Isaiah 26:1-21--You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

Isaiah 26
English Standard Version

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace
26 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;
    he sets up salvation
    as walls and bulwarks.
2 Open the gates,
    that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
3 You keep him in perfect peace
    whose mind is stayed on you,
    because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in the LORD forever,
    for the LORD God is an everlasting rock.
5 For he has humbled
    the inhabitants of the height,
    the lofty city.
He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,
    casts it to the dust.
6 The foot tramples it,
    the feet of the poor,
    the steps of the needy.”

7 The path of the righteous is level;
    you make level the way of the righteous.
8 In the path of your judgments,
    O LORD, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
    are the desire of our soul.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
    my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
    the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 If favor is shown to the wicked,
    he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
    and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
11 O LORD, your hand is lifted up,
    but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.
    Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
12 O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
    for you have indeed done for us all our works.
13 O LORD our God,
    other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
14 They are dead, they will not live;
    they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end you have visited them with destruction
    and wiped out all remembrance of them.
15 But you have increased the nation, O LORD,
    you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
    you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

16 O LORD, in distress they sought you;
    they poured out a whispered prayer
    when your discipline was upon them.
17 Like a pregnant woman
    who writhes and cries out in her pangs
    when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O LORD;
18     we were pregnant, we writhed,
    but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
    and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
    You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light,
    and the earth will give birth to the dead.

20 Come, my people, enter your chambers,
    and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
    until the fury has passed by.
21 For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place
    to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
    and will no more cover its slain.

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The righteous will sing a song of salvation and about the blessings that the LORD has given to them in that Day.  While the city is walled showing that no one will have unauthorized access, its gates are always open.  This is because there are no enemies or predators of any kind, and it will never be night.  The LORD has humiliated and trampled underfoot the proud, but He has given grace to and exalted those who were humble.

The LORD was longsuffering with the wicked and using His hand of correction to try to bring them to repentance, but many of them refused this kindness and mercy.  The LORD has made all the wrongs right and brings equity to all in His Kingdom--all the paths of the righteous are straight and level.  He has ordained peace for His people.  However, it is the name of the LORD and His presence that we cherish the most.  The blessings and peace that He brings are secondary to His presence that we enjoy the fullness of forever and ever.  He does all these things for His glory and for our good, but mostly for His glory and His good pleasure.

Right now, it feels like the people of God are in anguish--like a mother getting ready to deliver her baby who is in the throes of her contractions.  The delivery (deliverance) will come soon--the contractions that cause so much pain are a sign of this.  In the same way, we greatly long for and desire to see the LORD as that mother desires to see her baby, though we are not in any way providing our own deliverance.  He will deliver us--even the dead in Christ will be raised to eternal life with Him and will be delivered. Both judgment and blessing are coming soon.  We need only wait upon the LORD and His perfect timing.  Isaiah may make it sound like we should shut ourselves up in our houses and wait for it, but we know that the Lord has given us a commission to be His ambassadors here and now.  We should be about the task of rescuing the perishing before it is too late for them.