A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 63: Premonitions of Sheep and Goats

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 63: Premonitions of Sheep and Goats

In Isaiah chapter 58 there is a recounting of the sins of Israel which had caused a breach between them and Yahweh their God, and we are informed as to how men may be Repairers of the Breach, by caring for the weaker and more unfortunate, the defenseless or even the despised of their own people, which, as we hope to have illustrated, is also the core message of the Gospel of Christ. So it is evident that He is the model Repairer of the Breach and men must aspire to be followers of Him, as He Himself had beckoned. Then in Isaiah chapter 59, many of these same sins were described once again and we learn that the entirety of Israel was responsible for this breach, because ostensibly, none of them had spoken out against the injustice, none had sought to correct it, and therefore Israel had been taken into captivity and punishment For Want of Judgment.

In the course of these things, it is evident in Isaiah chapter 58 that the true significance of fasting and of Sabbaths is for men to put those needs of their people above any concern for themselves, and they are beckoned to use them as opportunities to provide for their people, or to do good for them, especially for the disadvantaged of them, rather than providing only for themselves or taking their leisure time to satiate their own desires. This was also the purpose of the ministry of Christ, and it was expressed frequently throughout the accounts of the Gospel. Then in chapter 59, for want of judgment, Yahweh God Himself “16 … saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor”, and He is portrayed as having adorned Himself with His righteousness, salvation, vengeance and zeal, whereby “20 … the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.”

Turning from transgression to reconciliation with God is the opportunity presented in the Gospel and in the hope of the New Covenant. So in many ways and from various perspectives, just as we have seen throughout these all of the final 26 chapters of Isaiah, these are all Messianic prophecies which have fulfillments which are clearly evident in the Gospel and ministry of Christ, in the words of His apostles, and in the historic consequences of the children of Israel having accepted His Gospel. This is true in spite of the fact that today, once again, Israel has returned to sin and even further punishment, and that is also a subject of both prophecy and the Gospel.

Isaiah chapter 59 had ended with a promise for the children of Israel, for those of them who do turn from sin, where we read:

20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. 21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.

Now, as we commence with Isaiah chapter 60, this is only a continuation of that same promise, and further promises are made which must be interpreted in that same context, whereby they are also contingent upon the people turning away from their sins:

1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. 2 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. 

Where we read “for thy light is come”, this refers to the line which preceded, before the chapter break, which says “and the Redeemer shall come to Zion”, and therefore, in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, John the Baptist is recorded as having described Christ as “9 … the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Then later in that Gospel, in John chapter 8, we read:

12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

Later in John chapter 9, in words which are also attributed to Christ:

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

So while the Word of Yahweh asserts here that “thy light is come”, this is also a continuance of the Messianic prophecies which had preceded it in the previous chapters, and Isaiah writes in the present tense of things which would happen in his future, as a sign of certainty that they would indeed happen. Notice also, that the light would be upon the children of Israel, and all other people would be left in darkness. So the Light of Christ is intended only for the same people of Israel who are addressed here. They are His world, the world which He came to save, in John chapter 3, as opposed to the world which Christians should despise, in James chapter 4, or in 1 John chapter 2 where we read an admonition to:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

In chapter 5 of his epistles to the Ephesians, Paul of Tarsus seemed to be paraphrasing the first verse of this chapter of Isaiah, along with another verse from Isaiah chapter 26, and compounding the two of them, where he wrote:

13 Now all things being reproved by the light are made manifest. 14 For everything being made manifest is light. Therefore He says: “Awaken, you who are sleeping, and rise up from among the dead, and Christ shall shine upon you.”

The first passage from Isaiah chapter 26 is a promise of salvation and resurrection for the children of Israel, where they are portrayed as reflecting back at some point in the future, and as having admitted that their idols were vanity and that they were not able to save themselves:

13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 14 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.

Now we shall pause to state that as their words continue, it also retrospectively reveals Yahweh’s plan for them while they are in captivity:

15 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. 16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. 17 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. 18 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.

