Isaiah 60:20

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

60:15-22 We must look for the full accomplishment in times and things, exceeding those of the Old Testament church. The nations and their kings shall lay themselves out for the good of the church. Such a salvation, such a redemption, shall be wrought out for thee, as discovers itself to be the work of the Lord. Every thing shall be changed for the better. In thy land shall no more be heard threats of those that do violence, nor complaints of those that suffer violence. Thy walls shall be means of safety, thy gates shall be written upon with praises to God. In the close of this chapter are images and expressions used in the description of the New Jerusalem, Re 21:23; 22:5. Nothing can answer to this but some future glorious state of the church on earth, or the state of the church triumphant in heaven. Those that make God their only light, shall have him their all-sufficient light. And the happiness shall know no change or alloy. No people on earth are all righteous; but there are no mixtures in heaven. They shall be wholly righteous. The spirits of just men shall there be made perfect. The glory of the church shall be to the honour of God. When it shall be finished, it will appear a work of wonder. It may seem too difficult to be brought about, but the God of almighty power has undertaken it. It may seem to be delayed and put off; but the Lord will hasten it in the time appointed by his wisdom, though not in the time prescribed by our folly. Let this hope cheer us under all difficulties, and stir us up to all diligence, that we may have an abundant entrance into this everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thy sun shall no more go down - There shall be no total and long night of calamity, error, and sin. This is designed to describe the flourishing and glorious state of the church. It, of course, does not mean that there should be no times of calamity, no period of ignorance, no scenes of persecution; but it means that there should not be total night. Truth should reign on the earth, and there never would be a time when the light of salvation would be extinct. There never would be a time like that when Jerusalem was wholly destroyed, and a long total night came over the land. There never would be a time when the Sun of righteousness would not shine, or when the world would be wholly deprived of the illumination of his beams. The church would be perpetual. It would live through all changes, and survive all revolutions, and to the end of time the light of salvation would shine upon a darkened world. Since the Messiah came the light of revelation has never been wholly withdrawn from the world, nor has there been a period in which total and absolute night has come over all the church of God. But the prophet, probably, referred to far more glorious times than have yet occurred. The period is coming when the light of salvation will shine upon the earth with unclouded and universal splendor, as if the sun having ascended to the meridian should stand there in a blaze of glory age after age; when there shall be no alternation of day and night when the light shall not be obscured by clouds; and when there shall be no eclipse of his glory.

Neither shall thy moon - This language is poetic, and means that there would be no such obscurity in the church as there would be in the world should the sun and moon be withdrawn. Light and beauty unobscured would fill the whole heavens, and the darkness of night would be henceforward unknown.

Withdraw itself - Hebrew, יאסף yē'âsēp - 'Be collected,' that is, shall not be withdrawn, or shall not wane. The Septuagint, Οὐκ ἐκλείψει Ouk ekleipsei - 'Shall not be eclipsed,' or shall not fail.

The days of thy mourning - (See the notes at Isaiah 25:8). The description here, therefore, is one of great glory and happiness in the church. That period will yet arrive; and no friend of God and of the happiness of man can think of that time without praying most sincerely that it may soon come, when the Sun of righteousness, in the fullness of his glory, shall ascend to the meridian, and stand there without one obscuring cloud, and pour the splendor of the noontide beams all over a darkened world. Some of the ideas in this chapter, descriptive of the glorious times of the gospel, have been beautifully versified by Pope in his Messiah:

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!

Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thy eyes!

See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;

See future sons and daughters yet unborn,

In crowding ranks on every side arise,

Demanding life, impatient for the skies!

See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,

Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend:

See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,

And heap'd with products of Sabcan springs!

continued...

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. There shall be no national and spiritual obscuration again as formerly (Joe 2:10; Am 8:9).

mourning … ended—(Isa 25:8; Re 21:4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Literally he means the Jews’ mourning in Babylon, but especially the uninterrupted happiness of the church: the Hebrew here for

ended signifies recompensed; their days of rejoicing shall abundantly recompense all their days of mourning.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thy sun shall no more go down,.... This is a different sun from the former; this is the church's sun, and no other than the sun of righteousness, Christ Jesus; who has his risings and settings now, at least, in the apprehensions of his people; he sometimes withdraws himself, and is gone; and then returns again: but so it will not be in this state: the saints shall be for ever with him, and he shall be for ever with them; who will always behold his glory, and be enlightened by him; see 1 Thessalonians 4:16,

neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; or, "shall not be gathered" (i), under a cloud; or "fail" (k), as the Septuagint version; or, "suffer a defect", as the Arabic version; as the moon does when in the wane, or is eclipsed. This may refer to this then present state of the church, which shall not fail; and to the blessings and comforts of it from Christ the sun, which will not cease, the enjoyment of them be ever interrupted. The Targum is,

"thy kingdom shall cease no more, and thy glory shall not be removed;''

and so Maimonides (l) interprets it of the kingdom of the Messiah, that shall endure for ever:

for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light; this is repeated for the confirmation of it:

and the days of thy mourning shall be ended (m); or, "completed"; shall be fully up, and so at an end: or, "shall be recompensed" (n); with an everlasting day of joy and pleasure; there will now be no more sin to distress the saints; no more temptations of Satan to annoy them; no more afflictions either of body or mind to trouble them; no more pain, or crying, or death; and so no more mourning; sorrow and sighing will flee away; all tears will be wiped from their eyes; and everlasting joy be upon their heads; see Revelation 21:4.

