“Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”
The famed twentieth-century Quaker, Elton Trueblood, who counseled as a chaplain at both Harvard and Stanford said that “Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation.” People in the “land of Judah” (v 1) were promised peace throughout the region, premised on the exercise of faith. At one time, they recognized the evidence of such a promise made by God by having Moses go to the top of Mount Nebo in Moab where he viewed the richness of the “land of Canaan” to which the nation would enter. Now, Isaiah calls the people to remember God’s deliverance of Moab into the hands of the Israelites for the provision of a gateway (v 2) in crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land (Joshua 24:9-10; Isaiah 25:9-26:1). That is the past prophetic view of this passage.
But now, Isaiah is using that remembrance to envision a future time to come when a globally-gathered righteous nation will enter God’s secure city―a people who ‘keep faith’ will be kept in “perfect peace” because they “trust in you” (i.e., the Lord God). Note the gate is opened for this righteous nation. Those who place their trust in the Lord experience the welcome, safety, and fellowship offered by God. No more is the “righteous nation” harassed by the prideful wickedness of a ‘Moabic-type’ world. They (indeed, ‘we’) are invited into an eternal life marked by a “perfect peace,” sustained by a God viewed as “an everlasting rock” (v 3-4).
What a promise! “Perfect peace” (literally ‘shalom, shalom’) offered in exchange for trust in a God who relates to us in unchanging, dependable, and eternally strong ways (i.e., “the Lord God…an everlasting rock”). The Hebrew uses repetitive words to express superlativeness. Doubling the word intensifies it to the highest degree. Isaiah is not describing some ordinary peace but a complete, maximal, all-encompassing peace offered to those whose “mind is stayed” (anchored, fixed) on God. Indeed, such a peace is not circumstantial, but it flows from trusting in the revealed “everlasting” character of God no matter the circumstance. Such a peace begins in the mind. Where we fix our thoughts determines the stability of our hearts.
God does not call us to ‘trust’ without revealing in whom we place our trust. The ‘rock-like’ immovable, protective, and enduring character of God is the sure foundation for a confident trust able to encounter all that this life may bring to us. He can be trusted, not only for the ‘daily grind’ in the present, but for the promise and hope of the future… “We have a strong city; he sets up salvation…!” (v 1). Let that promised reality guide your life today!
By Dr. Bill Niblette, a friend of Bible League International, United States
