Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Isaiah 2:1-5
Isaiah 2:2 is in fact repeated with minor variations in Micah 4:1. It is quite probable that Micah received the words from the master.
Analysis of Isaiah 2:1.
a The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:1).
b And it will come about in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh's house, will be established in the top of the mountains, and will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will flow to it (Isaiah 2:2).
c And many nations will go and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob. And He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths (Isaiah 2:3 a).
c For out of Zion will go forth the instruction, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem, and He will judge between the nations, and will reprove many peoples (Isaiah 2:3 b).
b And they will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war any more (Isaiah 2:4).
a O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of Yahweh (Isaiah 2:5).
Note that in ‘a' we have the word which Isaiah ‘sees' concerning ‘Judah and Jerusalem' and in the parallel the call for ‘the house of Jacob' to walk in Yahweh's light (which Isaiah has seen). In ‘b' Yahweh's Dwellingplace is exalted that the nations might flow to it, and in the parallel nation no longer lifts up sword against nation. In ‘c' many nations seek to Yahweh to learn His ways and walk in His paths (what Israel are singularly failing to do), and in the parallel, the word goes forth from Jerusalem and He judges between the nations.
But we may also see progression, as Yahweh is exalted before the nations, who flow towards His Dwellingplace in order that they might learn from Him, and the result is that His word goes forth from Jerusalem so that He rules over the nations and universal peace prevails.
‘The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.'
This heading suggests that at least some of Isaiah's prophecies were already in writing prior to their being brought together. It may cover the whole section to Isaiah 4:6 or even to Isaiah 5:30. As Isaiah believed that what he spoke was directly from God we would expect him to put it into writing. He considered that what he had to present was an enduring message from God, and the recording of it in writing would serve to confirm this fact.
The Glorious Vision (Isaiah 2:2).
‘And it will come about in the latter days,
That the mountain of Yahweh's house,
Will be established in the top of the mountains,
And will be exalted above the hills,
And all nations will flow to it.'
‘In the latter days' signifies a long distance forward, and an undefined period, referring to the days when things will begin to come to their consummation. The prophets never doubted that in the end there would be a glorious future for the true remnant among the people of God. It had to be so for they knew that God would necessarily bring about His final purposes, and would become All in All.
In fact the New Testament writers all saw themselves as being in these ‘latter days'. They saw them as beginning with the coming of Jesus and the sending forth of the Holy Spirit, for they saw these latter days as being the days of the Messiah and the days of the infusion of the Spirit as constantly promised by God (Acts 2:16; Acts 2:36; compare 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 1:2; Heb 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20; 1 Peter 4:7; James 4:8; 2 Peter 3:3 which in context he was applying to his own day although recognising it could last over a thousand years; 1 John 2:18; Jude 1:18).
Note that the description here is not strictly geographical but exalted. The mountain site of Yahweh's earthly dwelling is to be raised up and made pre-eminent. It will tower over the mountains. All other mountains and hills will be below it, and all the nations who seek Him will flow upwards to it. It should be noted that this is not the exaltation of Jerusalem, it is the exaltation of Yahweh in His house, and is deliberately paradoxical. And as though they were great rivers the nations will flow upwards, contrary to nature, drawn up to Him. Note how this latter promise demonstrates that not only the remnant of Israel, but also the remnant of all nations would seek Yahweh.
The vision should not be taken pedantically. This is no ordinary mountain, and no ordinary result. It is the mountain of Yahweh's house that is lifted up, not Jerusalem. The other mountains and hills are clearly the lands of the nations, while the rivers flowing upwards represent their life-blood, their peoples (as the great rivers were the life-bloods of nations). The thought has in mind the responsive people of all nations who are thus connected with the river of life. So God's house is exalted in order that all may see His glory and all may come to Him. We can appreciate from the picture why Paul spoke of ‘the Jerusalem which is above' (Galatians 4:26), and Hebrews speaks of ‘Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem' (Hebrews 12:22). Our eyes should not be towards Jerusalem, but towards God's heavenly Dwellingplace (1 Kings 8:27).
But the nations saw their mountains as the homes of the gods. That is why worship took place at the high places which were originally on mountains, and many of their temples would be built on mountains, or, like the ziggurats, be designed to represent mountains. Thus the subservience of all the mountains to the mountain of Yahweh indicates the subservience of all their gods, and they are then left behind by the peoples in the upward flow of the responsive among those peoples to God. God is being raised above all that He might draw all to Him (compare Ephesians 1:19 where the idea is put in New Testament terms. See also John 12:32). The ‘mountain of Yahweh' can be compared with the ‘heavenly places' of Paul.
