A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 52: The Comfort of Zion

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 52: The Comfort of Zion

While discussing Your Mother’s Divorcement, where we had taken a phrase that is found in the opening verse of Isaiah chapter 50 for the title of our discussion of the chapter, we had seen that even in their state of bereavement, having been put away by Yahweh their God, who had been the Husband of their nation, the children of Israel had nevertheless been given hopes of redemption and deliverance. Then, for most of the balance of that chapter, there is a description which, in hindsight, is clearly a Messianic prophecy describing a man who would suffer shame and reproach, but who would ultimately overcome his enemies by the power of God. In the final verses of the chapter, those who fear Yahweh and obey His servant, the promised Messiah, would have hope, but those who were self-reliant and would attempt to walk in their own light, rather than await the light of God, would die in sorrow. 

In the course of our discussion of that chapter, we hope to have illustrated the fact that the allegory of the marriage relationship between Yahweh God and the children of Israel as a nation is really much more than an allegory: it is a fact of history which transcends history itself. It is certain in many ways in Scripture, that Yahweh God does not care for the standards set by men. According to His Word, He is both the Husband and the King of the children of Israel, and that arrangement began in the wedding vows taken at Sinai which are described in the Book of Exodus. 

To many people this may sound incredulous, but the Sinai ceremony where Moses had gathered the people and read to them the law certainly was a wedding of the nation to their God. Moses was commanded to sanctify the people, in Exodus chapter 19, just as a bride would sanctify herself and adorn herself in white garments, which are symbolic of sanctification, for her husband. Then Moses assembled the people and began to read to them the law, which Paul had later described as the law of the Husband, in Romans chapter 7. 

In traditional English wedding vows, as they had been published in the 16th century in the Book of Common Prayer, the groom promised to love and to cherish his wife. In turn, the bride promised to love, to cherish, and to obey her husband. This reflects a Christian tradition for marital relations which is explained in the words of the apostle Peter in 1 Peter chapter 3, for which the King James Version reads, in part: “5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: 6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord…” On the other hand, the husband is expected to love and honor the wife, so Peter continued and wrote: “7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. 8 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful [or compassionate], be courteous….” So a wife should never be reduced to the status of a slave, or mere property, even if that was her legal status in ancient times. Rather, a wife should be more of a partner who is willing to function on behalf of her husband and their joint family. The Christian admonishment that a wife should obey her husband dates back to Genesis chapter 3, where Eve was told that “16 … thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” So when I say “Christian admonishment”, it is Christian in the eyes of God, and we should have no care for the opinions of the denominational churches.

As a digression, the churches have actually served to help destroy the order of Society as it had been ordered by God. In 1928 the Anglican Church removed the word obey from the vows of the bride, replacing Christian tradition with feminism and paving the way for the destruction of the traditional family which we have witnessed over the course of recent decades. But Yahweh will not remove His requirement of obedience for those that love Him, and in His eyes, the determination which is found in Genesis chapter 3 has not changed. The relationship between Yahweh and Israel is exemplary of the marriage relationship, but it is also somewhat different. A man should not surround his wife with cavalry and beat her with clubs and swords if she has stumbled in some manner. 

So where we find the words which Yahweh had commanded Moses to read to the elders of the children of Israel, in Exodus chapter 19 we read in part: 

5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. 7 And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him. 8 And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.

Moses acted not only as the mediator of the Sinai covenant, as Paul of Tarsus had rather indirectly described him in his epistle to the Hebrews, but he also acted as the officiating priest, or perhaps the magistrate, conducting what is essentially a wedding ceremony. 

Then later on, in Exodus chapter 20, after they had received the primary commandments of the law, we read: 

18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 

Then even later, after having received many other commandments, in Exodus chapter 24 we read: 

7 And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.

Later in the law some of these elements are repeated, such as in Deuteronomy chapter 6 where we read: 

5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Therefore the children of Israel, the wife, had been expected to love and obey her Husband. They were also expected to be faithful, as we read further on in that same chapter: 

14 Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; 15 (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.

