ISAIAH 52: 7–12
OUR GOD REIGNS SUPREME!
[REVELATION 19:5-9]
Our passage in Isaiah moves on to greater heights as the time of desolation begins to fade into oblivion in light of the glory which is to come. The reference to the beautiful … feet of him that brings good tidings (Isa 52:7) is certainly familiar from its New Testament usage (Rom 10:15; Eph 6:15).
So a new awareness of what God is going to do bursts upon God’s people. Those who understand it as good news will celebrate in its glory and joy. As marvelous as this creation is and as faithful as God’s providence has been, it is redemption that is man’s greatest hope and blessing. For without redemption, the promises of life and providence are thwarted. The fallen world is caught in the bondage of sin and decay. Creation is fatally marred and providence only makes its fall bearable. If deliverance from sin and its effects are possible, then the erring children of creation may yet be led by God’s providence to the Father’s home. Such news would be cause for the greatest joy and the greatest glory would be for the One who could cause it to become truth and reality.
1ST THE GOOD NEWS, 7-8.
2ND THE DELIVERANCE OF GOD’S PEOPLE, 9-10.
3RD GUIDED AND GUARDED HOME, 11-12.
God’s Good News messengers are honored in verse 7 because they proclaim His salvation. “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace and brings good news of happiness. Who announces salvation, and says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
The home going of the Jews from Babylon to their own land, the promised land, is used as an application for the preaching of the gospel by the apostle Paul in Romans (10:15) for it plainly suggests that that deliverance was a type and figure of the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ. Israel’s return to the land of promise is here said to be their redemption out of Babylon.
This release and return home were most certainly “good news.” Tidings (mebaser) means to “preach or carry good news.” It certainly anticipates the gospel (good news) of the New Testament.
The good news of God’s message is that of peace (shalom) and salvation (yeshuah, the basis of the name Joshua or Jesus). In contrast to the degradation that Israel had known under its foreign captors, they would come to the glorious realization that their God reigns! He is in control.
Where God reigns, peace, goodness, and salvation follow. All things will be as God designs and His good purposes will be realized. It entails a freedom from every bondage, but particularly the bondage of sin. God has & will demonstrate that under His reign is glorious freedom.
Though Israel experienced great joy at the return from Babylon in 536 B.C., the joy Isaiah wrote about in 52:7-8 will find is final fulfilment when Israel’s Messiah returns to Zion to reign. God’s kingdom will come in majestic fulness at the second coming of Christ (Rev. 19:6).
Instead of announcing a message of impending judgment or doom, in verse 8 the watchmen lift up their voices and sing praises unto the King of heaven who has delivered His people and is bringing them to Zion. Zion is the spiritual center of the promised land. The LORD coming to Zion with His people means He is reestablishing Israel back into their homeland. Thus, all the people shall break forth into joy, singing praises unto the God who again is dwelling with His people.
2ND THE DELIVERANCE OF GOD’S PEOPLE, 9-10.
In verse 9 the broken places are called upon to join the joyful praise because of God’s redemption of His people. “Break forth, shout joyfully together, You waste places of Jerusalem; For the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.”
Redemption brings restoration, not only for His people but also for their home as we read that God not only “comforts His people” but He also “has redeemed Jerusalem.”
In anticipation of the victory of God that will bring us to our promised land in the new heaven and the new earth we too should give thanks and joyfully shout. To give thanks in advance is the highest form of faith. The person praising God for what he or she does not yet possess is the person who truly believes the promises of God.
The power of God’s salvation is illustrated in verse 10 by the Lord making bare His holy arm (rolling up His sleeves) in order to deliver His people before the nations of all the earth. No longer shall His people be downtrodden by their sins, but they shall be sanctified and march homeward toward Zion in victory.
3RD GUIDED AND GUARDED HOME, 11-12.
As in the Exodus out of Egypt and the Exodus away from Babylon, so in Israel’s yet-future return, the righteous remnant is exhorted to leave the evil places where they will be living in verse 11. “Depart, depart come out.”
The central issue here is release not from physical bondage but from another kind of bondage, the bondage of evil with its corruption and defilement. Every human who ever live is called on to respond to this cry to depart, to go out from there. In whatever bondage we find ourselves, God's holy arm has been bared on our behalf when He died for sinners and sin. The enemy has been defeated. The prison doors have been thrown open; and we are called to take action. Note that God will not take us out. We must get up in faith and go, taking God at His Word, believing that He will go before us.