So the children of Israel cannot save themselves, they had righteously expected all the other inhabitants of the world to have fallen and they had not, and even if they had been greatly enlarged, they continued to be oppressed by their enemies. Then in response to that, Yahweh answers them and promises that their struggle is not for nought:

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.

This is the passage which Paul seems to have compounded with with this first verse in Isaiah chapter 60, which also bears a message of deliverance:

1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

This may be too abstract, however while Paul had evidently compounded Isaiah 26:19 with Isaiah 60:1, Isaiah 26:20 certainly also agrees with Isaiah 60:2.

20 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. 21 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.

Then here in this chapter we read a similar message, although it is more symbolic and not quite as foreboding:

2 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.

So in Isaiah chapter 26 there is a message of salvation for Israel and vengeance against all those who oppress Israel and who have committed iniquity, and here in Isaiah chapter 60 we see that the other people of the earth are covered in darkness, while the Light of Christ is promised to come upon Israel. We shall see that same theme expressed here in later verses of this chapter.

Furthermore, concerning the opening verse here where we read “Arise, shine; for thy light is come”, while there are promises of an actual resurrection, this also seems to be an appeal to the children of Israel to come to the Light in this temporal world, that they may have life in the eyes of God. So this prophecy is a sort of antithesis to what we see of Israel in Hosea chapter 13:

1 When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. 3 Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.

So when the children of Israel humble themselves before Christ, here they are exalted in the glory of God. But when they sin and commit idolatry, they are dead in the eyes of God. So once Ephraim offended in Baal, he died. For that, the apostle James had written in chapter 1 of his epistle:

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

However once Israel ceases from sin and comes to the light, the glory of Yahweh is upon His people and we read:

3 And the [Nations] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. 

This is a promise, that once the repentant children of Israel accept the Light of Christ, those who turn away from transgression in Jacob, that their brethren shall be drawn to them. These nations and kings are not the nations and kings of alien races, but the Nations and kings of the children of God, the children of Israel who had already been spread abroad, who had been enlarged, as we have just read from Isaiah chapter 26, and who had already, as Isaiah had written this, long began to fulfill the promises to Abraham and Jacob, that their seed would become many nations.

It is these nations which are the subjects of the ministry of Paul of Tarsus, which was described in Acts chapter 9 where Christ had spoken to Hananias, who had then expressed reservations about Paul, and we read, from our own translation:

15 But the Prince said to him “Go! For he is a vessel chosen by Me who is to bear My Name before both the Nations and kings of the sons of Israel.

Later, in Acts chapter 26, Paul himself professed:

6 And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: 7 Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews.

Those two statements must reconcile, because we cannot force Paul to contradict himself. So the nations and kings of the sons of Israel in Acts 15:9 must be of the twelve tribes for which Paul had labored, and the result of the promises to the fathers, as he professed in Acts 26:6-7. This is perhaps the third or fourth time we have cited that passage from Acts chapter 26 in this Commentary on Isaiah, but its importance cannot be dismissed, and it is corroborated in many ways in Paul’s epistles. Later in Acts, in its final chapter, Paul declared that “for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain” (Acts 28:20) and he never did he express hope for anyone other than Israel. Now, in the next verse, we see another expression of that same hope for which Paul had labored:

4 Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. 

Here Yahweh did not say “My sons” and “My daughters”, but addressing Israel in captivity, He said “thy sons” and “thy daughters”, with language that is consistent in the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible and the fragments of the verse attested in the Hexapla of Origen [1]. So the nations and kings of verse 3 are the future nations and kings of the descendants of the children of Israel who had gone into Assyrian captivity, as it is they who are being addressed here, in the islands and coastlands of the north and west, which we elucidated at length in several portions of this prophecy in these final twenty-six chapters of Isaiah.

