OUR JUDGE, LAWGIVER AND KING

Our verse is the warranty that every returning Israelite will prize forever. They have been promised ‘a quiet habitation’, v. 20, something their nation had never known for long periods. It will be a big land, ‘a far-stretching land’, v. 17 RV. We know from other Scriptures that it is a land flowing with milk and honey. Many eyes have been on it for centuries and, at the end times of which Isaiah writes, greedy eyes will see it as spoil, v. 1. Who then will guarantee that this land will remain theirs?

Their warranty carries a threefold guarantee that they will remain permanently secure, for the One who will save them is their Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, but presented as Judge, Lawgiver (or Commander) and King. The prophets tell of how, clutching that warranty, they will return from exile among the Gentiles; e.g. 49.22-23. The trumpet of jubilee will have sounded and every man will be speaking of liberty and redemption, Lev. 25. 9 ff. It may seem that, like the Shunamite widow, their hopes will be shattered, as they find another in possession of their land and have to cry to the king for its restoration, 2 Kgs. 8. 1-6. But they will be able to possess their possession for the Judge, the Commander and the King will have heard their cry. This Judge has already promised to ‘execute the judgement of the fatherless and widow’, Deut. 10. 18. And that promise He will fulfil, and Israel will have the land.

The right of the Judge, Commander and King to so act is unchallengeable. He has declared, ‘The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine’, Lev. 25. 23. In open court, the Judge will declare His verdict who has set the bounds of the nations ‘according to the number of the children of Israel’, Deut. 32. 8. Israel will have the land of promise! As the Commander or Lawgiver, He will establish that decree with irresistible force and as king will reign in righteousness over it.

Our inheritance is as sure as the warranty Israel will prize, ‘an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God’, 1 Pet. 1. 4-5. Our assurance is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ‘he will save us’, v. 22.