(i) "non colligetur", Montanus, Vitringa; "vel recolligetur", Vatablus; "occultabitur", Munster, Tigurine version. (k) , Sept. "deficiet", Pagninus. (l) Moreh Nevochim, par. 2. c. 29. p. 263. (m) "completi erunt", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "completisunt", Vitringa. (n) "Compensabuntur", Tigurine version.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. the days of thy mourning] Cf. ch. Isaiah 57:18, Isaiah 61:2.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - Thy sun... thy moon. That which is to thee instead of sun and moon - Jehovah's brightness. The days of thy mourning shall be ended. Till the new Jerusalem descends from heaven (Revelation 21:2), and Christ reigns personally over his people (Revelation 22:5), the Church is always, more or less, in a state of mourning. The Bridegroom is away (Matthew 9:15); his light shines upon his Church only by snatches; his Church feels itself unworthy of him - cold, unloving, stained with sin. Fasting, weeping, and mourning befit such a state of things. But in the final condition of the redeemed their mourning shall be ended, "sorrow and sighing shall have fled away" (Isaiah 35:10); God shall have "wiped away all tears from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4); "There shall be no more death" (Revelation 21:4); "no more curse" (Revelation 22:3); "neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). The days of mourning shall be ended. Isaiah 60:20

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The fifth turn celebrates the glorifying of Jerusalem, through the shining of Jehovah as its everlasting light and through the form of its ever-growing membership, which is so well-pleasing to God. The prophecy returns to the thought with which it set out, and by which the whole is regulated, viz., that Jerusalem will be light. This leading thought is now unfolded in the most majestic manner, and opened up in all its eschatological depth. "The sun will be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness will the moon shine upon thee: Jehovah will be to thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun will no more go down, and thy moon will not be withdrawn; for Jehovah will be to thee an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning will be fulfilled." Although, in the prophet's view, the Jerusalem of the period of glory in this world and the Jerusalem of the eternal glory beyond flow into one another; the meaning of this prophecy is not that the sun and moon will no longer exist. Even of the Jerusalem which is not to be built by Israel with the help of converted heathen, but which comes down from heaven to earth, the seer in Revelation 21:23 merely says, that the city needs neither the shining of the sun nor of the moon (as the Targum renders the passage before us, "thou wilt not need the shining of the sun by day"), for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof, i.e., God Himself is instead of a sun to her, and the Lamb instead of a moon. Consequently we do not agree with Stier, who infers from this passage that "there is a final new creation approaching, when there will be no more turning round into the shadow (James 1:17), when the whole planetary system, including the earth, will be changed, and when the earth itself will become a sun, yea, will become even more than that, in the direct and primary light which streams down upon it from God Himself." We rather agree with Hofmann, that "there will still be both sun and moon, but the Holy Place will be illuminated without interruption by the manifestation of the presence of God, which outshines all besides." The prophet has here found the most complete expression, for that which has already been hinted at in such prophecies in Isaiah 4:5; Isaiah 30:26; Isaiah 24:23. As the city receives its light neither from the sun nor from the moon, this implies, what Revelation 21:25 distinctly affirms, that there will be no more night there. The prophet intentionally avoids a לילה לאור parallel to יומם לאור. We must not render the second clause in Isaiah 60:19, "and it will not become light to thee with the shining of the moon," for האיר never means to get light; nor "and as for the shining of the moon, it does not give the light," as Hitzig and Knobel propose, for וּלנגהּ is used alone, and not היּרח וּלנגהּ as the antithesis to יומם לאור, in the sense of "to light up the night" (compare נגהּ as applied to the shining of the moon in Isaiah 13:10, and נגהּ to the glittering of the stars in Joel 2:10), and even the use of הלילה is avoided. The true rendering is either, "and for lighting, the moon will not shine upon thee" (Stier, Hahn, etc.); or, what is more in accordance with the accentuation, which would have given ולנגה tifchah and not tsakeph gadol, if it had been intended to indicate the object, "and as for the lighting" (ל as in Isaiah 32:1). The glory of Jehovah, which soars above Jerusalem, and has come down into her, is henceforth her sun and her moon - a sun that never sets, a moon יאסף לא which is not taken in towards morning, like a lamp that has been hung out at night (compare נאסף, Isaiah 16:10, withdrawn, disappeared). The triumph of light over darkness, which is the object of the world's history, is concentrated in the new Jerusalem. How this is to be understood, is explained in the closing clause of Isaiah 60:20. The sum of the days of mourning allotted to the church is complete. The darkness of the corruption of sin and state of punishment is overcome, and the church is nothing but holy blessed joy without change or disturbance; for it walks no longer in sidereal light, but in the eternally unchangeable light of Jehovah, which with its peaceful gentleness and perfect purity illumines within as well as without. The seer of the Apocalypse also mentions the Lamb. The Lamb is also known to our prophet; for the "Servant of Jehovah" is the Lamb. But the light of transfiguration, in which he sees this exalted Lamb, is not great enough to admit of its being combined with the light of the Divine Nature itself.