babylon Isa 13:1 to Isa 14:27

2. Judgment upon Philistia Isa 14:28-32

3. Judgment upon Moab Isa 15:1 to Isa 16:14

4. Judgment upon Damascus Isa 17:1-14

5. Judgment upon Ethiopia Isa 18:1-7

6. Judgment upon Egypt Isa 19:1-25

7. Prophecy Against Ethiopia & Egypt Isa 20:1-6

8. Judgment upon the Wilderness of the Sea Isa 21:1-10

9. Judgment upon Dumah Isa 21:11-12

10. Judgment upon Arabia Isa 21:13-17

11. Judgment upon Judah Isa 22:1-25

12. Judgment upon Tyre Isa 23:1-18

13. Judgment upon the Earth Isa 24:1-23

14. Praise to God for Israel’s Restoration Isa 25:1 to Isa 27:13

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Praise unto God Isa 25:1 to Isa 27:13 contains a passage of praise unto God. It naturally follows a lengthy passage of judgments upon the nations of the earth; for it teaches us that divine chastisement and judgment is for our good, producing the fruit of righteousness. This passage of Scripture helps us to understand that God judged the world out of love in order to turn the nations back to Him so that He might be praised and worshipped upon the earth.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Church’s Song of Praise

v. 1. In that day, at the time of the final deliverance of the ransomed of God, shall this song be sung in the land of Judah, by the believers who have been preserved by the power of the Lord: We have a strong city, namely, the city of God, Psa 46:4, His holy Church; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks, His redemption is established as a strong wall of exterior and interior defense, so that no enemy is able to penetrate inside and take away the blessings of the redeemed.

v. 2. Open ye the gates, so the cry sounds down from the heavenly host, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth, which was faithful to the Lord and His Word to the end, may enter in. All those who keep the covenant of faith are welcomed in the heavenly mansions.

v. 3. Thou, namely, Jehovah, wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, the peace of God which passeth all understanding resting upon all those who belong to the spiritual Israel and cling to Him in true faith, because he trusteth in Thee; and the Lord rewards such trust with a double measure of peace.

v. 4. Trust ye in the Lord forever, thus the chorus from heaven once more admonishes; for in the Lord JEHOVAH, the God of salvation, is everlasting strength, He is the Rock of Ages, whose strength overcomes all enemies;

v. 5. for He bringeth down them that dwell on high, casting down even the world-powers which presume to oppose Him; the lofty city, representing the wickedness of the unbelievers everywhere, He layeth it low, as shown in chapter 21; He layeth it low, even to the ground; He bringeth it even to the dust, 25:12.

v. 6. The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy, the very ones who formerly were trodden down by the tyrants of this world.

v. 7. The way of the just is uprightness, that being the basis of his entire conduct; Thou, Most Upright, namely, God, dost weigh the path of the just, literally, “dost roll his path,” thereby making it possible for him to conduct himself uprightly. Thus all glory for the believer’s life of sanctification is given to God alone.

v. 8. Yea, in the way of Thy judgments, so the new strophe of the hymn begins, O Lord, have we waited for Thee, expecting Him to give proof of His justice over against all enemies; the desire of our soul is to Thy name and to the remembrance of Thee, namely, that He would reveal Himself in a deed which would cause men to call Him by His right name and to spread the right knowledge of Him. So deeply does this matter affect the prophet that he continues his hymn in the name of every individual believer.

v. 9. With my soul have I desired Thee in the night, in the time of affliction, which deprived him of rest; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early, confident that the morning would bring a happy deliverance; for when Thy judgments are in the earth, His punishments being intended to call sinners to repentance, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness, that conduct which is in agreement with the Word of God, the life of sanctification. Only the enemies of God, by a deliberate rejection of His grace, are excluded from this course.

v. 10. Let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness, a righteous, God-pleasing conduct; in the land of uprightness, where everything is done in harmony with the will of God, will he deal unjustly, being in no way in sympathy with the ideals of the just and good, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord, namely, in consequence of his willful rejection of God’s grace, on account of the perversity of his mind, which despises the goodness of God. If a man is lost, he has only himself to blame.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Isa 26:1-18

A SONG OF THE REDEEMED IN MOUNT ZION. The prophet, having (in Isa 25:1-12.) poured forth his own thankfulness to God for the promise of the Church’s final redemption and triumph, proceeds now to represent the Church itself in the glorified state as singing praise to God for the same.

Isa 26:1

In that day. In the “day of God” (2Pe 3:12), the period of the “restitution of all things” (Act 3:21). In the land of Judah; i.e. in the “new earth”whose city will be the “heavenly Jerusalem,” and wherein will dwell “the Israel of God”the antitype whereof the literal “land of Judah” was the type. A strong city; literally, a city of strength. In the Revelation of St. John the new Jerusalem is represented as having “a wall great and high” (Rev 21:12), and “twelve gates,” three on each side. The intention is to convey the idea of complete security. In the present passage the city has “gates” (verse 2), but no “walls”walls and bulwarks being unnecessary, since the saving might of God himself would be its sure defense against every enemy.

Isa 26:2

Open ye the gates. The command is given by God to his angels within the city, or perhaps by some angels to others, to “open the gates,” and let the saints march in and take possession (comp. Psa 118:19, Psa 118:20, which seems to represent the same occasion; and Psa 24:7-10, which tells of another occasion on which the angelic warders were bidden to throw open the gates of the celestial city. The righteous nation which keepeth the truth; literally, a righteous nation. A people, made up of all kindreds and nations and tongues, which should henceforth be “the people of God” They are “righteous,” as washed clean from all taint of sin in the blood of the Lamb. They “keep the truth,” or “keep faithfulness,” as under all circumstances clinging loyally to God.

Isa 26:3

Thou wilt keep him, etc.; literally, the steadfast mind thou wilt keep in peace, in peace; i.e. “in perfect peace” (comp. Psa 112:7, Psa 112:8). The writer’s mind throughout the first paragraph of his” song” (Isa 26:1-4)”is running” (as Mr. Cheyne well observes) “on the security and immovableness of the new Jerusalem.” All is peace and sure defense on God’s side; all is trust and perfect confidence on the side of man. The first words of the verse may be taken in various waysthe above rendering (which seems to us the best) is that of Delitzsch and Kay.

Isa 26:4

Trust ye in the Lord. The faithful exhort each other to perfect trust, in the new Jerusalem, as in the old (see Psa 115:9-11). In the Lord Jehovah; literally, in Jah Jehorah (comp. Isa 12:2). Is everlasting strength; literally, is the Rock of ages. A certain refuge throughout all eternity is, no doubt, intended (see the comment on Isa 17:10).

Isa 26:5

He bringeth down; rather, he hath brought down. The redeemed praise God for his past mercies. He brought down in his own good time all the proud and lofty ones who exalted themselves against him and oppressed his saints, making cities desolate (Isa 24:10, Isa 24:12) and giving over their inhabitants to destruction (Isa 24:6). Them that dwell on high; i.e. “that exalt themselves.” It is net eminence, but pride, that provokes the Divine anger. The heathen judged differently (see Herod; 7.10, 4). The lofty city (comp. Isa 24:10, Isa 24:12; Isa 25:2, Isa 25:3). The “world-city” (as it has been called); i.e. the idealized stronghold of the adversaries of God in this world, is intended.

Isa 26:6

The foot shall tread it down; rather, trode it down. The feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy; i.e. the feet of God’s people, the weak and afflicted of this world, trod down ultimately, or brought to destruction and ruin, the great world-powernot so much that they were victorious in an actual physical contest, as that they, finally triumphed through God’s judgment on the world-power, which brought it to naught, and left it for his people to show their contempt by trampling upon the smoking ruins.

Isa 26:7

The way of the just is uprightness; or, the path for the just is straight. It is one of the main blessings of the righteous that God “makes their way straight before their face” (Psa 4:8), “leads them in a plain path” (Psa 27:11), “shows them the way they are to walk in” (Psa 143:8), so that they are for the most part free from doubt and perplexity as to the line of conduct which it behooves them to, pursue. If this is so in the present life, still more will it be the uniform condition of the just in another sphere. Then God will of a surety “direct all their paths” (Pro 3:6). Thou, most upright, dost weigh; literally, O upright One, thou dost weigh. The term “upright” is applied to God in Deu 32:4; Psa 25:8; and Ps 92:16. By “weighing the path of the just” is meant keeping it, as Justice keeps her scales, straight and level.

Isa 26:8

Yea, in the way of thy judgments have we waited for thee; rather, we waited. During the long years of our affliction and persecution in the world, we waited in the constant expectation that “thy judgments” would fall upon our persecutors. We were not impatient. We knew that thou wouldst visit us at the tilting time. The desire of our soul is to thy Name; rather, the desire of our soul was to thy Name. During all the weary time of waiting, we longed for thee, and thy Name, or rather what thy Name indicates, thy own true self. In default of thy actual presence, we desired to have thee ever in remembrance.

Isa 26:9

In the night; i.e. “the long night of their affliction.” The sentiment is identical with that of the preceding verse. Will I seek thee early; rather, did I seek thee. For when thy judgments, etc. It was not a mere selfish desire for the cessation of persecution that caused the righteous to long for the time when God’s judgments would be manifested upon the earth, but a conviction that so only would an impression be made on the persecutors, and a certain number of them be induced to learn righteousness. A desire for the conversion of sinners to God characterizes God’s saints generally, and none more than Isaiah, who is here expressing what he conceives will be the thoughts of the redeemed, and naturally judges their thoughts and feelings by his Own.

Isa 26:10

Let favor be showed to the wicked. This is a further explanation of the reason why the righteous had so earnestly desired the coming of God’s judgments upon the earth. They had felt that further mercy and long-suffering wine thrown away upon the wicked, and “only did them harm” (Kay). When “favor was showed them,” they did but persist in unrighteousness. In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly. Even good example does not convert the wicked man. Though he live in a “land of righteousness,” where God and his Law are acknowledged, where true religion is professed, where the gospel is preached, he will continue wicked, he will “deal unjustly;” he will not beholdor, considerthe majesty of the Lord.

Isa 26:11

When thy hand is lifted up, they will not see. The original is more graphic. It runs, “Lord, thy hand is lifted up, [but] they see not. They shall see to their shame thy jealousy for thy people; yea, fire shall devour thy adversaries” God’s jealousy “burns like fire” (Psa 79:9; Zep 1:18) in the cause of his people.

Isa 26:12

Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us; i.e. henceforth thou wilt give us an existence of perfect peace (see Isa 26:3), untroubled by adversaries. For thou also hast wrought all our works in us; rather, all our work for us. The “work” intended seems to be, as Mr. Cheyne observes, “the work of their deliverance.”

Isa 26:13

Other lords. The saved had not always been faithful to Jehovah. Some, no doubt, had actually been idolaters, as many of the early Christians (1Co 12:2; 1Th 1:9, etc.). Others had given their hearts for a time to other vanities, and turned away from God. Now, in the new Jerusalem, they confess their short comings, and acknowledge that only through God’s mercyby theeare they in the condition to celebrate his Name.

Isa 26:14

They are dead, etc.; literally. Dead, they shall not live (i.e. return to life); deceased, they shall not arise. The power of the idol-gods is altogether passed away. It was for this endthereforethat God had visited and destroyed them, and made their very memory to perish. How strange it seems that the “great gods” whom so many millions worshipped in former timesBel, and Asshur, and Ammon, and Zeus, and Jupitershould have passed so completely away as to be almost wholly forgotten!

Isa 26:15

Thou hast increased the nation; i.e. the “righteous nation” of Isa 26:2not the Jewish people merely, but “the Israel of God”who are to be “a great multitude, that no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” (Rev 7:9). Thou hadst removed it. This rendering gives a very good sense. It makes the redeemed pass in thought from their present state of happiness and glory to that former time of tribulation and affliction when they were a remnant, scattered over the face of the earth (Isa 24:13-15), driven into its uttermost corners (Isa 24:16), oppressed and down-trodden by their enemies. But it is doubtful whether the Hebrew will bear the rendering. Most modern commentators translate, “Thou hast extended far all the borders of the land,” which is certainly the more natural meaning of the words. If we accept this view, we must regard the clause as continuing the idea contained in the former part of the versethe nation is increased in number, and its borders are advancedit is “a multitude that no man can number,” and it has no narrower limits than the “new earth,” which has been given to it for its habitation (Rev 21:1).

Isa 26:16

Lord, in trouble have they visited thee. Here, at any rate, the redeemed go back in thought to their time of trouble. They remember that what brought them back to God from that alienation which they have confessed (Isa 26:13) was the affliction which they so long endured. Their present bliss is the result of their former woe, and recalls the thought of it. They poured out a prayer; rather, as in the margin, a secret speech, or a low whisper (Kay); comp. Isa 29:4. The word elsewhere means “the muttering of a charm,” but must here signify the “whispered prayer” of one in deep humiliation.

Isa 26:17

Like as a woman with child (comp. Isa 13:8; Isa 21:3). Isaiah uses the metaphor to express any severe pain combined with anxiety. So have we been in thy sight; rather, so have we been at thy presence. When thou wert visiting us in anger, and laying thy chastisements upon us.

Isa 26:18

We have as it were brought forth wind. Our pains have been idle, futilehave effected nothing. We have not given deliverance (literally, “salvation”) to our land; we have not effected the downfall of our heathen enemies. That downfall was God’s work (Isa 24:16-20).

Isa 26:19-21

THE PROPHET‘S COMMENT ON THE SONG OF THE JUST. Having concluded his “song of the just” in a minor key with a confession of human weakness, the prophet proceeds to cheer and encourage his disciples by a clear and positive declaration of the doctrine of the resurrection: “Thy dead, O Israel, shall live.” He then adds a recommendation for the presenta recommendation to privacy and retirement, until the judgments of God which he has predicted (Isa 24:1-23.) are shown forth upon the earth.

Isa 26:19

Thy dead men shall live. A universal resurrection of” some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2), is not yet announced; but only a resurrection of the just, perhaps only of the just Israelites. The object is encouragement, especially encouragement of those whom the prophet directly addressesthe religious Israelites of his own day. It is enough for them at the present time to know that, whether the day of the Lord comes in their time or no, when it comes, they will have a part in it. The assurance is given, and is made doubly sure by repetition. The prophet does not say, Together with my dead body they will arise; for there is nothing in the Hebrew corresponding to “together,” and the ellipse of ‘im, “with,” though suggested by Kimchi, is impossible; nor is it likely that he intends to speak of his own dead body at all. He may, perhaps, call the past generations of just Israelites “my dead,” i.e. the dead with whom he is in sympathy; or the supposed personal suffix may be merely paragogic, as Rosenmller argues. In any case the two clauses must be regarded as identical in meaningan instance of “synonymous parallelism . Thy dead men shall live; my dead shall arise.” Awake and sing; rather, awake and shout for joy (comp. Psa 35:27; Psa 67:4, etc.). Ye that dwell in dust (comp. Dan 12:2, “Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”). Thy dew is as the dew of herbs; i.e. refreshing, vivifying, potent to make even dead bones live. “Thy dew” may be said with reference to Jehovah, for changes in the person addressed are frequent in Isaiah; or with reference to the people of Israel, meaning, “the dew which Jehovah will shed on thee,” i.e. on thy dead.

Isa 26:20

Come, my people into thy chambers. As when a storm comes, prudence counsels men to seek shelter (Exo 9:19), so now the prophet advises his people to put themselves under cover during the coming tempest. His meaning, probably, is that they should retire into the privacy of communion with God, withdrawing from public affairs and the distractions of a worldly life. Shut thy doors about thee. For a little moment (so in Isa 10:25; and again in Isa 54:7, Isa 54:8). God’s estimate of time, we must remember, is not as man’s (Psa 90:4; 2Pe 3:8).

Isa 26:21

The Lord cometh out of his place (comp. Mic 1:3). In the Psalms God is represented as “bowing the heavens and coming down,” bringing them, as it were, with him. Here (and in Micah) he quits his place in heaven, as a king quits his own country when he proceeds to take vengeance on rebels in another. The expressions are, both of them, accommodations to human modes of thought. To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; literally, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth upon him. The earth also shall disclose her blood; literally, her bloods; i.e. her bloodsheddings; the many murders committed by man upon her surface. Isaiah denounced “murderers” in his first chapter (verse 27). Manasseh’s murders were the main cause of the first destruction of Jerusalem (2Ki 24:4). The second destruction was equally a judgment for the innocent blood that had been shed upon the earth, “from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Bars-chins” (Mat 23:35). Bloodshed “cries to God for vengeance” (Gen 4:10), and will be one of the main causes of the world’s final destruction (Rev 16:6; Rev 18:20). And shall no more cover her slain. “There is nothing covered that shall not” in the last day “be revealed, and hid that shall not be known” (Mat 10:26). Every murder, however secret, will be brought to light, and every murderer, however unsuspected previously, denounced and punished.

HOMILETICS

Isa 26:1-18

Thanksgiving the employment of the saints in bliss.

The prophet, in this sublime passage of his prophecy, carries us with him within the veil, and reveals to us the very words, or, at the least, the general tone and tenor of utterances, which the saints make when they have passed from earth to heaven, and stand in the very presence of God. The words are, as we should have expected, mainly words of praise and thanksgiving. The saints praise God

I. FOR THE BLESSINGS OF THEIR ACTUAL STATE, which is

(1) one of complete security;

(2) one of perfect peace;

(3) one of the fullest and liveliest trust.

II. FOR HIS MERCIES IN THE PAST.

(1) Towards themselves;

(2) towards his enemies. Among his mercies to themselves they reckon

(a) deliverance from the malice of their foes;

(b) direction of their own paths;

(c) chastisements which brought them back to God when they were straying from his ways.

III. FOR HIS GLORIOUS ATTRIBUTES. E.g. “Jehovah is everlasting Strength” (Isa 26:4); He is “the Upright One” (Isa 26:7), fall of “majesty” (Isa 26:10) and “glory” (Isa 26:15); he is all-powerful (Isa 26:5, Isa 26:11, Isa 26:14), all-gracious (Isa 26:3, Isa 26:12, Isa 26:15), a sure Refuge in trouble (Isa 26:16). While the occupation of the saints in the heavenly sphere is mainly to praise God, they also confess before him

(1) their rebellions against him while in this life (Isa 26:13); and

(2) their impotency to effect anything important by their own strength (Isa 26:18).

It is remarkable that the confession of weakness is that with which the song ends. Must we not conclude that humanity, brought into the presence of God, is at first penetrated by no feeling so much as by a sense of its own utter powerlessness and nothingness? “Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psa 8:4), is the cry that rises to man’s lips instinctively. Later on, he may forget self, and be absorbed in the contemplation of the High and Holy One, and be content to hymn ceaselessly the Revelation songs, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Rev 7:10); “Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen” (Rev 7:12); “Great and are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints” (Rev 15:3). Happy for him when self-consciousness disappears, and God is to him “All in all!”

Isa 26:19

The doctrine of the resurrections.

The belief in a future life and a future judgment was held by the Assyrians and Babylonians from a time anterior to the departure of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. A very elaborate doctrine of a resurrection was also held by the Egyptians from an extremely remote antiquity. The Jews, on the other hand, do not appear to have had definite notions on the subject until the period of the Captivity. It is, perhaps, possible to account for the indistinct and undeveloped state of the doctrine among the early Israelites by the effect upon them of their Babylonian and Egyptian experiences.

I. THE BABYLONIAN VIEW, with which they came into contact in Ur of the Chaldees, was the following. A life beyond the grave was expected; but the duration of this life was quite uncertain. Merodach, a sun-god, was the Dayannisi, or “judge of men,” and by his favor the souls of the just were received into a heavenly abode, where they enjoyed life and happiness. The wicked descended at death into an infernal region, where there was no enjoyment, and (apparently) suffered different degrees of punishment according to their deserts. Fire was, perhaps, an agent in their suffering.

II. THE EGYPTIAN VIEW was far more complete and elaborate. The Egyptians held that the soul was quite distinct from the body, and that, immediately after death, it descended into the lower world (Amenti), and was conducted to the “hall of truth,” where it was judged in the presence of Osiris and of his forty-two assessors, the “lords of truth” and judges of the dead. Anubis, the son of Osiris, who was called “the director of the weight,” brought forth a pair of scales, and, after placing in one scale a figure or emblem of truth, set in the other a vase containing the good deeds of the deceased, Thoth standing by the while, with a tablet in his hand, whereon to record the result. If the good deeds were sufficient, if they weighed down the scale wherein they were placed, then the happy soul was permitted to enter “the boat of the sun,” and was conducted by good spirits to the Elysian fields (Aahlu), to the “pools of peace,” and the dwelling-places of the blest. If, on the contrary, the good deeds were insufficient, if the scale remained suspended in the air, then the unhappy soul was sentenced, according to the degree of its ill deserts, to go through a round of transmigrations in the bodies of animals more or less unclean; the number, nature, and duration of the transmigrations depending on the degree of the deceased’s demerits, and the consequent length and severity of the punishment which he deserved or the purification which he needed. Ultimately, if after many trials sufficient purity was not attained, the wicked soul, which had proved itself incurable, underwent a final sentence at the hands of Osiris, supreme judge of the dead, and, being condemned to complete and absolute annihilation, was destroyed upon the steps of heaven by Shu, the “lord of light.” The good soul, having been first freed from its infirmities by passing through the basin of purgatorial fire guarded by the four ape-faced genii, was made a companion of Osiris for a period of three thousand years, after which it returned from Amenti, re-entered its former body, rose from the dead, and lived once more a human life upon the earth. This process was gone through again and again, until a certain mystic cycle of years became complete, when, to crown all, the good and blessed attained the final joy of union with God, being absorbed into the Divine essence from which they had once emanated, and so attaining the full perfection and true end of their existence. With this elevating belief were mixed up a number of strange, superstitions, not very easily reconcilable with the main creed, yet occupying an important place in the thoughts of the people. The soul, notwithstanding its transmigrations and presence in Amenti and Aahlu, was never at any time wholly separated from its body, but still inhabited the tomb, partook of the offerings left for it, and even had meetings and held converse with the souls belonging to other neighboring bodies. It could at all times read the passages from the “ritual of the dead” painted on its sarcophagus, or its mummy-bandages, or the inner walls of its tomb, and could thus refresh its memory if at any time in its long journeyings through the lower world it failed to recollect at the right moment the proper invocation or prayer under circumstances of danger.

III. THE HEBREW VIEW. Coming from Babylonia into Egypt, with probably only some vague notions of an after-life, in which the inequalities of this life should be remedied and justice meted out to all, the Hebrews were brought into contact with the complicated and elaborate creed of Egypt upon the subjecta creed which filled the thoughts of the Egyptians, and dominated their whole life, entering into all their relations, political, social, and domestic. This creed was mixed up with all the intricacies of the Egyptian polytheism, involved acceptance of the Osirid myth, acknowledgment of half a hundred deities, and adoption, if it were accepted, of numerous superstitious practices. Whatever may have been the case with individuals (Jos 24:14; Eze 20:6-9), the Hebrews, as a nation, rejected the Egyptian creed, viewed it as corrupting and debasing, and put it aside en bloc, without troubling themselves to sift the wheat from the chaff, the grains of gold from the mud and sand in which they were embedded. The rejection of the imaginative theosophy of Egypt produced a reaction in the Hebrew mind towards the material and the mundane. They seem to have left Egypt with less definite views on the subject of a future life than those which their ancestors had had in Babylonia. And in his revelations from Sinai it did not please God to enlighten them. Light was vouchsafed them gradually through the psalmists and prophetsby the present statement of Isaiah, by Ezekiel’s vision el the dry bones (Eze 37:1-10) and the teaching which followed it (verses 11-14), by Daniel’s prophecy (Dan 12:2) already referred to, and otherwise, until, in the time of the Maccabees, their faith in the resurrection was as strong, and almost as full and definite, as that of Christians (see 2 Macc. 7:9, 14, 23, 29, 36; 12:43, 44).

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Isa 26:1-13

The vision of future glory.

It seems best to take this as the picture of an ideal spiritual state.

I. THE IMPREGNABLE CITY. Its walls and outworks are “salvation.” A great wordnegatively hinting deliverance from the enemy and the oppressor; positively including all the contents of sacred peace, prosperity, and happiness. But salvation is nothing without a Savior; it is the loving presence of Jehovah who girds about Jerusalem as a wall. In Zec 2:9 he is spoken of as a “wall of fire.” In another magnificent image, “Round about are the everlasting arms.” The idea of the Eden-garden may be compared with that of this fenced city. A “garden walled around, a chosen and peculiar ground,” may represent the mystical Church here, the celestial state hereafter. The city is created and fortified by the Eternal.

II. THE CELESTIAL CRY. The command is heard from heaven, “Open ye the gates!” As in Isa 40:1, from the same quarter, sounds the gracious word, “Comfort ye my people!” The righteous nation that keepeth faithfulness may enter the Divine city. The emphatic thought is that this city is to be the scene of righteousness, a contrast to the state of “this world which passeth away.” “Open to me,” exclaims the psalmist, “the gates of righteousness: I will go into them and praise Jehovah; the gate of Jehovah into which the righteous shall enter” (Psa 118:19, Psa 118:20). And again, in another sublime passage, “Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psa 24:3, Psa 24:4). This righteousness of mind and heart is the gift of the Divine grace. Purity in the human spirit is at once the reflection of God’s nature and the condition of “beholding” him. If men are good and faithful, it is because their souls have kept walk and converse with the truthful God (Psa 31:24). And this they have only learned to do as the result of chastisement and the experience of the evil of other ways. “The Church was always like a barn (Mat 3:12), in which the chaff is mingled with the wheat, or the wheat overpowered by the chaff'” When the Jews came back from captivity, it was with purified hearts; a large portion of the filth of idolatry had been swept away. And so universally; it is “out of much tribulation,” much sifting on life’s floor, that we must enter the kingdomthat the pure wheat of chastened character must be gathered into the celestial barn.

III. THE ATTRIBUTES OF JEHOVAH.

1. The firmness of his purpose. The words in Isa 40:3 are differently rendered: “a steadfast mind thou keepest in;” “firm is the hope thou wilt form;” “a purpose established thou purposest.” And this purpose is one of peace. He “thinks the thought of peace” (Jer 29:11). Hence the attitude of the believer is one of fearless and fixed repose; “He shall not be moved forever shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in Jehovah” (Psa 112:6, Psa 112:7). This being of ours, in itself frail, anxious, feverish, needs steadying, staying; and its only sufficient prop must be “Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, in truth’ (Isa 10:20). The essential thing in faith is habitual dependence; the result, ineffable peace. “Peace, peace,” are the prophet’s emphatic words. “He refrains from epithets; such peace is indescribable.” So in Isa 57:19, “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near.” And the Christian apostle takes up the thought of the profundity and unutterableness of this bliss of the soul, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Php 4:7).

2. The constancy of his being. Jah Jehovah is a Rock of ages, and may be trusted in forever. One of the four places where our translators have retained the original name Jehovah, of which Jab is the abridged form (Exo 6:3; Psa 83:18; Isa 12:2). The doubled name is used for emphasis, as in “Peace, peace,” above; it expresses the perfection of his majesty, wisdom, holiness, which should reflect the utmost reverence and the most absolute trust in the mind of the believers. And” Rock, Rock of Israel,” etc; is another of the sacred names of the Divine Being (Isa 30:29; see Deu 32:4, Deu 32:15, Deu 32:18, 80, 31, etc.). Actively, to protect, to throw the cool shade of his protection upon the suffering of his people; passively, to resist the utmost shock and assault of his foes. The noble image of one of our poets, too lofty to be applied to mortal, may be applied to him

“As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Tho’ round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”

Let us contemplate the nature of God; no other nature yields a lasting satisfaction anti repose to the beholder. “As soon as we turn aside from beholding it, nothing is seen but what is fleeting, and then we immediately faint. Thus ought faith to rise above the world by continual advances; for neither the truth, nor the justice, nor the goodness of God is temporary and fading, but God continues to be always like himself.”

3. His irresistible power. He brings down the lofty and the proud. Bulwarks, armed hosts, enormous wealth, are of no avail against “moral influence.” And when we thus speak, we mean nothing less than the just will, the fixed purpose, of the Eternal. No Babylon, no Rome, no empire built on force and fraud, need be a terror to the faithful. They, at the day of doom, must “melt like snow at the glance of the Lord,” or be abased even to the dust. “We live amidst closing histories and amid falling institutions; there is an axe laid at the root of many trees; foundations of fabrics have been long giving way, and the visible tottering commences. ‘The earth quakes and the heavens do tremble.’ The sounds of great downfalls and great disruptions come from different quarters; old combinations start asunder; a great crash is heard; and it is some vast mass that has just broken off from the rock, and gone down into the chasm below. A great volume of time is now shattering, the roll is folded up for the registry, and we must open another. Never againnever, though ages pass awaynever any more under the heavens shall be seen forms and fabrics, and structures and combinations that we have seen. The world is evidently at the end of one era and is entering upon another;” but the” Rock of ages” will remain, and the Church which rests upon him, “to enlighten ignorance, to fight with sin, and to conduct man to eternity” (Mozley).

4. His just dealings. A plain or straight path is made for the righteousone free from obstacles and opposition, even as the path of the Eternal himself to the fulfillment of his purposes (cf. Pro 3:6; Pro 11:5; Pro 15:19). He is even said to make their path “plain with a level,” i.e. to a nicety. It could not have seemed so to the Jews in captivity; and often it must seem, in the midst of perplexity and distress, far otherwise to the children of God now. Yet what seems to be a “roundabout” path in a mountainous country may actually be the shortest from point to point. So with the ways by which the Lord our God leads his children to the end. The direct line which haste and impatience would take is not really the “straight path” in the world of spirit. Here, when we seem to be turning back, we may be really moving forward; we may seem to be “fetching a compass,” none the less certainly may be advancing by the safest and most direct road.

IV. SONG OF THE CHURCH. A meditation on the ways of God, and the relation of the believing soul to him. Waiting for God. They had watched, as it were, for Jehovah to advance along the great way of judgment by which he was to proceed to open the Messianic kingdom. Longing for the revelation of him. Oh that his Name and memorial (two expressions for one idea) might be known! The Name of God is God revealed, “the side of the Divine Being turned towards man” (Psa 20:1; cf. Psa 30:1-12 :27; Psa 63:9). (For the meaning of “memorial,” cf. Exo 3:15; Psa 30:4; Psa 135:13; Hos 12:5.) The Messianic hope. The judgments of God, the thought is, must prepare for the new kingdom, for the reign of righteousness in the world. Calamities are symptomatic of evils needing to be cleansed away, if significant of the hand of Jehovah at work in reformation, and so prophetic of a new era. The reign on Mount Zion will be ushered in by a series of judgments on the unbelievers and the unrighteous, i.e. the heathen as opposed to the worshippers of Jehovah. Those judgments are a necessity. Righteousness is not learned, the need of it, the beauty of it, are not experienced, except in the school of suffering, of Divine chastisement. The effect of wealth and honor and success is not to lead men to God, and to the paths of rectitude and religion. Neither the Divine mercy, nor the bright example of others, nor the general tone of moral society, have sufficient influence to attract the inveterate sinner to belier things. In vain the light is poured upon the morally blind, upon those who “will not behold the majesty of Jehovah.” In vain his hand is lifted up in judgment; their insensibility prevents them from perceiving it, though they are acute enough in their observation of the trifling interests of the sensuous life. There is but one way of dealing with such insensibility. Those judgments will be effective. They shall see the jealousy of Jehovah for his people (cf. Psa 69:9), for fire shall devour his adversaries. His jealousy is like fire (Psa 79:5; Zep 1:18). In consuming it purifies, in purifying it consumes (cf. Deu 32:22; Job 20:26; Job 22:20). Remorse, shame, envy, indignation,those fires within the bosom reflect the judgment of God; resistance, rebellion, impenitence, make them unquenchable. Peace and deliverance for the chosen. The past supplies arguments of hope for the future. A work has been accomplished by the Church, but this is Jehovah’s work in it and by it. The deliverance from a foreign yoke was his work also. They had been enslaved to other lords (cf. Isa 63:18), and they had done as they pleased with Israel. But they have been swept away into the kingdom of the shades, and are forgotten. “From past events and benefits received, we should reason to God’s future kindness, and infer that he will care for us for the future. God is not like man, to be capable of weariness in doing good, or exhausted in giving largely; therefore the more numerous the benefits with which he has loaded us, so much the more ought our faith to be strengthened and increased” (Calvin); cf. Psa 138:8; Gen 32:10, Gen 32:12; Php 1:6. “Thee only.” Under the dominion of Jehovah alone is peace, blessedness, liberty, to be found.

