NOTES for Isa 60:1-22
Today's reading brings us back again to the image of messianic Jerusalem. And once again before us is the two-level character that is generally typical of this image as it appears in the preaching of Isaiah of Babylon. On the one hand, Jerusalem is a quite real earthly city, a city flourishing and triumphant (vv. 4-17). Of course, concrete history is also before us here: after Cyrus's decree, Jerusalem really was restored by the repatriates who returned to Judea and later became a wealthy and prosperous city. But earthly, historical Jerusalem never knew wealth and power like those described in today's passage. Then it becomes clear that the subject is not only Jerusalem as a purely historical reality.
This becomes even clearer when the prophet mentions realities that quite obviously cannot exist in any earthly city. One such mention is Isaiah's statement that in the new Jerusalem a different, spiritual light replaces sunlight, and God Himself becomes its source (vv. 19-20). These words of the prophet echo the words of Isaiah of Jerusalem, who, speaking about messianic times, also mentions radiant glory, the presence of God that turns night into day (Isa. 4:3-5). The messianic kingdom is evidently revealed to the prophet as the earthly world transformed by the action of the Spirit of God, living according to other laws, unthinkable for the present fallen world.
But another point is no less interesting: this new Jerusalem is contrasted with the entire rest of the world, as light is contrasted with darkness (vv. 1-3). This contrast is no longer simply a contrast between the righteous and the wicked or between the people of God and the pagan world. Here the matter concerns events on a universal, cosmic scale. The prophet, it appears, was shown that the world stands opposed to the Kingdom, and that with the coming of the Messiah, which marks the beginning of this Kingdom, the confrontation with the world will not end by itself, but, on the contrary, will only intensify.
Of course, Isaiah says nothing about the long stage by which the Kingdom enters the world; the time for such revelations had not yet come. But he saw one thing clearly: the Kingdom is a reality that enters the world and transforms it, despite the resistance of those forces that do not want this transformation.