That Isaiah connects this with Jerusalem in some way the next verse makes clear, but Jerusalem is significantly not mentioned as being raised along with Yahweh's house. Jerusalem is rather the place from which God's dwellingplace is raised up and from which the testimony will then go out, a testimony which will point to the exalting of the house of Yahweh, which has been raised above all things, and from there they will take Yahweh's instruction to the world. Jesus may well have had Isaiah 2:2 in mind when He spoke of the Temple of His body, which after three days would be raised up (John 2:19; John 2:21).
Note the careful wording. The instruction of Yahweh, and the word of Yahweh, go out from Zion/Jerusalem, but the message itself points to the exalted house of Yahweh on the mountain of Yahweh, raised above all mountains and hills, with the nations flowing to Him and His mountain, not to Jerusalem as such, (although closely connected in Isaiah's mind with Jerusalem) that He may teach them His ways.
Ezekiel in chapter 40 onwards expanded this vision. He described the heavenly temple coming down on ‘a very high mountain' some distance away from Jerusalem in ‘the holy portion' away from the city (Ezekiel 45:1). For to him Jerusalem had been defiled and was no longer fit to be seen as the place where Yahweh dwelt. And he sees the rivers flowing out from the temple to bring life to the world (Ezekiel 47). None of these descriptions must be pressed too literally. They were speaking of God's final triumphal activity without trying to define it too closely. It was in the end beyond their (and our) understanding. God was finally to be sought in a place exalted beyond and above the earthly Jerusalem. ‘The hour comes when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father -- for the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such does the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth' (John 4:19).
‘And many nations will go and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh,
To the house of the God of Jacob.
And he will teach us of his ways,
And we will walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion will go forth the instruction,
And the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem,
And he will judge between the nations,
And will reprove many peoples,
And they will beat their swords into ploughshares,
And their spears into pruninghooks.
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
Nor will they learn war any more.'
It is now emphasised that many nations will then seek to Yahweh. But it is to His ways and His paths that they will seek, and they will go to the exalted mountain on which is the house of Yahweh. They are not said to be strictly seeking to Jerusalem. They are seeking to a higher than Jerusalem, they are seeking to the exalted Lord.
On the other hand they do recognise quite specifically that they are seeking to ‘the God of Jacob'. They recognise that their blessing must come to them through the God of the fathers, the God of Israel, through the Abrahamic covenant as confirmed to Jacob (Genesis 12:3 as confirmed to Jacob in Isaiah 28:14), Who has been highly exalted. Thus those blessings must therefore first come to them through God's chosen people, His nation of priests (Exodus 19:6), the people of the God of Jacob, and that is why Zion/Jerusalem is now described as the place from which that truth will go out to the world.
This idealised vision may well have been in Jesus' mind when He informed the woman of Samaria that salvation was of the Jews (the house of Jacob), but that in the future worship even the mountain of Jerusalem would be replaced (John 4:19).
Such a reaching out with God's instruction did begin when the witness of Israel, dispersed by exile, resulted in many Gentiles turning to the God of Israel, and centuries later His truth would even more powerfully stream out into the world through the followers of Jesus, reaching out from Jerusalem to the ends of the world (Acts 1:8), as they pointed to their exalted Lord. So Jerusalem would indeed be the starting point of the blessing, proclaiming the exalted Lord Who was Himself raised over the nations.
And all this is finally to result in God's universal rule. He will act as Judge over the nations, the One Who is the final Authority and Determiner of justice, and as the Arbiter who advises and reproves. The result will be universal peace and total cessation of war. Weapons will be turned into instruments for good, and used to provide for the needs of the world. Heaven has no need of weapons. All will be under Him. His everlasting kingdom of peace will finally have come.
The Davidic king is here kept in the background. But his presence would be assumed to be in Jerusalem, and is later exemplified in Isaiah 9:6. It would be assumed that it would be through him as Yahweh's anointed that Yahweh would dispense his justice and reproof. This is made abundantly clear elsewhere (e.g. 2 Samuel 7:8; Psalms 2; Psalms 89:19).
So the whole picture is that of the presentation of the coming of the future everlasting kingdom in terms that Isaiah and the people could to some extent understand and appreciate, symbolised in the exalting of the mountain of the house of Yahweh above all mountains, with Jerusalem, at least initially, its connecting point to earth. The extravagant language and conceptions should warn us against taking it too literally, for it is ‘the mountain of Yahweh's house' that is being exalted rather than Jerusalem. Taking it too literally would later lead to the idea of the inviolability of the temple on the Temple Mount, which led Israel astray, and many later superstitions about Jerusalem, which even affect people today.
To us the vision goes even deeper. For we are aware that the mountain of Yahweh's house has been exalted even to heaven, and that the word of Yahweh continues to go out from that heavenly temple, of which we are a part, through His people, and that one day in the new heaven and the new earth (see Isaiah 66:22) all will come under His sway and wars and fightings will be no more.