“He is a freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside.”

J.

Isa 26:15-21

The resurrection of Israel.

The population of Judah has been increased, and its borders extended. (For this cause of rejoicing cf. Isa 9:2; Isa 49:19, Isa 49:20; Isa 54:1, etc.; Mic 2:1, Mic 2:2; Mic 4:7; Oba 1:19, Oba 1:20.) Probably he is thinking of the population and strength of the land in the days of David and Solomon, as typical of what is again to be in the happier times. But actually a period of gloom and suffering must precede the glorious restoration.

I. THE PERIOD OF TROUBLE AND EXPECTATION. It is a pathetic picture of the soul in its attitude of anxious suspense. Jehovah was missed and longed for as the light which seems to tarry in the dark days of winter. Prayer was poured forth; and there was a period of acute suffering like that of the mother preceding the birth of a child. Hope was deceived and disappointed again and again (cf. Isa 13:18; Isa 21:3). Still the land was not blessed, still the population was not restored. The prophet is thinking of the days after the return from exile.

II. THE RESURRECTION Or THE PEOPLE. “Thy dead shall live.” “Sublimely recovering himself, the prophet cries that God’s saints, though they are dead, shall live,” and shall share the duties and privileges of regenerate Israel. The prophet sees, as it were, his countrymen returning from the under-world. So speaks Hosea: “After two days wilt he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight” (Hos 6:2); left the vision of Ezekielthe valley of the dry bones (Eze 37:1-10). With lively faith anticipating the event, he calls upon the new population to awake and cry. It is as if a dew had fallen on the barren land. This “dew of lights” is thought of as something supernatural, existing before the sun. In Psa 110:3 the ordinary dew is born out of the morning shower. “The dew from the glory of God falls like a heavenly seed into the bosom of the earth; and in consequence of this, the earth gives out from itself the shades which have hitherto been held fast beneath the ground, so that they appear alive again on the face of the earth” (Delitzsch). There is thus a connection between light and life, so often found in conjunction in religious thought (Psa 36:9; Job 3:16-20; Joh 1:4). For as the return of the morning light is coincident with the refreshment of the strength, and the awakening to new effort, so in all spiritual parables of the revival of the nation or the individual, light brings life. The renaissance of knowledge precedes or coincides with the reformation of manners, the stir of new activities, the beginning of a new era. And this connection should never be forgotten, “And God said, Let there be light.” Even so; and the darkness of superstition, of prejudice, of obscurantism, must be symptomatic of moral death. As the light arouses the sleeper, so the sleeper must bestir himself to greet it and rejoice in it. “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

III. RETURN TO SELF–COMMUNION. From this enrapturing vision the prophet returns to the present, with all its sobering and in part depressing circumstances. “He has gained on behalf of his people the comforting certitude that a great exhibition of the Divine justice is on the point of taking place; and his counsel is to withdraw from the doomed into the privacy of communion with God” (Cheyne). While the storm of Divine judgment is sweeping by, let the people of God betake themselves to solitude and prayer (cf. Psa 27:5; Psa 31:21; Mat 6:6). The opening of the door of the prayer-chamber is in times of distress the opening of the door into another world than thisa scene of serenity and elevation. In the presence of our Father who seeth in secret, the problems of the hour are solved, or cease unduly to harass the mind. That which threatened to crush us is surmounted by the new energy of the spirit here imparted.

“Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream
Of glory on the consecrated hour
Of man in audience with the Deity;
Who worships the great God, that instant joins
The first in heaven, and sets his foot on hell.”

And it is but for “a little moment” that the wrath will last (cf. Isa 10:24, Isa 10:25; Isa 54:7, Isa 54:8; Psa 30:6). “Just as Noah, behind whom Jehovah shut the door of the ark, was hidden in the ark while the floods of judgment poured down without, so should the Church be shut off from the world without in its life of prayer, because a judgment of Jehovah was at hand” (Delitzsch).

IV. THE COMING FORTH OF JEHOVAH. (Cf. Mic 1:3.) Where is the “place” of Jehovah? It is the supernatural sphere; and every great manifestation of judgment mingled with mercy is a “coming forth of Jehovah.” Here it is expressly for judgment to punish men who have incurred blood-guilt, which is, in other words, sin. Yet in the heart of judgment still his pity and consolation live, and we” should keep it constantly before our eyes, when the wicked slay, mock, and ridicule us, and inflict upon us every kind of outrage and cruelty, God will at length make known that the cry of innocent blood has not been uttered in vain; for he never can forget his own people” (Luk 18:7).J.

HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM

Isa 26:9

Seeking God in the night.

“With my soul have I desired thee in the night.” When God’s judgments are in the earth, even the righteous become more earnest. They need the quickening of spirit which comes from marking “the way,” the sure way, and sometimes the swift way, of God’s judgments. But the night must be taken in a personal sense as well as in a national sense.

I. WE DESIRE GOD IN THE NIGHT OF OUR SORROWS. Thick clouds come over the heart. We are no longer surrounded by bright skies and pleasant sounds. We have come to the wilderness side of life. The morning of our expectations has given place to the noonday of our toil, and to the evening of our disappointment. The beautiful dream is over, and earthly joys are only passing guests. At eventide they are gone. The soul, sitting alone, feels how unrequited has been the love of God. Alone in the darkness it seeks his face.

II. WE DESIRE GOD IN THE NIGHT OF OUR DOUBTS. These will come. Old evidences do not afford us the same basis of faith. New difficulties come face to face with the intellect. Mysteries born of experience oppress the heart. Before, perhaps, we were hard and dogmatic to all who differed from us; before we were inclined to think that doubt was in itself a sin, and not the exquisite action of a sincere mind. Now we sit in darkness, and there is temporary eclipse of faith. What we want is God himselfthe living God, God in Christ; and we are thankful if we can but “touch him.” We feel how blessed religion is, even when our evidences are darkened, and with our soul we desire God in the night.

III. WE DESIRE GOD IN THE NIGHT OF OUR SEPARATIONS. They must come. Be the tie ever so tender, it must be cut; and we must say or look farewell, or perchance hear of the death of some beloved one in a foreign land. These tragedies are about us every day. New habiliments of mourning are put on every hour. No “touch of a vanished hand.” Nothing below but empty space! Then the soul cries, “O God, be not far from me!”

IV. WE DESIRE GOD IN THE NIGHT OF OUR OWN DEPARTURE. And it is night. To the Christian, who looks through it to the morning, who believes in the better country, and who sees the light of the new Jerusalem flickering up into the sky as he ascends through the darkness,still to him, strong as he may be in faith and hope, death is a dark hour. But One alone can lighten that. Not lover, acquaintance, mother, or friend. No. “When I pass through the valley of the shadow of death thou art with me.”W.M.S.

Isa 26:16

Prayer in trouble.

“Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.” The “other lords,” mentioned in the thirteenth verse, are all impotent in the hour of tribulation. Truly they are dead, as Carlyle says. “These idols of yours are wood; you pour wax and oil on them; the flies stick on them; they are not God, I tell you; they are black wood.” So at the Reformation. Speaking of Luther, he says, “The quiet German heart; modest, patient of much, had at length got more than it could bear. Formalism, pagan-popeism, and other falsehood and corrupt semblance, had ruled long enough; and here once more was a man found who durst tell all men that God’s world stood, not on semblances, but realities; that life was a truth, and not a lie!” There are idolatries in every age; but the idols of rank and fame and pleasure are of no avail in the hour of trouble.

I. HERE IS RECEPTION. The Lord receives them. He does not spurn their approach because they have kept away till then. The great Father never reproaches the repentant, returning Israel. No. Unlike the proud, resentful spirit of man, “the Lord God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.” The haughty spirit of man would resent the approach of one who was simply driven by stress of weather into the haven of his protection.

II. HERE IS REALITY. They are filled with earnestness. It is no easy ritual of the lips. They “poured out” a prayer. Very expressive indeed is that. The rock was rent, and the waters flowed forth. The poor bruised heart could contain its agony no longer. There was confession. There was that blessed “outness” which of itself brings relief. These men had seen the pouring forth of the swollen Jordan, and of the storm-filled streams of Lebanon. So is it that the earnestness of the soul at once engages the attention and interest of God. It matters little whether prayer be liturgical or free, whether it be in the sanctuary or the closet, so long as the soul seeks God as the hart desireth the water-brooks; and the literal rendering of “prayer” here is “secret speech.”

III. HERE IS DISCIPLINE. “When thy chastening was upon them.” This is very different from self-chosen and self-inflicted chastisement. Some Christians in every age have become self-tormentors: some, with the Flagellants, in the infliction of physical torture, and some in constant introspectionpainful searching of their own motives, and mourning over their own want of faith and of feeling. But this text speaks of God’s own disciplinea Father’s discipline, and therefore a wise, a kind, and a safe discipline. Moreover, it is but for “a season.” We read, “when thy discipline was upon them,” which, in its very language, suggests that it is not a lasting condition. The Jews came back from exile. Their punishments for idolatry gave place to pardon and restoration. So it is now. God does not delight in the sufferings of his children. “Tribulation worketh patience;” our “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” In the heart of the prickly encasement there is opening out a beautiful flower.W.M.S.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

Isa 26:5-7, Isa 26:8

(latter half)

The righteousness of God’s rule.

I. ITS APPARENT ABSENCE. We still find on the earth “them that dwell on high”the arrogant, the presumptuous, the oppressor; there is to be seen” the lofty city,” exalted in its pride of power, dealing its blows upon the weak and suffering, fearing not God nor regarding the rights of men. In every age, beneath every sky, these men and these cities have been known. To those who have been humiliated and ill treated, God has seemed absent; his righteousness has appeared afar off; their cry has been, “How long, O Lord, how long dost thou not avenge,” etc.? Among such suffering and perplexed ones are down-trodden peoples, persecuted Churches, wronged individual men and women.

II. ITS ASSERTION IN DUE TIME. The justice of God “is not dead, but sleepeth.” It may be truer to say that it waits in patience for the hour of manifestation; then it descends; and it appears:

1. In the utter overthrow of iniquity. The lofty are laid low, the proud city is brought down to the ground (Isa 26:5). Instead of power is utter enfeeblement; the weapon of cruelty is stricken out of its hand, the words of condemnation and cursing are taken out of its mouth. Instead of honor is humiliation; the throne is exchanged for the very dust of the ground; and instead of unholy joy is hopeless misery.

2. In the exaltation of rectitude (Isa 26:6). Those who have been reduced to poverty and need by the unscrupulousness of the sinful will accede to their heritage of power, of wealth, of pleasure, orwhat is better than theseof influence, of sufficiency, of thankfulness. God, the Most Upright One, smooths the path of the just (Isa 26:7), makes it level, enables the righteous to pursue their way of fruitful activity, of Divine worship, of holy joy.

III. THE EFFECT OF ITS ASSERTION. “When God’s judgments are in the earth,” i.e. when the righteousness of God is seen and felt in the infliction of penalty on the guilty and the leveling of the path of the just, then “the inhabitants learn righteousness” (Isa 26:8).

1. The devout are confirmed in their devotion, and they cleave to God and to his service.

2. The waverers are decided, and they resolve to unite themselves with his people.

3. The presumptuous are alarmed, and they may be awakened and redeemed. This is God’s intention in, and is the fitting end of, his Divine judgments; it is our folly and our sin if we allow that purpose to be defeated.C.

Isa 26:8, Isa 26:9

A thirst for God.

“The desire of our soul is to thy Name with my soul have I desired thee.” The primary reference here is to the hope of troubled hearts for Divine deliverance; but the words of the text are suggestive of the general truths

I. THAT MAN IS CONSTITUTED TO CRAVE AFTER GOD. We have many indications of this truth. We find it in the facts that:

1. The noblest spirits among cultivated peoples find their chief joy in communion with him.

2. The worthiest spirits among uncultivated peoples have been athirst for God.

3. Religious truth and Divine worship prove a powerful attraction to the vast majority of mankind.

4. Every human being is found to possess a capacity for religious knowledge and devotion.

5. Human life without God is found to be constantly unsatisfying and restless.

II. THAT THIS GODWARD ASPIRATION, DULLED BY SIN, IS OFTEN AWAKENED BY AFFLICTION. “I desired thee in the night.” Our interest in God, reduced by the various harmful and despoiling influences of a sinful society, sometimes so reduced as to be practically lost, is often awakened by affliction of some kind. It is not until the soul is brought down very low by sickness, by calamity, by bereavement, by treachery and disappointment, or by earthly failure and disenchantment, that it finds its deep and sore need of a heavenly Father, of an unfailing Friend, of a heavenly treasure. When thus injured and spoiled by sin, it is not until our souls are made to see their sinfulness in a fierce and awful light that we crave and cry out for an almighty and all-sufficient Savior; but then we do.

III. THAT, REAWAKENED IN ADVERSITY, IT BECOMES A PERMANENT HABITUDE OF THE SOUL. “With my spirit will I seek thee early.” Whether or not we find this doctrine in the text, we find this truth in the will of God; and God expects to find this fact in human experience. It is bitterly disappointing to the goodand is it not a disappointment to the Good One?when they who have been brought to the throne of grace by reflection are found, in after-days of comfort and sunshine, to leave the sanctuary unvisited, and to walk on their way, godless, prayerless, hopeless. Such men

(1) defeat God’s kind purposes;

(2) add iniquity to their iniquity;

(3) most seriously endanger their own future (see Isa 1:5).C.

Isa 26:10

Guilty insensibility.

The wise and good man will learn something from everything; the foolish and sinful man will learn nothing from anything. In whatever accents God may speak, this latter hears not his voice, and heeds not his will; he is guiltily insensible to all kinds of heavenly influence; he is

I. UNTOUCHED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD‘S GOODNESS. He does not “learn righteousness,” though “favor be showed” to him by God. God may be, as he is, multiplying his mercies unto him, so that they are as the sands of the seainnumerable; visiting him by day and by night with loving-kindnesses continually renewed, besetting him behind and before with his guardianship, laying his hand of gentle power upon him in guidance and in blessing. But all is lost upon himhe is unmindful of everything; he does not “learn righteousness;” he goes on, if not in oppression, or in vice, or in open atheism, yet in a guilty forgetfulness, in an unfilial indifference and ingratitude.

II. UNINFLUENCED BY HUMAN EXAMPLE. “In the land of uprightness he deals unjustly.” Around him are men worshipping God, working devotedly in his cause, living in accordance with his will, illustrating Christian virtues in the daily transactions and in the common relationships of life, bearing the best witness to the power and the excellency of Divine truth, supplying a source of influence which ought to tell on a human heart and to mould human character; but this is of no avail. The hardened heart is unmoved, its apathy is undisturbed, its course unchanged.

III. UNAFFECTED BY THE EVIDENCES OF GOD‘S GREATNESS. “He will not behold the majesty of the Lord.” There are three ways in which the majesty or the greatness of God is revealed to us, all of which deserve and demand our most patient and devout attention.

1. In the material world. In the sky, in the sea, in the mountain, in the storm, in the earthquake, etc. “With God,” as manifested thus, “is terrible majesty” (Job 37:22); and he who does “not regard the works of the Lord, nor the operations of his hand,” is guiltily blind to the majesty of the Lord.

2. In Divine providence. The majestic holiness of God is seen in the revelation of his wrath against impurity, intemperance, violence, passion, and all other evils; also in the revelation of his approval of righteousness and peace, in the ordering of our human lives. Whoso is unobservant of this is a wickedly dull scholar in a world where such plain lessons are to be learnt.

3. In the gospel of Jesus Christ. There the majesty of God’s character shines forth, and we see “the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In the Incarnation itself, in the character of Jesus Christ, in the severity of the sorrows he bore, in the depth of the shame to which he stooped, in the awful moral grandeur of the death he died, in the unspeakable glory of his heavenly mission,there, indeed, is the majesty of the Lord to be seen. He who will not dwell on this as on that which, above all other things, is worthy of his most patient and reverent regard, is one of “the wicked,” with whom God “is angry.”

LESSONS.

1. Let us be thankful if we are hearing and heeding the voice of God, if we are opening our hearts to the heavenly influence.

2. Let us take earnest heed to the fact that a guilty inattention leads on and down to a fatal deafness.C.

Isa 26:12-18

The argument from the past.

Great things are represented, by the prophetic voice, to have been done, and these furnish the strongest reason to expect great things in the future.

I. THE GREAT THINGS GOD HAS DONE FOR US.

1. He has heard our cry in the day of distress (Isa 26:16, Isa 26:17). Few things go home to our hearts more readily than the words of the psalmist, “I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.” It is a great thing to have been heard of God, to have gained his pitiful ear, and to have enjoyed his merciful consideration; that amid the millions of his children he has distinguished us and bent on us his benign regard.

2. He has granted full deliverance. “Other lords have had dominion but [now] thee only will we celebrate; they are dead;” their very memory is perishing (Isa 26:13, Isa 26:14). We may have been under the dominion of some cruel vice (lust, or avarice, or intemperance), or of “the world” (1 John); but in the mercy of God these spiritual adversaries have been defeated, have been slain, they are no more to be dreaded, and now a Divine Redeemer is the Object of our adoration; for him we live, his honor we seek, his Name we strive to glorify (Isa 26:15), in his holy and ennobling service we spend our days and our powers.

3. He has granted spiritual enlargement. (Isa 26:15.) “Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord.” To some, especially to those whom he redeems from the bondage of vice or crime, God grants material enlargement, the improvement of their estate, the brightening of their life, the broadening of their sphere. To all who, at the touch of his liberating hand, come out of spiritual captivity into the freedom of his children, he gives spiritual advancement, increase of knowledge, of joy, of love, of influence, of hope. As we love and serve Christ, we are enlarged on every handthe horizon of our souls is removed beyond its former bounds.

II. THE ARGUMENT THEREFROM. The fact, that God has done such great things for usand all that has been done for us has been wrought by him (Isa 26:12; and see Psa 87:7)is a strong reason to expect other gracious things in the future. “Thou wilt ordain peace for us” (Isa 26:12). It is a scriptural argument that the conferring of greater blessings is a security to us for the possession of smaller ones (see Mat 6:25; Rom 8:32; Psa 56:13). The gifts of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ,

(1) his most costly gifts,

(2) his most valuable gifts, may be to us a strong assurance that God will not only “ordain peace” in life and at death, but also lead us along all the path of life, and receive us to his presence and glory when our earthly course is run.C.

Isa 26:19

(with Isa 26:14)

Contrasted issues.

Taking Isa 26:19 as it surely should be taken, in connection and in contrast with Isa 26:14, and understanding the primary reference of both of them to he to the hopes of the Hebrew nation at the time of the prophecy, we have our attention called to

I. THE ISSUE OF UPRIGHTEOUSNESSDEATH.

1. It tends to fatal ruin. The tyrants of Babylon, being overthrown, should rise up no more, should never regain their position, were as dead men whose day was hopelessly and irretrievably gone. All unrighteousness tends to the same issue; it leads down to loss, to overthrow, to shame, to a depth of ruin from which there is no recovery. At length the guilty man (party, nation) is down so low that those who look on say, “He (it) is dead; he shall rise no more.”

2. It travels fast to the grave. Guilty violence (Psa 55:23; Psa 140:11) and shameful vice (Pro 2:18; Pro 9:18) make a quick passage to the tomb.

3. It sinks into permanent oblivion. God makes “their memory to perish” (see Psa 34:16; Pro 10:7; Ecc 8:10). No man cares to remember those whose lives have been disgraced by sin; their names lie unmentioned, and their memory fades from view till it is lost in the thickening shadows of time.

4. It goes down to the death which is eternal. “The wages of sin is death.”

II. THE ISSUE OF RIGHTEOUSNESSREVIVAL. “Thy dead men shall live.” God’s people who have fallen till they have seemed to be wholly lost shall be recovered and shall reappear. Righteousness is immortal; it cannot be buried and forgotten and lost.

1. It commonly ends in restoration to power and position. Joseph is cast into prison, but he comes out to be the first minister in Egypt. David is driven into the caves, but he comes forth to sit down upon the throne. The persecuted people of God, whether in Babylon, in the Vaudois valleys, in Holland, in the Highlands of Scotland, in the woods and rocks of Madagascar, come forth when the “red, right hand” of cruelty is stricken down, and appear as those that have risen from the tomb.

2. It secures an earthly immortalitythat of a lasting recollection: “The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance” (Psa 112:6; Pro 10:7): that, also, of abiding influence; for the effect of their holy lives and true, faithful words shall go down to distant generations.

3. It issues in eternal blessedness. The righteous shall go into “life eternal.”C.

Isa 26:20

The duty of retirement.

There are periods in a nation’s history, and there are times in a good man’s life, when it is well to hear and wise to heed the admonition, “Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee.” We may let this language suggest to us that we should

I. MAKE TIME FOR DEVOUT REFLECTION. In busy, outwardly active times, when there is an imperious demand on every hand for “work,” there is urgent need that this counsel should be given and be taken. Enter into the chamber of solemn and sacred meditation; consider what is your present spiritual condition; estimate the progress you are making in your course; reflect upon the swift and steady passage of your life; realize that the time is not far off when all earthly interest will be nothing, and when it will be everything to know that the righteous Judge is well pleased with the witness you are bearing and the work you are doing.

II. COMPEL EACH DAY TO YIELD ITS HOUR OF DIRECT INTERCOURSE WITH GOD. We cannot live, spiritually, on public devotion. Nothing will nourish the soul in the absence of private, individual fellowship with God. “Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray in secret” (Mat 6:1-34.). The most pressing cares, domestic, or official, or public, will not excuse the neglect of private communion with God. If Daniel, with all the cares of Babylon upon him, found time to pray three times a day regularly (Dan 6:10), we can compel our duties to make room for devotion. Every day let God speak to us, and let us speak to him, within the shut doors of our own chamber.

III. TAKE UP THE ATTITUDE OF REVERENT EXPECTATION. There are times when man can do nothing more than he has done, and all that is left is patient waiting for God. “And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.” This may be the attitude:

1. Of the diligent, waiting God’s increase on his industry.

2. Of the disciplined, waiting God’s crowning of his patience; whether of the embarrassed, of the sick, or of the defamed. It is to these that the words of the text are most applicable; for it is they who are to wait for a little while, “until the indignation be overpast,” i.e. until the hour of deliverance is fully come, and the work of redemption has been wrought. But we may also regard this as the attribute:

3. Of the co-worker with Christ, waiting the Divine blessing on his zeal.C.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Isa 26:1

The bulwark of salvation.

Two suggestions are made concerning the association of this figure in the mind of Isaiah. Some think he had in view the circumstances of the Assyrian invasion in the time of Hezekiah, and designed to assure the people that, however boastful might be the Assyrian words, and however terrible the appearance of the Assyrian armies, they were safe, because the defense of God was better than the mightiest walls, or the loftiest towers, or the most destructive weapons. In preparation for the-assault of the Assyrians, Hezekiah had done all in his power to fortify and defend Jerusalem; but, in the doing of his best, his trust was still in the Lord his God; and he looked for “walls and bulwarks” in the salvation which God promised him by Isaiah. But others regard this song as prepared beforehand, in anticipation of the deliverance from Babylon, and possession again of the holy city, though then it would be, for many years, a city without walls or bulwarks, and, even from human points of view, altogether dependent on the Divine defense. J.A. Alexander says, “The condition and feelings of the people after their return from exile are expressed by putting an ideal song into their mouths. Though the first clause does not necessarily mean that this should actually be sung, but merely that it might be sung, or that it would be appropriate to the times and feelings of the people, it is not at all improbable that it was actually used for this purpose, which could more readily be done as it is written in the form and manner of the psalms, with which it exhibits many points of resemblance.” It would be quite in harmony with other parts of Scripture prophecy to regard Isaiah as having in mind both present and future circumstances; and it is usually safe to recognize an immediate historical reference. The two associations of the song will, therefore, give us our two points for consideration:

1. God’s salvation may come in what he does for us, or outside us.

2. God’s salvation may come in what he does by us, or within us.

I. GOD MAY DEFEND US BY WHAT HE DOES FOE US. In the case of Hezekiah, Jerusalem was saved by the sudden and overwhelming destruction of Sennacherib’s army. In this we may find a type of all the cases in which men have been saved by the Divine mastering of their circumstances. But all these, which may be called “spectacular salvations,” have for their chief design to enable us to apprehend those far higher moral and spiritual salvations that are wrought within us. The outward has little interest in itself. Our chief interest in events lies in their illustration, for those who are dependent on the senses, of moral and spiritual processes. The Bible is full of records of God’s outward salvations. They begin with the dividing of the Red Sea, when the people were bidden to “stand still, and see the salvation of God.” They are dotted all over the story of the wanderings. They appear again and again in the time of the Judges. Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah have such stories of Divine deliverance and protection to repeat; and psalmists of all the ages join the chorus that follows Moses’ great song, “The Lord is my Strength, and my Song, and he is become my Salvation.” We still may hold fast our confidence that God is working for us in our circumstances, and even by the discomfiting of our foes, and making for us plain paths. The God of providence is in our life; and in his rule of the events of our lives we too can see his salvation. Keen vision of God’s working in things, persons, and events outside us we ought ever to cultivate; but the cultivation is a work of exceeding difficulty in this sensuous and scientific age, when man, his skill and his triumphs, are so unduly honored.

II. GOD MAY DEFEND US BY WHAT HE DOES WITHIN US. He may give us a spirit of wisdom and good counsel, so that the action we take shall be prudent; and in this way security and even rescue from peril are oftentimes obtained. In times of anxiety less importance attaches to what our foes do than to what we do; and so God’s grace in us, God’s salvation of us, is the thing of supreme concern to us. Our salvation comes by this, “He strengtheneth us with strength in our soul.” It follows upon the fulfillment of this assurance, “The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way.” When the exiles went back to a Jerusalem that was without walls or defenses, God kept them safe by helping them to act prudently, and to avoid giving offence to those around them. Looked at in this light, how full all our lives are of Divine salvations! Every circumstance of difficulty and trial; every time of perplexity, when decisions, on which the most serious consequences depended, had to be made, is seen to be a time, or a circumstance, in which God saved us by giving grace, wisdom, guidance, prudence, or good judgment. Either by help within us or without us, God will surely prove a “strong Salvation” to all who put their trust in him.R.T.

Isa 26:3

Perfect peace out of trust.

Literally, “Peace, peace;” the Hebrew superlative form meaning the “greatest, or perfect peace”inward peace, outward peace, peace with God, peace of conscience, peace at all times, under all events, God’s own peace, the peace which God’s own Son knew, and left as his legacy to his disciples. These two last expressions give us two divisions for our subject.

I. GOD GIVES THOSE WHO TRUST HIM HIS OWN PEACE.

1. God‘s peace is the result of his inward harmony. There are no conflicts within him. And this seems an amazing thing to us, who never do the right save after a fight with the wrong in which we have come off conquerors. As a living Beinga Personwe must think of God as having mind, will, affections, emotions, attributes, and relations to others outside himself. He is One. But in our idea of the unity of God we include the manifold comprehensiveness of God; and we understand that in him is perfect peace, because there is harmony; judgment never conflicts with feeling, will never struggles against desire. Every line tends to the focus of Divine purpose; every power combines to execute the Divine thought. Sometimes our idea of the Divine peace is spoiled by representations that are made of the work of redemption, as if, in connection with it, his justice was in antagonism with his mercy, and his Law made hard terms with his love. Surely that redemption is the work of Divine peace; it is the outgoing of his whole being towards us in the harmony of pitying love.

“Still hushedly, hushedly, snowed down the thought Divine,
And in a voice of most exceeding peace, the Lord said
(While against the breast Divine the waters
of life leapt, gleaming, gladdening),
Let the man enter in?”

(R. Buchanan.)

2. God‘s peace follows on his aboveness. A word has to be coined to express this thought. We feel that we should be at peace if we could get above. God is above: not in the conflict which we know, but calm in the vision of it all; calm in seeing the end from the beginning; peaceful as the doctor is when, above the patient, he reads the issue of the disease; peaceful as the teacher, who is above the child, and knows perfectly what is causing it so much care and toil. A little picture in the Leeds Exhibition showed us how man may feel God’s peace out of his aboveness. An old farm-laborer, dressed in his long patched brown smock and clouted boots, and grasping tremblingly his stick, was looking up at a little opening that appeared in a dull, heavy, leaden sky. A grand old face, seamed and lined with years of poverty, toil, and care, but full of the peace which God alone can give; tears were glistening in the eyes, and standing ready to drop; but smiles were breaking through, as, remembering sorrows in the home and weary burdens on the heart, he sweetly said, “Up beyond is the blue sky.” Peace and God, he knew, were up above; over there.

3. God‘s peace attends on his righteousness and love. Nothing can disturb the peace of him who always doeth right, and is love. Peace and Righteousness go hand-in-bandtwin sistersthrough all creation. They live and toil and die together. And in the heart and home of God they have dwelt together from everlasting, before the earth and the world were formed. So he is the God of peace.

II. GOD GIVES THOSE WHO TRUST HIM HIS SON‘S PEACE. It is one thing to admire the peace of God, but quite another thing to feel that it may become ours, that it can ever be the possession and the power of a man. The contrasts, God, man, strike us as too severe. The step of descent is too vast. We want a Mediator. We ask for some instance in which God’s peace can be seen in a man. And that is one of the revelations made in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is prophesied of as the Prince of Peace. He was the Teacher of peace. He is our Peace. He knew the peace passing understanding. Ills peace was the peace of God, for it also came from inward harmony, from aboveness, and from the intertwinings of righteousness and love. But it also was, characteristically, man’s peace. It was such a peace of mind and heart as we may know; and from Christ we may learn what its sources are. Man, too, may reach the restfulness of inward harmony. Man, too, may rise above the petty disturbances of life. Man, too, may win the perfect rule of righteousness and love. But it is Christ who teaches us, and shows us how, and gives us strength to wire He reveals the three great sources of peace for man, and they are found to be thesetrust, submission, and obedience. Trust that says, “The Lord knoweth the way that I take.” Submission that says, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” Obedience that says, “My meat and my drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” These are the sources of peace for man, for they were the sources of peace for man’s Head, the “Man Christ Jesus.” Nay, but there is an earlier secret, than this. In Christ, for man, is the great peace. Peace with God, before we can have peace in God, and so the peace of God ruling in our hearts. We “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;” and his work in us involves such a change in us, such a moral regeneration and renewal, as can only find fitting activity in lives of peacefulness and “sweet reasonableness.” Yes, man can have God’s peace; for he is a spiritual being, made in the image of God. He feels like God. He thinks like God. He wills like God. He loves like God. And he can be at peace like God. All, indeed, within limitations and in narrow measures; but the passing clouds can find a true mirror in a wayside pool as well as in a mighty mountain-lake. A dewdrop will hold the sunshine in its tiny ball; and the mighty forest oak will go into the limits of the acorn-seed. God can give his own eternal peace to man, his creature. He will give it, he does give it, to all who put their trust in him.R.T.

