The Book of Isaiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

"In that day" the redeemed will sing, and their song begins with their true defense: "We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." The walls are not stone but salvation itself; God's own deliverance is the rampart. Into that city enters "the righteous nation which keepeth the truth." Then comes the jewel of the song, one of the most treasured promises in the Bible: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." The secret of the peace is named plainly, a mind fixed on God and a heart that trusts Him. So the call goes out: "Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength." And the reason this trust is safe is that God is the one who humbles all rival power: "the lofty city, he layeth it low... even to the dust," until the proud height is trodden under "the feet of the poor." The God worth trusting forever is the God before whom every arrogant tower falls.

Gospel Focus

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." Here is the cure for the anxious heart, and it is not found by looking inward but by leaning outward, fixing the mind on God. The peace comes not from controlling our circumstances but from where we set our thoughts: "whose mind is stayed on thee." The New Testament breathes the same promise: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication... let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7). Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth" (John 14:27). The world's peace depends on everything going right; this peace rests on the LORD JEHOVAH, in whom "is everlasting strength," and so it holds when everything goes wrong. If your heart is troubled today, do not search for calm within yourself; stay your mind on Him. The peace you cannot manufacture He has promised to keep, perfect and unbroken, for the soul that trusts in Him.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The song now describes the life of the righteous: "The way of the just is uprightness," a level, straight road that God Himself "doth weigh" and approve. Their hearts are set on God even in hard waiting: "in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name." Verse 9 is one of the most intimate confessions in Isaiah: "With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early." This is a longing for God that fills both the sleepless dark and the first light of morning. And there is a reason it matters that God's judgments come: "when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Yet not all will learn. Verse 10 names the hard truth about the hardened heart: "Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness." Kindness alone does not soften a soul set on sin; shown grace, he still deals unjustly and "will not behold the majesty of the LORD." One day, though, "they shall see, and be ashamed," when the fire meant for God's enemies overtakes them.

Gospel Focus

Two truths sit side by side here. The first is the beauty of a heart that seeks God early: "With my soul have I desired thee in the night... will I seek thee early." This is the psalmist's cry, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee" (Psalm 63:1), and it is the mark of everyone who truly knows the Lord, He is not an afterthought but the deep desire of the soul, sought in the dark and at dawn. Do you desire God like that, or only when you are in trouble? The second truth is sobering: mercy alone will not save a heart that refuses to see. "Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness." The goodness of God is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4), but the hardened despise even His kindness. It is a warning against presuming on grace, treating God's patience as permission. Do not let His favor make you careless. Let it lead you to seek Him early, before the day His hand is lifted up and the unseeing at last are made to see.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The song grows honest about the people's weakness and God's grace. First, all their good is God's doing: "thou also hast wrought all our works in us." Whatever peace they have, He ordained; whatever good they did, He worked in them. They confess their past bondage, "other lords beside thee have had dominion over us," but resolve that now "by thee only will we make mention of thy name." The dead tyrants who once ruled them "shall not rise"; God has wiped out their memory. Then comes a raw admission of failure: for all their striving they were "like as a woman with child" in hard labor who at the end "brought forth wind", pain without a child, effort without deliverance, "we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth." And out of that helplessness bursts the chapter's brightest promise: "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." Where human effort could bring forth only wind, God will bring forth resurrection.

Gospel Focus

Verse 19 is one of the clearest promises of bodily resurrection in the Old Testament, and it belongs wholly to Jesus Christ. "Thy dead men shall live... Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust." What Isaiah sees from afar, the New Testament announces as accomplished and coming: "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth" (John 5:28-29); "the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The ground of it all is Christ's own resurrection, "now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). Notice the setting of the promise: it follows the confession that human effort "brought forth wind" and "wrought no deliverance." That is exactly the point. We cannot raise ourselves; resurrection is God's work alone, the deliverance no striving can achieve. So the word to those who "dwell in dust" is not "try harder" but "Awake and sing", the summons of grace to the grave itself. If you are in Christ, death is not the end of your story. Your dead body shall arise; the dew of God's life will fall on the dust, and the earth will give back its dead. Sing, then, even now, for the God who raised Jesus will raise you too.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The song closes with one of the gentlest invitations in the prophets, set against one of the sternest warnings. To His own, God says: "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." It is the voice of a Father hiding His children in an inner room while a storm passes, the picture of Israel behind the blood on Passover night, of Noah shut safely in the ark. The sheltering is real, and the danger is real, "for, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity." When God rises to judge, nothing stays hidden: "the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." Every wrong the ground has swallowed will be uncovered. The two verses hold the whole message of the chapter in miniature: judgment is coming on the world, but there is a hiding place for the people of God.

Gospel Focus

"Hide thyself... until the indignation be overpast." This is the gospel's oldest pattern of salvation: God shelters His people through the judgment that falls on sin. Noah's family was shut in the ark; Israel hid behind the blood while the destroyer passed over; and now, in Christ, "your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). He is the chamber, the ark, the blood-marked door. "The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe" (Proverbs 18:10), and there is deliverance from "the wrath to come" only in "Jesus, which delivered us" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Notice the mercy in "a little moment", however long the trial feels, the indignation is brief against the eternity of peace beyond it, "our light affliction, which is but for a moment" (2 Corinthians 4:17). And notice the certainty of justice: "the earth also shall disclose her blood." Every hidden evil will one day be uncovered before God; no injustice is finally buried. So the choice the chapter leaves us is clear and kind. Judgment is coming out from the presence of the LORD; run now into the one hiding place that will hold, hide yourself in Christ, and the indignation will pass over you.