NOTE. There are some who rather prosaically simply equate ‘mountain of Yahweh's house' and ‘mountain of Yahweh' with ‘Zion' and ‘Jerusalem' as though Isaiah was just using four expressions for the same place. But as we have suggested above we do not consider this permissible in this case. For ‘the mountain of Yahweh's house' is here mentioned as synonymous with ‘the mountain of Yahweh' and ‘the house of the God of Jacob', with stress on its being uniquely exalted. The stress is on Yahweh, His mountain and His house, seen as one together, being raised and exalted, not on the mountain as simply a geographical place connected with a city, but as raised so as to connect with Heaven. It is an exalted vision. Compare, ‘I dwell in the high and holy place with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite' (Isaiah 57:15). Furthermore if we do simply insist on equating such terms we would actually make it impossible for Isaiah to express anything distinctive, whereas he is clearly striving to do precisely that here. Prophetic declarations go beyond the pedantic. Compare Isaiah 66:1 and the vision of Solomon in 1 Kings 8:27.
The ancient name of Zion, could be applied to both the holy mount and to Jerusalem, and often was, and Jerusalem was undoubtedly closely associated with Mount Zion, and Mount Zion with Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 24:23). But this was because His people in their great city, which was built on more than one mountain, were seen as closely connected with Yahweh in His holy mountain. ‘Mount Zion' in its use is not the equivalent of Zion. ‘Zion' had ceased to be simply the name of one particular mountain, and had become rather the name of a place connected with that mountain, and indeed came also to mean the people when in a far land (Zechariah 2:7). But ‘Mount Zion' was especially the place where God had His earthly dwellingplace (and in Hebrews 12:22 had become heavenly). It was ‘the city' to which Abraham looked (Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:16).
So in Isaiah 2 it is the mountain as related to Yahweh, ‘the place where Yahweh dwells' (see Isaiah 8:18; Psalms 74:2), that is being exalted, not the city of Jerusalem, for although they were seen as closely associated they were not synonymous. It was the error of seeing them as one that resulted in the false doctrine of the inviolability of Jerusalem which was so solidly refuted by Nebuchadnezzar (and later by Titus) in practical fashion.
Indeed ‘Mount Zion' became as much an idea as a place, as the New Testament makes even clearer (Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 14:1). Even the Psalmist could say that it could not be moved but abode for ever (Psalms 125:1). Israel knew full well that no temple and no mountain could contain Yahweh of hosts. Solomon stated quite baldly, ‘Will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold heaven, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You, how much less this house that I have built' (1 Kings 8:27 compare Isaiah 66:1). So as a concept it was in Jerusalem and yet not in Jerusalem. It was the place of contact between earth and heaven. See Isaiah 66:1.
‘Mount Zion' is the place where God will manifest Himself because it is both His heavenly and His earthly dwellingplace (Isaiah 4:5), and is described as ‘the place where Yahweh dwells' (Isaiah 8:18). It was His earthly dwellingplace because the temple was on Mount Zion, but when it is so used it is not just being used as the equivalent of Jerusalem. It is being so used because of the presence of the temple, which was seen as representing a greater Dwellingplace, and a greater Mount Zion (consider Micah 4:7; 1 Kings 8:27). In the same way here in Isaiah it is Yahweh's house that is being exalted not the city. There are no grounds for simply equating ‘the mountain of Yahweh's house' with ‘Zion' and ‘Jerusalem' when used as here (although it is possibly done in Psalms 48:2, but then the emphasis is on it as the city of the Great King). It is to miss the way that those such as Isaiah thought. Ezekiel would take it one step further. He removed the mountain of Yahweh's house from Jerusalem altogether (Ezekiel 45:1). End of Note.
The Appeal To Respond (Isaiah 2:5).
‘O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of Yahweh.'
This parallels the ‘come' of the nations (Isaiah 2:3). If the nations are to ‘come' to be blessed by the God of Jacob, then the house of Jacob must first ‘come' to walk in His light. This is the first imperative. They must let the light of His instruction shine on them (Isaiah 8:20; Psalms 43:3; Psalms 119:105) so that they might then themselves be a light to the nations (Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 58:8; Isaiah 60:1). Indeed to walk in the light of Yahweh is to walk, not only in the light of His instruction, but in the presence of the One Who is the glorious and all prevailing light (Psalms 27:1) from whom His own may receive inner strength (Psalms 27:1). So Isaiah pleads with his people to respond fully to Yahweh so that together with him they might fulfil their divinely appointed function as a holy priesthood to the nations, and be the source of His Instruction flowing out to the world.
Notice his use of ‘us'. Ever aware of his own sinfulness (Isaiah 6:5), but also conscious of God's mercy in forgiveness, he longs that they may join with him in his walk with Yahweh and in bringing Yahweh to the nations.
This call also comes to us to walk in the light of Christ (1 John 1:7), asking that His light may shine on us daily, revealing the hidden things, so that we may bring them to Him for cleansing and forgiveness and walk in newness of life. We are to walk as children of light (Ephesians 4:17; Ephesians 5:8)