Isa 26:4

The call to continuous trust.

“Trust ye in the Lord forever.” The words “forever” in the prophetical books are a figure for “always,” “continuously,” under all conditions; even in times when trust seems to have no foundations we may keep on trusting, because our trust really is in God.

I. WE CANNOT KEEP ON TRUSTING IF OUR TRUST IS IN THINGS. “The fashion of this world passeth away;” “Here we have no abiding city; Moth and rust corrupt, and thieves break through and steal.” So often things will not be “according to our mind.” Often we sadly say that “nothing is stable,” and “we are sure of nothing.”

II. WE CANNOT KEEP ON TRUSTING IF OUR TRUST IS IN MAN. For the pain of life is our disappointment in our best-loved friends. Live on to old age, and we are almost alone; some are changed, and some are dead, and some have proved unworthy. “Cease ye from man.”

III. WE CANNOT KEEP ON TRUSTING IF OUR TRUST IS IN SELF. The self-revelations which come with advancing years humble us in the dust. Youth can have its self confidences. But man has learned the life-lesson badly if he is not ready to say, “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”

IV. WE CAN KEEP ON TRUSTING IF OUR TRUST IS IN JEHOVAH. For he is what he was; he will be what he is and has ever been. He is an “everlasting Rock.” He has been abundantly proved. Secure and blessed always are they who put their trust in him.R.T.

Isa 26:7

The level path of the good man.

This verse would better read, “The way of the just is evenness; thou, most upright, dost make even the path of the just.” This suggests the two topics

(1) the prevailing feature of the good man’s conduct;

(2) the aid which God gives towards maintaining that feature.

I. THE PREVAILING FEATURE OF THE GOOD MAN‘S CONDUCTEVENNESS. The idea of the word may be expressed in New Testament language as “patient continuance in well-doing.” The triumph of the good man’s life is steady walking, never running, and never dragging, in the way of righteousness. Evenness may suggest “rectitude”the ruling of all conduct and relations by the sensitiveness to that which is right and kind. Or it may suggest “consistency”a shaping of all actions into the harmony of godly principles. Or it may suggest the correction of the varying experience, now of mountain heights of emotion, and now of dark valleys of depression; the good man learns to prefer the level road. Or it may suggest the quietness of the good man’s life. It flows on like the smooth river, that never roars in flood, always breathing out its blessing, always singing its low sweet song, always moving on to the ocean of God. But to describe any man’s life as evenness reminds us at once that evenness is something won; it is not sinful man’s natural state, it is a triumph out of struggle. The man who gains it at last must have known much leveling of mountains, raising of valleys, and making rough places plain. This may be illustrated by the labor and skill demanded in the making of a good plain level road through a country of hills and marshes. Compare Bunyan’s figure of the varied pilgrim-path of “Christian.” Many of us can only say, “Our path should be level, and we wish it were.”

II. THE AID WHICH GOD GIVES TOWARDS MAINTAINING THIS FEATURE. We might have said, gaining and maintaining it; for only through grace can we win the true consistency of goodness, or continue in it. Isaiah comforts good people with the assurance that God is ever “making even” their path; working with them, and working through them, to this good end. He removes stumbling-blocks which are too big for them. It reveals to them the things that make their way uneven. He maintains within them the desire for righteousness. He guides every practical endeavor after goodness and charity. He makes the “plain path for our feet.” If any man would be holding fast his integrity, he may be sure that God’s hard is upon his hand.R.T.

Isa 26:8

Attitude in times of judgment.

“In the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee.” The connections of this chapter need sonic careful attention. The prophet, in the twelve preceding chapters, has given visions of the judgments that were ready to fall on the nations surrounding Israeljudgments in which Israel itself must share, since Israel had shared in the idolatries and the moral evils which had called those judgments forth. To most of the nations Divine judgments would prove to be desolation and destruction; an irrecoverable doom. To Israel, because, even in its shame and sin, some held fast by righteousness and God, judgment would be but chastisement, by means of which the nation should be purified and established. Tyre should be wiped away; its place would be no longer known; the foundation of her palaces should be for the spreading of the fishermen’s nets. Babylon should be brought low, even to the dust; no shepherd’s hut, no wandering Arab’s tent, should rise on her foundations; the glory of Nebuchadnezzar should be the place of the satyr and the owl and the wild beasts of the desert. But Israel should come out of its time of judgment renewing its youth, purged from its idolatries, and witnessing, with a clearer voice than ever before, to its great truth, “The Lord Jehovah is one Lord.” The prophet, in his vision, sees these judgments pass one by one; but, looking on beyond them, he sees the ransomed of Israel redeemed and saved, and he presents us beforehand with the song which they would unite to sing in the raptures of their deliverance. By telling the people the song which their noblest and best would sing when trials had wrought out their blessings, Isaiah teaches them the spirit which they ought to cherish, now, as they anticipated the judgments, or were wearying themselves under their burden. By-and-by they would rejoice that they had held fast by God under the gloom. Then “waiting on him, and waiting for him,” is just the attitude they should seek and cherish.

I. Viewed in one way, the circumstances through which Israel would be passing would be JUDGMENTS OF GOD; but viewed in another way, they would only be the ORDINARY COMMONPLACE FACTS OF THEIR NATIONAL LIFE. The growth into overwhelming power of some nations, until they swallowed up all the smaller nations around them, became proud, tyrannical, and luxurious; lost national virtue, and fell a prey to the enterprise and energy of fresher and younger nations. This process the Israelites actually saw going on, at different stages, in the kingdoms around them. The laws that ruled it, the final results of it, they could not discern, and they must have been gravely bewildered by it. All the more because they had themselves to suffer from the encroachments of these rising monarchies. In those trying days it could not have been an easy thing for a Jew to hold fast his faith in God. Reasoning could explain so little. Iniquity seemed to be triumphing over good. Jehovah appeared to have loosed his hand, and left the world to riot in its self-will. Those were great men indeed who could rise above the disasters and the helplessness of the times, and stay themselves on God, and hope in him, and wait for him.

II. But that was quite A MODEL GENERATION. Each age, though expressing itself in new forms and terms, may find its own perplexities mirrored there. Early times had their chief difficulties in outward things, such as the aggrandizement of world-conquerors, and the debasing effect of idolatrous systems. As the world grows older, the perplexities and the trials of faith come more and more out of intellectual and moral conditions; and we incline to think that it is much harder work to hold on to God, with patient waiting, in times of mental and moral confusion than when the earth is disturbed with sword and spear and shield. Perhaps never were men called to steady themselves on God, and wait on him in the way of his judgments, as we are called. There are two peculiarities of our time which, seen on the one side, are just facts of life, but seen from the other side are judgments of God in the midst of which we are to wait upon him.

1. The disposition to accomplish all things by human effort, apart from God. Man, according to present-day teaching, is to be the Savior and Salvation of man. Let but every man lift up his brotherso they sayand the world’s golden age shall dawn; but the light that lightens it shall be the brilliancy of human genius, and not the “glory of the Lord.”

2. The confusion which advancing knowledge has seemed to introduce into both doctrines and morals. Some of the greatest men of science have been reverent men who, while searching with a free spirit into all that can be known of creation, yet held God fast in the arms of trustful love, and found traces of his handiwork in everything they examined. But not a few are over-ready to discoversome-times even ready to manufactureantagonisms between reason and revelation. And even the best of us cannot fail to be influenced by the atmosphere of doubt which has thus been created for us. We know what mental struggle means. We know what it is to search after truth that seems ever to glide beyond our grasp. We, too, are walking in the way of God’s judgments, and blessed are we if we can truly say, “In the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee.” We gather two lessons from these considerations.

1. The bottom, the foundation, the rest, of all things is God. The first truth which the child learns is the truth of God. The utmost truth towards which human intellects and human hearts can push their devious, struggling way, is God. The simplest word that infant Sips can utter is “God;” the largest and awe-fullest word that can burn upon an archangel’s lips is the Name of God. That man knows something who knows a little of God. That man knows nothingall he may seem to know is not within the sphere of true beingwho does not know God. The steadying, the resting, of a man’s soul is impossible save in God. “Who is a Rock save our God?” Then our supreme work in life must be to know Godto know him by “waiting upon him;” to know him in the face of Jesus Christ.

2. And we learn that those who would hold by God will have to “wait“ for him. God tests the trusting ones by his mysterious doings and dealings. He hides, as it were, behind the clouds and the darkness that encircle his throne. He is even to be waited on in the “way of his judgments.” And such a spirit of waiting alone can preserve us amid the judgments. It lies at the very basis of noble and regenerate character. And all life is to us according to our character. “To the pure all things are pure; to the impure nothing is pure.” To the bad, godless man, the highest mercies become curses; the self-centered character can make poison even out of angels’ food. To the bad mart, punishments are ruin, desolation, woe; even as to heathen nations these prophetic burdens were unredeemable calamity. But to the good man, the God-centered man, punishments are but chastisements, out of which are wrought “the peaceable fruits of righteousness.” It has been said that the “dealings of God are punishments to the wicked, but chastisements to the righteous.” It should rather be said that there is no difference in the Divine dealingjudgments come both on the righteous and on the wicked; but the attitude in which we meet the judgments makes all the difference. The ungodly man bruises himself “against the bosses of Jehovah’s buckler.” The godly manwho “waits on the Lord”binds to bear the rod of his heavenly Father’s chastening. To the godless man life is just stern iron and brass; but the Christian man, having learnt of God, is alchemist enough to turn all he touches to finest gold. Then “trust in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.”

Isa 26:13

Full allegiance to Jehovah.

This may be regarded as still a part of the song which the exiles would sing when the way was made plain for their return to their own beloved land. The way would not be plain until the great oppressing city of Babylon, and the great oppressing dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar, had been humbled. Then God would “ordain peace” for his people; and then the full and glad allegiance of Ms people to him could be fully and freely expressed and manifested. The answering spiritual truth is that we are under the tyranny of other lords”the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” Even while we struggle and suffer under their oppression, the power of this “body of sin and death,” we may hold fast our allegiance to God in heart and purpose; and we may look on to the time that is speedily coming, when God shall himself accomplish our deliverance, and then our allegiance shall gain full and hearty expression; we shall praise him only, we shall serve him only, and praise and serve him as we ought. Getting illustration from the historical circumstances, we may set forth this point in its personal applications under three divisions.

I. ISRAEL‘S TIMES OF OPPRESSION UNDER HEATHEN RULERS. These include the oppression under Pharaoh in Egypt; the inroads of neighboring nations in the times of the Judges; the temporary supremacy of the Philistines; the degrading supremacy of foreign idolatrous systems in the age of the later kings; the crushing of the national life by the self-aggrandizing Assyrians and Babylonians. Israel had a full experience of the power of the oppressor, many “other lords” had held dominion over Israel. These may represent the tyrannies of social custom, prevailing opinion, bodily lust, easily besetting sins, and worldly persecution, which now bear so hardly upon the saints of God. If these do but hold a usurped dominion, it is too often so stringent as almost to crush out all expressions of the life unto God.

II. ISRAEL‘S HEART OF ALLEGIANCE TO GOD IN TIMES OF OPPRESSION. The elect remnant, in every age, kept the allegiance, though they had to hide it in secret places. A “ten righteous” ever kept the nation from utter destruction. There is a holy leaven among us now.

III. ISRAEL‘S FREEDOM FOR FULL ALLEGIANCE IN THE DIVINE INTERVENTION. Sooner or later God would deliver them, and will deliver us; and then we can open our lips, “make mention of his Name,” and give ourselves openly to him, as we have held ourselves secretly for him all through the trying time.R.T.

Isa 26:16

Prayer forced by trouble.

One of the commonest, and often one of the most painful, of human experiences. The scoffer bends the knee when life is placed in sudden peril. The prayerless cry mightily when death stares them in the face. Prayerlessness is only a fair-weather attainment. Like the children who do not seem to care for mother when health abounds, but run to her at once when the head is aching; so we can bravely do without God while the sun shines, but want him when the black thunder-clouds come creeping up against the wind. Let the cholera come into our midst, and almost abjectly the nation begins to ask for days of humiliation and prayer. As this subject is a somewhat familiar one, the following divisions may give some freshness to the treatment of it.

I. A SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE IS NOURISHED BY PROSPERITIES AND SUCCESSES. The ordinary man does not feel the need of God when all goes well with him. He does not need prayer, for he is not conscious of anything to pray for. If man can stand alone, why should we seek God? And the Christian man, who believes in prayer, is under grave and serious temptation to neglect prayer when he is successful, and free from care. As soon as we become satisfied with ourselves we begin to lose our “first love.” The spirit of independence and the spirit, of prayer never did, and- never can, dwell together. Ivy is a poor thing if it grows up independently. Its beauty unfolds only when it leans on anotheron one who has independent strength.

II. A SPIRIT OF DEPENDENCE IS NOURISHED BY CALAMITIES. In a thousand forms they come to us, but their message is always the same. They say to us, “See, you cannot, by yourself.” Life is not all sunshine and prosperity. We must take it as a whole, take it as it is. We must reckon for trouble. And for life as a whole we need God; we ought to be dependent; we should be happy in our dependence. Jacob, in his anxiety at meeting Esau, was forced to dependence and prayer. Joshua, discomfited before At, was forced to prayer. Jehoshaphat, threatened by national foes, flies to prayer. Hezekiah, stricken with disease and facing death, turns his face to the wall, and prays. Then impress the graciousness of the Divine ways with us. Watching over our eternal interests, God saves us again from the perils of independence, and calls us back to dependence, by putting trouble into our lives, and we learn to say, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now will I keep thy Word.”R.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Isa 26:1. In that day That is, at the time of the deliverance which the church had gained by the divine aid, which time is that of Simon the Ethnarch and John Hyrcanus, if we take the prophesy literally; if mystically, the times of the deliverance of the Christian church from its great afflictions, which we shall consider at large when we come to our commentary on the Revelation. The land of Judah, literally and mystically, is the land of the confessors of the true religion. It is certain that this song can only have its true and full completion in its reference to the Gospel. The latter part of this verse contains the confessional praise for the blessing of deliverance and salvation, which the chorus may be supposed to sing: as much as to say, “Though in our distressed and almost desperate estate, no walls and bulwarks, no human defence remained to us; yet Jehovah was present, who is infinitely more powerful, and a far better defence, than any of these. In him we had a strong city: his salvation was to us, and will ever be, a wall and a bulwark.” Such we may suppose to have been the language of believers at the period of history referred to; see 2Ma 13:15-17 and such will be the voice and confession of the saints at the last period of the deliverance of the church.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

5. THE JUDGMENT AS REALIZATION OF THE IDEA OF JUSTICE

Isa 26:1-10

1In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah;

We have a strong city:
Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

2Open ye the gates,

That the righteous nation which keepeth the 1truth may enter in.

32Thou wilt keep him 3in perfect peace whose 4mind is stayed on thee;

Because he trusteth in thee.

4Trust ye in the Lord for ever;

For in the Lord Jehovah Isaiah 5 everlasting strength.

5For he bringeth down them that dwell on high;

The lofty city, he layeth it low;
He layeth it low, even to the ground;

He bringeth it even to the dust.

6The foot shall tread it down,

Even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.

7The way of the just is uprightness;

6Thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.

8Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee;

The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.

9With my soul have I desired thee in the night;

Yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early;
For when thy judgments are in the earth,

The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

10Let favor be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness;

In the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the Lord.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isa 26:1. Hophal only here. According to the punctuation ought to be connected with . But most interpreters take together after Pro 18:19. I believe, however, that the Masoretes indicate the correct sense, and the one which corresponds to the context. We must not forget that the inhabitants of the land of Judah speak thus. stands consequently in opposition to . The redeemed of the Lord do not all dwell in the city. They dwell also in the country round about. But the city is their , their strong defence, and place of refuge. It is therefore as if they said: We dwell indeed in the country, but yet we are not without protection; for we have a city into which we can hasten and find shelter. Comp. Psa 28:8; Psa 84:6; Isa 12:2; Isa 45:24; Isa 49:5; Isa 2:9; Isa 3:1; Isa 62:8. Observe the structure of the second sentence of this verse. The sentence consists of three members, each member has two words; for even is rendered by Maqqeph one word. The first two words begin each with ; the second two with ; the third two with .

Isa 26:4. That before is not the so-called Beth essentiae was already perceived by Drechsler. serves here not as a mere periphrasis of the predicate (Psa 68:5); but it marks the idea , which is by no means coincident with Jehovah (since it can be sought out of Jehovah), as one which believers find in Jehovah (comp. Psa 31:3; Psa 89:27; Psa 94:22; Psa 95:1 et saepe). comp. Isa 65:18. The plural besides here Isa 45:17; Isa 51:9.

Isa 26:6. (comp. on Isa 1:12; Isa 28:3), (comp. on Isa 3:14 sq.), (comp. on Isa 25:4) are all expressions characteristic of Isaiah.

Isa 26:8. is an antithetic yea. Not only does the righteous man wish himself to do right, but he desires also to see the righteousness of God. The word belongs especially to poetry. It is remarkable that it is found in Isaiah in such specifically poetic sections in which also occurs. is acc. loci. and , Isa 26:9 a, are acc. instrum. , Piel , is a word current chiefly in the book of Job, in the Psalms and Proverbs. To a verb is to be supplied (say, as Kimchi and Rashi propose). The perfect does not appear to me to be used in its paradigmatic force to express a matter of experience that has frequently happened (Delitzsch), for the Prophet complains of a want in this respect,but the perfect is intended to mark this learning as a certain, infallible effect of the desired judgments.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Here, too, the Prophet relates a hymn which he hears coming from the holy mountain, and out of the holy city. Its leading thought corresponds to the declaration 2Pe 3:13 regarding the new earth in which righteousness dwells. This thought is here carried out in all directions. The redeemed, who sing the hymn, begin with telling that they dwell in a strong city well provided with walls (Isa 26:1). But the gates of the city shall be open only to a righteous people that keepeth truth (Isa 26:2), as the salvation also which this city affords, the peace which is through faith, rests on the foundation of the faithfulness of God, who will just as surely never disappoint faith (Isa 26:3-4) as He has humbled the proud, unbelieving worldly power, and bowed it under the feet of the once despised believers (Isa 26:5-6). The righteous people, who dwell in the city, walk in righteous ways (Isa 26:7). But they long exceedingly to see the righteousness of God reveal itself free and unrestricted in all directions. Therefore they wait for the Lord in the way of His judgments (Isa 26:8). Only when the earth is visited by these judgments, do men learn righteousness (Isa 26:9). The wicked man, when favored, does not learn righteousness: he pursues his sinful course even in the land of virtue, and never comes to know the majesty of God (Isa 26:10).

2. In that dayenter in.

Isa 26:1-2. By the expression in that day, what follows is marked as contemporaneous and homogeneous with Isa 25:9-12. (Comp. in that day, Isa 26:9). There the redeemed praise the person of their God. They rejoice that they have this Lord for their God. Here they extol the righteousness of their God and of His kingdom. The expression land of Judah is plainly employed to form an antithesis to Moab, Isa 25:10 sqq. For not Zion or Jerusalem, but only Judah can stand contrasted with Moab, whether this name denotes country or people, or, as is most probable (comp. Isa 26:12), denotes both. At the same time it is self-evident that they who dwell in the land of Judah, are the same as those who according to Isa 24:23; Isa 25:6-10, are to be found on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, i.e., not merely the people of Judah in the ethnographical sense, but all those who according to Isa 25:6 sqq., are called and entitled to partake of the great feast on Mount Zion, i.e., the entire . The hymn itself begins with a brief description of the city of God. . Very many interpreters understand that the Prophet here affirms that the city has no walls, but has instead of walls . Appeal is made to Isa 60:18 and to Zec 2:9 [E. V., Isa 2:5]. Comp. Psa 125:2. But it is said, Rev 21:12, of the city of God, that it had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, etc. There would therefore exist a contradiction between the Apocalypse and the places that have been quoted from the Old Testament. But this contradiction disappears when we understand Isa 60:18 to mean: thou shalt give names to thy walls and gates, and designate thy walls by the name Salvation, and thy gates by the name Praise, (as e.g. the walls of Babylon had names: Imgur-Bel and Nivitti-bel. See Comment. on Jer 51:58). The passage Zec 2:8 sq. is no more to be taken literally than Psa 125:2. But the Jerusalem, Revelation 21, 22, is a quite definite locality, not merely ideal, but real, though spiritual, (pneumatisch-real). Therefore this latter Jerusalem has walls, while Jerusalem, as the spiritual mother that includes all nations (Gal 4:26; Zec 2:8 sq.), has no material, outward, visible walls. But in our place where the Prophet, as has been shown, distinguishes the land of Judah and the city belonging to it, we have first of all to think of that city spoken of in Revelation 21, 22. This Jerusalem has a real wall. If this wall, according to Isa 60:18, bears the name Salvation, this can be the case only because it actually affords safety, deliverance. And therefore I take , as placed first, in apposition to , or as the accusative predicate, although Delitzsch rejects this construction. [The mode of construing this sentence proposed by our author I cannot assent to. He renders God places walls and bulwark, for salvation or safety. This rendering is not so well recommended as that given in the E. V., and the thought thus expressed is incomparably less grand and exalted. This bald, prosaic translation is sought out in order to avoid a contradiction with the Apocalypse which speaks of the New Jerusalem as girt with a wall. But the Apocalypse is pre-eminently a symbolical book; and by taking its imagery in the literal sense, it could be easily shown not only to contradict statements of the Old Testament, but to be self-contradictory. E. G. According to Rev 21:2 there is no temple in the New Jerusalem; but Ezekiel describes at large a temple that will be in it, and according to Rev 3:12 the believer will abide perpetually in the temple of the city of God. Is there then a contradiction here? No. But when in symbolical language it is said that there will be a temple in the New Jerusalem, the meaning is that what will answer to the idea of a temple will be found there. Gods servants will dwell in His presence and continually worship Him. Symbolically a temple can be spoken of. But a material temple will be wanting in the holy city. So it can be said to have a sun which will never go down; and again, no sun will be seen there. So, too, the most perfect protection can be symbolized under the figure of a wall great and high; but the essential meaning of this statement (not a contradiction of it), is given when it is declared Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwark. The divine help is a better defence of the city than artificial fortifications. Verse 2 shows that the whole righteous nation will dwell within the strong city whose walls and bulwark are Salvation. The city is thus set forth as the abode of more than a portion of the inhabitants of the land of Judah. The nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, Rev 21:24. The church, too, can exult in a strong city which she has even now, Psa 46:4-5.D. M.]. The words walls and bulwark are used together as here, Lam 2:8, (comp. 2Sa 20:15). is the pomoerium, the outer circumvallation before the chief wall. Comp. Comment. on Lam 2:8 and Jer 51:58.

3. Open yeeverlasting strength.

Isa 26:2-4. These gates, according to Isa 60:11 and Rev 21:25 are never shut. In Isa 60:11 it is said that they will always, night and day, stand open; but in Revelation 21 it is said they will not be shut by day. But the latter statement is identical with the former; for there will be no night there, as is expressly declared in the Revelation. I do not think that Isa 26:2 is to be regarded as spoken by angels voices, and that the city is to be supposed empty. It is not intended merely to express the first opening of the gates in order to admit inhabitants. The same persons who said We have a city, say also Open the gates, and they at the same time declare that they know what their city is intended to be according to the will of God. They know that there shall not enter into it anything that is common, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or a lie (Rev 21:27; Rev 22:14 sq.). This fundamental law of their city they here declare. The gates shall always stand open that a righteous nation that keepeth faith may go in. The words recall to mind Psa 24:7; Psa 24:9 as they are reproduced in Psa 118:19-20. stands here not in an ethnographical, but in a rhetorical signification. It denotes a multitude of people, as e.g., Gen 20:4; Isa 49:7. An essential part of the of this righteous people is that it keeps faith. is found only here in Isaiah. Not a superficial, vacillating righteousness, but a righteousness having a firm foundation is required. For as God is a sure stronghold, a in which we can confide, so He requires also a people that trusts firmly in Him, and cleaves to Him with a fidelity that cannot be shaken. therefore, as the Latin fides, signifies both faith and fidelity. Comp. Isa 1:26. The Lord, on His part, offers as a firm formation, peace, peace (Isa 57:19; Isa 27:5). is a formation, frame. When it denotes a thought that is framed, then is almost always united with or (Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; 1Ch 28:9; 1Ch 29:18). As stands alone in our place, it signifies here what it means elsewhere when standing alone;a thing framed of any kind (Isa 29:16; Psa 103:14; Hab 2:18). (Psa 111:8; Psa 112:8) is = established, firmly founded. As now in a city there are many artificial formations, things framed, both of a visible and invisible nature, as pillars, statues, buildings, contrivances, institutions, and such like, which serve partly for ornament, partly for use, so here peace is called a formation or thing framed which the Lord keeps on its firm foundation. The participle passive is found further only in Psa 112:7, where it is used as synonymous with . We may take it in our place also as = confiding, confidently established (conglutinatum, copulatum ac tanquam concretum, ac coagmentatum.Fuerst). Peace is a structure that rests on a good foundation, because it is founded on the Lord. But the fact that peace objectively is founded on the Lord does not exclude the necessity for individuals subjectively to found themselves on the Lord,i.e., in faith to rely upon Him. On the contrary, he who does not subjectively yield Himself to the Lord in faith will not be partaker of the blessing of the objective salvation that has been constituted, established (Joh 3:14 sqq.). Hence (Isa 26:4) the emphatic exhortation: trust in the Lord, etc. [I cannot accept the interpretation of Isa 26:3 given by Dr. Naegelsbach. The best modern interpreters are substantially in accord with the E. V. The most literal translation of the verse that can be given is: The mind stayed or supported (on Thee) Thou wilt keep (in) peace, peace, because it trusteth in Thee. Peace as an objective formation could not be said to trust in God, for it is not a living being possessed of will. This objection is fatal to the view wrought out so ingeniously and elaborately by our author.D. M.] The abbreviation standing alone is found in Isaiah besides here, Isa 38:11. The combination forming a climax occurs in Isaiah besides here only Isa 12:2. in the spiritual signification is found in Isa 8:14; Isa 17:10; Isa 30:29; Isa 44:8; Isa 51:1. [This hallowed designation of the Lord, Rock of Ages, is found as marginal rendering of what in the text of the E. V. is translated everlasting strength. The rendering of the margin is literal and accurate. The expression Rock of Ages is found in the Bible in this place only.D. M.]

4. For he bringeththe needy.

Isa 26:5-6. A pledge that the Lord will be the everlasting refuge of His people is seen by the Prophet in this, that the Lord has already humbled, cast down the worldly power. He expresses this partly in words which he repeats from Isa 25:12. Those who dwell on high (Isa 33:5; Isa 33:16), the lofty city (comp. 11:11, 17; Isa 12:4; Isa 30:13), He has brought low [instead of the first verb being in the present tense, as in the E. V., it should be in the perfect]. The following imperfects (futures) express the permanent condition of humiliation in consequence of the overthrow. The Prophet depicts the endless duration of the humiliation by the repetition of the verb expressing it (Anadiplosis). The different forms of the pronominal suffix attached to the verb are an agreeable variation. The feet of those who had before been trodden in the dust by the violent foot of the worldly power now pass without danger over the city of the world which has been laid by God in the dust.

5. The waymajesty of the Lord.

Isa 26:7-10. In Isa 26:3-6 the Prophet, in connection with had discussed the idea of the reciprocal fides implied in the life of the redeemed in communion with their God and in the city of God. In the following verses he discusses the idea of , so that the words righteous nation that keepeth faith, Isa 26:2, appear as the theme on which the Prophet here enlarges. The people of God must before all be themselves righteous. They are such when their path is , which is here the subject, and means rectitudo, sinceritas. It forms the ground which serves the righteous as substratum of His walk, as the pathway of life. But the glory is due to God. For He it is who so levels (properly rolls, the Prophet had here in view Pro 4:26; Pro 5:6; Pro 5:21) the path ( only here in Isaiah) of the righteous that it becomes . The structure of the sentence forms a prolepsis similar to Isa 26:1. But in order that the idea of righteousness may attain its full realization in the world, it is necessary that the divine righteousness also should unfold itself freely and unconfined. The unrighteousness which reigns in the world must be judged, the holy nature of God must become manifest in its full splendor. And this manifestation of the holiness and righteousness of God forms an object of the most intense desire of the believers of the Old Testament. This desire finds expression in many Psalms, and the Prophet here again adopts quite the tone of the Psalms. We wait for thee in the way of thy judgments, means: We expect to see Thee march through the world as a righteous judge (comp. Isa 40:14; Pro 2:8; Pro 17:23). This manifestation of justice is hoped for by the righteous, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the honor of God. Their desire, therefore, is to the name and remembrance (comp. Exo 3:15 and Psa 135:13) of the Lord,i.e., that the Lord may so manifest Himself that men may be put in a position to call Him by the right name, and to spread and propagate the right knowledge of Him. But even for the sake of the world, i.e. of unrighteous men themselves, the Prophet most fervently longs for the full manifestation of the divine righteousness, which he here conceives of not exactly as that which destroys the ungodly, but rather as that which punishes them for their own profit (Isa 26:9). After having hitherto used the plural, the Prophet passes over into the singular, I desire, I seek. This can be explained only on the supposition that he here gives expression to a wish in which he personally was intensely interested. Was he not himself the object and perpetual witness of human injustice? He whom the question: How can God tolerate such injustice? and the wish that an end may soon be put to it, does not suffer to rest even in the night, is the Prophet himself rather than those who, dwelling already in the glorified city of God, have behind them the chief stages of the judgment of the world (24; Isa 25:10 sqq.). We cannot ascribe this longing to carnal vindictiveness. In what follows the Prophet gives reasons for his desire in such a way as to show clearly to what an extent he transfers the actual necessities of the present time to that ideal future which he depicts. We have here another example of the Prophets manner of representing the future with the materials which the present time supplies. The Prophet longs for the judgments of God, because he hopes that in proportion as the earth is visited by them, men will learn righteousness. We recognize here the teacher and preacher, who deeply laments that words produce but little impression, that facts which make themselves profoundly felt are necessary to bring men to the knowledge and practice of righteousness. In Isa 26:10 the Prophet declares that if judgments do not take place, if the wicked has favor shown him he does not learn righteousness ( Hoph of , only here in Isaiah; it occurs, Pro 21:10. The conditional sentence is without the hypothetical particle, as is often the case). The wicked is not improved when favor is shown to him, but proceeds even when surrounded by the righteous (30:10; comp. Isa 57:2; Isa 59:14) to act perversely (, Piel in the causative sense, besides only Psa 71:4), and will never perceive the nature of God in all its glory and majesty ( a word characteristic of Isaiahs writings, Isa 9:17; Isa 12:5; Isa 28:3; it occurs besides only Psa 17:10; Psa 89:10; Psa 93:1). We must indeed acquit the Prophet of a low carnal desire of revenge, but I am decidedly of opinion that the passage, nevertheless, breathes the legal spirit of the Old Testament (comp. Mat 3:7; Luk 3:7), and is not born of the Spirit whose children we are to be. [A corrective to this last observation is furnished in the Exposition, which well sets forth the motives which inspired the Prophet to desire Gods judgments on the earth. Without them men will not learn righteousness. Gods goodness is despised or made the occasion of licentiousness, if there is no clear demonstration by terrible things in righteousness, that verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. If John the Baptists words (Mat 3:7 and Luk 3:7) are, like those of Isaiah, pronounced inconsistent with the Spirit of the New Testament, what shall be said of the words of our Saviour, Mat 23:33, and elsewhere? The desire that evil-doers should be punished, and that there should be a manifestation of the retributive justice of God, is not at variance with the Spirit of the Gospel, or that love of our enemies which Christ enjoined and exemplified, comp. Rev 6:10; Rev 15:4; Rev 19:1-2; 1Co 16:22; 2Th 1:6-10, etc.D. M.].

