17 Instead of bronze I will bring gold,
and instead of iron I will bring silver;
instead of wood, bronze,
instead of stones, iron.
I will make your overseers peace
and your taskmasters righteousness.
18 Violence shall no more be heard in your land,
devastation or destruction within your borders;
you shall call your walls Salvation,
and your gates Praise.
19 The sun shall be no more
your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
give you light;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
20 Your sun shall no more go down,
nor your moon withdraw itself;
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of mourning shall be ended.
21 Your people shall all be righteous;
they shall possess the land forever,
the branch of my planting, the work of my hands,
that I might be glorified.
22 The least one shall become a clan,
and the smallest one a mighty nation;
I am the Lord;
in its time I will hasten it. – Isaiah 60:17-22 ESV
Peace. Righteousness. Salvation. Praise. Light. Glory.
In the midst of Judah’s darkest days, as they faced the God-ordained and inescapable reality of their judgment at the hands of the Babylonians, God gave them hope. He spoke a future day in which their darkness would be replaced with light. He promised a deliverance like nothing they had ever experienced before. And that deliverance would be in spite of them, not because of them. In the first 16 verses of this chapter. Isaiah has unveiled a prophetic promise that paints a starkly different picture than the one in which they were currently living. In place of the chaos and confusion brought on by the threat of judgment, God would bring peace and tranquility.
While God’s wrath was going to be unleashed against them due to their unrighteous and ungodly behavior, there was a future day coming when righteousness would reign – in their lives and in the world. God was promising to bring salvation to a people who had repeatedly rerjected His calls to repent and His gracious offers of redemption if they would only do so. The saving hand of God will result in the removal of all violence and destruction from their midst.
In Isaiah’s day, the lips of the people of Judah were full of lies and the mouths spewed corruption (Isaiah 59:3). And when God punished them for their wicked behavior, rather than confess, they called out to Him, asking that He show them justice.
They ask me to take action on their behalf,
pretending they want to be near me. – Isaiah 58:2 NLT
But again, Isaiah tells them of a day when their praise of God will spill out into the streets and gates of the city of Jerusalem. In place of corrupt and wicked speech, they will offer songs of praise to the greatness and glory of God.
All of these images are meant to convey the radically different atmosphere that will pervade the city of Jerusalem during the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. This Millennial Kingdom will be like nothing the world has ever seen before. Jesus will rule over the earth in righteousness, dispensing justice and administering the divine will of God without opposition or interruption.
And Isaiah describes a never-before-seen feature of this future Kingdom, in which the source of all light will be the glory of God. The apostle John was given the privilege of seeing this future scene and the responsibility of conveying its reality to the church.
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:3-4 ESV
And John confirms that the city of Jerusalem and the world will receive their light from a source other than the sun or moon.
And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. – Revelation 21:23-25 NLT
And this fits right in with comments John made in an earlier letter.
God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. – 1 John 1:5 NLT
The light of God’s glory will permeate everything. His Son, the light of the world, will shed His influence over everyone and everything. And the dark influence of sin will be eliminated by the very presence of God and His Son. Satan will be bound throughout the duration of the one thousand years of Christ’s earthly reign. The apostle John was given a glimpse of Satan’s fate and he recorded it in the book of Revelation.
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand. He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a little while. – Revelation 20:1-3 NLT
There is little doubt that all of this sounds fantastic and difficult to believe. But God is describing end times events that will be truly remarkable in nature. Their reality, while beyond the human capacity to understand, is guaranteed by Almighty God, and nothing is impossible for Him. And He tells us why He is going to accomplish these things.
…in order to bring myself glory. – Isaiah 60:21 NLT
And as if to assure His doubt-prone people, God tells them:
At the right time, I, the Lord, will make it happen. – Isaiah 60:22 NLT
It will not be a matter of if, but when. God has promised it, so there is to be no doubt about it. And God is delivering this message of future hope in the midst of Judah’s current context of coming judgment. From their perspective, things looked bleak and foreboding. God had already promised to bring the Babylonians against them and the end result would be the conquering of their city and the captivity of its people. They had 70 years of God-ordained exile looming on the horizon. But they also had the unfailing promise of God that restoration and redemption were their eventual lot. And the fulfillment of the promises found in these verses was not going to be limited to the return of the remnant to the land of Judah under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. God had something far more permanent in mind.
What makes these promises truly incomprehensible is that God eventually sent His Son as the Messiah He had promised to send, but His chosen people had rejected Him. Jesus had not come as they had expected. He was not the conquering King, riding into Jerusalem at the head of a mighty army. They had been looking for a political and military savior, but God had sent His Son to provide salvation from the oppression of sin, not that of the Romans. Jesus came the first time in order to offer His life as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. He came to conquer sin and death, not a foreign military power. He came to sacrifice His life and offer Himself as the payment for man’s sin debt. And with that sacrifice He satisfied the wrath of God against all those who accept His death on their behalf. The apostle Paul reminds us:
For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. – 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 NLT
…you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment. – 1 Thessalonians 1:10 NLT
The people of Judah were rebellious. They had stiff-armed God for generations, rejecting His gracious offer of restoration and redemption if they would only repent. But one day, God is going to redeem them. He will no longer pour out His anger, but instead He will shower them with His grace and mercy. And the change in them will be be powerful and permanent.
For the Lord will be your everlasting light.
Your days of mourning will come to an end.
All your people will be righteous.
They will possess their land forever. – Isaiah 60:20-21 NLT
English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