As we have seen here in verse 2 of this chapter, the Light of Christ is for the children of Israel, and all other people are left in darkness. Christianity is not for them, it is the fulfillment of the promises to the fathers, the fulfillment of the promise of the New Covenant made exclusively for Israel, and Christ had avowed that He came only for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. So this also evokes the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew chapter 25. Here throughout this chapter, we actually have a premonition of that parable, as the children of Israel are granted the Light of Christ, and all other people are consigned to remain in darkness. That does not mean they may not ever hear of Christ or of the Gospel, but even if they do hear it, it will not fill their hearts and they will remain in darkness. We have already discussed that parable in reference to aspects of Isaiah chapter 58, and we shall discuss it again here, further on in this chapter.

For now, the Word of Yahweh continues to describe the state of Israel as they receive the Light:

5 Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the [Nations] shall come unto thee.

There is actually a parallelism in this verse, where “the abundance of the sea” is the same as the forces, or as we shall also see, the “wealth of the nations”. As we had discussed earlier in Isaiah, the sea is often a metaphor for the mass of the world’s people, which is evident in

Here there are two words which must be understood in context, the Hebrew word וים or goyim (# 1471), which is gentiles in the King James Version but we have nations here as well as in verse 3 because that is the literal meaning of the word, and the Hebrew word חיל or chiyl (# 2428) which is translated here as forces, but which also means strength, efficiency or wealth. In both cases, verse 6 provides the context for the use of these terms in verse 5:

6 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. 7 All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. 

In verse 3, the word goyim may be justly interpreted as describing the future nations of the children of Israel, as that is how Isaiah had described those nations here in verse 4. But in verse 5, the word goyim describes some of the surrounding nations which were formerly neighbors to Israel, and which had assisted the Assyrians in their destruction, and they are the nations mentioned in verse 6. These nations were particularly noted for trade in the ancient world, as they traversed Arabia to exchange goods between Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, something which is also evident in Scripture, for example in Genesis chapter 37. There, Judah had hoped to sell his brother Joseph to the Ishmaelites, but certain Midianites had found him and taken him, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites, who then sold him into Egypt (Genesis 37:27-28). Examining the names here, Midian is the father of the Midianites, a son of Abraham by his later wife Keturah, and Ephah was the name of his oldest son (Genesis 25:1-4). But Kedar was the name of a son and a later city of Ishmael, and Nebaioth was also the name of one of his sons (Genesis 25:13-15). In all probability, Nebaioth is the eponymous ancestor of the Nabataean arabs, but Kedar, or more properly, Qedar, was also a notable nation in pre-Roman times. Sheba was evidently a nation descended from Ham which was also in the south of Arabia, in the vicinity of modern Yemen, and their kingdom persisted until Roman times.

But there is an important distinction to be made here. It is not necessarily the people of Midian and Ephah, or of Kedar or Nebaioth, who will be accepted by Yahweh, or who will join with Israel. Rather, it is their goods which will be brought to the lands of Israel and accepted, because those goods would be given up to the children of Israel. The word chiyl should have been translated as wealth here, because the camels, gold, incense, flocks and rams were indeed the wealth of those nations, and that is what would come to Israel here, according to the words of this prophecy.

Where we read of the people of Sheba here that “they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD”, the New American Standard Bible offers a better translation of the verse:

Isaiah 60:6 A multitude of camels will cover you, The young camels of Midian and Ephah; All those from Sheba will come; They will bring gold and frankincense, And will bear good news of the praises of the LORD.

The Septuagint, as Brenton has translated it, has the last clause of the verse to read “… and they shall publish the salvation of the Lord.” But neither does that make the people of Sheba beneficiaries of the promises made to the fathers of the people of Israel. Rather, they would only fall into the promise to Abraham, that he would be The Heir of the World, and to Israel, that they would inherit the nations, which we have discussed here in relation to Isaiah chapter 54. Sheba themselves had already been declared as having been given up by Yahweh God, for the benefit of the children of Israel, in Isaiah chapter 43. Discussing that chapter of Isaiah, we had described Egypt, Ethiopia and Sheba as having been Given Up to Darkness, which we also see here in this chapter, from a broader perspective. Just as we see here in Isaiah, only Israel is blessed with the Light and all other nations are left in darkness.