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Isa 24:2. When general judgments take place, no distinction is observed between man and wife, master and servant, mistress and maid, learned and unlearned, noble and plebeian, clergy and laity; therefore let no one rely on any external prerogative or superiority, but let every one without distinction repent and forsake sin.Cramer. Though this is right, yet we must, on the other hand, remember that the Lord declares in reference to the same great event, Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left (Mat 24:10 sq.). There is no contradiction in these two statements. Both are true: outward relations will make no difference; there shall be no respect of persons. But the state of the heart will make a difference. According to the inward character there will, in the case of those whose external position in the world is perfectly alike, be some who enter life, others whose doom is death.

2. Isa 24:5 sq. The earth is burdened with sins, and is therefore deprived of every blessing. The earth must suffer for our guilt, when we have as it were spoilt it, and it must be subject to vanity for our sakes (Rom 8:20). What wonder is it that it should show itself ungrateful toward us?Cramer.

[3. Isa 24:13 sq. Observe the small number of this remnant; here and there one who shall escape the common calamity (as Noah and his family, when the old world was drowned), who when all faces gather blackness, can lift up their head with joy. Luk 21:26-28. Henry.D. M.].

4. Isa 24:17-20. Our earth is a volcanic body. Mighty volcanic forces were active at its formation. That these are still in commotion in the interior of the earth is proved by the many active volcanoes scattered over the whole earth, and by the perpetual volcanic convulsions which we call earthquakes. These have hitherto been confined to particular localities. But who can guarantee that a concentration and simultaneous eruption of those volcanic forces, that is, a universal earthquake, shall not hereafter occur? The Lord makes express mention of earthquakes among the signs which shall precede His second coming (Mat 24:7; Mar 13:8; Luk 21:11). And in 2Pe 3:5 sqq. the future destruction of the earth by fire is set over against the destruction of the old world by water. Isaiah in our place announces a catastrophe whose characteristic features will be that, 1) there will be no escape from it; 2) destructive forces will assail from above and below; 3) the earth will be rent asunder; 4) it will reel and totter; 5) it will suffer so heavy a fall that it will not rise again (Isa 24:20 b). Is there not here a prophecy of the destruction of the earth by volcanic forces? And how suddenly can they break loose! The ministers of the word have every reason to compare this extreme exposedness of our earth to fire, and the possibility of its unexpectedly sudden collapse with the above-cited warnings of the word of God, and to attach thereto the admonition which is added in 2Pe 3:11.

5. Isa 24:21. The earth is a part of our planetary system. It is not what it appears to the optical perception to be, a central body around which worlds of a different nature revolve, but it, together with many similar bodies, revolves round a common centre. The earth according to that view of the account of the creation in Genesis 1, which appears to me the true one, has arisen with all the bodies of our Solar system out of one primary matter, originally united, common to them all. If our Solar System is a well-ordered, complete organism, it must rest on the basis of a not merely formal, but also material unity; i.e., the separate bodies must move, not only according to a principle of order which governs all, but they must also as to their substance be essentially like. And as they arose simultaneously, so must they perish simultaneously. It is inconceivable that our earth alone should disappear from the organism of the Solar System, or pass over to a higher material condition. Its absence, or ceasing to exist in its previous form and substance, would necessarily draw after it the ruin of the whole system. Hence the Scripture speaks every where of a passing away and renovation of the heaven and the earth (Psa 102:26; Isa 51:6; Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22; Mat 5:18; Mat 24:29; Mat 24:35; 2Pe 3:7; 2Pe 3:10; 2Pe 3:13; Heb 12:26; Rev 20:11; Rev 21:1). The heaven that shall pass away with a great noise, whose powers shall be shaken, whose stars shall fall, is the planetary heaven. The same lot will happen to the companions of our earth, to the other planets, and to the centre, the sun, and to all other co-ordinate and subordinate stellar bodies, which will befall the earth itself. This is the substance of the view which serves as a basis for our place. But personal beings are not thereby by any means excluded from the . The parallel expression , and the use in other places of the related expression lead us rather to suppose personal beings to be included. But I believe that a distinction must be made here. As the heavenly bodies which will pass away simultaneously with the earth, can only be those which arose together with it, and which stand in organic connection with it, so also the angelic powers, which are judged simultaneously with us men, can be only those which stand in connection with the heavenly bodies of our Solar System, i.e., with the earthly material world. There are heavenly bodies of glorious pneumatic substance. If personal beings stand in connection with them, they must also be pure, glorious, resplendent beings. These will not be judged. They are the holy angels, who come with the Lord (Mat 25:31). But it is quite conceivable that all the bodies of our Solar System are till the judgment like our earth suffered to be the theatre of the spirits of darkness.

6. Isa 24:21-23, It seems to me that the Prophet has here sketched the chief matters pertaining to eschatology. For the passing away of heaven and earth, the binding of Satan (Rev 20:1-3), the loosing of Satan again (Rev 20:7), and finally the reign of God alone, which will make sun and moon unnecessary (Rev 21:23)are not these the boundary-stones of the chief epochs of the history of the end of the world?

7. Isa 25:6. [The Lord of hosts makes this feast. The provision is very rich, and every thing is of the best. It is a feast, which supposes abundance and variety; it is a continual feast to believers: it is their fault if it be not. It is a feast of fat things and full of marrow; so relishing, so nourishing are the comforts of the Gospel to all those that feast upon them and digest them. The returning prodigal was entertained with the fatted calf; and David has that pleasure in communion with God, with which his soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness. It is a feast of wines on the lees; the strongest-bodied wines, that have been long kept upon the lees, and then are well refined from them, so that they are clear and fine. There is that in the Gospel which, like fine wine, soberly used, makes glad the heart, and raises the spirits, and is fit for those that are of a heavy heart, being under convictions of sin, and mourning for it, that they may drink and forget their misery (for that is the proper use of wine; it is a cordial for those that need it, Pro 31:6-7) may be of good cheer, knowing that their sins are forgiven, and may be vigorous in their spiritual work and warfare, as a strong man refreshed with wine. Henry.D. M.]

8. Isa 25:9. In the Old Testament the vail and covering were before mens eyes, partly because they waited for the light that was to appear, partly because they sat in darkness and in the shadow of death (Luk 1:79). The fulfilment of this prediction has in Christ already begun, and will at last be perfectly fulfilled in the Church triumphant where all ignorance and sorrow shall be dispelled (1Co 13:12). Cramer.

9. Isa 25:8. God here represents Himself as a mother, who presses to her bosom her sorrowful son, comforts him and wipes away his tears (Isa 66:13). The righteous are to believe and appropriate this promise, that every one may learn to speak with Paul in the time of trial: the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us, Rom 8:18. Cramer.

10. Isa 25:10. This is now the hope and consolation of the church that the hand of the Lord rests on this mountain, that is, that He will be gracious, and let His power, help and grace be there seen and felt. But the unbelieving Moabites, i.e., the Jews, with all others who will not receive the gospel, shall be threshed to pieces as straw in the mire; these the Lords hand will not rescue, as it helps those who wait on Him, but it shall press them down so that they will never rise, according to the saying, Mar 16:16. Veit Dietrich.

11. Isaiah 25 Three thoughts contained in this chapter we should hold fast: 1) When we see the world triumph over every thing which belongs to the Lord and His kingdom, when our hearts are anxious about the preservation in the world of the Church of Christ, which is sore oppressed, let this word of the Prophet comfort our hearts. The world-city which contains all that is of the world, sinks into the dust, and the church of Christ goes from her chains and bands into the state of freedom and glory. We have often seen that it is the Lords way to let every thing come to maturity. When it is once ripe, He comes suddenly with His sentence. Let us comfort ourselves therewith, for thus will it happen with the world and its dominion over the faithful followers of Christ. When it is ripe, suddenly it will come to an end. 2) No one who has a heart for the welfare of the nations can see without the deepest pain how all hearts are now seduced and befooled, and all eyes closed and covered. The simplest truths are no longer acknowledged, but the more perverse, brutal and mean views and doctrines are, the more greedily are they laid hold of. We cannot avert this. But our comfort is that even this seduction of the nations will reach its climax. Then men will come to themselves. The vail and covering will fall off, and the Gospel will shine with new light before the nations. Therewith let us comfort ourselves. 3) Till this happens, the church is sorrowful. But she shall be full of joy. The promise is given to her that she shall be fully satisfied with the good things of the house of the Lord. A life is promised to her which neither death nor any pain can affect, as she has rest from all enemies. The word of the Lord shall be fulfilled in her: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The Church that has such a promise may wait in patient quietness for its accomplishment, and praise the Lord in affliction, till it pleases Him to glorify her before all nations. Weber, The Prophet Isaiah. 1875.

12. Isa 26:1. The Christian church is a city of God. God has built it, and He is the right Master-builder. It is strong: 1) on account of the Builder; 2) on account of the foundation and corner-stone, which is Christ; 3) on account of the bond wherewith the living stones are bound together, which is the unity of the faith. Cramer. [The security and happiness of true believers, both on earth and in heaven, is represented in Scripture under the image of their dwelling in a city in which they can bid defiance to all their enemies. We dwell in such a city even now, Psa 46:4-5. We look for such a city, Heb 11:10; Heb 11:16; Revelation 21D. M.]

13. Isa 26:2. [These words may be taken as a description of the people whom God owns, who are fit to be accounted members of the church of the living God on earth, and who will not be excluded from the celestial city. Instead of complaining that only the righteous and the faithful will be admitted into the heavenly city, it should rather give us joy to think that there will be no sin there, that none but the just and true will there be found. This has been a delightful subject of reflection to Gods saints. The last words written by Henry Martyn were: Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? When shall appear that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, there shall in no wise enter in any thing that defileth; none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beastsnone of their corruptions which add to the miseries of mortality shall be seen or heard of any more.D. M.]

14. Isa 26:4. The fourth privilege of the church is trust in God the Rock of Ages, i.e., in Christ, who not only here, but also Matthew 16; 1 Corinthians 10; 1 Peter 2, is called a rock in a peculiar manner, because no other foundation of salvation and of the church can be laid except this rock, which is here called the rock of ages on account of the eternity of His being, merit and office. Hence a refutation can be drawn of the papistical fable which makes Peter and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, to be the rock on which the church is built. Foerster. [Whatever we trust to the world for, it will be but for a moment. All we expect from it is confined within the limits of time; but what we trust in God for will last as long as we shall last. For in the Lord Jehovah, Jah, Jehovah, in Him who was, and is, and is to come, there is a rock of ages, a firm and lasting foundation for faith and hope to build upon; and the house built on that rock will stand in a storm. Henry.D. M.]

15. Isa 26:5. It is very common with the prophets, when they prophesy of the kingdom of Christ to make reference to the proud and to the needy, and to represent the latter as exalted and the former as brought low. This truth is directed properly against the self-righteous. For Christ and His righteousness will not endure spiritual pride and presumption; but the souls that are poor, that hunger and thirst for grace, that know their need, these Christ graciously receives. Cramer.

16. Isa 26:6. It vexes the proud all the more that they will be overcome by those who are poor and of no consequence. For example, Goliath was annoyed that a boy should come against him with a staff (1 Sam. 13:43) Cramer.

17. Isa 26:8-10. That the justice of God must absolutely manifest itself that the majesty of the Lord may be seen, and that the wicked may learn righteousness, must even from a new Testament view-point be admitted. But the New Testament disputes the existence of any one who is righteous when confronted by the law, and who is not deserving of punishment. [But that there is none righteous, no not one, is taught most emphatically in the Old Testament also.D. M.]. But it (the New Testament) while it shuts up all, Jews and Gentiles, without exception, under sin (Gal 3:22; Rom 3:9; Rom 11:32), sets forth a scheme of mediation, which, while it renders full satisfaction to justice, at the same time offers to all the possibility of deliverance. This mediation is through the Cross of Christ. It is only when this mediation has not been accepted that punitive justice has free course. It should not surprise us that even the Evangelist of the Old Covenant, who wrote chap. 53, did not possess perfect knowledge of this mediation. Let us remember John the Baptist (Mat 3:7; Mat 11:11) and the disciples of the Lord (Luk 9:54). [Let us not forget that Isaiah was a true Prophet, and spoke as he was moved by the Spirit of God. The Apostle Paul did not find fault with the most terrible denunciations of judgment contained in the Old Testament, or affect a superiority over the men who uttered them. On the contrary, he quotes them as words which could not be suffered to fall, but which must be fulfilled in all their dreadful import. See e.g. Rom 11:9-10.D. M.].

18. Isa 26:12. It is a characteristic of true, sincere Christians, that they give God the glory and not themselves, and freely confess that they have nothing of themselves, but everything from God (1Co 4:7; Php 2:13; Heb 12:2). Cramer.

19. Isa 26:16. The old theologians have many comforting and edifying thoughts connected with this place: A magnet has the power to raise and attract to itself iron. Our heart is heavy as iron. But the hand of God is as a magnet. When that hand visits us with affliction, it lifts us up, and draws us to itself. Distress teaches us to pray, and prayer again dispels all distress. One wedge displaces the other. Ex gravibus curis impellimur ad pia vota. Ex monte myrrhae procedimus ad collem thuris (Cant. 9:6). In amaritudine crucis exsurgit odor devotae precationis (Psa 86:6 sq.). Ubi nulla crux et tentatio, ibi nulla vera oratio. Oratio sine mails est tanquam avis sine alis. Optimus orandi magister necessitas. . Quae nocent, docent. Ubi tentatio, ibi oratio. Mala, quae hic nos premunt, ad Deum ire compellunt. Qui nescit orare, ingrediatur mare. When the string is most tightly drawn, it sounds best. Cross and temptation are the right prayer-bell. They are the press by which God crushes out the juice of prayer. Cramer and Foerster.

20. Isa 26:20. As God, when the deluge was about to burst, bade Noah go into his ark as into his chamber, and Himself shut the door on him (Gen 7:6); so does the Lord still act when a storm is approaching; He brings His own into a chamber where they can be safe, either for their temporal preservation and protection against every might (Psa 91:1), or, on the other hand, to give them repose by a peaceful and happy death. His anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life (Psa 30:6). Cramer.

21. Isa 27:1. [Great and mighty princes [nations] if they oppose the people of God, are in Gods account, as dragons and serpents, and plagues of mankind; and the Lord will punish them in due time. They are too big for men to deal with, and call to an account; and therefore the great God will take the doing of it into His own hands. Henry.D. M.].

22. Isa 27:2-5. It seems to the world that God has no concern for His church and Christians, else, we imagine, they would be better off. But certain it is, that it is not the angels but God Himself that will be watcher over this vineyard, and will send it gracious rain. Veit Dietrich. [The church is a vineyard of red wine, yielding the best and choicest grapes, intimating the reformation of the church, that it now brings forth good fruit unto God, whereas before it brought forth fruit to itself, or brought forth wild grapes, Isa 5:4. God takes care (1) of the safety of this vineyard; I the Lord do keep it. He speaks this, as glorying in it, that He is, and has undertaken to be, the keeper of Israel; those that bring forth fruit to God are, and shall be always, under His protection. (2) God takes care of the fruitfulness of this vineyard: I will water it every moment; and yet it shall not be over watered. We need the constant and continual waterings of the divine grace; for if that be at any time withdrawn, we wither and come to nothing. Henry. D. M.].

23. Isa 27:4. Est aurea promissio, qua praecedentem confirmat. Indignatio non est mihi, fury is not in me. Quomodo enim is nobis irasci potest, qui pro nobis est mortuus? Quanquam igitur appareat, eum irasci, non tamen est verum, quod irascatur. Sic Paulo immittitur angelus Satanae, sed non est ira, nam ipse Christus dicit: sufficit tibi gratia mea. Sic pater filium delinquentem castigat, sed non est ira, quanquam appareat ira esse. Custodia igitur vineae aliquando cogit Deum immittere speciem irae, ne pereat luxurie, sed non est ira. Est insignis textus, which we should inscribe on all tribulations: Non est indignatio mihi, non possum irasci. Quod autem videtur irasci est custodia vineae, ne pereas et fias securus. Luther. In order to understand fully the doctrine of the wrath of God we must have a clear perception of the antithesis: the long-suffering of God, and the wrath of God, wrath and mercy. Lange.

24. Isa 27:7-9. Christ judges His church, i.e., He punishes and afflicts it, but He does this in measure. The sorrow and cross is meted out, and is not, as it appears to us, without measure and infinite. It is so measured that redemption must certainly follow. But why does God let His Christians so suffer? Why does He not lay the cross on the wicked? God answers this question and speaks: the sin of Jacob will thereby cease. That is: God restrains sin by the cross, and subdues the old Adam. Veit Dietrich.

25. Isa 27:13. [The application of this verse to a future restoration of the Jews can neither be established nor disproved. In itself considered, it appears to contain nothing which may not be naturally applied to events long past. J. A. Alexander.This prediction was completely and entirely fulfilled by the return of the Jews to their own country under the decree of Cyrus. Barnes.D. M.].

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1. On Isa 24:4-6. Fast-day sermon. Warning against dechristianization of the life of the people. 1) Wherein such dechristianization consists: a, transgression of the commandments that are in force; b, alteration of the commandments which are essential articles of the everlasting covenant, as e.g. removing of all state institutions from the basis of religion. 2) Its consequences: a, Desecration of the land (subjectively, by the spread of a profane, godless sentiment; objectively, by the secularization of relations hitherto held sacred); b, the curse consumes the land, Isa 24:4.

2. On Isa 25:1-5. The Lord, the refuge of the needy. 1) He has the power to help. This we perceive a, from His nature (Lord, God, Wonderful); b, from His deeds (Isa 25:1 b, Isa 25:2). 2) He gives His strength even to the feeble, (Isa 25:4). 3) These are thereby victorious, (Isa 25:5).

3. On Isa 25:6-9. Easter Sermon, by T. Schaeffer (Manch. Gab. u. ein Geist III. p. 269):The glorious Easter-blessing of the Risen One: 1) Wherein it consists? 2) who receive it? 3) what are its effects? Christmas Sermon, by Romberg [ibid. 1869, p. 78): Our text represents to us Christmas joy under the image of a festive board. Let us consider, 1) the host; 2) the guests; 3) the gifts.

4. On Isa 26:1-4. Concerning the church. 1) She is a strong city in which salvation is to be found. 2) The condition of having a portion in her is faith. 3) The blessing which she is instrumental in procuring is peace.

5. Isa 26:19-21. The comfort of the Christian for the present and future. 1) For the present the Christian is to betake himself to his quiet chamber, where he is alone with his Lord and by Him made cheerful and secure. 2) For the future he has the certain hope, a, that the Lord will judge the wicked, b, raise the believer to everlasting life.

6. Isa 27:2-9. How the Lord deals with His vineyard, the church. 1) Fury is not in Him towards it; 2) He protects and purifies it; 3) He gives it strength, peace and growth; 4) He chastens it in measure; 5) He makes the chastisement itself serve to purge it from sins.

Footnotes:

[1]Heb. truths.

[2]As firm formation wilt thou preserve peace, peace, for upon thee it is confided.

[3]Heb. peace, peace.

[4]Or, thought, or, imagination.

[5]Heb. the rock of ages.

[6]Thou wilt level right the path of the just.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

This is another joyful song, and a gospel song, full of the praises of Jehovah for redemption, interspersed with reflections on the wonderful deadness of the souls of God’s people, in the view of their mercies.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Reader! do not fail to observe how the prophet continually harps upon that day, that glorious clay, the gospel day, when the Lord will bring again Zion. And though some have thought that the deliverance of the Church out of Babylon might well call forth this song, of praise; yet even then, every child of God, even Israel thus delivered, could not but celebrate that temporal salvation as typical of a spiritual and eternal salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. The deliverance of the Church from Egypt, was a type; and consequently the deliverance from Babylon is the same. And as this song was to be sung in Judah; was it not as a representation of the Church of Jesus? See those scriptures, Jer 23:5-8 ; Heb 8:8-12 ; Isa 60:18 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Mark for Recognizing God’s Peace

Isa 26:3

I. It is not said, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed’. There is nothing in mere movelessness which is suggestive of peace. A mind may be motionless without being rested; nay, it may be motionless by reason of its unrest. What, for example, is the numbness of despair, but just a mind which has been deprived of movement by its own unrest. Grief by its excess lifts stopped the pulses of feeling; fear has paralysed energy; inward struggle has ended in inward exhaustion.

II. In the peace of a human soul everything depends on the thing which fastens it. There are various kinds of fastenings by which a spirit may be bound. It may be bound by sleep; it may be bound by apathy; it may be bound by old age. The peace of which the Psalmist speaks is that of a soul bound by God; its perfection lies in the fact that it is stayed on something which is itself constantly moving.

III. What would be the difference between a soul bound to a rock and a soul bound to a star? The soul fastened to the rock would be stationary; the soul fastened to the star would be ever on the wing. That is the difference between the peace of God and the world’s peace. The world’s peace is a standing still; God’s is a moving on. The world’s peace is silence; God’s is a living voice. The world’s peace is languor after toil; God’s is inspiration of strength to begin toil. To be stayed by God is to be stayed not by death but by life, not by exhaustion but by energy, not by folding the hands but by spreading the sails to reach a wider sphere. The peace of God descends on every man as it descended on Jesus in the midst of the waters.

G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p. 173.

References. XXVI. 3. J. H. Thom, Laws of Life (2nd Series), p. 136. W. J. Knox-Little, The Journey of Life, p. 159. A. G. Mortimer, Studies in Holy Scripture, p. 58. B. Wilberforce, Sanctification by the Truth, p. 97; see also The Hope That is in Me, p. 165. W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p. 275. F. W. Farrar, Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 187. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1818.

Kept Peaceful in the Midst of Strife

Isa 26:3-4

Looked at from any viewpoint life appears to be a struggle. The man of science, for example, pursues his investigations not as a mere search for facts but as a conflict against ignorance. Every discovery he makes is a fort captured from the enemy, and ensures the liberation of some who have hitherto been bound. And the ordinary individual, too, the one who is distinguished by no special rank in the array of contestants, but who has set his heart upon living a high and pure life, is entered for a struggle. His very ambition, itself an echo of Christ’s command, involves him in a lifelong campaign against the powers of evil.

I. Hence the audacity of Christ’s Gospel of peace, whose promises run counter to the entire natural order. Indeed, it is part of the proof of Christ’s Divinity that He should offer to men peace at the heart of an endless and inevitable agitation, a gift about which the Apostle uses no mere hyperbole when he speaks of it as ‘peace which passeth understanding’. For the human heart cannot conceive, apart from all that Christ Himself is, that in a world of this sort peace should perfectly possess any one. But this, the very mystery of the Evangel, is a large part of its fascination. Christ is ever willing to submit Himself to personal subjective tests, and is for ever calling men to come and try for themselves the reality of His claim and covenant. Faith may and often does begin as an experiment, but it always leads on to an experience of heart-rest which these words alone describe. ‘How do you explain the possibility of peace in a world where even Nature is red in tooth and claw, and where all the activities of men are bent upon ceaseless strife?’ is asked by the unbelieving cynic. And the only answer which we can give is that, while we cannot explain the possibility, we have experienced and continually enjoy the reality. And in its last analysis Christ’s Gospel is found to be true as it responds not to speculative but to subjective tests.

II. It is significant that these words do not identify the experience of peace with the absence of loss and sorrow, but rather with the presence of God. It is not that we are to be withdrawn from the reach of the influence of these things, but that we are to be drawn into close union with Himself.

III. It is significant also that this prophetic declaration with its Gospel fulfilment should reveal God as the One upon whom the responsibility of the covenant really rests. ‘ Thou wilt keep him’ is at once an encouragement to the one who knows his own grasp to be weak, his emotions fitful, his own power of fidelity inadequate and robs him of all his fearful apprehensions. Just as He alone bestows, so He alone can maintain unbroken this experience of strengthening and recreative peace. It is His work to hold us, not ours to hold Him. And this truth, if once apprehended, will rid our lives of much of the worry and meaningless anxiety which often beclouds and weakens them. If we surrender to Him His own possession, it is but little to expect that the King will carefully guard His own crown-jewels. It is indeed as a sentinel on duty keeps the trustful garrison in peace that the watchful Lord guards the yielded heart to the exclusion of false love, keeps the mind to the exclusion of wrong thoughts, and controls the will to the exclusion of unholy purposes.

J. Stuart Holden, The Pre-Eminent Lord, p. 71.

References. XXVI. 3, 4. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 111; see also Paul’s Prayers, p. 245.

Trust in God

Isa 26:4

Ignorance and unbelief are man’s foes, and unrest is man’s misery. The purpose of revelation is to impart knowledge and to awaken faith, and thus to fill the mind with that peace which is spiritual strength.

I. The Object of Trust.

a. ‘ The Lord Jehovah,’ the self-existing, the eternal, the Almighty. A contrast to all created beings. Put not your trust in man in the sons of men in princes.

b. ‘ The Rock of Ages’ (marg.). The everlasting hills are an emblem of strength, unchangeableness, solidity, eternity. God is often, by Moses and by the Psalmist, described as ‘the Rock,’ ‘the Stronghold,’ ‘the Fortress’. He whose feet are on the mountain peak feels his station solid and secure; he who builds upon the rock has a strong and safe foundation. A faint, poor emblem of the everlasting strength which is in God, the sure foundation upon which His people rest.

II. The Trust Required.

a. A sincere trust, such as arises from a consciousness of need and weakness, and such as goes out towards a Being who is able to strengthen, to comfort, and to save.

b. A steadfast trust, such as is described by the expression, ‘Whose mind is stayed upon Thee’. This is leaning and resting upon God. It is the trust of the scholar in the teacher, the patient in the physician, the traveller in the guide, the child in the parent.

c. A perpetual trust: ‘For ever,’ in all circumstances, for all time, and unto eternity.

III. The Result of Trust ‘Perfect Peace’. Whilst self-confidence, trust in man, distrust of God, bring restlessness, faith brings peace. Peace of conscience, peace of heart, peace of life, are all included; and these may be enjoyed even in circumstances likely to disquiet and distress. We are not, indeed, able to keep ourselves in such peace; but what we cannot do God can do, and will, if He be sought and honoured.

The Poor and Needy

Isa 26:6

‘The foot shall tread it down’ Shall tread what down? ‘The lofty city,’ as it says in the verse before: ‘the city of the terrible nations,’ as it is in another place. Those blessed feet shall indeed, by their journeys over the Holy Land, and then by their rest upon the Holy Cross painful journeys, a more painful repose overthrow that empire of Satan.

I. ‘The feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.’ And what a world of love there is in those two clauses! not to be slurred into one, as if both meant one and the same thing. A man may be poor enough, and not needy: for his poverty may content him, and he may need nothing further. A man may be needy enough, and not poor; is it not so every day? for all his riches may not satisfy him, and there is the insatiable craving for more wealth, more power, more honour. But it pleased our dear Lord to be both poor and needy for our sakes. So poor, that He was indebted to love only for the grave-cloths in which He laid Him down to sleep, and took His rest in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. He would be helped as well as help; He would accept the offerings of love as well as pour them forth; He would fulfil the future law of His own Apostles, ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ’. And where did the steps of the needy first lead Him?

‘The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow Me.’

Would go forth into Galilee? and why? Because He would seek for assistance there.

‘Now as He walked by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me.’

And there you have the words, as well as the steps, of the needy. Now, take an example from this very thing. Remember: the next most blessed thing to affording help as you should, is accepting it as you should. It is more blessed He Himself said it to give than to receive. Therefore it inevitably follows, it is also blessed to receive. Of His fullness have all we received: but He vouchsafes to receive of our emptiness.

II. ‘The feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.’ The feet of the poor are true to their title still. The King is exalted above all blessing, and worship, and glory, above every name that is named, of things present, or things to come; but He is the poor King still. Therefore He comes to you not as that arch-hypocrite came to St. Martin in his cell, in gold and pearls, and costly array, commanding to be worshipped as the Christ, but in poverty still and humbleness, under the form of Bread and Wine. And does He come solely to give, and not to receive? Does He bestow Himself, and ask for nothing in return? Not so. If they are the feet of the poor, they are the steps of the needy also. He needs yourselves. This needy One seeks your full love: will you deny it? your most earnest help; will you withhold it? your very selves: and already they ought to be His.

III. ‘The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.’ Why the singular in the first clause and the plural in the second? Why is the ‘foot’ of the beginning multiplied into the ‘feet’ and ‘steps’ of the end? And here we see, as in so many other passages, how the same prophecy tells of the Head, and tells of the members: of both, as engaged in one work: of both, as combining in one battle: of both, as to share in one victory. The Captain of our salvation goes forth first into the field: ‘the foot shall tread it down’: His servants follow Him to the war: ‘even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy’.

J. M. Neale, Occasional Sermons, p. 86.

References. XXVI. 8, 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xli. No. 2430. A. Murray, Waiting on God, p. 93. XXVI. 9. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches (2nd Series), p. 15. J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional, p. 106. R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons (1st Series), p. 75. R. E. Hutton, The Crown of Christ, vol. i. p. 71. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i. No. 31. XXVI. 12. Henry Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,, vol. iii. p. 275.

People Who Think They Have Done No Good in Life

Isa 26:18

Israel was mourning before God. They deemed they had accomplished nothing. They thought nobody was any better in all the land for anything they had attempted.

How often God’s people thus judge and condemn themselves! They conclude they have only cumbered the ground. Life appears to them a failure. What Israel wailed of old is their lamentation still: ‘We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth’.

It was pathetic that Mrs. Oliphant inscribed these doleful words upon the title-page of her latest volume of stories. She appeared to think all her labour had resulted in little or nothing. And yet we cannot doubt that in many senses that gifted and heroic authoress did work deliverance in the earth.

This is frequently the retrospect which God’s best and most useful people take of their life. Even C. H. Spurgeon at the last charged himself with ‘uselessness’. He did this in a letter to his friend Bishop Thorold. Think of Spurgeon, of all men, self-accused of uselessness. It is one of Satan’s most depressing devices that he causes God’s people to cry, ‘We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth’.

Let me speak to people who think they have done no good in life. May I but check this sore complaint which they utter to the Lord! Oh to give them, through grace, a more sanguine review!

I. Varied forms of deliverance are to be wrought. In many ways the earth is embondaged. ‘The whole creation groaneth and travaileth.’ Whichever region we contemplate there is abundant need of ‘deliverance’. Captive souls are all around us; fettered intellects; bodies bound of Satan these long weary years. Who is entirely free? Verily there is abundant scope for ‘deliverance’ to be ‘wrought’.

II. To work deliverance is a supreme end in life.

III. We are all apt to declare that we have wrought no deliverance.

IV. This is a dangerous lamentation.

V. Only the people of God can work true deliverance in the earth.

VI. We shall not know in this life what deliverance we have wrought.

Dinsdale T. Young, The Gospel of the Left Hand, p. 151.