Here we must note that the penalty for unfaithfulness is death, which is the same as the penalty for adultery. Examining the gods of the surrounding nations, they were fertility cults which demanded many sexual indiscretions and other sins, so in their later state of rebellion and infidelity, the people not only played the harlot as a nation, but had also very frequently committed acts of fornication and adultery as individuals. 

As we had also described in our last presentation, in Zechariah chapter 11, on account of the disobedience of the people, Yahweh God had announced through the prophet that: 

10 … I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. 11 And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD.

We had also explained that the only covenant which Yahweh had made directly “with all the people” is the Sinai covenant, as it is described beginning with Exodus chapter 19. So that is the covenant which Yahweh had broken. 

But now, as Isaiah chapter 51 opens, the people who seek Yahweh are not told to look back to Moses, but rather, they are told to look back to Abraham:

1 Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. 2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. 

The analogy is interesting, and for reason of this analogy we had titled our recent commentary on Genesis chapter 23, More Than a Hole, borrowing this analogy in a way so as to purposely evoke a modern but vulgar meaning. While Sarah was Abraham’s wife, and for that reason, as Peter described it, she considered him to be her master, in Abraham’s eyes Sarah was much more than a sexual object, and much more than a servant or a piece of property. She remained his partner and his love even to his old age, and even in spite of the fact that she was barren. As a digression, the extreme contrasting example is King Henry VIII, who had put away or even had killed several of his wives for not bearing him a son.

The children of Israel are described as a servant of Yahweh here in Isaiah chapter 41, but also as the seed of Abraham His friend in that same place. So while we may expect our wives to serve our own needs, in a domestic capacity, they should also be treated as our friends. Even Christ told His apostles, as it is recorded in John chapter 14, that “14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” A faithful wife certainly should be a friend. Henry VIII is an example of a man who abuses his wife as mere property, or a mere breeding utensil, but as we have said, a wife should be more than a hole.

Here we would assert that the children of Israel in captivity are told to look back to Abraham and Sarah, because it is for reason of the unconditional covenants which Yahweh God had made with Abraham, and the unconditional promises which He had made to both Abraham and Sarah, that the children of Israel would be redeemed and delivered, and for that same reason Zion is offered comfort here. So here the cause for the redemption and deliverance of Israel in captivity is directly related to Yahweh’s promises which He had made to Abraham and Sarah.

The Sinai covenant was conditional, upon the keeping of the terms of the Husband which Israel, the wife, had made vows to keep. The penalty for unfaithfulness was death, as we have just seen in Deuteronomy chapter 6, and the children of Israel in captivity were all liable to that penalty of death which, if it were executed, would have erased the seed of Jacob from history.

In the opening verses of Genesis chapter 12 we read: “1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Abraham fulfilled the only condition required of him in order to be assured this promise, which was to leave Haran and go to the land of Canaan. So Yahweh God is bound to keep this promise, regardless of any subsequent circumstances. Therefore, when the children of Israel had failed to keep the Sinai covenant, that has absolutely no bearing on the keeping of this promise by Yahweh God.

Then later, in Genesis chapter 15, Abraham was given additional promises, where we read in part:

4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir [a reference to Abraham’s servant, Eliezer]; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. 5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

As a digression, this alone proves that Yahweh has not changed, and references to the seed of Abraham throughout the Bible must bear the same meaning that they had in Genesis. That is because if Abraham himself could not make any substitutions for the seed of his loins, then the denominational churches are certainly not going to be allowed to make any such substitutions. They may pontificate and twist the Scripture all they want, and in the end they shall be judged for that, because Yahweh God does not change and He is not going to accept their subterfuge.