This bringing of the wealth of the nations to the children of Israel seems to have already had some fulfillments in history, and could yet have further fulfillments. The giving up of such goods could happen in the form of tribute, and if so, then it was indeed fulfilled in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, where for as many as eight hundred years all of these nations paid tribute to the heirs of the empire of Alexander, and to later Roman and Byzantine kings. This situation remained until the rise of islam in the 7th century AD and the loss of control of the east to muslims and jews. Later in history it was fulfilled again in the European colonial period and the British Empire. For example, from 1839 to 1967 Britain ruled much of Yemen as a colony and held other Arab states as protectorates.

Now another reference is made to the scattered children of Israel who were destined to be regathered to the Light of Christ:

8 Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows? 

The windows or lattices in the New American Standard Bible are evidently the entrances of dovecotes, or houses for domesticated doves. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has dovecotes with a note that the word literally means windows. The Septuagint, as Brenton had translated it, has “as doves with their young ones” instead, whereas in the Hexapla, Symmachus and Theodotion have windows, and Aquila has a trap door or grating, which seems to represent a lattice. This is trivial, but it elucidates the degree of the domestication of birds in the ancient world. But the word fly here does not necessarily presage air travel. In Isaiah chapter 11 we read that many of the children of Israel would “14 … fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west”, where the Septuagint has “ships of the Philistines”, and on both occasions the word “fly” is from the same Hebrew word. Now there is a reference to ships here, evidently to some of those Philistine same ships:

9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. 

Aside from that prophecy in Isaiah chapter 11, discussing The Burden of Tyre in Isaiah we had elucidated the facts that the Phoenicians of the golden age of Phoenicia, which was concurrent with the time of the Kingdom of Israel, were of the northern tribes of the children of Israel. The Tyrians were of Israel, and such is clearly evident in Isaiah chapters 23 through 25, and elsewhere in Scripture. Thus we read in part, from Isaiah chapter 23:

6 Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the isle. 7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn. 

Then from Isaiah chapter 24:

14 They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea. 15 Wherefore glorify ye the LORD in the fires, even the name of the LORD God of Israel in the isles of the sea. 16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous…. 

This is, in part, why these last twenty-six chapter of Isaiah were initially addressed to the islands and coastlands of the west, which is evident in the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 41, and in spite of the fact that the children of Israel would initially expand both east and west from the places of their initial captivity, as we read in Isaiah chapter 54:

3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the [Nations], and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.

So here Yahweh addresses all of Israel in captivity, regardless of where they had gone in their subsequent migrations. The colonies of the Phoenicians throughout the Mediterranean basin and the coasts and islands of western Europe were chiefly colonies of Israelites, among already-settled tribes of Japhethites, and here in Isaiah chapter 60 their inhabitants are identified as “thy sons”, since they are indeed Israelites. In the Burden of Tyre, Yahweh had warned those who departed from Israel in order to escape the Assyrians that He would not lose sight of them, and that they would not escape punishment for their sins. So here, He also extends to them another promise of salvation.

Now, in addition to delivering their wealth to the children of Israel, we are told that the other nations would also labor on behalf of Israel:

10 And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. 11 Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces [or wealth] of the [Nations], and that their kings may be brought.

In verse 10 the word for strangers is נכר or nekar (# 5236), which is defined primarily in the Brown, Driver Briggs lexicon as “that which is foreign, foreignness” and “foreignness (of another family, tribe, or nation)” [3]. Originally in Hebrew, by itself the word has no racial connotation. The verb form of the word, having the same spelling, appears in Genesis 42:7 where Joseph “made himself strange” to his brethren. It appears as a verb again in the 142nd Psalm where David said, in part, “but there was no man that would know me”. A directly related word, נכרי or nokriy (# 5237) appears in Genesis 31:15 where Rachel and Leah are recorded as having spoke of their father Laban and said “Are we not counted of him strangers?” So the strangers here may well be from another Adamic nation, but they certainly were not necessarily of an alien race, in the wide sense which we often use the term race today.