References. XXVI. 19. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiv. 1908, p. 312. J. Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. v. p. 70. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (9th Series), p. 306. J. M. Neale, Occasional Sermons, p. 13.

The Lord Coming Out of His Place

Isa 26:20-21

What is the object of the retirement which is thus recommended to Israel.

I. Israel in retirement will see that God is the author of the great judgment on the nations on the great monarchies of the Eastern world. One of the faults of this people, which haunted it from age to age, was that it did not see God in history in its own history, in the history of the world.

Is it not much the same among ourselves? How do the majority of us Englishmen look at passing events, and especially at misfortunes, whether they happen to the world at large, or to our own country, or to our families, or to ourselves? If we think about them steadily at all we trace them to their causes their ‘second causes,’ as our popular language religiously puts it that is, to the forces or the events which appear to us immediately to produce these misfortunes. We ought not to stop at these secondary causes just as if they were living forces just as if they were, to all intents and purposes, gods as if there were no power beneath, behind them, to set them in motion, to control, or to check them no Cause of causes Who is the real agent always and everywhere.

And if we would see God behind the agencies which, when governing us and governing the world, He employs, whether in judgment or in mercy, we must detach ourselves from the imperious, the binding power of sense: we must retire within the chambers of the soul, into an atmosphere of prayer.

II. And Israel in retirement may learn something of God’s purposes in judgment What a judgment means does not by any means always lie upon the surface. It only appears upon consideration, and it is missed if we do not make a serious personal effort to discover it.

Society as a whole has no eye for the drift of the judgments of God. God who rules the world unveils His mind to pure and holy souls, while He hides it from those who believe themselves to be the wise and prudent. To study the Divine mind in God’s judgments in time is to learn before they appear to learn to read the signs of the Son of Man in heaven. It is to prepare in the most intelligent and effective way for the final doom.

III. And Israel in retirement may have power with God in judgment The Israel of Isaiah’s day could do little or nothing directly. But indirectly Israel might yet do as much as, or rather more than, in those ancient times.

If prayer can thus reach the physical and inanimate world, much more can it reach the moral and the human world; and so now, while the world goes on its way as if it held its own future bound in its hand, its course is really swayed by those of whom it takes the very least account by poor and uninfluential and simple people who live much alone with God, and who have ready access to His ear and to His heart Israel, in his chambers, Isaiah would say, might yet do more for the future of the world than if David had been still ruling from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, vol. xii. No. 689, p. 182.

Illustration. An old writer tells us that he was reminded of this passage in Isaiah when he visited those remarkable sepulchres of the early Christian dead, the catacombs beneath the city of Rome. As he looked on those narrow cells cut out in the soft rock, with a brief inscription on a tablet in front of each, and read how first one and then another aged man, or youth, or maiden, had, in one of the last great imperial persecutions, laid down life itself for Christ, he could not but feel that God had called that soul to enter into the chambers of the blessed dead, and had shut the doors about and hidden it as it were for a little moment until the indignation was overpast until the blessed day of the resurrection when the Lord Jesus should come out of His place for judgment, when it would enter on its new and on its splendid inheritance of life.

H. P. Liddon.

References. XXVI. 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xl. No. 2387. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Prophets, p. 104. H. Hensley Henson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxii. 1902, p. 393. XXVI. 20, 21. H. P. Liddon, Advent in St. Paul’s, vol. i. p. 78. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlii. No. 2459. XXVI. H. Hensley Henson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. 1908, p. 410. XXVII. 1-9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlii. No. 2459. XXVII. 3. Ibid. vol. xxv. No. 1464; vol. xl. No. 2391. XXVII. 5. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 121.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Great Song

Isa 26

There are some songs which cannot be kept to any land. They speak the universal language of human experience and human need, and therefore they are at home everywhere. There may be local tunes, which no one cares to transplant from the place of their origin; but there are other tunes that will cross the sea with you, and haunt the house where you live, and fall in with all the best excitements and holiest aspiration and most joyous movements of the soul. What suits the land of Judah suits all other lands, wherein it speaks of righteousness, salvation, truth, peace, goodness, uprightness the moral qualities that no weather can stain, and whose use and benediction no custom can stale. World-songs should be sung by the whole world. Who can sing Hebrew? The very language is itself music; there is about it the fatness of a full-grown grape, the colour of wine in which there is no death, the juice on which the soul lives. When Hebrew is set to music it is the music itself set to music; and then we need all the universe for an orchestra, and all living things for singers and accompanists. This chapter is as a chapter of delights. It is in very deed a chapter to revel in. Who would not linger in Paradise? There seems to be no farewell in a summer day, no abruptness of adieu ; we seem to part from one another as a man might enter into the sweet custody of sleep.

Here the prophet becomes a psalmist, supplying both the words and the music; and so ecstatic is he that he writes a chapter in the New Testament before the time. Men are surprised when they find flowers in unexpected places. Had they found them in their own locality, at their own season, little or no heed would had been paid to them, but to find them out of place and out of time, what a surprise is even the simplest flower! Isaiah often antedates the New Testament. He writes the New Testament in Hebrew, and therefore makes it in its expression a nobler testament. We might live farther ahead if we could pray better. It is inspiration that obliterates intervening days, and seizes upon millennial lights and comforts and securities. We are dull scholars, plodders in the inky letter. If we have wings we do not use them; at best we flutter where we ought to fly. The Church by this time might have been on the mountain-top, and all nations flowing to it; only we have made it a parochial building, and guarded it well with gilded palings. Spirit of the living God, bless us with largeness of soul! What a vision is this! The prophet sees a spiritual city no bricks, no stones, no wood or iron; salvation for walls and bulwarks. Living stones make a living temple. All that we now have of architectural outline and shape ought to be considered but as a hint. What can men do with stones? Who can turn cold clay, though burned and cooled again, into poetry? Yet even this miracle has been half done in some cases. The Lord permits it to be done, that by such little helps we may get ideas of larger things, that through a one-paned window we may catch a glimpse of the horizon. The mischief is that we will rest in the little, the alphabetic, the initial, and will not urge on to claim the thing that is signified. We carry with us the little warranty, but we never go to claim the estate. There is a Church within the church and beyond the church understanding by that second term the visible communion So described, or the building erected of stone, well plastered and highly coloured that is not the Church. What salvation is there in the world? what sense of divine communion? what identity with God? what confidence that time and space are only stumbling-blocks, and the real city is a city of fellowship with infinite ideas and purposes, infinite love and truth? Who is there that does not leave early Sacrament to talk about the coldness of the morning? So contradictory may men be, and superbly foolish, that they can open their eyes from looking upon God to remark upon the phenomena of space! We need the spirit of transport, the spirit that lifts itself into third heavens, and asks, Are there no higher heights; are there no seventh heavens? In such rapture we see most of the spiritual universe. We are only critics, not rhapsodists. The poet is the man we want, because he speaks ultimate truths; he puts into a line a whole revelation, he wraps up in a sentence all the births of the ages, forgetting the pang and throe and misery in the holy issue. But who can be in the spirit and in the body at the same time? Who can see salvation as a temple and praises as a cathedral whilst he is victimised and laughed at by his own five senses? We need prophets, therefore, who have the seeing eyes the eyes that see what to others is invisible; and they must put up with our impertinence and rudeness for a time; they can bear it, for our ingratitude hardly reaches them; they have flung their music upon the world, and vanished from the world’s vengeance and anger. Blessed be God, the prophets are out of the way, but the prophecies are still here, singing, and beyond the dart that would slay the singer.

We are called upon to “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in” ( Isa 26:2 ) literally, truths. The Hebrew is averse to made-up emphasis and made-up pluralities, but sometimes it will allow that there may be more than one, so that the one may be for convenience’ sake broken up into sections and parts that the entire may be grasped the more perfectly. “Truths,” that is, all aspects of truthfulness in the heart and life. The diamond consents, as it were, to be cut into facets. It was not so found, but it will submit itself to chisel or wheel or sharp instrument to be made into little facets, each bright as an angel, each flashing like a morning undreamed of for brightness, each part of the whole. Yet who fixes upon one facet and says, This is the diamond? We need all the parts to constitute the integrity. But who can grasp all the parts? No one man. How then is it to be done? By the whole Church. Can one minister be all ministers? No: he is but a facet; he is but an aspect: we must gather together all God’s ministries of eloquence, and insight, and power, and sympathy, and poetry, and criticism, and constitute them into one ministry, and call it God’s. So it is with truth. We gather truths; we proceed from the plural to the singular, and then come away from the singular into the plural, and find that all the while there is but one truth as there is but one God.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee ( Isa 26:3 ).

This is the issue of all discipline. What is meant by “perfect peace”? This is all the poor English can do. The English language lives on adjectives, loves them, cannot do without them, ekes and pieces itself out by them. What can we set beside the word “peace” that is worthy of it? The Hebrew sets nothing; we have set the word “perfect.” It would read thus literally: “Thou establishest a purpose firm; peace, peace, for in thee is his trust.” How, then, is emphasis obtained? Often in the Hebrew by iteration. There is an emphasis of repetition. Instead of saying “perfect peace,” that tongue would say, “peace, peace.” The adjective comes by reduplication. Who could make an adjective worthy of such a noun? Let us beware of all qualifying terms which describe and limit spiritual life. The danger is that we may find our resting-place in the adjective, and never get into the substantive at all. How words are qualified, how lives are minimised, how truth is debased, by words of qualification; how grand are simple terms; who cares to talk about a “bright” sun? The sun seems the brighter by omitting all complimentary epithets. To be the sun is to be bright; to have peace is to have perfect peace. This is the sublimity of faith. The end of discipline is not to make men critical, facetious, pedantic, pharisaic, self-sufficient; the end of all life-discipline is to make men complete, and completeness is peace. Where there is want of peace there is want of completeness. Light a candle, sweep the house, search diligently for that which is lost; it may be only as one in ten, but the element that is lost must be found and supplied: the universe knows the meaning of equipoise, balance, rhythm, music. “Peace, peace,” as it were, an accumulation of peace. “Great peace have they which love thy law.” Oh that we had hearkened unto thy commandments! then had our peace flowed like a river. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Nor is this all poetry. Again and again under the poetry we find solid reason; we find under the blooming flowers solid rocks hardly yielding to gunpowder.

“Trust ye in the Lord for ever” ( Isa 26:4 ). Why? “For in the Lord JEHOVAH” a rare combination of words; probably characteristic of this prophet “for in the Lord JEHOVAH” as it were, the twice God “is everlasting strength.” But “everlasting strength” is an English repetition that weakens itself by its very endeavour to be emphatic. What is the literal word for “everlasting strength”? The literal rendering might be “Rock of Ages” “for the Lord Jehovah is the Rock of Ages.” We need the Rock. There are times when we distinguish, broadly and vitally, between the rock and the sand; there are other times when we are so victimised and misled that we think the sand will do, and in our frivolity and impious levity we say, This is enough for me. Then we tell lies to ourselves. There is nothing sufficient for man but God. Temporarily there may be some feasts that satisfy the passing appetite, but the real hunger cries out for the Infinite. It is wonderful what man can do with. What a banquet he can take! When he is alive through and through, when every faculty is awake, when every capacity is astir, when the whole nature sharpens itself into a cry for nutriment, nothing can meet the infinite appetite but the infinite God. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” The word “strength” comes happily into the language of the Christian life. There are times when we are peculiarly conscious of needing strength. When the strong man enters the sick-room he seems to bring healing with him. He is as a mountain with fresh air blowing around its crowned heights. Necessity looks up to him and says, Bless you, in the name of God: we have been waiting for you, for we are all so weak in this house: now we feel strong in your strength; you can lift the sufferer, you can bring to us what we need; our poor dying frailty gives its life up to you, strong soul; now take the reins, rule us with beneficent power. So the soul sometimes needs the aspect of strength in God, to feel the sufficiency of the Rock of Ages. There are times when, so to say, we put our foot out to feel if we are on solid ground, saying in effect, Is this rock, or bog? Is this granite, or swamp? Thus we are comforted in proportion as we are assured of real, living, eternal strength; and we sing:

These are the most sacred experiences of the soul; they admit rather of reference than of elaboration; we must live them to know them. Even the fool should be quiet here, for he knows not on what sensitiveness he treads when he ventures to open his uncircumcised lips.

What sublime religious aspiration we have here!

“With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” ( Isa 26:9 ).

The soul often cries out for the living God. “As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” These moments of elevation make all other moments sacred. After great prayer comes great business if not great in the sense of arithmetical progress, yet great in the sense of moral satisfaction. How sweet the bread that is honestly won! It needs no adjective; it is better as simple “bread.” If the adjective come into it at all, it will be at the other end, not as an introductory term, but as one explanatory; then we shall speak of “bread of heaven,” “bread of life”: the bread will stand first, and if it stoop to accept the qualification, it will only be as the sea sometimes stoops to have a little crest of foam upon its infinite billows. Are we conscious of such soul rapture? Have we sometimes to come a long way in order to get back to earth again? and when we look at men do we look as those who are coming out of a sleep, opening their eyes in half-stupor, half-wonder, because they have been so far away in other lands where the light is sevenfold, and where they have seen God face to face? Beware of a critical piety, a lexicon theology, a faith that admits of being transferred into words, and that boasts itself of a kind of correlation of forces, as if it could go into words, and then come back again into itself; whereas there are no words that can hold all the soul knows, any more than there are vessels made by human hands which can hold all the rain of heaven.

On the other hand, we may well be cautioned against a rapture that does not afterwards vindicate itself by practical piety. Who can get through his hymn without one shadow in it? Isaiah could not; he said:

“Let favour be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord” ( Isa 26:10 ).

All is lost upon him. Let the summer-day rain all its gathered clouds upon the sand of the desert, and it will not make a garden of it; all the rich rain will be swallowed by the burning lips, and at eventide the desert shall thirst as with the thirst of fire: otherwise, the world would be converted to-day, and would have been converted at the very time of the revelation of the Son of man. If Providence could have converted the world, the world would to-day have been in the attitude of prayer. But goodness is lost, as rain is lost We ourselves have often wasted the sunshine. We had the whole broad, white, glistening day to work in, and instead of regarding it as an opportunity for service we complained of the heat, and sank under the burden as men oppressed. We say that some men never can be satisfied. There is a painful truth in that statement. The music does not satisfy them, nor does the appeal, nor the exposition, nor the prayer, nor the service of friendship, nor the sacrifice of love; they still ask for the impossible. Knowing what this is in common life we may know what it is in the higher ranges of experience. The spirit of discontentment is in some men, and do what you will for them you find no flowers in their conduct, no fruit upon their life-tree, nothing but leaves, and the leaves half-grown, as if ashamed to be seen upon branches so unfruitful, so unblessed. Doth not the goodness of God lead thee to repentance? Think of it! health, and children, and love, and prosperity, and social honour, and all these a staircase leading thee no where! All these marble steps should conduct thee to heaven. But as soon as the earthquake ceases men begin again to curse and swear, and as soon as the earth is felt to have recovered from her vibrations men-go back to the tavern and drink themselves to death; when the heavy thunder ceases, and the vivid lightning withdraws itself, men come from the sanctuary of the cellar to repeat their brutalities in their higher chambers. “In the land of uprightness the wicked will deal unjustly.” You cannot make him pious in the sanctuary. If he fold his hands in prayer as his mother bade him, his soul is not in any attitude of supplication. He could plot murder at the altar; he could plan the slaughter of an enemy during the singing of a hymn.

So the prophet’s grand psalm rolls on. He confesses indeed:

“O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name” ( Isa 26:13 ).

We may all acknowledge that lordships have ruled us of which we are now ashamed. Yet there seems to be a kind of unspeakable necessity of our passing through these lordships, these minor and inferior dominions. We cannot begin where our fathers ended. The philosopher dies, he leaves his pen-and-ink to his son, but not a single intellectual faculty or acquired attainment in reading and thought. The greatest, wisest man dies, and is obliged to tell his child to mind his lesson well, to take pains in learning the alphabet! We have all to fight the same lions, tread the same road, try the same gates, fall by the same difficulties. Such is the mystery of this disciplinary life! Blessed are they who can speak of other lordships in the past tense, in a tense that is completed, saying, Other lordships have had dominion over us, but the lordships and their rulings have vanished and ended, and now we stand in the empire of God, and own no crown, or throne, or sceptre but the Father’s. Discipline is not lost when it ends in that grand loyalty.

Who can touch the next point in the prophet’s psalm? He says:

“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead” ( Isa 26:19 ).

Isaiah may not have known what he was talking about A man is not the less wise if he cannot be his own interpreter. There are moments when men are simply mediums through which God speaks; they are the fragment on which the infinite silence breaks into the spray of speech. They cannot tell all that God is saying through them or by them; they wist not what they say. Let us allow all this, and yet here is a most remarkable prognostication of what may well be called the supreme doctrine of Christianity the resurrection of the dead. “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.” “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” The whole fabric of Christianity would seem to stand on the cornerstone of the resurrection. Into that subject we cannot here enter at length, but how beautifully inspiring it is to find even thus early in the sacred record a groping after immortality!

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVII

THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH

The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.

Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.

In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.

In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.

In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.

The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.

In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.

In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.

In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.

In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).

The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7

In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:

1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.

2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.

3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:

According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .

In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.

In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.

In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”

In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”

The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.

The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.

In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”

In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”

Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .

The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”

So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?

In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”

The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”

The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23

QUESTIONS

1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?

2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?

3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?

4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?

5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?

6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?

7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?

8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?

9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?

10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?

11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?

12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?

13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?

14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?

15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?

16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?

17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?

18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?

19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?

20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?

21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?

22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?

23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?

24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?

25. Where is the great invitation and promise?

26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?

27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?

28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?

29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?

30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?

31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

XV

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 7

Isaiah 24-27

This section (Isaiah 24-27) is called, in our outline of the book of Isaiah, “The First Book of Judgment.” In this section we emerge out of the prophecies relating to the typical forms of national life, as in the preceding section, into others of a broader character, which concern the world at large. In this we have the deluge of divine justice taking in the whole world. The central people, Israel, first, and then all the surrounding people have been laid low, and the silence of death reigns. Yet in the remote parts of the earth songs arise, songs of hope of the future glory of Jehovah, the king, as he swallows up death forever, so that they who dwell in the dust, awake, arise, to live forever. Israel’s recovery is as life from the dead, to the surrounding nations. In Isa 24 we have a deep elegiac tone, but in Isaiah 25-27 we have the sound of the triumphant songs of the righteous. Of this section Sampey says, “Whatever may be the historical setting and exact fulfilment of these chapters, like the book of Revelation, they contain many magnificent pictures and glorious promises, and a sense of the divine presence that make them of permanent value.”

The chapters constitute the divisions of this section. Isa 24 is a picture of the terrible judgments to come. Isa 25 sounds out the glorious triumph of Jehovah over sin and death. Isa 26 is a song of praise to be sung in the land of Judah for Jehovah’s defense of Zion, the overthrow of the proud city and the deliverance of his people. Isa 27 is the pronouncement of Judgment against the oppressor on behalf of Israel. To sum up, we have (1) World-Judgments, (2) A Song of Triumph, (3) A Song of Praise, and (4) Judgment upon the Oppressors of Israel.

The broad sweep of this section reminds us of the prophecy of Joel. Man’s sin has infected the whole earth, therefore, the punishment must include the whole world and its inhabitants.

There is a word of frequent occurrence in this section. It is the Hebrew word for “earth,” here translated “land” in some instances. There is some difficulty in deciding just how it should be translated: whether it should be translated “land” or “earth” uniformly, or whether the translation should vary. Some passages seem to favor the use of the word, “land,” and others the word “earth.” Dr. Day in the “Bible Commentary” says, “The truth appears to be this: The land of Israel was a miniature of the world. Its recovery from the moral pollution of the idolatrous races was a historical prelude of a like recovery of our earth.”

The temple congregation was a type of the New Testament church, which in turn is a type of the “glory church,” and the visible king, a type of the “king of all the earth.” In Israel was the germ of blessing for all nations. Consequently, if Israel’s light was eclipsed, the whole world was darkened. When Israel languished under a curse, the “everlasting covenant” appeared to be annulled, or at least suspended. So in the use of this word Isaiah seems to comprehend the whole earth as involved in Israel’s mission. If the land of Israel was doomed to desolation, then the whole earth became “waste and void.” (Cf. Jer 4:23 .)

In Isa 24:1-12 we have (1) a universal catastrophe in which there is a complete emptying of the earth and equalizing of its inhabitants; (2) the causes of it, which are the transgression of the laws, the violation of the statutes and the breaking of the everlasting covenant; (3) the manifestations of it in sadness and gloom, everywhere, all means of joy perverted and desolation on every hand; (4) the promise of the remnant, which is compared to the gleaning after harvest.

Now this question arises: What the laws transgressed, the statutes violated, and the covenant broken, in Isa 24:5 ? The laws, statutes, and covenant, referred to in this passage seem to antedate the Mosaic law and to include the laws, statutes, and covenant which were in the very constitution of things. Law, in its last analysis, is the intent or purpose of the Creator with respect to the thing created. So the law of man is God’s purpose for man in his very being. There were statutes for man expressed in the history and covenants prior to the Mosaic code. There was God’s covenant with Adam for the whole race, renewed in Noah and particularized in Abraham. It was an everlasting covenant, comprehending the redemption of a lost race. So the world here is presented as violating every vestige of law which it had received to this time.

We have in Isa 24:14-20 the songs of the remnant in many parts of the world and especially from the sea, i.e., the Mediterranean Sea, and its isles, but these songs are ineffective in view of the awful distress upon the earth, which represents a mighty upheaval to come, before Jehovah, through the remnant, shall become the recognized, universal king. The reference here to the sea and its isles corresponds to the fact that it was on the Mediterranean coasts that the first Christian churches arose, whose songs have been drowned many a time by the din of war.

In Isa 24:21-23 we have a picture of Jehovah’s overthrow of the kings of the earth and his own glorious reign in Mount Zion, and is clearly a reference to the great conflict which will immediately precede the millennium. The kings of the earth shall be engaged in one mighty struggle after which the Messiah will be received by the Jews and then will be ushered in the great reign of our Lord through the converted Jews who become the flaming evangels of the world. This glorious period we have presented again in the closing part of the book, in the prophet Zechariah and in other parts of the Old and New Testaments. The title of Isa 25 is “A Song of Triumph” and it is vitally related to the preceding chapter as an effect is related to a cause. The prophet in the closing part of Isa 24 proclaims the final establishment of the kingdom in the heavenly Zion and now he is carried away by the sense of exultant gladness into a triumphant song of which this chapter is the expression.

This chapter divides itself into three parts: (1) a thanksgiving for deliverance (Isa 25:1-5 ) ; (2) a commemoration of blessings granted (Isa 24:6-8 ) ; (3) an exultation in the security obtained (Isa 25:9-12 ).

Isaiah seems to get his pattern for this song from the “Song of Moses” (Exo 15 ) which contains many of the phrases in Isaiah’s song here.

The word “city” in Isa 25:2 is here used distributively and does not point to any particular city. The prophet is referring to all those cities which have been the enemies of Jehovah. The words “palace” and “strangers” are used in the same way.

The blessings of this glorious triumph of Jehovah are to be celebrated by a feast of fat things. This idea is presented in many other scriptures, as in the case of Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom and the picture which our Lord gave, thus: “They shall come from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in my kingdom.”

Then what the “covering” and the “veil” of Isa 25:7 ? This is the glass through which Paul says we see darkly. It includes the Jewish veil of Judicial blindness and the veil of prejudice and misconception of all people in their natural state. Blessed time, when it shall be removed and we shall see face to face. The swallowing up of death here makes us think of Hosea’s prophecy: “I will redeem them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” Otherwise, this is the first clear announcement of the resurrection, and it was a marked advance on the dim light respecting the future, as realized by God’s people hitherto. This puts us alongside of Paul, and the wiping away of tears, etc., places us with John on Patmos where he saw Paradise regained and the glorious bride adorned for her husband. A glorious outlook, yet to be realized. The exultation expressed here is an exultation in the salvation of Jehovah, with the complete destruction of Moab.

But who is Moab here and why should the name be so used in this instance? Moab ‘is used symbolically to represent the degradation of Zion’s remaining enemies. The following are some of the reasons why Moab may have been chosen:

1. Moab sought to bring a curse on Israel by the help of Balaam’s sorceries, and although these were ineffectual, yet the artifice suggested by Balaam of seducing Israel by means of the licentious rites of Peor, did bring heavy chastisement upon the people. Moab stood at the entrance of Canaan to prevent Israel, if possible, from entering upon its inheritance, and thus it acted the very part of the serpent’s seed.

2. The mountains of Moab, beyond the Dead Sea, rise up as if in rivalry with those of Judah) from which they are separated by the Dead Sea. So between Moab and Zion was “a great gulf fixed,” like that fixed by divine judgment between Abraham and Dives.

3. Moab, the child of Lot, the offspring of a dark deed of unconsciousness superinduced by intoxication, stands as the mystical representative of the corrupted and sensual world. Now the theme of Isa 26 is a song of praise to be sung in the land of Judah. In the preceding song the prophet poured forth his own thankfulness for the prospect of Zion’s glorious redemption and triumph, but in this he represents the redeemed themselves in the glorified state singing praise to God for the same.

The purpose of this prophetic revelation was strictly practical. It was for the comfort and admonition of that existing generation. In every age the people of God must have the characteristic of patient faith and upright obedience, which is very greatly expanded in the progress of divine revelation.

A synopsis of this chapter is as follows:

1. The New Jerusalem versus the Old, Isa 26:1-7 .

2. The desire of the righteous is for Jehovah versus the perverseness of the wicked, Isa 26:8-10 .

3. The prosperity of Jehovah’s people versus the destruction of their enemies, Isa 26:11-15 .

4. Israel’s barrenness versus her hope in the resurrection, Isa 26:16-19 .

5. An exhortation to Israel to hide till Jehovah’s indignation be past, Isa 26:20-21 .

The points worthy of note in Isa 26:1-7 are:

1. The two cities mentioned in this paragraph are set over against each other. The first is the New Jerusalem which is abundantly described by John in Rev 21 , while the second is the Old Jerusalem which is here ‘represented as laid waste, trodden under foot as we see her today.

2. The expression of and exhortation to implicit faith in Jehovah as an object of peace and confidence is characteristic of Isaiah. From Isa 26:4 , I preached a sermon once on the theme, “The Rock of Ages,” combining with this text Psa 61:2 , “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” This is the outline followed:

1. The Foundation (1Pe 2:6 ; Isa 28:17 )

2. The Shadow (Isa 32:2 )

3. The Fortress (Psa 18:2 )

4. The Water (1Co 10:1-4 )

5. The Cleft (Exo 33:21-23 )

6. The Rock of Ages: (a) everlasting to me; (b) everlasting for all of every age.

7. Trust in the Lord forever, for he is a “forever [everlasting] rock.”

3. A suggested translation of Isa 26:3-4 is the following: “A mind (imagination) stayed (on thee) thou keepest in perfect peace; because in thee it trusts (is confident). Trust ye in Jehovah forever, for Jehovah is an everlasting rock.” A poet has beautifully expressed this lofty idea thus: As some toll cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, The round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

The passage (Isa 26:8-10 ) expresses the longing of the righteous for the display of Jehovah’s judgment against the wicked and corresponds to the New Testament teaching that God’s people are to leave vengeance to him and await God’s own time for its display. To this end we have the parable of the unjust judge, and the cry by the martyrs under the altar, “How long, Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” is an expression of this same desire.

In Isa 26:19 is the expression of Israel’s faith in God’s promise, a foundation stone of the doctrine of the resurrection. It certainly suggests a resurrection of individuals, and not merely a return of material prosperity, as in Hos 6:2 ; Eze 37 ; Dan 12:2 .

The lesson of Isa 26:20-21 is distinctly a call to prayer and patient waiting on God. The opening of the door of the prayer chamber in times of distress is the opening of a door into another world, a scene of serenity and elevation. In the presence of him who seeth in secret are the most difficult problems solved. That which opposes us is overcome by the new energy of the Spirit here imparted. Let us here listen to the poet Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream Of glory on the consecrated hour Of man in audience with Deity; Who worships the great God, that instant joins, The first in heaven, and sets his foot on hell.

The title of Isa 27 is “Judgment upon the Oppressors of Israel” and the parts, or natural divisions, of this chapter are as follows:

1. A triple vengeance on the oppressors of Israel and the protection of Jehovah’s vineyard (Isa 27:1-6 ).

2. Jehovah’s dealing with Jacob a chastisement instead of vengeance, and for the purpose of his purification (Isa 27:7-11 ).

3. The homecoming of the exiles (Isa 27:12-13 ).

The meaning of the oft-recurring phrase, “In that day,” in this chapter, is significant. This expression here refers to the time of God’s vengeance heretofore described, when God is visiting the enemies of his kingdom in vengeance, as stated in Isa 26:21 . There is evidently a variation in the time referred to in the different instances of its use, since all the prophecies of the chapter do not refer to the same period of time. So each instance of its use will have to be determined by the context, just as in its use in other scriptures.

The meaning of “Leviathan” in verse I is a very difficult question to answer. Some deny the possibility of identification of the powers represented by these symbols; others identify them as three world powers: Leviathan, the swift serpent; Leviathan, the crooked serpent; and “the dragon of the sea,” making the first refer to Assyria, the second to Babylon, and the third, to Egypt. There seem to be points of identification sufficient for such an explanation, as the swift serpent, referring to Assyria with its long, swift Tigris; the crooked serpent, referring to Babylon with its winding Euphrates; and the dragon, referring to Egypt, the land of darkness, for which the dragon stands.

There is a sharp contrast in Isa 27:1-6 between God’s dealings with Leviathan, the enemies of the kingdom, and his dealing with Jacob. The one shall be punished into destruction and the other shall take root, blossom, and bud. The passage (Isa 27:2-6 ) is a companion picture of Isa 5:1-7 , a joy song set over against a dirge. Both vineyards refer to God’s people, the former to Israel nominally, the latter to Israel really. This is the holy remnant spoken of so often in Isaiah, but now flourishing and prosperous.

The contrast in Isa 27:7-11 is a contrast in the purpose and extent of punishment upon Judah and Israel and the enemies of Judah and Israel. In the one case it was to be without measure, but in the other it was “in measure”; or without restraint in the one case, the purpose was purely punitive, while in the other it was to purify by chastisement.

There is an important lesson of Isa 27:9 which is a lesson on the conditions of forgiveness. These chastisements of Jacob were looking to his repentance. Jehovah was looking for the fruits of repentance, viz: the putting away of sin and idolatry. The child’s verse is, after all the best theology and practical godliness: Repentance is to leave The sins we loved before; And show that we in earnest grieve By doing so no more.

The prophecy of Isa 27:12-13 is a prophecy of the homecoming of God’s scattered people. As a fruit gatherer Jehovah will gather them from the Euphrates to Egypt. He will give the signal of the trumpet and they shall be gathered from the remote countries of Assyria and Egypt. This prophecy had a partial fulfilment in the return of the Jews after the captivity but in this return they did not come mainly from Assyria and Egypt. There was a larger fulfilment in the gospel trumpet sounded on the day of Pentecost which was heard and heeded by representatives from these countries here mentioned, but the complete fulfilment of this prophecy is doubtless, to be realized when the signal of our Lord shall call these scattered Jews from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South, and thus assembled in their own land the veil that has so long bedimmed their eyes shall fall from their faces and they shall behold, by faith, him whom they have pierced. Then shall come the blessed time when “they shall worship Jehovah in his holy mountain at Jerusalem,” a glorious anticipation.