After he had been given those promises in Genesis chapter 15, Abraham was then told to divide certain animals and lay them out on the ground. This was for a ceremony which in ancient times was actually a custom that was used to formalize covenants even between men and even between kings of diverse nations, which is something that we had explained in detail from ancient inscriptions in Part 24 of our Genesis commentary, which was titled The Victories of Abraham. Making a covenant in this manner, men swore to the terms of the covenant by passing through the carcasses of the divided animals, as an acknowledgment that if they failed to keep the terms of the covenant, it should be for them to suffer the same fate as the divided animals. 

Subsequently, a deep sleep had come upon Abraham, wherein other things were spoken to him in a vision, and Yahweh is represented as having passed through the carcasses where we read in part: “17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.” So Yahweh had passed through the pieces, binding Himself to the promises which He had made with Abraham as men and kings had made such covenants in ancient times. But Abraham did not pass through the pieces, and there were no other terms given to him which he had to fulfill, so the covenant was unconditional on the part of Abraham, however all the promises which He had made to Abraham in relation to that covenant must be fulfilled by Yahweh God.

A little further on, in Genesis chapter 17, Abraham was given further promises which seem to have been without condition, where he was told by Yahweh:

4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. 5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. 6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

These words repeat some of the promises in the earlier, unconditional covenants, so they still remain without condition. Conditions cannot be imposed after a covenant has been made, or the covenant becomes a lie because it is rendered useless. [Yahweh God is not a jewish lawyer.] So following that, a covenant is made which did have a condition imposed upon Abraham and his descendants, where we read:

9 And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. 11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. 12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

Yet like the Sinai covenant, neither could this covenant have any retroactive effect on the promises and covenants which had preceded. This covenant of circumcision was kept until the captivity of Egypt, when the circumcision had lapsed for a significant period of time in captivity, and since Yahweh had forewarned Abraham of the captivity in Egypt, He must have foreseen and forgiven that lapse even before he had required it. The practice of circumcision was incorporated into the law, and reinstituted by Joshua after the exodus and the subsequent wanderings in the desert, as that act is described in Joshua chapter 5. But once they had gone into captivity again, the children of Israel abandoned the act of circumcision once again. Yet Christ promised them mercy, and in Romans chapter 2 Paul of Tarsus had explained, as it is also found in the law in Deuteronomy chapters 10 and 30, and in the prophets in Jeremiah chapter 4, that the true circumcision which Yahweh seeks of men is of the heart, not of the flesh.

However women were never circumcised in Israel, or in the ancient world, so immediately after requiring circumcision from Abraham, Yahweh made an unconditional promise in reference to Sarah where we read:

15 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. 16 And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.

Then, a little further on the Word of Yahweh said:

19 … Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

Much later, Isaac, who had inherited the promises made to Abraham, had in turn passed them on to Jacob, so long as Jacob did what he was told, where we read in Genesis chapter 28:

1 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. 2 Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. 3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; 4 And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.

So Jacob had done what his father had told him, and later he had returned to Canaan with all of the thirteen children which he had as a result of his obedience. Then once he reached Canaan, Yahweh God had told him to go to Bethel, and he did, so consequently, in Genesis chapter 35 we read, in part:

9 And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. 10 And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. 11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; 12 And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.

Even if Jacob was given the land of Canaan, that certainly does not mean that his descendants had been restricted to Canaan, or prohibited from dwelling anywhere else. So as we had seen when we discussed the latter half of Isaiah chapter 49, they certainly had been promised A Place of Their Own, a place which was not in Canaan, from which they would move no more. That does not cancel the promise here, but rather, it should be viewed as complimenting the promise here. Furthermore, in the text of Genesis chapter 35, it is also apparent that those promises made to Jacob were given without condition. Except for being told to go to Bethel, where he had received those words, nothing else had been required of Jacob. Yahweh God did not have Moses write these things in vain, and Yahshua Christ, with His prophets and apostles did not make references to these things in vain.

Where the children of Israel in captivity were told to look unto Abraham and Sarah, on account of whom they had all of these promises and more, most of these promises and several covenants were made without condition. Therefore not even the covenant of Genesis chapter 17 wherein Yahweh had required circumcision could interfere in their fulfillment.

