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Peace and Security through Obedience

In days to come

the mountain of the L ord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it,

and many nations shall come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the L ord,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the L ord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between many peoples,

and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more;

but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,

and no one shall make them afraid;

for the mouth of the L ord of hosts has spoken.

For all the peoples walk,

each in the name of its god,

but we will walk in the name of the L ord our God

forever and ever.

Restoration Promised after Exile

In that day, says the L ord,

I will assemble the lame

and gather those who have been driven away,

and those whom I have afflicted.

The lame I will make the remnant,

and those who were cast off, a strong nation;

and the L ord will reign over them in Mount Zion

now and forevermore.

And you, O tower of the flock,

hill of daughter Zion,

to you it shall come,

the former dominion shall come,

the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem.

Now why do you cry aloud?

Is there no king in you?

Has your counselor perished,

that pangs have seized you like a woman in labor?

Writhe and groan, O daughter Zion,

like a woman in labor;

for now you shall go forth from the city

and camp in the open country;

you shall go to Babylon.

There you shall be rescued,

there the L ord will redeem you

from the hands of your enemies.

Now many nations

are assembled against you,

saying, “Let her be profaned,

and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”

But they do not know

the thoughts of the L ord;

they do not understand his plan,

that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.

Arise and thresh,

O daughter Zion,

for I will make your horn iron

and your hoofs bronze;

you shall beat in pieces many peoples,

and shall devote their gain to the L ord,

their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Why then has pain laid hold on thee as on one in travail? Be in pain, he says, and groan; ¹³²¹³² Ingemisce, groan, mourn, or sigh and sob. גחי, burst forth, or break out; that is, into tears or mourning. “Bring forth,” as it is rendered by Newcome and Henderson, seems not to be the import of the word here. It may be rendered, as Parkhurst proposes, “labor and bring forth.” — Ed. that is, I will not prevent thee to grieve and to mourn; as though he said, “Certainly even the strongest cannot look on calamities so dreadful, without suffering the heaviest sorrow; but though God may for a time subject his children to the greatest tortures, and expose them to the most grievous evils, he will yet restore them at length from their exile.” Thou shalt depart, he says, from the city, and dwell in the field: thou shalt come even to Babylon; but there thou shalt be delivered; there shall Jehovah redeem thee from the hand of thy enemies The import of the whole is, that though God would have a care for his people, as he had promised, there was yet no cause for the faithful to flatter themselves, as though they were to be exempt from troubles; but the Prophet, on the contrary, exhorts them to prepare themselves to undergo calamities, as they were not only to be ejected from their country, and to wander in strange lands like vagrants, but were to be led away into Babylon as to their grave.

But to strengthen the minds of the faithful to bear the cross, he gives them a hope of deliverance, and says, that God would there deliver them, and there redeem them from the hand of their enemies. He repeats the adverb, שם, shem, there, twice, and not without cause: for the faithful might have excluded every hope of deliverance, as though the gate of God’s power had been closed. And this is the reason why the Prophet repeats twice, there, there; even from the grave he will deliver and redeem thee: “Extend then your hope, not only to a small measure of favor, as though God could deliver you only from a state of some small danger, but even to death itself. Though then ye lay, as it were, in your graves, yet doubt not but that God will stretch forth his hand to you, for he will be your deliverer. God then in whose power is victory, can overcome many and innumerable deaths.”

¹³² Ingemisce, groan, mourn, or sigh and sob. גחי, burst forth, or break out; that is, into tears or mourning. “Bring forth,” as it is rendered by Newcome and Henderson, seems not to be the import of the word here. It may be rendered, as Parkhurst proposes, “labor and bring forth.” — Ed.