QUESTIONS

1. What is Isaiah 24-27 called in our outline of the book of Isaiah?

2. Give a brief introductory statement of this section, showing its nature in the light of the preceding section.

3. What is the outline of the section

4. The broad sweep of this section reminds us of what other prophecy?

5. What word is of frequent occurrence in this section, what its meaning, and what the significance of its use here?

6. What are the contents of Isa 24:1-13 , and what their interpretation?

7. What are the laws transgressed, the statutes violated, and the covenant broken, in Isa 24:5 ?

8. What the contents and interpretation of Isa 24:14-20 ?

9. What is the picture in Isa 24:21-23 ?

10. What is the title of Isa 25 and what the relation of this chapter to the preceding one?

11. Give a brief analysis of this chapter.

12. Where does Isaiah seem to get his pattern for this song and what the proof?

13. What city is referred to in Isa 25:2 ?

14. How are the blessings of this glorious triumph of Jehovah to bo celebrated?

15. What the “covering” and the “veil” of Isa 25:7 ?

16. What announcement here as to the resurrection and further blessedness?

17. How is the exultation expressed?

18. Who is Moab here and why should the name be so used in this instance?

19. What is the theme of Isa 26 ?

20. What is the character of this son in contrast with the preceding one?

21. What is the purpose of this prophetic revelation?

22. Give a synopsis of this chapter.

23. What are the points worthy of note in Isa 26:1-7 ?

24. What is expressed in Isa 26:8-10 ?

25. What is suggested by Isa 26:19 ?

26. What is the lesson of Isa 26:20-21 ?

27. What is the title of Isa 27 ?

28. What are the parts, or natural divisions, of this chapter?

29. What is the meaning of the oft-occurring phrase, “In that day,” in this chapter?

30. What is the meaning of “Leviathan” in Isa 27:1 ?

31. What is the contrast in Isa 27:1-6 ?

32. What is the contrast in Isa 27:7-11 ?

33. What is the important lesson of Isa 27:9 ?

34. What is the prophecy of Isa 27:12-13 and when the complete fulfilment of it?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Isa 26:1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will [God] appoint [for] walls and bulwarks.

Ver. 1. In that day. ] Before the morrow, and while the mercy was yet fresh. We are not to take day for return of thanks, but to do it forthwith.

In that same day shall this song be sung. ] As an evidence and effect of their spiritual joy and security, mentioned Isa 25:9 . “Is any man merry? let him sing psalms,” Jam 5:13 and so set an edge upon his praises and thanksgivings. Thus Israel sang, Exo 15:1 Num 21:7 “Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it.” Thus, in the apostles’ times, Rom 15:9 and afterwards Justin, Tertullian, Athanasius, others, voce praeiverunt, they go before with voices, gave the note. Constantine and Theodosius ever sang psalms with their soldiers before they gave battle. They knew that it is a good thing to sing praises to our God; it is pleasant, and praise is comely. Psa 147:1 a

We have a strong city. ] The Church is invincible; hell gates cannot demolish it, whatever become of Moab’s munitions. Isa 25:12

Salvation will God appoint. ] All manner of health, help, and safety. Satan cannot have so many means to foil and spoil the saints as Jesus – to whose sweet name our prophet here and elsewhere oft alludeth, as much delighted therewith – hath means to keep and hold them up.

For walls and bulwarks. ] Pro muris et antemurali, for walls and rampart, or counterscarp. So Scipio was said to be fossa et vallum, the wall and trench to the Romans against Hannibal. If salvation itself cannot save Jerusalem, let her enemies triumph and take all. If her name be Jehovahshammah, as Eze 48:35 , “The Lord is there,” let her enemies do their worst.

a Socrates, lib. vii. cap. 22.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Isaiah Chapter 26

Here we have another song to be sung. “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah” (v. 1). That in the last chapter is not so called, yet was it an outburst of praise after the shaking of heaven and earth; in this we have the prophet still further celebrating what God has done for Judah.

If we look at the Jews now, the contrast with what they are to be made by-and-by is very striking. For in Rom 1:18 they are thus alluded to: “For wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness [i.e., Gentile wickedness in general] and unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness [that of Jews].” Here, on the contrary, it is said, “We have a strong city; salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, and the righteous nation which keepeth faithfulness shall enter in” (vv. 1, 2).

Scripture will have been abandoned by the Jewish people, or the larger part of them, in the last days. At the first advent of Christ it could be said that “salvation is of the Jews”; they had the truth but held it in unrighteousness. They had the form of sound doctrine maintained for the most part, save among the Sadducees. But before the Lord comes the second time, the great mass of the nation will not hold the truth but a lie, the great deceit of the last days, the lie of Antichrist instead of the truth of Christ. Their unrighteousness will be manifest and fatal.

Here we have the blessed contrast of all this: there is a remnant whom God will make to be a strong nation, and they are called, “The righteous nation which keepeth faithfulness.” In verse 3 it is not merely that there is a general profession of the nation, but there will be an individual reality among them. In the past they were called “the holy nation,” as a description that belonged to them, but in the future there is this comfort to all that love them that it will be real collectively and individually. No common privileges are ever meant to make us less mindful of individual fidelity. “Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed [on thee], for he confideth in thee” (v. 3).

For very many years the common joy of the church was but little entered into, because of the worldliness, legalism, schisms, divisions, and innumerable wrong ways that had crept in. But there is the danger, now that God has been pleased to show the importance and comfort of corporate blessing, of our forgetting that the individual place has to be all the more carefully watched. It is of primary moment to know the standing of the Christian and the position of the church, but the practical state must be most jealously looked to. Strength depends upon what passes between our own souls and God, Who in His gracious and vigilant care watches over the saints individually.

These then do not forget the public blessings of the nation, but there is also the individual saint’s walk, staying upon God, caring for His glory, Who, on His part, keeps the soul in perfect peace; the mind is stayed upon God Himself. For no matter what the blessings be, if we have not God Himself as the object of our hearts, they are sure to be misused; therefore it is said, “because he trusteth in thee.” It is not merely the perception of the goodness of God and of the wonders He had wrought for them. Now they know Himself, and trust Himself, and this is a very real thing for our souls – the personal knowledge of God and trust in God. Need it be said that God looks for it now in a still more intimate way than even then? Yet all that ever has been done on the face of the earth will have been outwardly eclipsed with but one exception (and this exception is Christ, to say nothing of His body the church). Nothing can surpass the last Adam; nothing compare with Christ’s cross, unless it be Himself; and both will be our portion, of which we will joy and boast even in glory.

Remark this also that, in all these statements of what they are to share, never do we find such language addressed to them as supposes them to enter into the depths of God’s ways in the cross as is expected of us now. What can be sweeter than the way in which they count on their deliverance, and confide their souls to God? But where are heard such words as “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”? Yet nothing would have been more easy, had it been in due keeping, than for God to have said so here. We are called into such fellowship with God about His Son, and we are associated with the cross as well as heaven beyond what any one can really find in the Old Testament. When a person starts with the assumption that the theme is all one and the same, the distinctive value of scripture is lost. For the soul too the least possible measure of blessing is the result.

Here we have the Lord Jehovah brought in for all. “Confide ye in Jehovah for ever; for in Jah-Jehovah [is the] rock of ages” (v. 4). And the reason why they speak of His everlasting strength lies here, “For he hath brought down them that dwell on high, the lofty city; he layeth it low even to the ground; he bringeth it [even] to the dust. The feet shall tread it down, the feet of the afflicted, the steps of the poor” (vv. 5, 6). It will be one nation whom God in the last days will clothe with such honour, after they have been vilified in every way by the Gentiles. Hence they are singing; for not a single difficulty remains then why God should not fully bless them. It is touching to see how God insists that He has done everything that was needed for their deliverance and good. For them is assured the abasement of what is high and lofty; and grace can give poverty of spirit and lowliness to the Jews themselves, once so proud. They will have been brought through tremendous trials, having borne the added and painful reproach of being a most guilty and withal haughty people; but all is changed now.

For a godly few of the Jews will entirely gainsay the lie of Satan when all the power of their nation and the great mass of the westerns will have given way to Antichrist. A little despised remnant will still hold out for the Lord, refusing him who puts himself forward as the true Messiah. They will have been faithful in the face of death, and now they are made thus to praise God. “The way of the just [is] uprightness: thou, the Upright, dost make the path of the just even” (v. 7). It is sweet in thinking of this, that their triumph will not be by their power or their knowledge, but by their simple trust in Jehovah and faith in His word. But a scanty glimpse will be theirs, for they are the very souls referred to in Isa 1:10 , as walking in darkness and having no light. This ought never to be said of a Christian, though he may slip into such a feeling: for he has seen Christ, the light of life, the true light. He may have but a dim perception of Christ, but still Christ is before his soul and always shines; for it is not true, that where the light of grace has once shone, God takes it back again. The difference is on the part of the Christian. It is never the light that is gone; possibly he may have been unfaithful and turned his back upon it. The Holy Ghost has come down to abide with the Christian for ever. He may not always walk according to the light, but in it he walks as a believer, and cannot but walk; yea, he is now light in the Lord. The Christian walks in the light as long as he professes the name of Christ. He never walks in darkness. He may not enjoy the light, but this is quite another thing.

The contrary language is very common in Christendom, because they confound the position of the Christian with that of the Jewish people, who must go through darkness by-and-by, before their light is come and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon them. Possibly a very few may not be thus walking in darkness. Some certainly will have godliness in contrast “with the many”; they are “the wise.” But the beautiful feature of the godly is that although they thus walk in darkness, yet as they have been touched by the Spirit of God, and know that what is of God can never have alliance with sin, so they will refuse to own that idols and Antichrist can be of God. Thus they pass through the tribulation with but a feeble measure of knowledge of God, no doubt; but still they will be true to what they have got, and will be brought out to praise God. They are entitled to be spoken of as “the just.” So now, it is a great snare as well as mistake of believers not to take the place of being saints of God; for if they decline it, they feel not responsibility in their walk So in earthly relations, if persons in the position of masters or servants do not act from their true position, they will never carry themselves in practice as becomes them. To own our proper relationship is not pride, but a duty and wisdom. If you are occupied therein with self, no doubt pride comes in; but it is all right and important to acknowledge God in the relationships to which He has called us.

The Spirit of God leads them to say, “Yea, in the way of thy judgements, O Jehovah, have we waited for thee; to thy name and to thy memorial [is] the desire of [our] soul” (v. 8). Such is what they had been wading through. They had waited for Him in the way of His judgements; we follow Him in grace and look to appear with Him in glory. “With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgements are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (v. 9). Now we have the individual again. As far as the world is concerned, the patience of God will have ended in the most fearful departure from the truth. God is now suffering the ways of man. He has not left them to their own conjectures or darkness; but He has caused His light to shine in the person of Christ, leaving man to himself, save working by His word and Spirit. Outwardly God seems as though He did not notice what is passing here below, and all this after the full light of God has shone through Christ upon this world. Saving grace has appeared to men. Favour has been shown to the wicked, this is what is going on now. “If favour be shown unto the wicked, he doth not learn righteousness.” “In the land of uprightness,” it is added, “he dealeth unjustly and doth not behold the majesty of Jehovah” (v. 10). The gospel is but for a witness; it will not, it cannot, govern the world. When God’s judgements are here below, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Hence there is the further warning in ver. 11, “Jehovah, thy hand is uplifted.” He is coming in the way of judgement. Does the first answer say that “they do not see”? But, says the prophet, “They shall see jealousy [for] the people, and be ashamed; yea, the fire which is for thine enemies shall devour them” (v. 11).

The prophetic Spirit turns to speak of the blessing for the Jews. “Jehovah, thou wilt ordain peace for us, for thou also hast wrought all our works for us. Jehovah our God, other lords than thee have had dominion over us: by thee only will we make mention of thy name” (vv. 12, 13). What had become of them? “[They are] dead, they shall not live; deceased, they shall not rise: for thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish” (v. 14). This is of course highly figurative language. If we look at the resurrection, we know that the wicked are to rise as well as the righteous that is, there is a resurrection of all men just and unjust. These Gentile oppressors of Israel must rise in the resurrection of judgement. They will rise like other bad men. But when it is said here, “They shall not rise,” the Spirit does not describe the literal resurrection of the body, but the complete reversal of the lot of the nations and Israel in this world. These old lords are no longer to live or rise again in this world. This will suffice to show that the language here is put figuratively.

In Isa 25:8 it is said, “He will swallow up death in victory.” This, we know from God Himself, will be realised in the literal resurrection of the body, when the saints are raised. But in Isa 26:14 the allusion to resurrection is employed as a figure, because the context proves that it cannot refer to that literal fact; for if it did, it would be to deny that the unrighteous are to rise. This is the true criterion for the understanding of any passage of the word. If a person bring you a text against what you know to be true, always examine what surrounds it, see what God treats of. Here it is plain that it is a question of the way in which God will deal in that day with the nations who lorded it over Israel. But is it not the fact, some may ask, that these Gentiles were literally dead? Certainly, is the answer; but in this case it is not true that they shall not rise.

Perhaps this would not be worth dwelling on, were it not that many apply Isa 26:19 to the same literal resurrection as Isa 25:8 . We must never force but bow to scripture. The passages that do refer to a raising of bodies we must hold fast; but it is dangerous to misapply others which only use it as a figure, because in this case one might infer, as from our chapter, that which is unfounded. In truth, as we know, all men must rise. “The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth” (Joh 5:28 , Joh 5:29 ). There we have the most decisive proof that all the dead, just and unjust, are to rise again from the grave.

Here contrariwise the wicked enemies of Israel “shall not rise.” John clearly teaches the resurrection of all, good and bad. Isa 26:14 refers only to the figure of not rising, to comfort Israel from all fears of their old troublers. “Dead, they shall not live; deceased, they shall not rise: for thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish.” Thus effectually will Jehovah have disposed of Gentiles who had lorded it over the Jews.

But what has been done for the nation? “Thou hast increased the nation, Jehovah, thou hast increased the nation; thou art glorified. Thou hadst removed [it] far [unto] all the ends of the earth” (v. 15). He does not here speak of the resurrection of the body. Clearly when this takes place as described, it could not be said that He had removed the risen saints far unto all the ends of the earth. Take it of Judah, and how true it is!

Equally plain is what follows. “Jehovah, in trouble they sought thee; they poured out a lisping [when] thy chastening [was] upon them. As a woman with child, [that] draweth near the time of her delivery, is in travail [and] crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before thee, Jehovah. We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land (or, earth); neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen” (vv. 16-18). They will review their past conduct, and see that they have not accomplished God’s design by them. Where had they brought in a divine flow of blessing? They had learnt the bad ways of the Gentiles, and brought a curse on themselves as well as on others; the name of Jehovah was blasphemed because of them.

But now it is said, as a glorious reverse, “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise.” What mighty words, and how tender! Jehovah awakens Israel, and even calls them His dead bodies. It is no question of bodily death, but of national revival, and yet it will have spiritual character too. The daughter of Zion awakes from her long sleep, and Jehovah speaks of the Jews (so long defunct as His people) as His dead. They, for their part, own themselves to be just as bad as the rest of the nations; but the momentous difference is that Jehovah claims them as His own. “Let them be dead,” He says, as it were, “still they are Mine.” It is the Jewish nation that had been like a corpse which Jehovah is graciously pleased to identify as His own, and is bringing them out again. If Abraham would bury his dead out of his sight, here Jehovah asserts His title to fill them with a new life: “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing in triumph, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is the dew of the morning, and the earth shall cast forth the dead” (v. 19). It indicates how fully the truth of the resurrection of the dead was familiar to the Jew seeing the prophet uses it so freely as the best expression for God’s resuscitating His people when they shall have been long defunct as a nation.

As some may think this a questionable interpretation of the passage, a scripture or two will prove its soundness. In Eze 37 . the terms of the figure are quite as strong as here, the Spirit of God shows the prophet a valley of dry bones. And “they were very dry.” “Can these bones live?” was the question (vv. 2, 3). “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you” (v. 5). Thus the vision is realized, the bones come together. Next there was flesh on them (v. 8). Then the bones, coming forth and clothed with flesh, answer to the dead men here raised out of their graves. But, beyond controversy, this means the whole house of Israel. “Thy dead shall live,” says Isaiah. To put this chapter of Ezekiel along with Isa 26:19 makes, to say the least, a strong presumption, that if the figure of resurrection is used to show the fresh start of Israel in the one, so it may be in the other. But it is certainly so intended in Eze 37 ; for, if we have the vision, we have also the inspired interpretation. We are not therefore at liberty to explain the vision according to our own thoughts. The explanation of the Holy Ghost is express and conclusive. Thus we can carry divine light back to Isa 26:19 , where the very same allusion is found.

In Hos 6:2 again there is a similar figure. So there is also in Dan 12:2 , “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” If we divert this to a resurrection of the body, in the first place it is not a resurrection of all, but only of “many.” In the second place, it is of some to everlasting life and of some to shame and contempt at the same time. We must give up the doctrine of the first resurrection, separated by a thousand years and more from the second death (Rev 20 ), in order to found on this a literal rising from the graves. All is plain and just if it apply in the same way as Ezekiel and Isaiah to the national revival of Israel, whom God will bring out of all their present condition of shame, though some of them be allowed to display fatal wickedness and pride. This is another confirmation of the truth of the interpretation.

But further the next verses are explicit, where we read, “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be past. For, behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place to visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth on them; and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain” (vv. 20, 21). Those who interpret the context of a literal resurrection are led into the error, that the risen saints (for such this scheme supposes to be here meant) would be here on earth whilst the divine indignation is going on! One could understand their holding that some are to pass through the tribulation, though this is not quite the same thing as the indignation. But it is clearly a question of men alive here below not of men changed. God tells them (the Jews) to enter into their chambers until He has spent all His wrath upon the nations. Is this what we look for? Are we not to be taken out of this earthly scene and to enter into the Father’s house above? We are not an earthly but a heavenly people. We know the Lord is coming Who will take us to be with Himself where He is; and when He has translated the Christians above, the Jews will be called for the earth. The little remnant will be grievously tried, when the vast body of the nation will receive the Antichrist.

Hence, when the day of Jehovah comes for the judgement of the quick, it is said, “enter into thy chambers.” He will not provide a heavenly abode for them, but they are to enter into their chambers – assuredly some place of refuge and earthly security. All this renders plain the right interpretation of the passage, and shows that God is not speaking about the heavenly saints, but refers to the remnant of the Jews in the last days, who are to have a haven of refuge provided for them. It is not like Abraham, for this is our place. Israel will be much more like Lot, for they will be in the midst of the scene where the judgement is to be executed. Lot entered into his chambers (that is, Zoar) when the judgement came; but as for Abraham, he was entirely out of the trial, and pleading before Jehovah in earnest intercession; and yet before the day came to pass, he knew about it far better than Lot. His position, communion, and experience were typically different from those of his relative. So we shall be taken up to Christ and brought into the Father’s house; but afterwards, when the Lord comes to execute judgement, we shall come along with Him.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

Isaiah

THE SONG OF TWO CITIES

OUR STRONG CITY

Isa 26:1 – Isa 26:2 .

What day is ‘that day’? The answer carries us back a couple of chapters, to the great picture drawn by the prophet of a world-wide judgment, which is followed by a burst of song from the ransomed people of Jehovah, like Miriam’s chant by the shores of the Red Sea. The ‘city of confusion,’ the centre of the power hostile to God and man, falls; and its fall is welcomed by a chorus of praises. The words of my text are the beginning of one of these songs. Whether or not there were any historical event which floated before the prophet’s mind is wholly uncertain. If there were a smaller judgment upon some city of the enemy, it passes in his view into a world-wide judgment; and my text is purely ideal, imaginative, and apocalyptic. Its nearest ally is the similar vision of the Book of the Revelation, where, when Babylon sank with a splash like a millstone in the stream, the ransomed people raised their praises.

So, then, whatever may have been the immediate horizon of the prophet, and though, there may have stood on it some historical event, the city which he sees falling is other than any material Babylon, and the strong city in which he rejoices is other than the material Jerusalem, though it may have suggested the metaphor of my text. The song fits our lips quite as closely as it did the lips from which it first sprang, thrilling with triumph: ‘We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.’

There are three things, then, here: the city, its defences, its citizens.

I. The City.

Now, no doubt the prophet was thinking of the literal Jerusalem; but the city is ideal, as is shown by the bulwarks which defend, and by the qualifications which permit entrance. And so we must pass beyond the literalities of Palestine, and, as I think, must not apply the symbol to any visible institution or organisation if we are to come to the depth and greatness of the meaning of these words. No church which is organised amongst men can be the New Testament representation of this strong city. And if the explanation is to be looked for in that direction at all, it can only be the invisible aggregate of ransomed souls which is regarded as being the Zion of the prophecy.

But perhaps even that is too definite and hard. And we are rather to think of the unseen but existent order of things or polity to which men here on earth may belong, and which will one day, after shocks and convulsions that shatter all which is merely institutional and human, be manifested still more gloriously.

The central thought that was moving in the prophet’s mind is that of the indestructible vitality of the true Israel, and the order which it represented, of which Jerusalem on its rock was but to him a symbol. And thus for us the lesson is that, apart altogether from the existing and visible order of things in which we dwell, there is a polity to which we may belong, for ‘ye are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God,’ and that that order is indestructible. Convulsions come, every Babylon falls, all human institutions change and pass. ‘The kingdoms old’ are ‘cast into another mould.’ But persistent through them all, and at the last, high above them all, will stand the stable polity of Heaven, ‘ the city which hath the foundations.’

There is a lesson for us, brethren, in times of fluctuation, of change of opinion, of shaking of institutions, and of new social, economical, and political questions, threatening day by day to reorganise society. ‘We have a strong city’; and whatever may come-and much destructive will come, and much that is venerable and antique, rooted in men’s prejudices, and having survived through and oppressed the centuries, will have to go; but God’s polity, His form of human society of which the perfect ideal and antitype, so to speak, lies concealed in the heavens, is everlasting. Therefore, whatsoever changes, whatsoever ancient and venerable things come to be regarded as of no account, howsoever the nations, like clay in the hands of the potter, may have to assume new forms, as certainly they will, yet the foundation of God standeth sure. And for Christian men in revolutionary epochs, whether these revolutions affect the forms in which truth is grasped, or whether they affect the moulds into which society is run, the only worthy temper is the calm, triumphant expectation that through all the dust, contradiction, and distraction, the fair city of God will be brought nearer and made more manifest to man. Isaiah, or whoever was the writer of these great words of my text, stayed his own and his people’s hearts in a time of confusion and distress, by the thought that it was only Babylon that could fall, and that Jerusalem was the possessor of a charmed, immortal life.

This strong city, the order of human society which God has appointed, and which exists, though it be hidden in the heavens, will be manifested one day when, like the fair vision of the goddess rising from amidst the ocean’s foam, and shedding peace and beauty over the charmed waves, there will emerge from all the wild confusion and tossing billows of the sea of the peoples the fair form of the ‘Bride, the Lamb’s wife.’ There shall be an apocalypse of the city, and whether the old words which catch up the spirit of my text, and speak of that Holy City as ‘descending from heaven’ upon earth, at the close of the history of the world, are to be taken, as perhaps they are, as expressive of the truth that a renewed earth is to be the dwelling of the ransomed or no, this at least is clear, that the city shall be revealed, and when Babylon is swept away, Zion shall stand.

To this city-existent, immortal, and waiting to be revealed-you and I may belong to-day. ‘We have a strong city.’ You may lay hold of life either by the side of it which is transient and trivial and contemptible, or by the side of it which goes down through all the mutable and is rooted in eternity. As in some seaweed, far out in the depths of the ocean, the tiny frond that floats upon the billow goes down and down and down, by filaments that bind it to the basal rock, so the most insignificant act of our fleeting days has a hold upon eternity, and life in all its moments may be knit to the permanent. We may unite our lives with the surface of time or with the centre of eternity. Though we dwell in tabernacles, we may still be ‘come to Mount Zion,’ and all life be awful, noble, solemn, religions, because it is all connected with the unseen city across the seas. It is for us to determine to which of these orders-the perishable, noisy and intrusive and persistent in its appeals, or the calm, silent, most real, eternal order beyond the stars-our petty lives shall attach themselves.

II. Now note, secondly, the defences.

‘Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.’ This ‘evangelical prophet,’ as he has been called, is distinguished, not only by the clearness of his anticipations of Jesus Christ and His work, but by the fulness and depth which he attaches to that word ‘salvation.’ He all but anticipates the New Testament completeness and fulness of meaning, and lifts it from all merely material associations of earthly or transitory deliverance, into the sphere in which we are accustomed to regard it as especially moving. By ‘salvation’ he means and we mean, not only negative but positive blessings. Negatively it includes the removal of every conceivable or endurable evil, ‘all the ills that flesh is heir to,’ whether they be evils of sin or evils of sorrow; and, positively, the investiture with every possible good that humanity is capable of, whether it be good of goodness, or good of happiness. This is what the prophet tells us is the wall and bulwark of his ideal-real city.

Mark the eloquent omission of the name of the builder of the wall. ‘God’ is a supplement. Salvation ‘will He appoint for walls and bulwarks.’ No need to say who it is that flings such a fortification around the city. There is only one hand that can trace the lines of such walls; only one hand that can pile their stones; only one that can lay them, as the walls of Jericho were laid, in the blood of His first-born Son. ‘Salvation will He appoint for walls and bulwarks.’ That is to say in a highly imaginative and picturesque form, that the defense of the City is God Himself; and it is substantially a parallel with other words which speak about Him as being ‘a wall of fire round about it and the glory in the midst of it.’ The fact of salvation is the wall and the bulwark. And the consciousness of the fact and the sense of possessing it, is for our poor hearts, one of our best defenses against both the evil of sin and the evil of sorrow. For nothing so robs temptation of its power, so lightens the pressure of calamities, and draws the poison from the fangs of sin and sorrow, as the assurance that the loving purpose of God to save grasps and keeps us. They who shelter behind that wall, feel that between them and sin, and them and sorrow, there rises the inexpugnable defense of an Almighty purpose and power to save, lie safe whatever betides. There is no need of other defenses. Zion

‘Needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep.’

God Himself is the shield and none other is required.

So, brethren, let us walk by the faith that is always confident, though it depends on an unseen hand. It is a grand thing to be able to stand, as it were, in the open, a mark for all ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ and yet to feel that around us there are walls most real, though invisible, which permit no harm to come to us. Our feeble sense-bound souls much prefer a visible wall. We, like a handrail on the stair. Though it does not at all guard the descent, it keeps our heads from getting dizzy. It is hard for us, as some travellers may have to do, to walk with steady foot and unthrobbing heart along a narrow ledge of rock with beetling precipice above us and black depths beneath, and we would like a little bit of a wall of some sort, for imagination if not for reality, between us and the sheer descent. But it is blessed to learn that naked we are clothed, solitary we have a Companion, and unarmed we have our defenceless heads covered with the shadow of the great wing, which, though sense sees it not, faith knows is there. A servant of God is never without a friend, and when most unsheltered

‘From marge to blue marge

The whole sky grows his targe,

With sun’s self for visible boss,’

beneath which he lies safe.

‘Salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks,’ and if we realise, as we ought to do, His purpose to keep us safe, and His power to keep us safe, and the actual operation of His hand keeping us safe at every moment, we shall not ask that these defences shall be supplemented by the poor feeble earthworks that sense can throw up.

III. Lastly, note the citizens.

Our text is part of a ‘song,’ and is not to be interpreted in the cold-blooded fashion that might suit prose. A voice, coming from whom we know not, breaks in upon the first strain with a command, addressed to whom we know not-’Open ye the gates’-the city thus far being supposed to be empty-’that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.’ The central idea there is just this, ‘Thy people shall be all righteous.’ The one qualification for entrance into the city is absolute purity.

Now, brethren, that is true in regard to our present imperfect denizenship within the city; and it is true in regard to men’s passing into it in its perfect and final form. As to the former, there is nothing that you Christian people need more to have dinned into you than this, that your continuance in the state of a redeemed man, with all the security and blessing that attach thereto, depends upon your continuing to be righteous. Every sin, every flaw, every dropping beneath our own standard in conscience of what we ought to be, has for its inevitable result that we are robbed for the time being of consciousness of the walls of the city being about us and of our being citizens thereof. ‘Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place?’ The New Testament, as emphatically as the old psalm, answers,’ He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.’ ‘Let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous.’ There is no way by which Christian men here on earth can pass into and keep within the city of the living God, except they possess personal purity, righteousness of life, and cleanness of heart.

They used to say that Venice glass was so made that any poison poured into it shivered the vessel. Any drop of sin poured into your cup of communion with God, shatters the cup and spills the wine. Whosoever thinks himself a citizen of that great city, if he falls into transgression, and soils the cleanness of his hands, and ruffles the calm of his pure heart by self-willed sinfulness, will wake to find himself not within the battlements, but lying wounded, robbed, solitary, in the pitiless desert. My brother, it is ‘the righteous nation’ that ‘enters in,’ even here on earth.

I do not need to remind you how, admittedly by us all, that is the case in regard to the final form of the city of our God, into which nothing shall enter ‘that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie.’ Heaven can only be entered into hereafter by, as here and now it can only enter into, those who are pure of heart. All else there would shrivel as foul things born In the darkness do in the light, and be consumed in the fire. None but the pure can enter and see God.

‘The nation which keepeth the truth’-that does not mean adherence to any revelation, or true creed, or the like. The word which is employed means, not truth of thought, but truth of character; and might, perhaps, be better represented by the more familiar word in such a connection, ‘faithfulness.’ A man who is true to God, keeping up a faithful relation to Him who is faithful to us, he, and only he, will pass into, and abide in, the city.

Now, brethren, so far our text carries us, but no further; unless, perhaps, there may be a hint of something yet deeper in the next clause of this song. If any one asks, How does the nation become righteous? the answer may lie in the immediately following exhortation-’Trust ye in the Lord for ever.’ But whether that be so or not, if we want an answer to the questions, How can my stained feet be cleansed so as to be fit to tread the crystal pavements? how can my foul garments be so purged as not to be a blot and an eyesore, beside the white, lustrous robes that sweep along them and gather no defilement there? the only answer that I know of is to be found by turning to the final visions of the New Testament, where the spirit of this whole section of our prophet is reproduced. Again, Babylon falls amidst the songs of saints; and then, down upon all the dust and confusion of the crash of ruin, the seer beholds the Lamb’s wife, the new Jerusalem, descending from above. To his happy eyes its glories are unveiled, its golden streets, its open gates, its walls of precious stones, its flashing river, its peaceful inhabitants, its light streaming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. And when that vision passes, his last message to us is, ‘Blessed are they that wash their robes that they may enter through the gates into the city.’ None but those who wash their garments, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb, can, living, come unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; or, dying, can pass through the iron gate that opens to them of its own accord, and find themselves as day breaks in the street of the Jerusalem which is above.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 26:1-6

1In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;

He sets up walls and ramparts for security.

2Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter,

The one that remains faithful.

3The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace,

Because he trusts in You.

4Trust in the LORD forever,

For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock.

5For He has brought low those who dwell on high, the unassailable city;

He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He casts it to the dust.

6The foot will trample it,

The feet of the afflicted, the steps of the helpless.

Isa 26:1 In that day This refers to God visiting His creation. It can be for blessing or for judgment. See full note at Isa 2:11.

song There are several songs in this literary unit (i.e., Isaiah 24-27).

1. judgment, Isa 23:15-18

2. judgment, Isa 24:7-11

3. worship, Isa 24:14-16

4. thanksgiving and praise, Isa 25:1; Isa 25:3; Isa 25:6; Isa 25:9

5. rejoicing, Isa 26:1; Isa 26:19

6. rejoicing, Isa 27:2

The type of music/praise reflects the coming of YHWH in judgment or blessing (cf. Deuteronomy 27-28).