In the Burden of Babylon in Isaiah chapter 14, the children of Israel were told, in part:

1 For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. 2 And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

There is a glimpse of this in ancient history, where Diodorus Siculus, in Book 2 of his Library of History (2.43.6), wrote in part of the kings of the early Scythians, among whom he had counted the Sakae, Massagetae and Arimaspi, and said:

It was by these kings that many of the conquered peoples were removed to other homes, and two of these became very great colonies: the one was composed of Assyrians⁠ and was removed to the land between Paphlagonia and Pontus, and the other was drawn from Media and planted along the Tanaïs, its people receiving the name Sauromatae. [2]

Paphlagonia and Pontus were both on the southern coast of the Black Sea in central Anatolia. Tanaïs is an ancient name for the Don River, which flows into the Black Sea from the north, and its course runs somewhat east of the modern border of Ukraine. So the children of Israel had indeed taken captive those whose captives they had been, and among these people of the other Adamic nations of Mesopotamia and its environs, were men who would cleave to the house of Jacob. This was the beginning of the prophecy that Israel would “inherit the nations”, which was stated in Isaiah chapter 54, which we have already cited here, and it was evidently fulfilled as Israelites had begun to migrate away from the places of their initial captivity, a process which unfolded over many centuries.

Now there is an ultimatum which we would assert actually serves as a premonition of the testimony of Christ in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. We began to discuss that parable in relation to these chapters of Isaiah when we presented Isaiah chapter 58 and encountered verses 6 and 7, where the purpose for fasting that Yahweh God prefers is described to the children of Israel:

6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? 

That passage describes the reasons for the righteousness of the sheep nations of the parable, where the King had commended them for feeding Him when He was hungry, giving Him drink when He was thirsty, sheltering Him as a stranger, visiting Him when He was sick or in prison, and clothing Him when He was naked. When the sheep had asked how they did these things for Him, we read:

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

But now here in Isaiah chapter 60, we read why the goat nations of the parable are condemned:

12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. 

In the parable, the King told the goats that they had not given Him drink, or fed or clothed or visited or sheltered Him in His time of need, and when they asked where they had any such opportunity to do those things for Him, He told them:

45 … Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

In other words, the goats refused to help the sheep when the sheep needed help, and for that they would all perish “into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). Then here we read where Yahweh has spoken to the children of Israel in captivity, who are the “lost sheep” of the King, and said that “… the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.”

So here in Isaiah chapters 58 and 60, we certainly do have premonitions of the sheep and the goats of the parable of Christ in Matthew chapter 25. Hopefully, throughout this commentary on Isaiah we have shown that the Gospel of Christ is remarkably consistent with the Word of Yahweh God here in Isaiah.

Now there is another premonition, of the City of God, the New Jerusalem descended from Heaven which is described in the final chapters of the Revelation, although this also may have other lesser fulfillments sooner in history, and at least some aspects of it should be interpreted in that manner:

13 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; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. 

This echoes the building of the first temple from the cedars of Lebanon in the days of Hiram and Solomon. However the children of Israel were to be moved to a place of their own, as we have also read earlier in this chapter, and in our citation of Isaiah chapter 26. Here, the children of Israel are not going to Lebanon, but the glory of Lebanon would come to them. This may mean that they will find similar glory when they arrive at the places of their new homes, or that through trade and tribute they would also have the wealth of Lebanon along with those other nations mentioned earlier. We would interpret “my sanctuary” here as the seats of the people of Yahweh wherever they may be, and “I will make the place of my feet glorious” as a promise by Yahweh God that the children of Israel would ultimately build glorious places or cities wherever they would become settled. But more significantly:

14 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; and they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 

This agrees with another passage which we have also already cited here, where in Isaiah chapter 14 the Word of Yahweh told the captive children of Israel that “the strangers shall be joined with them” and “they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.”