Here in Isaiah, in chapter 50 there were promises of redemption and deliverance for the captives of Israel, and there is no break in the context with these opening verses of chapter 51 where they are then beckoned to look unto Abraham and Sarah, from whom they had also inherited these promises. So much later, in Luke chapter 1, after Mary had been told that she would give birth to the future Messiah of Israel, and she described her experience to Elisabeth her cousin, we read, in part:

46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. 50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. 51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. 53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. 54 He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; 55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

Further on in that same chapter, Zacharias the father of John the Baptist made a declaration concerning his own newborn son, where we read in part:

67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, 68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: 71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; 73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham…

For those reasons and others, the apostle Paul had written in Romans chapter 15 that:

8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: 9 And that the [Nations] might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the [Nations], and sing unto thy name.

While the law and the prophets were upheld by Christ, and while the law contains the commandments which Christ had also commanded His disciples to keep, the basis of the New Covenant is found in the promises to the fathers, as we have seen declared here by both Paul and Luke. Paul also acknowledged this in Hebrews chapter 8, where speaking of the failure of the Sinai covenant, referring to Yahshua Christ he wrote in part:

6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

Those promises must be the promises that had been made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Paul confirmed this again in Galatians chapter 3, where he wrote:

16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.… 17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

Right there, where Paul wrote of the covenant confirmed of God in Christ, which was 430 years before the law, he can only be referring to those first promises and the unconditional covenant which was made with Abraham, in Genesis chapters 12 and 15. So for that he continued and said:

18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

Once more Paul had confirmed this in Hebrews chapter 11, where he wrote:

8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

Finally, in Romans chapter 9 Paul evoked not only the covenants and promises made to Abraham, but also the unconditional promises made to Sarah and Rebekah, in his comparison of Jacob and Esau, by which he illustrated the distinction between the true Israelites of Judaea, his “kinsmen according to the flesh”, and the Edomites whom he described as “vessels of wrath fitted for destruction”.

With their usual propensity to twist interpretations of Scripture, the denominational churches actually invert the meaning of 2 Corinthians chapter 1 where Paul had written in regard to Christ: “20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” They interpret this to mean that Christ had inherited all the promises made to Abraham. But it means just the opposite.

So in reference to the same promises, Paul wrote in chapter 7 of that same epistle describing his readers as “having therefore these promises”, and in Romans chapter 4 he wrote that “the promise might be sure to all the seed”, while in Galatians chapter 4 he told his readers “28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.” In the eyes of Paul, the heirs of the promise are a plurality, and not an individual, they are to physical genetic seed, like Isaac was, and not mere believers. So the promises are not in Christ because He received them all, something which is actually contrary to the promises themselves, but rather, the promises are in Christ because He is Yahweh God Incarnate and He came to confirm and to assure them all, and just as Paul had also written in Romans chapter 4, they shall be fulfilled “as it is written”, for which reason he also told the Romans, in the verse which had preceded those words: “16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all”.

The phrase “all the seed” is a reference to the seed of Isaac through Jacob, and Paul wrote in Romans chapter 9 citing the words to Abraham in Genesis that “in Isaac shall thy seed be called”, which also defines his use of seed in relation to the promises throughout his writings. Those of the law were the remnant portion of Judah who returned to Judaea, but those of the faith of Abraham are the far greater numbers of the twelve tribes of Israel that had been scattered abroad by the captivities and by other historical circumstances.

There should be no dispute that the Sinai covenant is broken forever, but the New Covenant in Christ is founded upon the promises to Abraham, which were subsequently inherited by Jacob alone.

[As a digression, there are people who claim to be Identity Christians, who continue to dispute this with me unto this day, even from long before the time I first addressed it explicitly in a presentation titled Christian Foundations in July of 2019. So they go so far as to attempt to bind men to the rituals and the ceremonial laws of the Sinai covenant, things which had been done away with in the divorce, and which were never required under the New Covenant in Christ.]

