NOTES for Isa 56:1-12

The call to keep the Sabbath, that is, to devote part of one's life to standing prayerfully before God, is addressed here to those who until then had not been considered worthy of equal standing. Many prophetic appeals had already been made to show mercy to foreigners, those of alien origin, but now we also hear that God does not reject even eunuchs, those whom people were accustomed to regard as deficient not only physically but in every respect. Now the Lord proclaims that for Him there are no outcasts: all whom people reject for absurd reasons, however weighty those reasons may seem, are precious to Him, and He is ready to receive them all.

Several centuries will pass, and on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza Philip will meet an Ethiopian dignitary, both a foreigner and a eunuch in one person (Acts 8:26–39), who will become one of the first Gentiles to enter the Church. At that moment the Ethiopian will be reading the Book of Isaiah, the passage shortly before these very lines, which would appear after several more turns of the parchment scroll.