Isaiah 60

The chapter opens with two short, almost violent commands: Arise, shine. They land on a city that, one chapter earlier, had been groping in the dark - chapter 59 left the people stumbling at noon as though it were night, their own sins having hidden God's face from them. And here the night simply breaks. But notice precisely what is and is not commanded. Zion is not told to manufacture light or to summon it from within herself.

The reason given is that the light has already arrived: Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee (v. 1). The light is a gift that has come to her and risen upon her, from outside, the way the sun rises over a sleeping town that did nothing to earn the morning. The only thing asked of the city is to wake and stand up into the brightness now resting on her.

This is the deep grammar of the whole chapter, and worth holding onto: the glory comes first, and the response follows. Zion shines only because she has been shone upon.

Verse 2 sets the light against a backdrop of deep dark, and the contrast is deliberate: For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. The darkness here is total - covering the earth, lying thick over the people. Against that night one place is lit. The little word but carries the whole weight: while everything else stays dark, the LORD shall arise upon thee. And the verb is striking - the LORD Himself arises upon the city like a sunrise.

The light Zion has is the very glory of God resting visibly on her, so that his glory shall be seen upon thee. The brightness is borrowed, reflected, lent. A city in the dark becomes radiant by becoming the place where the glory of the LORD has chosen to rise. God is present - and that presence is the whole point.

The light has drawn a crowd, and now Zion is told to look up and take it in: Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee (v. 4). The motion is from every side - round about - and it converges on the one lit city. First to be named are her own scattered children: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. A people once carried off into exile are carried home; the daughters who were lost are cradled again at the city's side like infants brought back to a mother's arms.

The sight overwhelms her: thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged (v. 5). It is the trembling of joy almost too large to contain - a heart that pounds and then swells wide open. And with the children comes the wealth of the world: the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. What had been scattered and lost is gathered; what had belonged to the nations is turned toward the God who lit the city.

Now the prophet's eye fills with caravans coming up out of the desert: The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD (v. 6). The place-names trace a sweep of distant, often hostile, peoples - Midian and Ephah out of the northern Arabian deserts, Sheba far to the south, Kedar and Nebaioth (v. 7) among the nomad tribes.

These are the ends of the known world arriving in homage. And what they carry is telling: gold and incense, the gifts of kings and the stuff of worship. The flocks of the desert come up with acceptance on mine altar, and God says, I will glorify the house of my glory. The decisive note is the last clause of verse 6: the caravans come to shew forth the praises of the LORD. This is the willing worship of the nations.

The wealth of Sheba is laid down as an offering, and the God of Zion is the One praised.

Verse 8 pauses on a moment of wonder: Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows? The prophet sees something on the horizon and can hardly name it - white sails massed like a moving cloud, or like a flock of homing doves streaming back to the cotes where they were raised. Then the answer: Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far (v. 9).

The far-off coastlands, the most distant places trade ever reached, are not resisting but waiting for God - eager, expectant, ready to set sail the moment the word comes. And the great ocean-going ships of Tarshish lead the fleet, their holds carrying home Zion's scattered children together with their silver and their gold. Every line bends toward one destination, named carefully so it cannot be missed: it is all brought unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. The doves are not flying home to Zion for Zion's sake.

They are flying to the name of the LORD, whose glory on the city is the thing that drew them across the sea.

The reversal now becomes explicit, and God names both sides of it in a single breath: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee (v. 10). The chastening was real - the city had been struck, and Isaiah does not pretend otherwise - but it has given way to mercy, and the very strangers who were once her enemies now build up thy walls, their kings serving her.

Then comes one of the chapter's most quietly radiant images: Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night (v. 11). In the ancient world a city's gates were barred at dusk against raiders and the dark; shut gates meant fear, danger, a city under threat. Zion's gates never close because there is no longer any enemy to fear and no end to the procession of peoples streaming in.

The open gate is a picture of perfect security and endless welcome at once. Day and night the nations come, bringing their wealth and their kings, and the city has no reason ever to lock her doors. Where verse 12 warns that nations refusing to serve her will not stand, the deeper note is the open gate: a city so safe, and so sought, that it never needs to shut.

The finest things the world can offer are now turned toward the worship of God. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary (v. 13). The cedars and evergreens of Lebanon were the most prized timber of the ancient Near East - the wood Solomon imported to build the temple. Here the glory of Lebanon comes again, not for a palace but to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and God adds a tender phrase: I will make the place of my feet glorious. The sanctuary is where He sets His feet, the place of His presence on the earth, and He means to make it shine.

Then the social order is overturned as completely as the material one: The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet (v. 14). The descendants of the oppressors come bending in homage; those who once sneered now bow low. And as they bow, they speak a new name over the city - the name that has been waiting all along.

God now states the reversal in its rawest terms: Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations (v. 15). Take the weight of the first half. Forsaken - abandoned. Hated. A city so avoided that no man went through thee, a ruin travelers detoured around, left off the map. That was Zion's past, and Isaiah names it without softening.

Then the turn: God will make this very place an eternal excellency - something of lasting, surpassing worth - and a joy of many generations, a delight that does not fade with one lifetime but rolls forward through the ages. The despised becomes the celebrated; the bypassed becomes the destination. And lest the city imagine she has done this herself, God ties the whole transformation back to its source: thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob (v. 16).

The goal of the reversal is that she would finally know who restored her. The light came from outside; so does the rescue. Her glory is the LORD's doing, and her joy is to know His name.

The transformation now reaches into the very fabric of the city, upgrading everything it touches: For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron (v. 17). Each material is exchanged for one more precious - a steady climbing of worth, as if all creation were being refined a grade higher. But the deepest changes are not in the metals; they are in the people who run the city.

I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Where there were tax-collectors and enforcers, there will be peace and righteousness themselves governing - not merely peaceful officials, but peace as the magistrate, righteousness as the overseer. And the result follows: Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders (v. 18). The noise of plunder and ruin, so familiar to a city that had been smitten, falls silent.

Then Zion renames her own defenses: thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The walls that once kept out enemies are now called Salvation, for it is God's saving that protects her; the gates through which the nations stream are called Praise, for everyone passing through them comes to worship. The city's very architecture has been given the names of what God has done.

Now the vision rises to its height, and the prophet says something breathtaking: The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory (v. 19). Cast the mind back to verse 1, where the light first came to the city from outside. Here that light reaches its final form. The greatest lamps creation knows - the sun by day, the moon by night - are quietly set aside because they are no longer needed.

The presence of God so fills the city that His glory is her light. And with that comes the end of every shadow: Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself… and the days of thy mourning shall be ended (v. 20). There are no more sunsets, because the light that now shines never sets. There is no more night, and so no more of the sorrow that gathers in the dark; the days of thy mourning shall be ended. This is the chapter's deepest promise: a world where the light is God Himself and the mourning is simply over, finished, gone.

The chapter closes by describing the people who will live in this light: Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified (v. 21). Three phrases stand side by side, and each gives God the credit. The people are the branch of my planting - a shoot God Himself set in the ground; the work of my hands - made and shaped by Him; and all of it is that I may be glorified. Their righteousness, their endurance, their very existence trace back to His doing and bend toward His glory.

And the inheritance is not for a season but for ever. Then a last word of encouragement to any who feel too small to matter in so grand a vision: A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation (v. 22). God specializes in multiplying the small - the one becomes a thousand, the least becomes a mighty people. And He closes with a promise about timing that has steadied the patient ever since: I the LORD will hasten it in his time. It will come; God will see to it swiftly - but in his time, not before.

The vision is sure, the timetable is His, and the smallest beginning is safe in His hands.