This also supports an assertion which we had made in our commentary on the Revelation, in relation to Revelation chapter 21, and in response to verse 10 where we read, in the words of the apostle John:

10 And he took me away in the Spirit up to a mountain great and high, and showed to me the holy city Jerusalem descending from out of heaven from Yahweh

There, in part, we commented and said that:

Ostensibly, since the city itself is an allegory for the children of Israel, then the names of the twelve tribes are themselves the twelve gates, because the only way to gain entrance into the City of God is to be born of one of those tribes! The City of God is the people of God, the body of Christ, the children of Israel. The scheme of the gates also corresponds with the arrangement of the twelve tribes around the tabernacle in the wilderness, which is described in Numbers chapter 2.

We have also often asserted, especially here in Isaiah, that Zion is a metaphor for the children of Yahweh, for the people of Israel, as well as being the name of a hill in Jerusalem which is sometimes also used as a metaphor for Jerusalem. So where we read here in Isaiah, where the Word of Yahweh is still addressing the children of Israel in captivity, that “they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel”, we see direct and explicit corroboration for both of those assertions.

But this passage of Isaiah also evokes the words of Christ earlier in the Revelation, in chapters 2 and 3 and the messages to the seven churches. First, in chapter 2, in the message to the church at Smyrna, a town in Anatolia named after a word which means ointment, particularly of the ointment of anointing:

9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Judaeans, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

Then, in chapter 3, in the message to the church at Philadelphia, another town in Anatolia of which the name means brotherly love:

9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Judaeans, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

In our Revelation commentary, we had illustrated how the seven churches were chosen for particular messages because the names of their towns bore particular meanings which were also related to the messages which they received. So there we made the assertion that since Smyrna means ointment which is used for anointing, and since Philadelphia means brotherly love, it is evident why only these two of the seven churches had not been given any condemnation for any sin. The anointing is both the anointing of Christ as Messiah, as well as the anointing of Israel as the holy and separate people of Yahweh God. Brotherly love is what Yahweh God expects of His people, and that was made evident in these chapters of Isaiah, as well as being an explicit command of Christ for His disciples on several occasions in His Gospel. Therefore keeping those two things, we also hope to have no condemnation at the judgment of Christ. It should also be apparent, that for keeping those things, those that have afflicted and despised the children of God would be forced to bow at their feet.

Throughout the period of the Judges, whenever the children of Israel forgot their God and went off into sin, they were overpowered and oppressed by their enemies. They became odious in the eyes of God on account of their sins, so their enemies hated and subjected them. This same dynamic governs the children of Israel to this very day, it has never changed, and they are still subjected to a world run by devils because they have still not learned to keep themselves from sin.

So now, if they come to the Light and repent of their sins, which is the condition given for all of these blessings, we read:

15 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. 16 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the [Nations], and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. 

While no period of the history of Israel in captivity has been perfect, the so-called “Dark Ages” had really only been dark for the enemies of Christ, and the children of Israel experienced at least a partial fulfillment of these words in the so-called “Church Age”. But I would not reckon the “Church Age” as it is reckoned by the denominations. Rather, the “Church Age” is the millennial rule of the martyrs of Christ described in Revelation chapter 20, where we read in part, in a vision described by John:

4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

The martyrs prevailed when Europe had, for the most part, become Christian in the process of the fall of Rome. Some tribes were converted late, such as the continental Saxons in the late 8th century or some of the Slavic tribes in the 10th century and later, but for the most part, Europe had seen the Light and turned to Christ by the 6th century. From that time, and for better or worse, Christianity ruled Europe until its influence began to erode with the rise of Humanism and the Enlightenment, where by the 19th century Satan, which is world Jewry, was let out of the metaphorical pit of the ghetto to go forth and deceive the nations.

Throughout the later portion of the Church Age, and especially in the colonial period, certain European nations did indeed “suck the milk of the nations” and rule over all the other peoples of the earth. But this is in the process of fulfillment, as the rule of the martyrs was foreseen to be temporary, lasting only a thousand years. Yet when this prophecy here in Isaiah is fulfilled entirely, it is not given a termination date. So while some aspects of this have happened in the past, there is still a future when it will not cease from happening.