Now Yahweh promises to comfort Zion, immediately after he told the children of Israel to look unto Abraham and Sarah. Of course, Abraham and Sarah could not save them, and if they would have been judged by the terms of the Sinai covenant, they would all be dead, without exception. But rather, Yahweh Himself had vowed to save Israel on account of Abraham and Sarah. So now He offers them comfort, and that comfort is predicated upon the promises which He had made to Abraham and Sarah, which is the very reason for which they had been mentioned here, and captive Israel is told to look unto them:

3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody. 

Interestingly, where the King James Version has “and her desert like the garden of the LORD”, the Septuagint as Brenton translated it has “and her western places as the garden of the Lord”. However Brenton followed the Codex Vaticanus, and other manuscripts of the Septuagint do not have the redundancy, wanting the words for “and her western places as the garden” in that clause. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible also agrees with the reading of the King James Version in this verse, except that there is an additional clause in the scroll known as 1QIsaiah^a which adds the words: “Sorrow and mourning will flee away” at the end of verse. There are some variations among the later Greek editions preserved in the Hexapla, but none of them contain the words for “western places”.

These are not random, disparate statements. The Word of Yahweh is informing us as to the reason why He shall redeem and deliver Israel, in spite of their sins, which is for the sake of those unconditional covenants and promises which He had made to Abraham and Sarah. Therefore the Comfort of Zion is found in the promises which Yahweh had made to Abraham and Sarah, on which account He shall save the children of Israel, so they had been told to look to them. Yet in the process, they shall be chastised into obedience, because as a nation, they had not conducted themselves as a faithful wife.

In the terms of the Abrahamic covenants, Abraham would have a multitude of children who would develop into great nations. But that by itself does not promise Abraham’s children either comfort or prosperity. In the terms of the Sinai covenant, the children of Israel were given many laws to abide by, and a promise that if they obeyed, they would have comfort and prosperity. The terms of the New Covenant are not any different. While Christ promises mercy for sinners, obedience is nevertheless the ultimate requirement. So Christ had said, as it is recorded in John chapter 14, “15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.” There are several explanations of this relationship of love to obedience in the New Testament, especially in the writings of both John and Paul, for example in Romans chapter 13 where Paul wrote in part that “love is the fulfilling of the law.” So John wrote in his first epistle, in chapter 5, that “2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.”

So because the keeping of the commandments of God is the Christian expression of our love for both our God and our brethren, then the comfort of Zion is also contingent upon obedience here, where we continue with Isaiah chapter 51:

4 Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. 

We had commented at length on the promised Savior and Redeemer of Israel as The Light of the Nations in our recent discussion of the early half of Isaiah chapter 49, so here there are several themes found in recent chapters which converge, and there is no break in the context across these chapters so the concepts are clearly related. Therefore the verses we had cited in Luke chapter 1, where Christ was born so that Yahweh could uphold the promises which He had made to Abraham should be cross-referenced to the opening verses of this chapter, where the children of Israel in captivity are told to look to Abraham and Sarah, for which reason they are offered comfort.

A little further on from the verses we have already cited in Luke chapter 1, where the apostle had recorded the words of Zacharias the father of John the baptist, where Zacharias continued he had also made a declaration concerning this light of the people, where he is recorded as having said in reference to his newborn son:

76 And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. 77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, 78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, 79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The remission of sins necessitates obedience to the commandments of God on the part of the people, since sin is the transgression of the law, as the apostle John had later explained it in chapter 3 of his first epistle. So without a doubt, this passage from Luke chapter 1 should be cross-referenced to Isaiah 49:6 where we read, speaking of the Word of God, that: 

6 He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

But those passages should also be cross-referenced to this one here in Isaiah chapter 51. Therefore the light of Christ, which is also the light of the Gospel and the Law, cannot be separated from the promises which Yahweh God had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even if the law was not imposed on them. 

