[CHAPTER XXIV.]
SALVATION IN SIGHT.
Isaiah lx.-lxiii. 7.
The deliverance from Babylon has long been certain, since ch. xlviii.; all doubts in the way of Return have been removed, ch. xlix.-lii. 12; the means for the spiritual Restoration of the people have been sufficiently found, ch. liii. and preceding chapters on the Servant; Zion has been hailed from afar, ch. liv.; last calls to leave Babylon have been uttered, ch. lv.; last councils and comforts, lvi. 1-8; and the civic conscience has been rekindled, ch. lvi. 9-lix. There remains now only to take possession of the City herself; to rehearse the vocation of the restored people; and to realise all the hopes, fears, hindrances and practical problems of the future. These duties occupy the rest of our prophecy, chs. lx.-lxvi.
Ch. lx. is a prophecy as complete in itself as ch. liv. The City, which in liv. was hailed and comforted from afar, is in ch. lx. bidden rise and enjoy the glory that has at last reached her. Her splendours, hinted at in ch. liv., are seen in full and evident display. In chs. lxi.-lxii. her prophet, her genius and representative, rehearses to her his duties, and sets forth her place among the peoples. And in ch. lxiii. 1-7 we have another of those theophanies or appearances of the—Sole Divine Author of His people's salvation, which, abrupt and separate as if to heighten the sense of the solitariness of their subject—occur at intervals throughout our prophecy,—for instance, in ch. xlii., vv. 10-17, and in ch. lix. 16-19. These three sections, ch. lx., chs. lxi.-lxii. and ch. lxiii. 1-7, we will take together in this chapter of our volume.
I. Arise, Shine (ch. lx.)
The Sixtieth chapter of Isaiah is the spiritual counterpart of a typical Eastern day, with the dust laid and the darts taken out of the sunbeams,—a typical Eastern day in the sudden splendour of its dawn, the completeness and apparent permanence of its noon, the spaciousness it reveals on sea and land, and the barbaric profusion of life, which its strong light is sufficient to flood with glory.
Under such a day we see Jerusalem. In the first five verses of the chapter, she is addressed, as in ch. liv., as a crushed and desolate woman. But her lonely night is over, and from some prophet at the head of her returning children the cry peals, Arise, shine, for come hath thy light, and the glory of Jehovah hath risen upon thee. In the East the sun does not rise; the word is weak for an arrival almost too sudden for twilight. In the East the sun leaps above the horizon. You do not feel that he is coming, but that he is come. This first verse is suggested by the swiftness with which he bursts upon an Eastern city, and the shrouded form does not, as in our twilight, slowly unwrap itself, but shines at once, all plates and points of glory. Then the figure yields: for Jerusalem is not merely one radiant point in a world equally lighted by the sun, but is herself Jehovah's unique luminary. For behold the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, but upon thee shall Jehovah arise, and His glory upon thee shall be seen. And nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. In the next two verses it is again a woman who is addressed. Lift up thine eyes round about and see, all of them have gathered, have come to thee: thy sons from afar are coming, and thy daughters are carried in the arms.[276] Then follows the fairest verse in the chapter. Then thou shalt see and be radiant, and thy heart shall throb and grow large; for there shall be turned upon thee the sea's flood-tide, and the wealth of the nations shall come to thee. The word which the Authorised English version translated shall flow together, and our Revised Version lightened, means both of these. It is liquid light,—light that ripples and sparkles and runs across the face; as it best appears in that beautiful passage of the thirty-fourth Psalm, they looked to Him and their faces were lightened. Here it suggests the light which a face catches from sparkling water. The prophet's figure has changed. The stately mother of her people stands not among the ruins of her city, but upon some great beach, with the sea in front,—the sea that casts up all heaven's light upon her face and drifts all earth's wealth to her feet, and her eyes are upon the horizon with the hope of her who watches for the return of children.