Today's reading touches on a question that is extremely important for understanding what the Kingdom is and what the people...
Today's reading touches on a question that is extremely important for understanding what the Kingdom is and what the people of God are. The view traditional for the era of Isaiah of Babylon came down to this: the people of God are the Jewish people, who, after all the trials that made them a cohesive ethnoreligious community, are by definition righteous and sanctified. Of course, these qualities were ascribed to the people as a whole, understood as a community that was not only national and religious, but also spiritual. It was thought that the unworthiness of individual members of the community in no way prevented the community as a whole from presenting an image of righteousness. Righteousness was perceived, in a certain sense, as an inherent quality of the community. As for everyone else, as well as some members of the community who were considered religiously deficient, such as eunuchs, the qualities of the community were thought not to extend to them. Even if, for example, a Gentile accepted Yahwism and became a Jew by entering the Synagogue (and Yahwism without the Synagogue was already unthinkable in those days), he was still not considered a full member of it; only his children, and sometimes his grandchildren, became such.
Isaiah, however, looks at this quite differently. Above all, this is because he understands that righteousness in principle cannot belong either to an individual person or to the community as a whole. Righteousness and judgment belong to God alone, and human righteousness and human judgment can at best be only a reflection of His righteousness (vv. 1-2). Only when a person becomes a witness and conduit of God's righteousness can he count on being justified on the day of Judgment and entering the Kingdom. Membership in the community alone is not enough; a certain quality of spiritual life is also needed, one given not by people but by God. And it can be given to anyone who seeks it, even to a person who, from the traditional point of view, is in no way fit for the Kingdom, such as that same eunuch or a foreigner who has no blood connection at all to the people of God, but who seeks the Kingdom and keeps righteousness (vv. 4-8).
Such a view of the people of God and of the Kingdom did not, of course, become understandable and acceptable to the Synagogue right away, although later the idea that Gentiles would begin actively joining the people of God with the coming of the Messiah prevailed in rabbinic tradition. But the full rightness of Isaiah of Babylon was revealed, of course, only with the coming of the Savior into the world.
56 The blessedness of the Godly without any respect of persons, Is 56:1-8.
Blind watchmen shall be destroyed, Is 56:9-12.
56:1 My salvation - That eminent salvation by the Messiah, and in which, without this you shall have no share. Is near - So the scripture often speaks of things which are at a great distance, as if they were present or at hand, Hab 2:3 Is 56, Jacq 5:8-9, Apoc 22:20. My righteousness - The same thing which he called salvation.
56:2 The man - Every man not only Jews but Gentiles, as it is explained in the following verses. The sabbath - The sabbath seems to be put here, as sacrifice is elsewhere, for the whole worship of God.
56:3 The stranger - The stranger, the Gentile, who by birth is a stranger to God, that hath turned from dumb idols to the living God.The eunuch - Who is here joined with the stranger, because he was forbidden to enter into the congregation of the Lord, Deut 23:1.Under these two instances he understands all those, who either by birth, or by any ceremonial pollution, were excluded from church privileges, and so he throws open the door to all true believers. A dry tree - A fruitless tree, accursed by God with the curse of barrenness.
56:4 Take hold - That stedfastly keep the conditions of my covenant.
56:5 In mine house - In my temple. Better - A far greater blessing and honour than that of having posterity, even my favour, and my spirit, and eternal felicity.
56:7 Mountain - To my house, which stood upon mount Zion.Joyful - By accepting their services, and comforting their hearts with the sense of my love. Accepted - They shall have as free access to mine house and altar, as the Jews themselves, and their services shall be as acceptable to me. Evangelical worship is here described under such expressions as agreed to the worship of God which then was in use.
56:8 The Lord - Who will gather to himself, and bring into their own land, those that are cast out of their own land. Yet - I will make a far more comprehensive gathering of the Gentiles.
56:9 Come - This is a prediction of Israel's destruction by their cruel enemies. The prophet having largely discoursed concerning the Messiah, and his kingdom, and having encouraged the Gentiles with God's gracious promises made to them, now proceeds to terrify the unbelieving Jews, and to shew that as the Gentiles would believe, and be saved, so they would reject their Messiah, and be destroyed.
56:10 His - Israel's. Watchmen - Priests and teachers; he mentions only the teachers, because ignorance was most shameful in them, but hereby he supposes the gross ignorance of the people.Bark - They are also slothful and negligent in instructing the people, and do not faithfully reprove them for their sins.
56:11 They look - They regard neither God's glory, nor the peoples good, but only the satisfaction of their own base desires. Quarter - In their several stations.
56:12 Say they - Unto their brethren, fellow - priests, or other jolly companions. Fill ourselves - We will drink not only to delight, but even to drunkenness, as the word signifies, which shews their dreadful security and contempt of God, and their abandoning of all care of their own or peoples souls.