As it was in the writings of Moses, the comfort of Zion is contingent upon the law. But since it is the captivity of Israel which is being addressed here in Isaiah, for which reason Isaiah chapter 49 had opened with the call to “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from afar”, it also becomes evident that Zion is not merely an allegorical reference to Jerusalem, or a literal reference to the mountain of that name within Jerusalem. Rather, Zion in the words of the prophets describes all of Israel, and the collective of Israel is the mountain, and even the holy mountain of Yahweh. 

Now Yahweh declares the coming of His righteousness:

5 My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust. 

Here in the Septuagint, words are added to the second clause which reads “my salvation is gone forth as light”, In the final clause of verse 5, the Septuagint has the phrase the nations in place of the pronoun they. Earlier, in verse 4, where the first clause has people, the Septuagint has kings. But these variations are not found in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.

Where we read “the isles shall wait upon Me” we have another reference which attests that it is the children of Israel in captivity who are being addressed here, just as the beginning of this prophecy in the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 49 had beckoned to those afar off in the isles, or coastlands, in their places of captivity.

Paul of Tarsus went to great length to distinguish between the law and the righteousness which a man esteems to have for himself which is derived from his keeping the law, but unfortunately, this is poorly understood in denominational churches. Paul himself would never have contradicted the words of Isaiah which we see in verse 7 here, where the people are beckoned to “Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law…” So Paul had written, in Romans chapter 3, that on account of the salvation which is in Christ:

21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Contrary to the simple-minded insistence that all means all without any further qualifications, the word all always requires a context to be properly understood, and in Romans chapter 4 Paul provided that context, where he said: 

16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, 17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

There Paul had spoken in reference to himself, and to the Romans. But he would not have said that to anyone who was not of Abraham’s seed, which he explained in Romans chapter 4. The Romans had also descended from the ancient Israelites, and Paul explained that in several other places in that same epistle, especially in chapters 1 and 4, and in his profession of the purpose of Christ in chapter 15. In fact, where Paul said that “all have sinned”, he could only have been speaking to the children of Israel, since, as the apostle John wrote in chapter 3 of his first epistle, “4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” With this, Paul agreed, where he had attested in Romans chapter 5 that “sin is not imputed when there is no law”, so if there is no law men cannot be held liable for sin, and the law was only given to the children of Israel, as it is expressed in the the 147th Psalm (147:19-20).

But even though the righteousness of God transcends the law, as Paul explained in that passage of Romans chapter 3, and even though righteousness is from faith in God through Yahshua Christ, and even though all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, in that same chapter 3 of his epistle to the Romans, Paul had asked a rhetorical question where he wrote:

31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

As it is recorded in John chapter 15, Christ had said “15 If you love Me, keep My commandments”, and in Romans chapter 3 Paul had insisted that Christians establish the law, referring to the same commandments. But while men may aspire to keep the law, no man should seek to be justified by the law, because as Paul had said, all men sin and fall short of the glory of God. So in relation to his “kinsmen according to the flesh”, those who were truly Israelites, Paul wrote further in in Romans chapter 9 that “31 … Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness”, ostensibly because many Israelites in Judaea had continued to reject Christ, which is the very reason for which Paul had prayed in that chapter. For that same reason, David, who had often declared that he had frequently meditated on the law, had professed to Yahweh in the 143rd Psalm that “in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” Then again, the apostle James agreed where he wrote in chapter 2 of his epistle: “10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

Many of the statements of Paul are further clarified where he had used the phrase translated as by the works of the law in Romans chapter 9 and on several occasions in Galatians chapters 2 and 3. This phrase, ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, literally means by the works of the law. But in the Septuagint as well as certain sectarian writings found among the Dead Sea Scrolls which were nearly contemporary with the time of Paul, the phrase is used to describe the rituals which were performed for the remission of sin. There is no longer a priesthood and rituals, as the Old Covenant was broken by Yahweh God Himself, on account of the disobedience of the people. Christ is the only priest, as Paul had explained in the epistle to the Hebrews, and He is the only propitiation for sin, which is also evident in 1 John chapter 2. 