17 For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 18 Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. 

Throughout the history of their captivity, while there were relative times of peace, there have always been wars. But there were other prophecies which had forbode those things, such as the consequences of disobedience in Deuteronomy chapter 28, or the curse of David, where for his sin of coveting the wife of another man, he was told in part, by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel chapter 12:

10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

David experienced that in his own lifetime, where his own son Absalom sought to usurp him, but it has also carried on historically among the rulers of the children of Israel throughout their history. now there is another passage which evokes the City of God in the Revelation:

19 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. 20 Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

Yahshua Christ has been the guiding Light of what is often called Western Civilization, but which is better called Christendom, since Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe. However it has never been executed perfectly, more recently it has been used subversively, and it will not be perfect until He returns and destroys His enemies, which is a subject of later chapters here in Isaiah. After that, the children of Israel shall indeed experience these things more perfectly, because there will be no more devil subverting the Society.

In Revelation chapter 21 we read, in part:

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

Then again, in chapter 22:

3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: 4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. 5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

Of course, God and the Lamb have only one face, “His face”, which is the face of the Lamb because, as Paul had said in his epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is the brightness of the glory and the image of the person of the invisible God.

Now it describes the people of the City of God:

21 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.

Earlier in this chapter of Isaiah we saw another promise which evokes the description of the City of God in the Revelation, in verse 11 where we read:

11 Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces [or wealth] of the [Nations], and that their kings may be brought.

So parallel to both of those statements, where we left off above citing verse 23 of Revelation chapter 21, we shall now read a little more from that point:

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

Evidently, these are the people who shall all be righteous, because Yahweh God has declared for them to be righteous, where He said in Isaiah chapter 45:

19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

Now in relation to verse 11, which we just cited for a second time because it is relevant here:

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

That is saying the same thing which we had seen in verse 11 of this chapter. There are sufficient parallels between the promises here and the promises of the Revelation that Isaiah may be considered a prophet of the Revelation, something which we had also said of Zechariah long ago, in our commentary for Zechariah we had called him Prophet of the Revelation, in relation to Zechariah chapters 12 and 13.

Here it is also manifest that Isaiah is also a prophet of the Revelation, foreboding many of the things which Yahshua Christ would later convey to us through the apostle John at Patmos.

Now, the final clause in this chapter:

22 A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time. 

If this is wholly interpreted to be a prophecy parallel to the final two chapters of the Revelation, then this verse might be interpreted in a manner which is contrary to Christ, speaking explicitly of the resurrection of the dead, where he was challenged by the Sadducees on marriage after the resurrection, and we read in Matthew chapter 22:

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

These same words are very similarly recorded in Mark chapter 12 and Luke chapter 20. Therefore we cannot interpret this passage in Isaiah as being contrary to the plain words of Christ, since it makes Christ a liar, and therefore we must interpret it in a way which agrees with Christ.

We have explained that these prophecies are fulfilled in historical processes, not necessarily at some definite future moment. We have also already said here in this chapter, that in may ways it has been fulfilled throughout history, and it is very likely that in many ways this last statement has also been fulfilled throughout history.

So some men of old may have few or no descendants alive today, and they may have had only a meager number of descendants after they had passed, as a punishment for their sins. But other men may have very many descendants alive today, and who had lived throughout time, as a reward for their righteousness. In that case, a man who did not expect or anticipate many descendants may be resurrected to a great multitude, even as many as a strong nation.

This is a plausible interpretation of this passage, because it also accords with the earlier prophecy we had cited from Isaiah chapter 26, which also had parallels to this prophecy, where we read of the people praising Yahweh and saying:

15 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.

So a little one would become a thousand, and a small one a nation, within the scope of that process, and with that understanding we do not have to contend with the words of Christ.

This concludes our commentary on Isaiah through chapter 60.

Footnotes 

1 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume II, Clarendon Press, 1875, p. 551.

2 The Library of History of Diodorus Siculus, Volume II, Loeb Classical Library edition, Harvard University Press, 1935, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/thayer/e/roman/texts/diodorus_siculus/2b*.html, accessed April 3rd, 2026.

3 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, p. 648.