However, there will be a difference from the previous exodus for they will not have to leave in haste (48:20) as the first part of verse 12 states. “Because you won’t get out in haste, you won’t go in flight. Because Yahweh is going before you, and Israel’s God is bringing up your rear.”
God’s people would not to go with a uncertain distrustful “haste,” as if they were afraid of being pursued (as when they came out of Egypt) or of having the orders for their release recalled and countermanded. God’s people would not return in haste from captivity, a reversal of their hasty departure from Egypt in the exodus (Ex. 12:11, 33). They will not leave Babylon with the same trepidation with which they fled Egypt (Deut 16:3; 20;3; Ps. 48:6).
No, they will find that God’s redemptive work has been perfectly planned and wil be marvelously executed, and therefore they need not make more haste than good speed. Cyrus would give them a legal release, and they would experience an honorable return with no need to steal or sneak away. Why?
The first reason for new confidence and security is that the LORD Himself will lead the pilgrimage to Zion the city of God. The Lord will go before to guide us as our general and commander-in-chief. He is out front of us. He is at the point leading the way. The church has its infallible guide.
The second reason for new confidence and security is because God will be their rear guard also. It indicates He that will gather up those that are left behind. God will both lead their vanguard and bring up their rear; He will secure them from enemies that either meet them or follow them, for with His favor He will compass them. The pillar of cloud and fire, when they came out of Egypt, sometimes went behind them, to secure their rear (Ex. 14:19), and God’s presence with them would now be that to them which that pillar was a visible token of. Those that are in the way of their duty are under God’s special protection; and he that believes this will not make haste. [Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1181). Peabody: Hendrickson.]
The LORD, who is the source of their strength, will both go before them and be their rear guard. In the exodus, Yahweh moved behind Israel to guard the rear from Pharaoh’s attack during the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 14:19). He also led the way ahead of them through the wilderness. The idea here is that God will both march before His people and behind them as the total provision for their protection. [Compare Isa 58:8.] Since the LORD will be with them and will protect them they need have no fear. Let them depend upon the presence of God with them and His protection in their removal from captivity.
[Behind the literal departure from Babylon, Rev. 18:4 sees a greater fulfillment, the withdrawal of the church from the embrace and judgment of the world, ‘so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues’. [Kidner, F. D. (1994). Isaiah. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 662). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.]
On NEW YEAR'S EVE 1916, a chaplain spoke to a gathering of British Commonwealth soldiers in Cairo, Egypt. Standing before men whose lives had been turned upside down by World War I, Oswald Chambers talked to them about yesterday and tomorrow.
Chambers said, "At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering yesterdays. Our pres¬ent enjoyments of God’s grace is apt to check the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows our memories of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual development for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.”
“Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the irreparable past in His hands, and step out into the irresistible future with Him" (My Utmost For His Highest. Dodd, Mead & Co. NY. 1935. P. 366).
God promised Israel, “But you will not go out in haste, Nor will you go as fugitives; For the LORD will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard (Isaiah 52: 12). We too can take comfort in knowing that our God will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
As we begin a new year, we can place ourselves-and all our yesterdays and tomorrows-safely in His care.
Not yesterday’s load we are called on to bear,
Nor the morrow's uncertain and shadowy care;
Why should we look forward or back with dismay?
Our needs, as our mercies, are but for each day. -Flint
[It is clear that the purpose of God includes the rebuilding of the temple. The most comforting word of all comes at the end, for God promises that—just as at the Exodus—He would protect this holy procession from both the front and the rear (Ex. 13:21–22; 14:19–20).]
IN CLOSING
If you walk with God today, you can be confident about tomorrow. When God comes for His people, they never have to run for their lives. They only have to move at His pace because He goes before and behind.
God will not abandon His ancient promises just because His people have sinned. His power to accomplish His purposes through the humility of His Servant would also be announced and looked into in the follow passages of Isaiah 52 & 53. Thus, the helpless, besieged people of God, and the fallen world itself await God’s final redemption. God has won the victory over the forces of evil and hate, oppression and cruelty. He has redeemed us from that bondage which has held us captive to that which is worst and basest in us. That is Good News. That is the Greatest News!
Let the messengers be sent out. Let them proclaim the Lord’s victory that whosoever will may come into His victorious eternal kingdom of truth and light to enjoy and celebrate God’s Conquering Servant, THE LORD OF LIFE.