So with this meaning of the phrase “works of the law”, we may find that Paul had further clarified his words in the epistle to the Romans in Galatians chapter 2:

16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Therefore there are no rituals by which man may cleanse himself from sin, as there had been in the law. But we read in chapter 2 of the first epistle of John:

1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

By the phrase “whole world” it may be demonstrated that John intended to describe the “children of God scattered abroad”, which he mentioned in chapter 11 of his account of the Gospel. So speaking of this same Zion, we read a passage which accounts for those words from John, in Isaiah chapter 62:

11 Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. 12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

So Yahshua Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of Israel, and He beckoned His disciples to keep His commandments, and that is related to the message of comfort here in Isaiah, where the captives of Israel, who had been to the ends of the earth, are told that “… a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.”

The denominational churches teach that the law was done away with in Christ, but Christ, His prophets and His apostles had all taught otherwise. So here as we continue this passage in Isaiah we read:

6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. 7 Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. 

So here is an early allusion to portions of a promise which was later written much more explicitly in connection with the promise of a New Covenant, in Jeremiah chapter 31 where we read:

31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

So Isaiah wrote of the law having been written on the hearts of the people even before Jeremiah had, although in Jeremiah it had been included in the promise of a New Covenant. However a man should take care and not take it for granted, that the law is written in his heart. Even Paul had attested, in Romans chapter 8, that:

7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

No one can say that Paul was not a recipient of the promise, that Paul did not have the law written in his heart, as it is stated here, and promised in Jeremiah. But Paul did not know sin, meaning that he did not understand that he had sinned, until he had come to know the law. So having the law written in one’s heart does not necessarily mean that a man should live by the heart alone.

In Jeremiah chapter 17 we read:

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Then in chapter 1 of the epistle of James we read:

26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

As we said, the children of Israel shall only have comfort with obedience, and as it was in the time of the Exodus, so it is here in Isaiah. But other assurances accompany this one, as in Isaiah chapter 45 we read that:

23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Then two verses later we read:

25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.

So as we had said earlier, the children of Israel shall only have comfort with obedience, and as it was in the time of the Exodus, so it is here in Isaiah, but here they are promised both comfort and obedience. Where the Word of Yahweh says that “My salvation shall be forever”, and has promised that “all the seed of Israel shall be saved”, we see that this promise in Isaiah is echoed in the words of Christ Himself, in John chapter 10 where He is recorded as having said:

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Ultimately all of His sheep, either in this world or the next, will bend the knee and follow Him, because that is what they have been promised by Yahweh God, unconditionally and in spite of their sins. 

In closing chapter of the Revelation, those who enter the City of God and have right to the Tree of Life are also those who keep His commandments, so they must know the law and have it in their hearts. But Paul did not know the law until he read the law, and Paul needed to hear the law in order to become aware of his sin. So for the law to be written on one’s heart, means that one has the capacity to read or hear the law, and hold it in his heart. Others may read or hear the law, not hold it in their hearts, and then go right off into some sin. So Israel was promised that they would have the capacity to hold the law in their hearts. So to be able to hold the law in one’s heart is also a gift from God, but it is also a promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah chapter 31.

The sheep of His pasture will have no choice but to obey Him, but we shall read where that is also a gift from God, in Deuteronomy chapter 30:

1 And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, 2 And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; 3 That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. 4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: 5 And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. 6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

So as we have said in the past and in other contexts, Repentance is a Gift from God. As Paul had said in Romans chapter 8, and Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter 1, Yahweh God had subjected the Adamic man to vanity, in order to be tried by it, and also to be instructed by it, so Yahweh God has also promised to save the Adamic man from that same vanity.

Here we shall pause our commentary for Isaiah chapter 51.