God tells a defeated city to get up and shine at the exact moment He announces that darkness is covering the earth. Not afterwards. At the same time — and that is the whole point of the chapter.
A study in Isaiah 60 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 14 min read
Arise, Shine
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.”
Isaiah 60:1, 2
Read those two verses in the order Isaiah wrote them and something strange emerges.
Verse 1 is a command to shine. Verse 2 begins with for — the word that introduces the reason — and the reason given is that darkness is covering the earth.
That is not how we usually think about it. We assume the sequence runs: things improve, the pressure lifts, and then God’s people become visible again. Isaiah puts it the other way round. Arise and shine, because it is getting dark.
And the darkness is described twice over, in case the first word was not enough. Darkness covers the earth; gross darkness the people — a thicker word, the kind of dark you can feel. This is not a dimming. It is the sort of night in which nothing is visible at all.
Which is precisely why the command makes sense. A light is not less useful in deeper darkness. It is only then that anyone can tell it is a light. A lamp lit at noon is a curiosity. The same lamp at midnight is the only thing in the room that matters, and the darker the room the further it is seen.
Ellen White read this verse as addressed to the present, not the past:
“The message to God’s people today is: ‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.’”
Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7, p. 62
Thy Light Is Come
Now look closely at the reason clause inside verse 1, because there is a tense in it that changes the whole command.
Thy light is come. Not will come. Not may come, if you shine well enough. It has already arrived. The glory is risen — past tense, done.
So the command is not generate light. Nobody in this chapter is asked to produce anything. The command is to get up and be seen carrying what has already been given.
That distinction is the difference between a workable Christian life and an exhausting one. A great deal of religious effort is spent trying to manufacture a glow, and it does not work, because the light was never ours to make. Notice what verse 2 says the onlookers actually see: “the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.” Upon. It rests on her like sunlight on a wall. The wall is not burning.
And who arrives because of it?
“And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
Isaiah 60:3
Nobody is sent out in this chapter. They come. In a dark enough world, a lit thing does its own advertising.
Gold And Incense
“The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD.”
Isaiah 60:6
Camels out of the desert, from Sheba, carrying gold and incense to a child of Israel. Anyone who has sung a Christmas carol knows where this is going — and it is worth going there carefully, because the tradition has added things the Bible did not.
“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”
Matthew 2:11
The connection is real: gold and incense arriving from the east, brought by foreigners who came because of a light. Matthew is writing with Isaiah 60 open.
But be precise about what Matthew says and does not say. He does not call the visitors kings — Isaiah 60:3 mentions kings, and the tradition has read that verse back into the gospel. He does not say there were three of them; there were three gifts, and the number of men is never given. And he does not put them at the manger: “when they were come into the house” and “the young child” place the visit some time later.
None of that weakens the point. It strengthens it, because the thing Isaiah actually predicted did happen: outsiders with no covenant, no priesthood and no claim came a long way with expensive gifts because a light appeared over Israel. That is exactly the chapter’s argument, and it needs no help from the carols.
Thy Gates Shall Be Open Continually
“Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.”
Isaiah 60:11
To a city in the ancient world, this sentence is close to nonsense. Gates were shut at dusk. That was what gates were for. An open gate at night meant either extraordinary security or extraordinary foolishness.
John saw the same city, and gave the reason Isaiah did not:
“And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there… And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.”
Revelation 21:25, 26
Isaiah says the gates stay open day nor night; John says there is no night to shut them for. And both give the same reason for the traffic: things are being brought in.
The gates are not open because the danger was survived. They are open because there is no longer anything to keep out.
For Brass I Will Bring Gold
“For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness.”
Isaiah 60:17
Four exchanges, and every one of them moves up: brass becomes gold, iron becomes silver, wood becomes brass, stones become iron. Even the bottom of the list improves. Nothing in the city stays the material it was.
Then the line that lifts the verse out of architecture: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness.
An exactor is a tax collector — the man who takes things from you because he can. Isaiah does not say the exactors will be replaced by better men, or retrained, or held to account. He says their name will be righteousness. The office that existed to extract will be occupied by the thing it used to lack.
The next verse finishes the thought by renaming the defences themselves:
“Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.”
Isaiah 60:18
A wall called Salvation and a gate called Praise. The two structures a city builds out of fear are renamed after the two things it does when the fear is over.
The Sun Shall Be No More Thy Light
“The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”
Isaiah 60:19, 20
The chapter began with a command to shine in the dark. It ends by abolishing the dark.
And John, writing seven centuries later about the same city, says it twice:
“And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”
Revelation 21:23
“And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
Revelation 22:5
John adds one word Isaiah could not: the Lamb. Isaiah knew the light would be the LORD Himself; John names which person of the Godhead is holding the lamp, and it is the one who was killed.
Notice also the clause tucked into the end of Isaiah 60:20 — “and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” Not your mourning was unfounded. Not you should not have grieved. There were days of mourning, they were real, they are counted, and they are now over. God does not tell His people that the grief was a mistake. He tells them it has an end date.
I The LORD Will Hasten It In His Time
“A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time.”
Isaiah 60:22
The chapter closes on a sentence that seems to argue with itself, and the tension in it is deliberate.
I will hasten it — God is in a hurry. In his time — and He is not early.
Both halves are needed, and most of us hold only one. Those who are impatient hear hasten and conclude that any delay must be somebody’s fault. Those who are resigned hear in his time and conclude that nothing they do matters. Isaiah puts the two in one clause and refuses to separate them: God is not slow about this, and He is also not going to do it before it is time.
And look at what is being hastened. A little one shall become a thousand. The promise is not made to something impressive. It is made to whatever is small — which is where God’s work has begun every single time, and which is worth remembering by anyone looking at a very small light and a very great deal of gross darkness.
The command at the top of the chapter is still the command. Get up. You are already carrying it.
