“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream…” – Isaiah 66:12
I grew up on the Mississippi River. Saw that big river daily. Never really understood this verse. Isaiah uses the same metaphor is Isaiah 48:18, “Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” There it makes more sense to me. The idea is the never-ending nature of the river and likewise the waves of the sea. It’s a poetic way of saying what I often do about the law – “your life will go better if you live according to the 10 commandments.” There is some variance. Rivers rise and fall with the rain. Sometimes they jump their banks. Like the waves of the sea with the tides. The returns to observing the law in a fallen world are not guaranteed. The law does not save. But God’s original creation was good and even in its current brokenness that goodness can be seen. Seedtime and harvest do not stop. But in what way is peace like a river? We don’t declare wars anymore, but what was the last year that we didn’t bomb somebody? The last year July 4th felt like a truly shared holiday of thanks for being Washington’s “distant posterity?”
Isaiah’s reuse of this phrase in chapter 66 is not linked to the covenant of the law as it was in chapter 48. It is not a lament over the peace that was forfeit. Here in chapter 66 it is promise. The Jerusalem that Isaish sees is not the earthly one. The last chapters of Isaiah are largely written to those who had returned from exile. They were in the earthly Jerusalem. And while they might be happy to be back, it wasn’t the promise. And that became evident to them quickly. The temple was never what it was, the monarchy never came back, the walls took generations to rebuild. They were always ruled by someone else. The Jerusalem that Isaiah speaks about is the New Jerusalem. It is the Jerusalem of the divine promise.
In that Jerusalem, “behold, I will extend peace to her like a river.” The eternal flowing nature of a river – at least rivers like the Mississippi if not the Agua Fria – is the promise. The wars and rumors of wars will be over. The game of thrones that never stops, will have ended, because the rightful monarch is on the throne and all pretenders have been cast down.
As much as we might like peace, the truth is that we can often think of peace as boring. We all know those who can’t go a few days without drama, although maybe as we age we come to appreciate boring better. But the thing that Isaiah puts in the poetic comparison is not righteousness as before but now glory. “The glory of the nations like an overflowing stream.” Glory isn’t boring. We endure the drama, we run the race, for the glory of a crown that fades. The New Jerusalem described is peace and glory. And this is a crown that does not fade but overflows.
In the promised Jerusalem peace and glory are not enemies. Peace denying the one desiring glory the opportunity for it. In the promised Jerusalem they are the bedrock of everything. The Peace extended and the glory overflowing allow for flourishing. They allow for mothering (nursing, carrying and comfort) and they allow for growth. “Your bones shall flourish like the grass.” Peace is anything but boring in the New Jerusalem. It’s more like that Big River that could take you wherever you want to go. Just waiting for the Resurrection Huck Finn to get on the raft.