We have a strong city The city referred to in Isa 26:1-6, with the possible exception of Isa 26:5, is God’s city, restored Jerusalem, which is symbolic of God’s restoration of all His earth. See D in Background above.

He sets up walls and ramparts for security These ramparts were earthen works which did not allow siege machines to reach the walls of the city. The PRONOUN refers to YHWH.

The term security is literally salvation (BDB 446), see Special Topic at Isa 33:2.

Isa 26:2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter This refers to access to the holy city and the temple (cf. Isa 60:11; Isa 60:18; Isa 62:10).

The word nation (BDB 156) is usually used in a derogatory way referring to Gentiles, but here it has a positive connotation referring to the faithful of Judah. Remember, context, context, context!

The one that remains faithful Isa 26:2-4 seem to be a play on the Hebrew word faithful or trustworthy. See Special Topic at Isa 22:23. The verse emphasizes the continuance of faith by

1. the Qal ACTIVE PARTICIPLE of keeps (BDB 1036, KB 1581)

2. the PLURAL of faith (BDB 53)

Again, it is uncertain if this is an individual being referred to or a national entity (cf. NRSV, JB, REB). It is somewhat similar to the problem in Isa 24:13 (cf. Isa 30:15). This idea of remaining faithful can be related to the concept of waiting on the Lord (cf. Isa 25:9; Isa 26:8). In the midst of judgment God’s true people still trust Him.

Isa 26:3 The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace Notice the covenantal aspect.

1. The believer’s mind is stayed on YHWH (BDB 701, KB 759, Qal PASSIVE PARTICIPLE, but used in an ACTIVE sense, cf. 1Ch 29:18).

2. YHWH keeps him/her (BDB 665 I, KB 718, Qal IMPERFECT, the covenant relationship has two participants, see Special Topic at Isa 1:19).

3. Perfect peace is a doubling of shalom (BDB 1022, cf. DSS). This doubling of words is very common in this section of Isaiah.

he trusts in You The word trust (BDB 105, KB 120, Qal PASSIVE PARTICIPLE) means trust in YHWH (cf. Isa 12:2; Isa 26:4; Isa 36:15; Isa 37:10; Isa 50:10). Notice that the next verse has the same word as an IMPERATIVE. This is such an important theological concept of the need for a personal relationship with God, not just obedience. Both are crucial!

Isa 26:4 Trust in the LORD forever For the VERB (BDB 105, KB 120, Qal IMPERATIVE), see Special Topic at Isa 22:23.

The name for Deity in the first line of Isa 26:4 is YHWH; in the second line a CONTRACTIONYah and YHWH, see Special Topic: Names for Deity .

The term forever (BDB 723 I), first the PLURAL form and then the SINGULAR form (CONSTRUCT, cf Isa 65:18; Psa 83:17; Psa 92:8). This construction, along with everlasting (BDB 761), used of YHWH, implies a personal relationship beyond this life (cf. Isa 26:14; Isa 26:19; Psa 23:6).

we have an everlasting Rock The word rock is a metaphor for God’s unchanging character (cf. Psa 18:1-2; Isa 17:10; Isa 30:29; Isa 44:8).

Isa 26:5 the unassailable city This may refer to the pride of Moab (cf. Isa 25:10-12), particularly Isa 26:12. Human pride and arrogance always result in Divine judgment.

Isa 26:6 Here YHWH acts on behalf of His people. The concept of trampling links this with Isa 25:10, which is God’s judgment on Moab that seems, in this context, to be a symbol of all human, sinful, rebellious society (similar to the use of Babylon in Revelation).

Notice the different words that relate to the foot.

1. VERB, tramples (BDB 942, KB 1245, Qal IMPERFECT)

2. NOUN, foot (BDB 919, SINGULAR)

3. NOUN, feet (BDB 919, PLURAL)

4. NOUN, steps (BDB 821)

This chapter has several doubled words, which is characteristic of the larger context.

1. peace, Isa 26:3

2. YHWH, Isa 26:4

3. foot, Isa 26:6

Remember all the doubled VERBALS in Isaiah 24-27.

1. writhes, BDB 615, KB 663, Qal PERFECT, Isa 24:4

2. ceases, BDB 991, KB 1407, Qal PERFECT, Isa 24:8

3. drink, BDB 1059, KB 1667, Qal IMPERFECT and PARTICIPLE, Isa 24:9

4. treacherously, BDB 93, KB 108, Qal PARTICIPLE and PERFECT (twice), Isa 24:16

5. be trodden, BDB 190, KB 218, Niphal PERFECT and INFINITIVE, Isa 25:10

6. spread out, BDB 831, KB 975, Piel PERFECT and IMPERFECT, Isa 25:11

7. swim, BDB 965, KB 1314, Qal PARTICIPLE and INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT, Isa 25:11

8. trust, BDB 105, KB 120, Qal PASSIVE PARTICIPLE and Qal IMPERATIVE, Isa 26:3-4

9. lays low, BDB 1050, KB 1631, Niphal IMPERFECT (twice), Isa 26:5

10. see, BDB 302, KB 301, Qal IMPERFECT (twice), Isa 26:11

11. increase, BDB 414, KB 418, Qal PERFECT (twice), Isa 26:15

12. let him make, BDB 793, KB 889, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense (twice), Isa 27:5

13. strike, BDB 645, KB 697, Hiphil PARTICIPLE and PERFECT, Isa 27:7

The feet of the afflicted, the steps of the helpless It is YHWH who tramples, but He often uses delegates (i.e., Assyria, Babylon). Here the weak and poor who have been abused will be His delegates (cf. Isa 3:14-15).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

In that day: i.e. in the yet future day, when these judgments shall have been accomplished.

Judah. In Isa 26we have the Song of Judah (Isa 26:1); in Isa 27, the Song of Israel. Compare verses: Isa 26:6, Isa 26:12.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Shall we turn to Isaiah chapter 26 as we begin our study this evening.

Now Isa 26:1-21 goes right along with Isa 25:1-12 because it declares,

In that day ( Isa 26:1 )

In what day? In the day that the things are transpiring that he wrote about in chapter 25. And what are the things that he was writing about in chapter 25? What are the days that he was writing about? Verse Isa 26:8 , “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, ‘Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” ( Isa 25:8-9 ). So it is the day that Jesus establishes His kingdom upon the earth. That day for which we’ve been praying when we pray, “Thy kingdom come” ( Mat 6:10 ). So in that day when His kingdom is established.

this song will be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for the walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in. For thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength ( Isa 26:1-4 ):

Beautiful verses of scripture. I love that promise! “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” In the New Testament Peter speaks about the peace that passes human understanding. The world cannot understand the peace that we have in Christ Jesus. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” ( Joh 14:27 ). And the effect of righteousness, the Bible says, is peace. There is one characteristic or quality that we as Christians should possess, and that is the peace of God in our hearts and lives.

Now in order to have the peace of God, it is first of all necessary to have peace with God and this is only possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. For the scripture said, “For He hath made peace through His blood” ( Col 1:20 ). He has made a basis for you to have peace with God by the shedding of His blood and thus the forgiveness of our sins. So that is first and basic that you experience peace with God. No longer rebelling against the law of God, but now seeking to submit to God’s law. No longer running from God, but yielding to God. And you then have peace with God as you surrender and receive Jesus Christ.

But it is sad that there are many, many Christians who have peace with God that’s been established through Jesus Christ, but they have never entered into that experience of knowing the peace of God as it keeps their hearts, their minds, their lives steadfast in Christ. So it is important that you have more than just peace with God; it is important that you experience the peace of God. Now this is a reference to the peace of God, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace.”

How can I know that perfect peace of God within my heart living in a world that’s so filled with chaos, turmoil, strivings? How can I know that peace? “Whose mind is stayed on Thee.” Now you can’t really experience the peace of God as you’re getting, looking constantly at the things of the world. You have to look away from the trials. You have to look away from the madness of this world and looking to Him. Keep your mind steadfast upon Him. How many times the Lord has to bring my mind back to Him. I start getting all upset. I can so excited, in turmoil. “Look what they’re doing! They can’t do that. I’m not…” The Lord says, “Hey, wait a minute. Who’s running this thing?” “You are, Lord.” “Then what are you all excited about?” “I don’t know. Just like to get excited, I guess.”

But you learn to turn it. You bring the thoughts into captivity unto the obedience of Jesus Christ. And God so often will stop you. You start getting all disturbed over an issue. And God will stop you and say, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m on the throne. I’m in control.” And as your mind is turned then towards Him, then the peace of Christ begins to fill your heart and fill your life. Oh, this is such a glorious experience, the peace of God. That perfect peace, that complete peace as my mind is stayed on Him. I just know He’s going to take care.

So many, many times the Lord reminds me that this is His church. Problems will come up. I begin to wonder, “Oh, what are we going to do about this? Oh maybe we ought to do this, maybe we ought to do that.” And the Lord will speak to me and say, “Whose church is it?” “It’s Your church, Lord.” He said, “Then just leave it alone. Let me run it. It’s My church. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” All right! How easy can it be to pastor His church. If I try to pastor my church I’d go absolutely wild. It would be impossible! But it’s His church, and as long as I remember that, I’m in good shape. When I forget it, then I really start in a tailspin until the Lord reminds me, “Whose church is it?” And we need to remember that. “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind…” It’s His ministry. It’s His work. “Whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusts in the Lord.” And then the commandment, “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord Jehovah is our everlasting strength.”

For he brings down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy. The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just. Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. For with my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness ( Isa 26:5-9 ).

So he begins to speak of the judgments of God. Now he looked forward to the Kingdom Age, the glorious day of the Lord. In that day the perfect peace that we will experience. But before that day of the Lord does come, there is coming a day of judgment, God’s judgment upon the earth. And when God’s judgments are upon the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. God is going to bring down in judgment those that dwell on high. And so he declares,

Let favor be showed to the wicked ( Isa 26:10 ),

And this isn’t a request. It’s actually just saying, “If you show favor to the wicked.”

yet they will not learn righteousness ( Isa 26:10 ):

In other words, people, it seems, do not really grow so much in good times as they do in bad times. It seems that when people are blessed, when a nation is blessed, that they forget God. They no longer call upon the Lord. But when hard times begin to come, then people are turning to the Lord. It’s so easy to trust in your material prosperity. It’s so easy to look at a nation that is strong and prosperous and say, “Well, look at what free enterprise has done for the United States!” And begin to attribute the blessings of God to certain attributes of our nation. Our nation is strong, our nation is powerful, our nation is great because God made it strong and powerful and great; not because we have some superior system to the rest of the world. It isn’t a victory of democracy over a dictatorship. And we make a mistake when we look to the characteristics of free enterprise or other things and say, “Well, that’s why our nation is strong.”

Now in the time of favor, in the time of blessing, the wicked really don’t think about God. They don’t turn to God. But it’s in the time of adversity when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. So, “Let favor be showed to the wicked,” that doesn’t mean… that isn’t a prayer. “Let favor be showed.” Like that verse of scripture, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” My son thought that was a commandment. And when I started to use the rod, he said, “But the scripture says, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.'” But that’s a statement. If you spare the rod, you’re going to spoil the child. It isn’t something that… It’s not a commandment, something you’re supposed to do. It’s a statement of what will happen if you spare the rod. And so here, this is just a statement. “If favor is showed to the wicked, he will not learn righteousness.”

in the land of uprightness he will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD ( Isa 26:10 ).

He will fail to see the glory of God. He won’t maintain righteousness.

LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them. LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name ( Isa 26:11-13 ).

Now this is Israel speaking to the Lord concerning God’s dealing with Israel when God’s judgment came in the land; He taught the people righteousness. In the time of their prosperity they forgot God. They turned their backs on God and they were devoured by their enemies. Now they are saying, “Lord, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us.” They had been ruled over by other nations; other forces had come in. “But by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name.”

For these nations [that once ruled over us] are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish ( Isa 26:14 ).

That is, the nations that once lorded over Israel. Now there are some people who use this particular verse to teach the annihilation of the wicked, that God is going to ultimately just annihilate them all. There are other scriptures which would seem to indicate otherwise, especially those in the gospels, the references that Jesus Christ made to Gehenna.

Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. LORD, in trouble have they visited thee; they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them ( Isa 26:15-16 ).

So in the time that God began to chasten them, they turned to God. They began to pray.

Like as a woman who is in travail, drawing near the time of the delivery of her child, and she cries out of her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen ( Isa 26:17-18 ).

Now God responds to them and declares,

Thy dead shall live, with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead ( Isa 26:19 ).

Now this verse is difficult of understanding and that is why the translators have added some words which are written in the italics. But those words that are in italics are words that the translators have added in order to try to bring some understanding to this particular scripture. As God is responding and saying, “Thy dead,” the translators have added men; “shall live,” and they’ve added together with; “my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”

Now when Jesus died upon the cross, He descended into hell. This is what the scriptures declare to us in Acts the second chapter. For the promise of God was given to Him, “Thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither will you allow the Holy One to see corruption” ( Psa 16:10 ). When they asked Jesus for a sign, He said, “A wicked and an adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” ( Mat 12:40 ).

Paul the apostle tells us in Eph 4:1-32 that, “He who has ascended [Christ] is the same one who first of all descended into the lower parts of the earth. And when He ascended, He led the captives from their captivity” ( Eph 4:8-9 ). Now prior to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, until the price was paid for man’s sin, those righteous of the Old Testament period could not enter into heaven when they died, but were kept waiting in the grave.

The best description for this is given to us in Luke’s gospel, chapter 16, by Jesus Christ as He told us of a certain rich man who fared sumptuously every day. And the poor man that was brought daily and laid at his gate, full of sores, the dogs came and licked his sores and he survived off of the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. And the rich man died. “The poor man died,” He said, “and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. Moreover, the rich man also died and in hell, he lifted up his eyes being tormented and seeing Abraham afar off. And Lazarus there, the man that he had recognized, the beggar that had been at his gate being comforted by Abraham.”

He said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he might take his finger and dip it in water and touch my tongue. I’m tormented in this heat.” Abraham said, “Son, remember you in your lifetime had good things. Lazarus evil. Now he is comforted while you are tormented. And beside this, there is a gulf that is fixed between us. And it is impossible for those that are here to come over there; or those over there to come over here.” Now that’s pretty straight statement for any of you that are hoping for a second chance after you’re dead.

Jesus declared that it was an impossibility to cross that gulf once you were dead. And so he said, “I pray you then, if he can’t come to me, send him back that he might warn my brothers. I don’t want them to come to this horrible place.” And he said, “They have Moses and the prophets. And if they won’t believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if one should come back from the dead.” So Jesus describes to us what hell was like. The grave, Sheol, Hades.

Now when Jesus died, He descended into Sheol or Hades. And there He preached to those souls that were being held in prison. But here in Isaiah, chapter 61, a prophecy concerning Jesus Christ declares, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those that are bound” ( Isa 61:1 ). Those that were bound in the grave, in the prison, He proclaimed liberty to them. So when He ascended, He led the captives from their captivity.

You see, we are told that those men of faith in the Old Testament all died in faith but they did not receive the promise of resurrection. God having reserved some better thing for us that they apart from us could not come into the completed state. So Abraham and all of those of the Old Testament believing died in faith. But yet, because their sins were not put away, they couldn’t enter into the heavenly scene. It took the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to put away sins. Now the blood of bulls and goats could make a covering for sin. It was a temporary covering that looked forward in faith to the work that God was going to do. But it was impossible that the blood of bulls or goats could put away sin. That took the blood of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus, when He shed His blood, made the provision for all men to come unto God and He went down and first of all took those who had died in faith believing and trusting God to send the Messiah and the Savior. He preached to them God’s deliverance and God’s redemption. And when He ascended, He led them with Him, the captives from their captivity.

And in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 27, it said, “And the graves of many of the saints were opened; and they were seen walking through the streets of Jerusalem after His resurrection from the dead” ( Mat 27:52-53 ). And so I believe that this particular verse is a prophecy that is making reference to that event. That beginning of resurrection when Jesus led the captives from their captivity. And “Thy dead shall live, with my body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead.” And that took place at the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now the Bible says that, “He who lives and believes in Me,” Jesus said, “He who lives and believes in Me shall never die” ( Joh 11:26 ). “Behold,” Paul said, “I’ll show you a mystery. We’ll not all die, but we’ll all be changed, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye” ( 1Co 15:51-52 ). A metamorphosis is going to take place with each of us. “For we know that when the earthy tabernacles or the tents, the bodies in which we presently live, are dissolved, that we have a building of God, that is not made with hands, that is eternal in the heavens” ( 2Co 5:1 ). Now I’m living in this ragged, worn out tent. I’m getting tired of it. But that’s all right. One day I’m going to move out of this ragged, worn out tent and I’m moving into a beautiful mansion.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: and if it were not so, I would have told you. And I’m going to prepare one for you” ( Joh 14:2 ). And so Paul said we have a building of God, a mansion, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. “So then we who are in these bodies do often groan earnestly desiring to be delivered from them” ( 2Co 5:2 ). See, the Bible teaches that the real me is spirit, not the body. The body is only a tent in which I’m dwelling temporarily. But the real me is spirit. The body is the medium by which my spirit expresses itself. But I’m looking for the new body. The building of God not made with hands that is eternal in the heavens. “So we know that when this tent is dissolved, we have a building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So then we who are in this body do often groan earnestly desiring to be delivered. Not that I would be an unembodied spirit, but that I might be clothed upon with the body which is from heaven. For we know that as long as we are in this body, we are absent from the Lord. But we would choose rather to be absent from this body, and to be present with the Lord” ( 2Co 5:1-2 , 2Co 5:6 , 2Co 5:8 ).

So that glorious day when I move out of my tent into my house where I’m to dwell forever. A new building of God that cannot experience pain. Doesn’t know what weakness is. Won’t need sleep and many other things. So it’s exciting to anticipate just what kind of a body will I have. Paul the apostle said, “Some of you will say, “But how are the dead raised and what kind of a body will they have?” And then he gives you the illustration of the difference between planting a seed and the body that comes out of the ground. He said when you plant a seed in the ground, all you plant is the bare grain. But God gives it a body that pleases Him. And the body that is to be is not the body that you planted. All you plant is a bare grain. God gives it a body that pleases Him. So the grain may be wheat or some other grain, but the body that comes forth is not the body that is planted. He said, “So is the resurrection from the dead. We will be planted in weakness but will be raised in power. We are planted in corruption, raised in incorruption. Planted a natural body, raised as a spiritual body” ( 1Co 15:42-44 ). And so it’s quite exciting to me the anticipation of moving into this new house, the building of God that He’s been preparing for me. That He’s promised that He was going to come and receive me unto Himself. That where He is I can be, too.

Now I couldn’t be there in this body. This body wasn’t made for that. I wouldn’t want to be there in this body to tell you the truth. I don’t want to wear glasses forever. I hate glasses. And there’s just a lot of things about… Now it’s not… I appreciate the body that God gave me. God gave me a strong, healthy body and I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that I’m rarely ever sick and all. But I can see myself going to pieces. I can see the deterioration that’s taking place. I don’t have the same strength or stamina anymore. I’m just not what I was. But thank God I’m not what I’m going to be, either. For God has a new body, a building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So this is a reference to that time of the resurrection of Jesus when He led the captives from their captivity and brought them on in to the glorious heavenly scene now waiting for us.

And so here is an interesting verse now in verses Isa 26:20 , and Isa 26:21 , as God said,

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain ( Isa 26:20-21 ).

Now this is definitely a reference to the Great Tribulation period, the last three-and-a-half years before the return of Jesus Christ. The period when the earth will be under the power and the control of the antichrist and God’s wrath is being poured out upon this earth for its iniquity. “The Lord coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.” Now what does God say to His people during this period of time? “Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee. Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation [or the Great Tribulation] is over. For God is coming out of His place to [What? to] punish the inhabitants of the earth.”

Now the fact that this time of God’s indignation and wrath is a punishment of the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity precludes the church bearing a part of it. For we are told, “God has not appointed us unto wrath” ( 1Th 5:9 ). So when God comes out of His place to punish the earth for its iniquity, He tells His people, “Come into thy chambers. Shut the doors. Hide thyself for a little while until this indignation is over.”

This can have one of two possible interpretations. It is possibly God speaking to the nation Israel, the faithful remnant of the nation Israel that He is going to bear down to the wilderness place that He has prepared for them where they are to be nourished for three-and-a-half years until the Great Tribulation is over. Or it could be a reference to the church. And there is no way by which you can possibly say it is one or the other unless you look at it with a presuppositional view that the church is going through the Great Tribulation and then you’d say it doesn’t refer to the church, it refers to Israel. But that’s only interpreting from a presupposition position, which I feel is wrong.

So having a presupposition that the Lord is going to take His church out before His judgments and His wrath are poured out upon the earth, I can possibly interpret this as a reference to the church. Where the Lord is saying, “Come, into your chambers! Shut the door.” As in Revelation, fourth chapter, “And I saw a door open in heaven: and the first voice I heard was that an angel as of a trumpet; saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be after these things” ( Rev 4:1 ). So hide yourself. And the church there with the Lord in heaven while the indignation and the wrath of God is being poured out upon the earth. That is very possible. There’s no way you can deny that that is not true. It may refer to Israel. I don’t know which it refers to. It could refer to both. But at any rate, a very fascinating passage of scripture whereby God indicates that the time of the Great Tribulation is a time of God’s punishment for the iniquity.

Now God has punished my iniquities already. So it is not consistent that God would punish me for my iniquities, because He has already punished His Son for my iniquities. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we turned every one to our own ways; and God hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all” ( Isa 53:6 ). Christ bore the punishment for my iniquity. And therefore, it would not be consistent that God would punish me for my iniquities. That’s what salvation and the gospel is all about. You don’t have to bear the punishment of God for your iniquities. Jesus took it for you. That’s the good news that we have for this dying world.

So, “Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut the door until the time of indignation is over. Hide yourself for a while.” So I take great comfort in that. I take great delight and pleasure. Those who have a post-Tribulation view get no comfort, no pleasure, no joy out of that verse of scripture.

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Isa 26:1. In that day

Or, rather, as we may read it now, In this day

Isa 26:1-3. Shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

Here is the song which we are to sing in this gospel day. The theme of it is God, and the city which he has builded, and which he has given to us to be our heritage for ever. We have a strong city; yes, beloved, a very strong one, for, although the devil has exercised all his ingenuity for these thousands of years, he has not been able to destroy it. He has thrown in the bombshell of persecution; he has tried to undermine it with his subtlety and cunning of false doctrine; but he has not been able to do anything effectually against the strong city yet. We have a strong city; and she is just as strong now, after all the desperate attacks that have been made upon her walls, as ever she was. Against her, the gates of hell cannot prevail. The Church of Christ is never in danger. We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks? After noticing the security of the city, the prophet bids us open the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. It is the gospel ministers business to seek to open the gates; it is the Christians business, in some sense, to open the gates; yea, we should all of us be endeavoring, if possible, to open the gates, that the righteous nation that is, the righteous people may enter into the Church. But, after all, the Lord Jesus Christ is the great Opener of the gates; he opens the gates to let his people in. And, mark you, they do not all come in at one gate. The command is, Open ye the gates. Some come in by means of one doctrine, and some by means of another. We are not all converted by the same agency. Some come in at the Sunday-school gate; others come in at the gate which is kept by pious parents; many come in at the gate of the preached Word; but all the gates should be open: Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. The prophet next describes the peaceableness of this city. The gates are open, but no enemy ever enters in: for he says to the Lord, Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace, as the original has it, in double peace. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. There is nothing like staying the mind on God. If you stay the mind on anything else, you cannot have perfect peace, for that something else may fail you. If you trust in horses and in chariots, horses may tire, and the wheels of the chariots may break; but he who trusteth in the Lord shall dwell in perfect peace. Let the earth be all in arms abroad, the believer dwells in perfect peace, because he trusteth in thee.

Isa 26:4-5. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength: for he bringeth down them that dwell on high;

Some of you dwell so much on high that you do not believe the doctrine of original depravity; you are very good by nature, according to your own ideas. Well, remember this declaration of the prophet: He bringeth down them that dwell on high. Others of you boast of your free-will capacity, and you think you have power to do anything without the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Ah! but He bringeth down them that dwell on high. Others of you do not know what a doubt or a fear is, but you wrap yourselves up complacently in your self-sufficiency, and say, We are secure, Ah! but He bringeth down them that dwell on high.

Isa 26:5. The lofty city, he layeth it low;

No one can lay Gods city low, but God can lay the lofty city low.

Isa 26:5-7. He layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy. The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.

God weighs the path of the just in scales. We read elsewhere that God weighs the spirits, and weighs our actions; here we are told that he weighs the path of the just. Those words, which were used by the prophet when he went to Hezekiah and said, What have they seen in thine house? would serve for a very striking text. But it is still more important to consider what God has seen in our house and in our hearts, for God weighs our actions; he weighs our private thoughts and our public deeds; he weighs the path of the just. But, according to the prophet, the way of the just is uprightness, even after it is weighed. Notwithstanding all the sin that is mixed with it, in the main it is uprightness ascending towards God.

Isa 26:8-9. Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Alas! it is often the case that, when Gods judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness for a little while, and then forget it. All too often, they are like the child who merely learns his lesson by rote, and repeats it under the fear of the rod, and then forgets all about it on the morrow. They learn righteousness, but, soon, the effect of the warning is all gone, and then God sends fresh judgments upon the earth to teach the inhabitants further lessons.

Isa 26:10-12. Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD. LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them. LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

Troubled saint, what a precious passage this is for thee! Poor, tempest-tossed soul, what a glorious utterance! Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us. There shall come an ordinance from God, that his people shall have peace: Thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us; so they must be good works, but those works which God did not work in us are bad ones.

Isa 26:13-14. O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise:

Many of us can look back to the time when we made idols of business and of worldly things; but now these lords are dead, and they shall not live again; they are buried out of our sight, and they shall not rise from their graves.

Isa 26:14. Therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

And a blessed thing it is when the memory of our sins does perish, and we have no desire to be enslaved by them again.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Isa 26:1-6

Isa 26:1-6

FURTHER PROPHECIES ON THE JUDGMENT

“In several respects Isaiah 26 parallels Isaiah 25, and so reinforces its message.” No other scripture in the Old Testament surpasses this in providing comfort for God’s people in time of distress by a contemplation of future blessings; and no other passage in the Old Testament surpasses the definite promise of a bodily resurrection of the righteous dead in Isa 26:19.

The chapter may be divided thus: (1) a contrast between two cities (Isa 26:1-6); (2) a song, which is a complicated melding of lament, trust, confession, praise of God, and comment regarding the wicked (Isa 26:7-19); and (3) the last two verses which carry practical admonition and an assurance that God will indeed punish the wicked (Isa 26:20-21).

Isa 26:1-6

“At that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: we have a strong city; salvation will he appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation that keepeth faith may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is staid on thee; because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in Jehovah forever; for Jehovah, even Jehovah is an everlasting rock. For he hath brought down them that dwell on high, the lofty city: he layeth it low, he layeth it low even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.”

“At that day …” These words indicate that the prophecy relates to the Messianic kingdom in the far distant future. Some have tried to find here the celebration of literal Israel’s return from Babylonian captivity; but the words do not fit. For many years following the conclusion of the captivity, the literal Jerusalem was no “strong city” in any sense. Furthermore, the people rebuilt walls of stone and mortar, quite a different wall from that of the city in view here, where God appointed “salvation” for walls and bulwarks. Also, can any person even imagine that God ever referred to the literal Jewish nation as “a righteous nation”? Look at Isa 26:2 : “Open ye the gates that the righteous nation which keepeth faith may come in”! This was never true of ancient Israel.

Therefore, we must agree with Archer who wrote: The redeemed saints will come to the gates of the (New) Jerusalem at the end of the age, chanting hymns of praise (therefore called `Judah,’ which means praise); they will be a righteous nation because clothed with Christ’s righteousness and indwelt by God’s Spirit.

The people of this “righteous nation” are not merely Jews, but, “A people made up of all kindreds, nations and tongues, which should henceforth be `the people of God.'”

Isa 26:3 has the words “perfect peace”; but the Hebrew from which this is rendered reads: “peace, peace,” “Which means positive well-being, not merely lack of strife.”

That other city, mentioned here, may not be identified with Nineveh, Babylon, or any other individual place. It is, “the lofty world-city of wickedness.” “It is the world-city, the idealized stronghold of the adversaries of God in this world.” “It is the capital of the world-empire.” We prefer to identify this “lofty city” with the entrenched wickedness of all cities, identical with the “cities” of Rev 16:19. Of course, Barnes and other respected scholars identify it with Babylon. We reject such views because it is “the end of the age,” not “the return from Babylonian captivity” that forms the subject of the prophecy in these verses.

Isa 26:1-2 STRONG CITY: That day has as its antecedent the day of Isa 25:9. On the day when God makes a feast for all nations, removes the covering from all nations, swallows up death forever, and when those who waited on Him rejoice in His salvation-they will sing this song! The land of Judah then must be symbolic of the covenant people of God, the church, in the Messianic age. The new Zion, the Jerusalem that is preeminent, (cf. Heb 12:22-24; Gal 4:26-27), the Church, will be Gods city of divine strength and power. Her strength and power will be in the divine salvation God provides and they will walk across the rubble-heaps of the once haughty enemies of God. A remnant of faithful ones endured the Babylonian captivity and walked upon the ruins of once proud, powerful, pagan Babylon. Christians today may go to Rome and walk among the ruins of the once cruel, calculating, Roman empire which vowed to exterminate Christianity from the face of the earth.

So the contrast in this section is between the city of God which we take to be the righteous, faithful covenant-keeping people of God, especially those of that day when God makes them a feast, removes their veil and swallows up death forever-the church-and the high and lofty city representing all that is Satanic and human and stands in opposition to the redemptive purposes of God. Justice, salvation and peace will come to the remnant in the new order to be brought by the Messiah. When it comes, the messianic people will sing about it.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Naturally following this prophecy of praise for the activity of Jehovah is the great song which will be sung in the day of Jehovah’s ultimate victory. It is praise for the establishment of the city, and for deliverance. The deep secret of the new condition is the secret of the mind stayed on Jehovah. In Him is the Rock of Ages. He has overcome enemies and established the just.

The song merges into one of praise for this Jehovah. Other lords have had dominion, but it is Jehovah who has increased the nation and enlarged the borders of the land. Again the song becomes one of praise for deliverance. The prophet refers to the pain and travail of the past. The new condition is as resurrection out of such death, and praise is therefore fitting. Remembering that he is still speaking in the midst of judgment, the processes of which must proceed to consummation, the prophet utters a final call to the people of God, urging them to quietness and patience until the indignation be past.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Peace through Steadfast Trust

Isa 26:1-10

No doubt when Babylon fell before Cyrus the Jewish remnant under Ezra and Nehemiah sang this triumphal ode, which contrasts the respective lots of Babylon and Jerusalem. The one is the city of this world and its children; the other the city and home of the saints. The fate of Babylon is delineated in Isa 26:5-6; but with what glowing words does the prophet dwell on the blessedness of those who are fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, Eph 2:19. Note in Isa 26:3, margin, one of Gods double doors against the intrusion on the soul of a single note of alarm or fear. God is the Rock of Ages, Isa 26:4, margin. Our trust should be permanent as His love-forever. The weakest foot may trample on the proudest foe, when God has laid him in the dust. God levels the path of the just. However difficult your path, dare to believe that you are being directed in righteousness God cannot make mistakes. Any other path would be impracticable. Only nurse the desires of your soul for God; they are the result of the promptings and drawings of His Spirit.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

EXPOSITORY NOTES ON

THE PROPHET ISAIAH

By

Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.

