Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons
Isaiah 60-62 represents a sharp contrast with what has gone before in the preceding chapters of Third Isaiah (chs. 56-66). Up to this point in Isaiah's collection are found a mixture of conditional promises, scathing judgments, warnings, and calls to repentance. But beginning in chapter 60, the tone changes and we find nothing but unconditional, soaring, lyrical proclamations of salvation. Our text forms the first six verses of that glad announcement, and is a portion of the whole poem of 60:1-22.