13 And all your builders will be made wise by the Lord; and great will be the peace of your children.
The writings of the prophets say, And they will all have teaching from God. Everyone whose ears have been open to the teaching of the Father comes to me.
Great peace have lovers of your law; they have no cause for falling.
And the peace of God, which is deeper than all knowledge, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
For which reason, because we have righteousness through faith, let us be at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
And no longer will they be teaching every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for they will have my forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin will go from my memory for ever.
I have said all these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble: but take heart! I have overcome the world.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will be your teacher in all things and will put you in mind of everything I have said to you. May peace be with you; my peace I give to you: I give it not as the world gives. Let not your heart be troubled; let it be without fear.
Now may the God of hope make you full of joy and peace through faith, so that all hope may be yours in the power of the Holy Spirit.
But God has given us the revelation of these things through his Spirit, for the Spirit makes search into all things, even the deep things of God.
If in fact you gave ear to him, and were given teaching in him, even as what is true is made clear in Jesus:
But about loving the brothers, there is no need for me to say anything to you in this letter: for you have the teaching of God that love for one another is right and necessary;
And you have the Spirit from the Holy One and you all have knowledge.
As for you, the Spirit which he gave you is still in you, and you have no need of any teacher; but as his Spirit gives you teaching about all things, and is true and not false, so keep your hearts in him, through the teaching which he has given you.
Good and upright is the Lord: so he will be the teacher of sinners in the way. He will be an upright guide to the poor in spirit: he will make his way clear to them. All the ways of the Lord are mercy and good faith for those who keep his agreement and his witness. Because of your name, O Lord, let me have forgiveness for my sin, which is very great. If a man has the fear of the Lord, the Lord will be his teacher in the way of his pleasure.
In that same hour he was full of joy in the Holy Spirit and said, I give praise to you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have kept these things secret from the wise and the men of learning, and have made them clear to little children: for so, O Father, it was pleasing in your eyes. All things have been given to me by my Father: and no one has knowledge of the Son, but only the Father: and of the Father, but only the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear.
At that time Jesus made answer and said, I give praise to you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have kept these things secret from the wise and the men of learning, and have made them clear to little children. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing in your eyes. All things have been given to me by my Father; and no one has knowledge of the Son, but the Father; and no one has knowledge of the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear. Come to me, all you who are troubled and weighted down with care, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and become like me, for I am gentle and without pride, and you will have rest for your souls;
And in that day I will make an agreement for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven and the things which go low on the earth; I will put an end to the bow and the sword and war in all the land, and will make them take their rest in peace.
And their goods will no longer be taken by the nations, and they will not again be food for the beasts of the earth; but they will be living safely and no one will be a cause of fear to them.
And I will make with them an agreement of peace, and will put an end to evil beasts through all the land: and they will be living safely in the waste land, sleeping in the woods.
For you will go out with joy, and be guided in peace: the mountains and the hills will make melody before you, and all the trees of the fields will make sounds of joy.
Till the spirit comes on us from on high, and the waste land becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field is changed into a wood. Then in the waste land there will be an upright rule, and righteousness will have its place in the fertile field. And the work of righteousness will be peace; and the effect of an upright rule will be to take away fear for ever. And my people will be living in peace, in houses where there is no fear, and in quiet resting-places.
There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain: for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters.
And the peoples will say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will give us knowledge of his ways, and we will be guided by his word; for out of Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 54
Commentary on Isaiah 54 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 54
The death of Christ is the life of the church and of all that truly belong to it; and therefore very fitly, after the prophet had foretold the sufferings of Christ, he foretels the flourishing of the church, which is a part of his glory, and that exaltation of him which was the reward of his humiliation: it was promised him that he should see his seed, and this chapter is an explication of that promise. It may easily be granted that it has a primary reference to the welfare and prosperity of the Jewish church after their return out of Babylon, which (as other things that happened to them) was typical of the glorious liberty of the children of God, which through Christ we are brought into; yet it cannot be denied but that it has a further and principal reference to the gospel church, into which the Gentiles were to be admitted. And the first words being understood by the apostle Paul of the New-Testament Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26, 27) may serve as a key to the whole chapter and that which follows. It is here promised concerning the Christian church,
Isa 54:1-5
If we apply this to the state of the Jews after their return out of captivity, it is a prophecy of the increase of their nation after they were settled in their own land. Jerusalem had been in the condition of a wife written childless, or a desolate solitary widow; but now it is promised that the city should be replenished and the country peopled again, that not only the ruins of Jerusalem should be repaired, but the suburbs of it extended on all sides and a great many buildings erected upon new foundations,-that those estates which had for many years been wrongfully held by the Babylonian Gentiles should now return to the right owners. God will again be a husband to them, and the reproach of their captivity, and the small number to which they were then reduced, shall be forgotten. And it is to be observed that, by virtue of the ancient promise made to Abraham of the increase of his seed, when they were restored to God's favour they multiplied greatly. Those that first came out of Babylon were but 42,000 (Ezra 2:64), about a fifteenth part of their number when they came out of Egypt; many came dropping to them afterwards, but we may suppose that to be the greatest number that ever came in a body; and yet above 500 years after, a little before their destruction by the Romans, a calculation was made by the number of the paschal lambs, and the lowest computation by that rule (allowing only ten to a lamb, whereas they might be twenty) made the nation to be nearly three millions. Josephus says, seven and twenty hundred thousand and odd, Jewish War 6.425. But we must apply it to the church of God in general; I mean the kingdom of God among men, God's city in the world, the children of God incorporated. Now observe,
Isa 54:6-10
The seasonable succour and relief which God sent to his captives in Babylon, when they had a discharge from their bondage there, are here foretold, as a type and figure of all those consolations of God which are treasured up for the church in general and all believers in particular, in the covenant of grace.
Isa 54:11-17
Very precious promises are here made to the church in her low condition, that God would not only continue his love to his people under their troubles as before, but that he would restore them to their former prosperity, nay, that he would raise them to greater prosperity than any they had yet enjoyed. In the foregoing chapter we had the humiliation and exaltation of Christ; here we have the humiliation and exaltation of the church; for, if we suffer with him, we shall reign with him. Observe,
The last words refer not only to this promise, but to all that go before: This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. God's servants are his sons, for he has provided an inheritance for them, rich, sure, and indefeasible. God's promises are their heritage for ever (Ps. 119:111); and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. God will clear up the righteousness of their cause before men. It is with him, for he knows it; it is with him, for he will plead it. Or their reward for their righteousness, and for all that which they have suffered unrighteously, is of God, that God who judges in the earth, and with whom verily there is a reward for the righteous. Or their righteousness itself, all that in them which is good and right, is of God, who works it in them; it is of Christ who is made righteousness to them. In those for whom God designs a heritage hereafter he will work righteousness now.