Copyright @ 1952

edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago

ISAIAH CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

ISRAEL’S DELIVERANCE

WE CONTINUE to enter into the joyous experiences of the remnant of Israel as they praise the Lord because of the fulfillment of His promises, resulting in their deliverance from the power of the oppressor and their spiritual enrichment under Messiah’s righteous rule.

It should surely be a joy to us, who through grace belong to the heavenly company, as we reflect upon what GOD has in store for His earthly people when, in accordance with His promise to Abraham, they enter upon the full possession of the land which He declared should be theirs forever.

Their deliverance is a twofold one.

First, from the power of their enemies who, for so many centuries, have oppressed them, and secondly, from their sins, when they enter into the true meaning of the great day of atonement and see in CHRIST JESUS the true Sin Offering. In that day they will sing the Song of Moses and the LAMB, whether they be among those slain as martyrs during the reign of the Beast and the Antichrist, as seen in Rev 15:2, 3, or whether they are saved alive out of the time of Jacob’s trouble and so are prepared to enter into the kingdom when the Lord Himself appears.

We, today, look forward to the time when we shall sing the new song as gathered round the throne in glory, but that has nothing to do with the overthrow of earthly powers or our deliverance from them. But with Israel it will be otherwise.

As of old, when GOD delivered them out of Egypt, they sang with Moses the song of triumph over their enemies, so in the coming day will they rejoice when every oppressor has been destroyed; but with this will be the Song of the LAMB, that of redemption through His precious atoning blood.

We, today, can enter into everything spiritual that this song brings before us for we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in CHRIST. While it is not the Christian attitude to rejoice in the destruction of evil-doers, we can well sympathize with the earthly

people as we reflect on what the overthrow of their enemies is going to mean to them. Let us look then at their song, verse by verse.

“In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (verses 1-3).

Surely in these opening words the remnant speak of the city in a spiritual rather than a material sense. While they look forward to the establishment of Jerusalem as a great center of blessing to the whole earth and a fortress never again to be destroyed by their foes, they sing in anticipation, recognizing in the Lord Himself their strong city and rejoicing in the assurance that their foes will never again be able to overcome them. But they are also contemplating the actual rebuilding of the literal Jerusalem as they cry, “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.”

Of Israel in that day GOD has said, “They shall be all righteous.” Their iniquities will be purged, their hearts cleansed by the washing of the water by the Word, according to the promise given in Ezekiel: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Eze 36:25,26).

The veil taken away from their eyes, they will be delivered from unbelief and will find an all-sufficient Saviour in JESUS, their once-rejected Messiah.

The third verse may well apply, not only to the remnant in that coming day, but to every trustful believer in all dispensations. Perfect peace, rest of heart and mind, and freedom from worry and anxiety, are found only as we learn to commit all our ways to the Lord and trust Him implicitly to undertake for us.

It is as we give heed to the admonition of Php 4:5, 6 that the peace of GOD which passes all understanding keeps our hearts as with a military garrison. Peace with GOD every believer has through the blood of the Cross, as we read in Rom 5:1, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

But the peace of GOD, this perfect peace of which Isaiah speaks, is something more. It is that quiet assurance that all is well, no matter what adverse circumstances the soul has to face, because we realize that our Father is ordering everything for blessing. What untold comfort has come to myriads through meditation upon and faith in such a verse as Rom 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

“Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah: is everlasting strength: for he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of

the poor, and the steps of the needy” (verses 4-6).

Faith, trust, and confidence, are synonymous terms. He who confidently looks up to the Lord, committing everything to Him, is lifted above all that might otherwise cause distress or anxiety. We, today, know GOD as our Father and rejoice in the fact that “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him” (Psa 103:13).

To Israel He is known by the covenant name the Lord, a Hebrew compound meaning literally, “the ever-living,” or as we have it in the New Testament, “He which is, and which was, and which is to come.” Aptly, in the French translations, the word L’ Eternel is used and well expresses the true meaning of Him who declared Himself of old to be the Lord, the I Am. Here the name is, as it were, doubled. The Lord the Lord is literally, JAH, JEHOVAH; the name JAH speaking again of His eternity of Being, while the full name tells of His covenant relations to His people. It is to Him they ascribe their complete deliverance, and so they will praise Him because of the way in which He shall have dealt with their proud and cruel persecutors, the great Gentile powers that have sought their destruction.

“The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just. Yea, in the way of thy Judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy Judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. Lord, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them” (verses 7-11).

Throughout these verses we have the contrast between the just and the unjust. We learn from the prophet Habakkuk that the just shall live by faith, therefore the just who walk in the path of uprightness are those in Israel who have learned to put their trust in the Lord and so to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. The unjust who know no shame are those who turn away from the living GOD, acting in independence of Him and persecuting those who seek to do His will.

Although He showers His favors upon them, making His sun to shine and His rain to fall on the just and unjust alike, yet these evil-doers fail to be moved by His goodness or drawn to Him by His grace. They only become hardened because of the favors bestowed upon them. At last they will have to learn the importance of righteousness in the hard way, when His judgments fall upon them, and all the nations are made to know His wrath because of their sin and rebellion. In that day of the Lord’s power, the inhabitants of the world who are spared after the judgments are fallen, will learn righteousness and will, with Israel, enter into the blessedness of Messiah’s reign.

“Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. O Lord our God; other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to

perish. Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, thou hast increased the nation; thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen” (verses 12-18).

At long last the people of Israel will have learned the lesson that peace, not only from conflict, but peace in regard to the sin question, is found alone in CHRIST, He who made peace by the blood of His Cross. In vain had GOD called upon them to take hold of Him in faith and thus make their peace with Him. They had never responded until now; after centuries of unbelief they have learned that peace is found in a person and that Person, the Lord JESUS CHRIST – He who is our peace.

We know the blessedness of this peace. They will know it in that coming day, following their grievous travail of soul as they pass through the anguish of the great tribulation. There had, indeed, been what looked like travail-pains, or birth-pangs, throughout the centuries of their dispersion and their suffering under Gentile domination, but all ended in disappointment.

CHRIST was not yet born so far as their apprehension was concerned. But in that day they will be able to enter into the full meaning of the prophecy, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” Then, in their own consciousness, they will recognize in JESUS the Man-child who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron.

The next verse has occasioned much controversy among prophetic students, some taking it to refer to the literal resurrection of the body at the return of the Lord and others to the national and spiritual resurrection of the remnant of Israel who, like men long dead, will come up out of their graves among the Gentiles to enter into the enjoyment of the coming kingdom.

“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead” (verse 19).

It seems clear that the reference here is not to physical resurrection, but is rather to be linked with the vision in Ezekiel, as recorded in his thirty-seventh chapter. There he saw a valley full of dry bones, which were declared to be the whole house of Israel.

These bones were seen coming together, bone to his bone, then flesh came upon them, and eventually breath entered into them. The meaning is made clear as the Spirit of God Himself interprets it.

They are the whole house of Israel, that is, the remnant of the last days, who will stand for all Israel – those referred to in Rom 11:26. Dan 12:2 speaks, if I mistake not, of this same resurrection of the nation, but includes not only the righteous but the unrighteous. Even today we see Israel once more a nation in the land, but we know from other scriptures that the great

separation between the righteous and the unrighteous is yet to take place.

The last two verses of the chapter need not be considered as part of the song. Rather we have here a special prophetic message, telling of the provision that the Lord will make to preserve the remnant who are to be saved out of the time of trouble and who will thus be able to sing the song we have just been considering.

“Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain” (verses 20, 21).

Some have thought that these words referred to some special hiding-place where the remnant will find shelter from the Beast and the Antichrist, as, perhaps, in the ruined cities of Petra, but it seems rather that the Lord, Himself, is to be their Protector, hiding them away in the “wilderness of the people” (Eze 20:35). I take it that this means that when the abomination of desolation is set up in the holy place, as predicted both by Daniel and our blessed Lord, that this remnant will flee to the far-off heathen nations who will not be fully under the actual domination of the Beast and who will give shelter to these outcasts for the truth’s sake.

Blessed it is for all who even now realize the truth of the word, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Pro 18:10).

Abiding under the shadow of the Almighty, all His people are protected from the power of the enemy.

~ end of chapter 26 ~

http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/

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Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Isa 26:9

I. The Bible is pervaded by the teaching of events. Isaiah is the inspired writer who lays most stress on this teaching. He is full of a great fall which is to come some day to all human pride, of a great ruin in prospect. He writes with this vision always before his eyes, and this great distant judgment of the fall of the world colours his descriptions of intermediate lesser judgments and events. He looks upon everything from this point of view. Through all the overthrows of kings and armies, of cities and governments, of high towers and fenced walls, he hears the last trumpet sounding. He says that the end will come at last, and that in the meantime every catastrophe that takes place in the world is a type of it. Isaiah is thus a teacher from events-from the course of things here. He tells men such events ought to make them sober and serious in spite of themselves-to chasten their vanity and levity, and to subdue their pride.

II. Persons are apt too much to separate spirituality of mind from the teaching of ordinary life, and the lessons which the facts of this world convey. Undoubtedly the mind may be spiritualised without this teaching, and even before it can be had; at the same time, in the case of the great majority of men, the spiritual temper is not attained without this teaching. What a moral is there, for instance, in the fall of a great man! It puts us into a spiritual state of mind; it makes us, whether we will or no, religious for a short interval. The world thus rightly read and rightly apprehended becomes its own antidote. The world is the great tempter, but at the same time it is the great monitor. It is the great saddener, the great warner, the great prophet.

J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional, p. 106.

References: Isa 26:9.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 31. Isa 26:1-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 95. Isa 26:12.-H. Alfora, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii., p. 275. Isa 26:13.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i.,p. 531.

Isa 26:19

This passage is very mystical; and it may be a much higher than Isaiah who speaks; for “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,” and then the words will contain the deepest evangelical meaning. “Thy dead men shall live,” Christ says to His Church. And why? What are the means? How is the process? “Together with my dead body shall they arise.”

I. Mark the great truth that argument contains. The natural body of the Lord Jesus Christ rose visible upon the earth; but that visible body was the symbol of another body, as real, but invisible. Of that body Christ is the head, and all His are members.

II. St. Peter tells us that the restored life of the buried body owes itself to the same source as that which is the spring in this world of the life of the dead soul. The Holy Ghost is made known to us in this as in other of His offices under the emblem of the dew.

III. It has been said, that the best test of a man’s character is how he wakes up in the morning. What a chorus of sweet melodies will that be, when every saint who has slept awakes to sing! Then shall we know what that means-the “song of Moses and the Lamb.”

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 115.

References: Isa 26:19.-J. N. Norton, Old Paths, p. 252; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 184. Isa 26:20.-J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Prophets, vol. i.. p. 78. Isa 26:20, Isa 26:21.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 355; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 186. 26-Parker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., No. 168. Isa 27:3.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1464. Isa 27:5.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 255.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 26 Judahs Glory Song

1. Praise for Jehovahs faithfulness and mercies (Isa 26:1-6) 2. The experiences of waiting during the night (Isa 26:7-11) 3. The assurance of peace and deliverance (Isa 26:12-18) 4. Assurance of restoration and preservation (Isa 26:19-21) We call attention to verses 12-21. Annihilationists base upon these words the evil doctrine that the wicked are not raised, but destroyed. The fact, however, is that Isa 26:13 and Isa 26:14 do not teach a physical resurrection. The teaching is that the lordship of other nations over Israel is forever gone. No other lords will ever rise again to domineer over Israel.

Death and resurrection are often used in the Old Testament as symbols of Israels national death and national resurrection. See Hos 6:2; Eze 37:1-28; Dan 12:2 and Isa 26:19 of the present chapter.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

that day: Isa 2:11, Isa 2:20, Isa 12:1, Isa 24:21-23, Isa 25:9

this song: Isa 5:1, Isa 27:1, Isa 27:2, Exo 15:2-21, Num 21:17, Jdg 5:1-31, 2Sa 22:1-51, Jer 33:11, Eph 5:19, Eph 5:20, Rev 19:1-7

in the land: Ezr 3:11, Psa 137:3, Psa 137:4

salvation: Isa 60:18, Isa 62:11, Psa 31:21, Psa 48:12, Zec 2:5, Mat 16:18, Rev 21:12-22

Reciprocal: Isa 24:14 – General Isa 30:29 – Ye shall Isa 33:16 – his place Isa 48:20 – with a voice Isa 49:16 – thy walls Isa 52:8 – with Eze 40:5 – a wall Eze 42:20 – it had Eze 48:31 – General Hos 2:18 – in that day Nah 1:7 – strong hold Zec 9:8 – I will Zec 14:11 – shall be safely inhabited Phi 3:20 – conversation Col 3:16 – and spiritual

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

CITY AND CITIZENS

A strong city. The righteous nation.

Isa 26:1-2

This chapter is ushered in with a song. And it is well worthy of it. What are we called to study?

I. The city of God (Isa 26:1-2).This vision of a city into which the redeemed shall be gathered is seen more clearly in the Revelation, but we may notice that the features in the city are substantially the same in both. And that is because they must be true of any city. What a city needs is to be safe and to be free. The strength and the liberty of the city are both touched upon here. We have a strong city, but see in what this strength consists. Not in stone walls and bulwarks, but in salvation. Religion is the great safeguard. Churches are better than armies; and ministers, if they be faithful, are more necessary than policeman. If we remember that the original sense of the word rendered salvation is breadth, largeness, absence of restraint, we have the second feature in the citynamely, its freedom. The ancient city was walled round, the gates were strictly guarded, and at night, or in times of war, a heavy portcullis shut the opening close up. But in the city of God the gates shall not be shut at all by day, and there shall be no night there. Open ye the gates. This is true of the City of Mansoul. A Christian is strong in the salvation which God has appointed for him. And his life is not to be a constant series of self-denials. He is free. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. We next have described to us

II. The people of God.Take the traits which our chapter mentions, and apply them to a believer. Here is his portrait.

(1) He keeps the truth (Isa 26:2). Nothing which makes or loves a lie shall enter heaven. A God of truth hates falsehood.

(2) He is kept in perfect peace, and this for the best of reasons, because he trusteth in Thee. Perfect peace means peace with God, peace with ourselves, peace with all mankind, and peace which shall never be broken. My peace I give unto you.

(3) Eternal trust. Trust ye, etc. (Isa 26:4). Notice how, in Isa 26:3-4, a reason is given for the peace and trust of the believer: because for. Religion is a reasonable thing.

(4) Uprightness. The way of the just is, etc. (Isa 26:7). Much is made in the Bible of rectitude. A mans way tells how, as well as whither, he is walking. Make straight paths for yourselves.

(5) Aspiration. With my soul, etc. (Isa 26:9). In the night and at the day dawn the Christian pierces the heavens with his fervent desires. The night here referred to was very likely a time of national trouble. Gods judgments were abroad (Isa 26:9). It was a time in which the inhabitants of the world might learn righteousness. If it points to the return from the captivity, then we may note that this severe judgment taught Judah much, and to good purpose.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Isa 26:1-2. In that day When God shall do such glorious works for the comfort of his people, as are described in the foregoing chapter; shall this song be sung in the land of Judah In the church of God, often signified by the titles of Judah, Jerusalem, Zion, and the like. We have a strong city Jerusalem, or the church, which is often compared to a city. Salvation will God appoint, &c. Gods immediate and saving protection shall be to his church instead of walls. Open ye the gates Of the city, mentioned Isa 26:1. An expression which implies the increase of the number of believers, and the enlargement of the church. That the righteous nation

The whole body of righteous men, whether Jews or Gentiles; (for he seems to speak here, as he apparently did in the foregoing chapter, of the times of the gospel;) which keepeth the truth Which is sincere and steadfast in the profession and practice of the true religion; may enter in May be received and acknowledged as true members of the church, which all such persons undoubtedly are.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 26:1. When Sennacheribs army was slain, the Hebrews could sing, We have a strong city; yea, a city stronger than Jerusalem. God is our refuge, a very present help in time of trouble. We are preserved, while Hamath, Arphad, and Hena are in flames, and their gods made the first trophies of the fire.

Isa 26:2. Open ye the gates that the righteous may enter in, without fear, and give thanks to God for his salvation. We fear the heathen no more. Or contemplating the ruin of Nineveh, we anticipate the voiceOh Judah, keep the feast. Rejoice in the Lord; he casteth down the mighty oppressors.

Isa 26:5. The lofty city he layeth it low. This city, say the critics, is Jerusalem, Babylon, Nineveh, or the whole world, or cities in general. Grotius says it is Nineveh; and he must be right, for Babylon now had never oppressed Jerusalem. It was taken in Isaiahs time by the Assyrians, and rebuilt: chap. 24:12. Nineveh was now the oppressor of the earth, and the Medes and Babylonians made it a heap of ruins, in the twenty ninth year of Josiah.

Isa 26:9. With my soul have I desired thee in the night. This time of war and trouble has been to me a prayerful time, a weeping season, that the inhabitants might learn righteousness, and turn to the Lord: Isa 26:20.

Isa 26:13. Oh Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us. Every surrounding nation has successively oppressed us, spiritual foes have reigned in our hearts, and the tyranny of demons is worst of all; but henceforth we will make mention only of thy name, which is a strong tower and sure defence.

Isa 26:14. They are dead, they shall not live. It is said of the Assyrians, that when the field was surveyed, they had no hands to handle their armour. So shall the enemies of righteousness perish. We have cried in this trouble, like a woman in travail, and have unexpectedly lost our troubles as an untimely birth. Yea, under this deliverance, a greater salvation is shadowed forth. Thy dead men, sinners dead in trespasses and sins, shall hear thy voice and live. Thou art, oh Christ, the resurrection and the life. These are the only words that can comfort us, when death invades our dwelling.

Isa 26:19. Thy dead men shall live, [together with] my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. The LXX, The dead shall rise, and be raised from their sepulchres; and those that are on earth shall rejoice, for thy dew to them shall be a healing dew; but the land of the wicked shall fall. The rabbi Kimchi associates this text with Dan 12:2, which speaks of the general resurrection at the last day. And when the bloody Assyrians were swarming out, to massacre the half of western Asia, what could be more consolatory than to magnify the hopes of a life to come. In this way Paul comforted bereaved relatives, and the church of Thessalonica. 1Th 4:13-15.

The Vulgate reads, Vivent mortui tui, interfecti mei resurgent. Thy dead shall live, the slain with me (or in my cause) shall rise. Messiah is the speaker here; he speaks to console the bleeding church.

Dr. Lightfoot has not overlooked this text, which is fraught with consolation. His words are, They shall rise with my body. The gentiles being dead in their sins, shall with my body, when it rises, rise again also from their death. Nay, they shall rise again as part of my body; that is, as part of myself, and of my mystical body.The doctor evidently understands the next words, awake and sing, of the conversion of the heathen.

The learned Poole speaks much the same as Dr. Lightfoot. Thy dead, thine elect, as distinguished from the dead, Isa 26:14. He refers the resurrection to the whole kingdom of Christ, from the commencement to the final consummation. He does not lay any emphasis on the Chaldaic, which reads in the plural, bodies; for whether he speaks of his own body personally, or collectively of the bodies of his saints, cannot be of any great moment.

Thy dew is as the dew of herbs. As the rain revives the vegetation, after an oriental drought, Psa 1:3, so the sweet promises of grace revive and cheer the saints, when the judgments of heaven are diffused abroad in the earth. David applies this word to Christ. Psalms 110. From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. Rabbi Manasse Ben Israel says on this text, it was the opinion of the ancients, that the resurrection would be effectuated by a certain dew from heaven, possessing a plastic virtue, as written in the Jerusalem Talmud, and in Jelcudi. Plain enough that dew in the estimation of the rabbins, designates immortality. The Chaldaic agrees with this. The dew of light is thy dew, meaning eternal life.

REFLECTIONS.

Sennacheribs army laid before Jerusalem several months, as is allowed. The gates were shut, the houses were numbered, and every thing assumed the terror of a siege. The military men were slain, but not with the sword; they were as frighted women, having no hope against so great a multitude. Two thirds of the people awaited death, and the rest expected captivity. Oh what times of visitation and war does wickedness bring upon the earth! But while the wicked despair, the righteous have hope; while the city was as dead, and bewailing in the dust, Isaiah was composing a sublime song of eternal joy. We have a strong city: salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. He saw JEHOVAHS protecting arm; he saw the wall of fire, or hosts of angels, keeping watch both day and night. He therefore thought it high time to sing, Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth of Gods covenant, may enter in from all countries, accompanied with gentile converts. He augured perfect peace to the man whose mind was stayed on God by habitual piety, and who departed not to idols and to sins. Oh what a heaven descends into the soul of the believer, and especially when his faith brightens in the fire. The Lord weighs the path of the just, who wait for him in the way of his judgments; and he guards their city, while that of the wicked is trampled underfoot. Hence, while we claim the covenant protection of God, we should be careful to maintain the character of righteous men.

We may mark the great piety of Isaiah, as exemplified in the love of his country. He knew his own safety by the spirit of prophecy, yet he watched and waited whole nights on his bed for the salvation which God had promised; and as is the good mans duty, he besieged heaven with faith and prayer, while the Assyrians besieged the city.

The tremendous visitations of heaven have a fine effect, in promoting piety and reformation in the state. While the judgments of God are abroad in the earth, the people learn to practise righteousness. Seeing the storm, they look next for their sins; for a perilous situation gives us to see our guilt, and to feel our misery, with sentiments which at another time would not enter our heart. Men wishful to profit by the stroke, will then repair their past faults, so far as possible, by the fruits of repentance, before they presume to kneel and ask forgiveness.

We have next the prophets lamentation over a vast multitude, on whom those tremendous judgments had no effect. Let favour be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness. He becomes gloomy, revengeful, and desponding; perhaps he eats and drinks to excess, thinking he shall die to-morrow; and the moment the hand of vengeance is removed, he laughs at all his fears. Thus favour is showed him in vain. And not only very wicked men in outward life do this, but there are some who seem to be religious characters, who in reality have the same hearts. Afflicted for a moment, with the heavier strokes of God, they pray, and bend under the rod; but as soon as it is removed, all their former habits and secret sins return, and find a ready entrance into their hearts. Why should those men be striken any more, they will revolt yet more and more. They continually break covenant with God, and he will break covenant, if we may so speak, with them.

Notwithstanding, the Lord will ordain peace for his church. Other lords besides thee, heathen kings, and especially our sins, have had dominion over us, yet will we make mention only of thy name; for as the Assyrians lay dead, and after all their blasphemy were dumb and unable to rise, so shall our sins be cast as a burden into the depth of the sea. Then the nation of Israel was encreased; those who had fled for fear returned, and glorified God who had brought them back from the ends of the earth.

Though the Israelites cried as a woman with child in the hour of natures sorrow, and were called dead men in regard to despair and fear, yet they should live. God, according to Ezekiel, would open their graves. Yea, they should revive; they should awake from the dust of sackcloth, and sing salvation to the Lord. But the psalmist, and the holy prophets, associated their sorrows and joys with those of the Saviour. Isaiah therefore seemed to see a greater deliverance than from the Assyrian; the gentile nations awake from their sins, to sing redemption through the atonement and resurrection of Christ. Hence the faithful are bid to hide for a moment, till the tempest is past, for it should most assuredly recoil on the bloody invader.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 26:1-19. Memories and Anticipations.The poem, which is a very elaborate composition, seems to have been written in confident expectation of deliverance, though the actual situation is still one of distress. Jerusalem has been made impregnable, let the righteous enter in. The unwavering mind is kept by God in unbroken peace (cf. mg.). He is worthy of trust, for He is an everlasting rock; He has laid low the exalted city, the afflicted Jews trample it under foot. The way of the just is made smooth. The manifestation of Yahwehs judgment has been eagerly awaited, for the worlds inhabitants will learn righteousness when Yahwehs judgments are in the land. The unrighteous shall not find favour, for they have not learnt righteousness. Though Yahwehs hand is lifted, they fail to see it. See it they shall, and be confounded and destroyed. He alone has secured their peace. Other masters have ruled them, but they are dead, and will never return to exercise dominion; the nation is multiplied, the land enlarged. They had sought Yahweh in distress, they writhed in pain, but their agony was in vain, the land remained unpeopled. To fill the depleted land, those who died in loyalty to Yahweh shall be raised from the dead. Gods dew shall quicken the dead bodies, the shades shall return to the upper world.

Isa 26:8. The name of Yahweh in the OT stands for His essential nature as self-revealed.

Isa 26:10. Perhaps we should read with Marti, Favour will not be shewed to the wicked, who has not learned righteousness.

Isa 26:13. other lords: not false gods (cf. Isa 26:14), but earthly lords, i.e. Israels oppressors.

Isa 26:14. deceased: read mg.; cf. Isa 14:9.

Isa 26:18. fallen: RV means that the enemy has not been overthrown. But we should probably read been born (mg.), and take the meaning to be that Palestine remains thinly peopled.

Isa 26:19. An extremely important verse, the earliest mention in the OT of a resurrection. Here it is restricted to the righteous; martyrs may possibly be specially intended. The much later passage, Dan 12:2*, adds the resurrection of the apostates.thy dead: Yahwehs worshippers.dew of herbs: render probably dew of light (mg.), i.e. dew from the realm of light; though J. G. Frazer thinks that the evidence he has collected with reference to the customs of bathing in dew may perhaps favour dew of herbs.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

26:1 In that day shall {a} this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; {b} salvation will [God] appoint [for] walls and bulwarks.

(a) This song was made to comfort the faithful when their captivity would come, assuring them also of their deliverance, for which they should sing this song.

(b) God’s protection and defence will be sufficient for us.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

A song 26:1-6

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The prophet revealed another song that will be sung "in that day" (the Millennium, cf. ch. 25) by those in Zion.

The New Jerusalem that God will set up will be a place of strength and security for the redeemed (cf. Rev 21:9 to Rev 22:5). I believe this will be a literal city with walls and gates, but many interpreters take the description as metaphorical. In that case what Isaiah meant was only that God would provide strength and security for His people.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

-22

BOOK 5

PROPHECIES NOT RELATING TO ISAIAH’S TIME

In the first thirty-nine chapters of the Book of Isaiah-the half which refers to the prophets own career and the politics contemporary with that – we find four or five prophecies containing no reference to Isaiah himself nor to any Jewish king under whom he laboured, and painting both Israel and the foreign world in quite a different state from that in which they lay during his lifetime. These prophecies are chapter 13, an Oracle announcing the Fall of Babylon, with its appendix, Isa 14:1-23, the Promise of Israels Deliverance and an Ode upon the Fall of the Babylonian Tyrant; chapters 24-27, a series of Visions of the breaking up of the universe, of restoration from exile, and even of resurrection from the dead; chapter 34, the Vengeance of the Lord upon Edom; and chapter 35, a Song of Return from Exile.

In these prophecies Assyria is no longer the dominant world-force, nor Jerusalem the inviolate fortress of God and His people. If Assyria or Egypt is mentioned, it is but as one of the three classical enemies of Israel; and Babylon is represented as the head and front of the hostile world. The Jews are no longer in political freedom and possession of their own land; they are either in exile or just returned from it to a depopulated country. With these altered circumstances come another temper and new doctrine. The horizon is different, and the hopes that flush in dawn upon it are not quite the same as those which we have contemplated with Isaiah in his immediate future. It is no longer the repulse of the heathen invader; the inviolateness of the sacred city; the recovery of the people from the shock of attack, and of the land from the trampling of armies. But it is the people in exile, the overthrow of the tyrant in his own home, the opening of prison doors, the laying down of a highway through the wilderness, the triumph of return, and the resumption of worship. There is, besides, a promise of the resurrection, which we have not found in the prophecies we have considered.

With such differences, it is not wonderful that many have denied the authorship of these few prophecies to Isaiah. This is a question that can be looked at calmly. It touches no dogma of the Christian faith. Especially it does not involve the other question, so often-and, we venture to say, so unjustly-started on this point, Could not the Spirit of God have inspired Isaiah to foresee all that the prophecies in question foretell, even though he lived more than a century before the people were in circumstances to understand them? Certainly, God is almighty. The question is not, Could He have done this? but one somewhat different: Did He do it? and to this an answer can be had only from the prophecies themselves. If these mark the Babylonian hostility or captivity as already upon Israel, this is a testimony of Scripture itself, which we cannot overlook, and beside which even unquestionable traces of similarity to Isaiahs style or the fact that these oracles are bound up with Isaiahs own undoubted prophecies have little weight. “Facts” of style will be regarded with suspicion by any one who knows how they are employed by both sides in such a question as this; while the certainty that the Book of Isaiah was put into its present form subsequently to his life will permit of, -and the evident purpose of Scripture to secure moral impressiveness rather than historical consecutiveness will account for, -later oracles being bound up with unquestioned utterances of Isaiah.

Only one of the prophecies in question confirms the tradition that it is by Isaiah, viz., chapter 13, which bears the title “Oracle of Babylon which Isaiah, son of Amoz, did see”; but titles are themselves so much the report of tradition, being of a later date than the rest of the text, that it is best to argue the question apart from them.

On the other hand, Isaiahs authorship of these prophecies, or at least the possibility of his having written them, is usually defended by appealing to his promise of return from exile in chapter 11 and his threat of a Babylonish captivity in chapter 39. This is an argument that has not been fairly met by those who deny the Isaianic authorship of chapters 13-14, 23, 24-28, and 35. It is a strong argument, for while, as we have seen, there are good grounds for believing Isaiah to have been likely to make such a prediction of a Babylonish captivity as is attributed to him in Isa 39:6, almost all the critics agree in leaving chapter 11 to him. But if chapter 11 is Isaiahs, then he undoubtedly spoke of an exile much more extensive than had taken place by his own day. Nevertheless, even this ability in 11 to foretell an exile so vast does not account for passages in 13-14:23, 24-27, which represent the Exile either as present or as actually over. No one who reads these chapters without prejudice can fail to feel the force of such passages in leading him to decide for an exilic or post-exilic authorship.

Another argument against attributing these prophecies to Isaiah is that their visions of the last things, representing as they do a judgment on the whole world, and even the destruction of the whole material universe, are incompatible with Isaiahs loftiest and final hope of an inviolate Zion at last relieved and secure, of a land freed from invasion and wondrously fertile, with all the converted world, Assyria and Egypt, gathered round it as a centre. This question, however, is seriously complicated by the fact that in his youth Isaiah did undoubtedly prophesy a shaking of the whole world and the destruction of its inhabitants, and by the probability that his old age survived into a period whose abounding sin would again make natural such wholesale predictions of judgment as we find in chapter 24.

Still, let the question of the eschatology be as obscure as we have shown, there remains this clear issue. In some chapters of the Book of Isaiah, which, from our knowledge of the circumstances of his times, we know must have been published while he was alive, we learn that the Jewish people has never left its land, nor lost its independence under Jehovahs anointed, and that the inviolateness of Zion and the retreat of the Assyrian invaders of Judah, without effecting the captivity of the Jews, are absolutely essential to the endurance of Gods kingdom on earth. In other chapters we find that the Jews have left their land, have been long in exile (or from other passages have just returned), and that the religious essential is no more the independence of the Jewish State under a theocratic king, but only the resumption of the Temple worship. Is it possible for one man to have written both these sets of chapters? Is it possible for one age to. have produced them? That is the whole question.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary