Isaiah 52:12

Isa 52:12 For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel [will be] your rereward.

Ver. 12. For ye shall not go out with haste.] Neither with fright nor flight shall ye depart, as once ye did out of Egypt. And this spiritually denoteth the mature deliberation and calm mind with which believers do forsake the world to follow Christ. {a}

For the Lord will go before you.] He will be unto you both van and rear. The Lord is a man of war, {Exo 15:3} yea, he alone is a whole army of men, as here.

{a} Diod.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Isa_52:12

For ye shall not go out with haste

Seemly and unseemly haste

They were to go with a diligent haste, not to lose time nor linger as Lot in Sodom; but they were not to go with a diffident, distrustful haste, as if they were afraid of being pursued, as when they came out of Egypt, or of having the orders for their release recalled and countermanded.

(M. Henry.)

The Lord shall go before you

No beaten rout of fugitives, but a band of kingly conquerors, robed and crowned, will assemble in heaven.

I. THE ESSENTIALLY SYMBOLIC CHARACTER OF THE CAPTIVITIES AND DELIVERANCES OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. The history of Israel is the Divine key to the history of man. Through all the confusion of human society, its wars, its movements, its industries, its woes, that history, rightly read, will guide us. There is no crisis, no confusion, no sad experience of society, of which we have not the pattern and the explanation in the Word of God. The history of their captivities is the history of mans captivity. There were two great captivities and two great deliverances. The people were born in the one captivity--it was the dark accident of nature; the other they earned by sin. These represent our natural bondage, and the self-earned serfdom of the soul. There is one Deliverer and one deliverance from both. The method of His deliverance was the same out of both captivities; a glorious manifestation of the might of the redeeming arm of God. But at first sight there is a contrast here as well as a likeness. Taking a superficial view of the Exodus, we should say that they did go out with haste and go forth by flight; and this visible contrast was before the prophets mind when he wrote the words of our text (Deu_16:3; Exo_12:31-39). But from Babylon they went forth in orderly array, with the kings good-will, by his royal command (Ezr_1:1-11). Yet under the surface the grand features were identical. In neither case did they steal away. They went because God would have them go; the Angel of His presence guided them, and His shattering judgments were on all who sought to withstand their march to their promised land. If the contrast occurred to the prophet as he wrote the first clause, surely the likeness stands out in the last, The Lord shall go before you, and the God of Israel shall be your rereward Exo_13:21-22; Exo_14:19-20).

II. WE HAVE THE IMAGE HERE OF THE GREAT DELIVERANCE WHICH IS FREELY OFFERED IN THE GOSPEL, wrought for us by His redeeming hand who rules in righteousness, mighty to save.

1. The reason of our protracted discipline. God will not have us Go out with haste, nor go forth by flight. I dare say there are few Christians of any earnestness who do not look back to some past season in their experience, and say, Would God that I had then been taken home. The soul was then full of a Divine serenity, with the clear heaven of Gods love above it, and a clear assurance that the Rock was beneath it. It seemed to be attuned to heavenly fellowship. But it had been a young and immature deliverance, had God caught you then in the first freshness of your joy and hope to His home in heaven; not by the short, straight way, but by the long, weary, desert path God led His pilgrims; a band of trained veterans they entered at length into Canaan; able to hold it, and to hold to the national unity, through the stormy, struggling ages in which, but for their desert nurture and discipline, they must have been shattered to fragments, and lost to history for ever. It is this experience which at sore cost of pain God is laying up within us.

2. The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rereward. The Lord has gone before us. It is this which makes our progress a triumph. He has gone before us

(1) In bearing to the uttermost the penalty of sin.

(2) In breaking the power of evil (Joh_14:27; Joh_16:33).

(3) In the way of the wilderness, through lifes protracted discipline, to Heb_5:7-9). And the God of Israel shall be your rereward. He shall gather up the stragglers of the host. This promise seems to run parallel with Isa_40:10-11. It shall be no crush or throng in whichthe weak ones shall be down-trodden, and the halting left hopelessly in the rear. The Lord has special tenderness for the timid, the trembling, the fainting; He is behind them to guard them from every pursuing foe. If you have faith but as a grain of mustard seed, fear not. (J. B. Brown, B.A.)

For the Lord will go before you

The vanguard and rereward of the Church

The Church of Christ is continually represented under the figure of an army; yet its Captain is the Prince of Peace; its object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition. Nevertheless, the Church on earth has, and until the second advent must be, the Church militant, the Church armed, the Church warring, the Church conquering. It is in the very order of things that so it must be. Truth could not be truth in this world if it were not a warring thing. How comforting is this text to the believer who recognizes himself as a soldier, and the whole Church as an army! The Church has its vanguard: Jehovah will go before you. The Church is also in danger behind; enemies may attack her m her hinder part, and the God of Israel shall be her rereward.

I. Consider THE WHOLE CHURCH OF GOD AS AN ARMY. Remember that a large part of the army are standing this day upon the hills of glory; having overcome and triumphed. As for the rear, it stretches far into the future; some portions are as yet uncreated. Now, cast your eyes forward to the front of the great army of Gods elect, and you see this great truth coming up with great brilliance before you: Jehovah shall go before you. Is not this true? Have you never heard of the eternal counsel and the everlasting covenant? Did that not go before the Church?. Has Jehovah not gone before His Church in act and deed? Perilous has been the journey of the Church from the day when first it left Paradise even until now. Why need I go through all the pages of the history of the Church of God in the days of the old dispensation? Hath it not been true from the days of John the Baptist until now? How can ye account for the glorious triumphs of the Church if ye deny the fact that God has gone before her! God had gone beforehand with his Church, and provided stores of grace for stores of trouble, shelter and mercy for tempests and persecution, abundance of strength for a superfluity of trial. And the God of Israel shall be the rereward. The original Hebrew is, God of Israel shall gather you up. Armies in the time of war diminish by reason of stragglers, some of whom desert, and others of whom are overcome by fatigue; but the army of God is gathered up; none desert from it if they be real soldiers of the Cross, and none drop down upon the road. The Church of Christ has been frequently attacked in the rear. It often happens that the enemy, tired of opposing the onward march by open persecution, attempts to malign the Church concerning something that has either been taught, or revealed, or done in past ages. Now, the God of Israel is our rereward. I am never at trouble about the attacks of infidels or heretics, however vigorously they may assault the doctrines of the Gospel. If they look to be resisted by mere reason, they look in vain. If they must attack the rear let them fight with Jehovah Himself. But I am thinking that perhaps the later trials of the Church may represent the rereward. There are to come, perhaps, to the Church, fiercer persecutions than she has ever known. But however fierce those troubles shall be, God, who has gone before His Church in olden times, will gather up the rear, and she who has been Ecclesia victrix--the Church, the conqueror, will still be the same, and her rear shall constitute at last a part of the Church triumphant, even as already glorified. Can you now conceive the last great day when Jehovah, the rereward, shall gather up His people?

II. AS IT RESPECTS US, AS INDIVIDUAL BELIEVERS. Two troubles present themselves, the future and the past. Remember, you are not a child of chance.

1. Stop and realize the idea that God has gone before, mapping the way.

(1) God has gone before you in the decree of His predestination.

(2) In the actual preparations of His providence.

(3) In the incarnation of Christ. As to our future troubles Jesus Christ has borne them all before. As for temptation, He has been tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. As for trials and sorrows, He has felt all we can possibly feel, and infinitely more. As for our difficulties, Christ has trodden the road before. We may rest quite sure that we shall not go anywhere where Christ has not gone.

(4) There is this reflection also, that, inasmuch as Christ has gone before us, He has done something in that going before, for He has conquered every foe that lies in his way.

2. I hear one say, The future seldom troubles me; it is the past--what I have done and what I have not done--the years that are gone--how I have sinned, and how I have not served my Master as I ought. The God of Israel shall be your rereward. Notice the different titles. The first is Jehovah--Jehovah will go before you. That is the I AM, full of omniscience and omnipotence. The second is God of Israel, that is to say, the God of the Covenant. We want the God of the Covenant behind, because it is not in the capacity of the I AM, the omnipotent, that we require Him. Let me always think, that I have God behind me as well as before me. Let not the memories of the past, though they cause me grief, cause me despair. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

God our Guard and Guide

I. THE GOOD MANS PATH IS BESET WITH PERIL.

1. There are perils that come up from behind. The deadliest foes are those that attack us in the rear. The traveller may be overtaken by pestilence and death, that lay all unsuspected in the very places he passed in laughter and in song. Man never gets away from his past.

(1) Perils come upon us from the mistakes of the past. Mistakes may be innocent enough, but unfortunately for us, Nature punishes blunders as though they were crimes. Fire burns just the same, whether it be kindled innocently or of malice. Water drowns irrespective of the way people get in. Accident or crime, it is all the same to Nature. An indiscretion may ruin your health, bring your business to the dust, and wreck the peace of your home, just aa surely as deliberate sin. Sheer inexperience is responsible for many a disaster. And every blunder of to-day sends forward an enemy to imperil the life of to-morrow. Further complications arise from the fact that much of our life is bound up with the lives of others. The follies as well as the sins of the fathers are visited to the third or fourth generation.

(2) Perils come upon us from the sins of the past. Its the eleventh commandment Im most afraid of, hiccoughed a drunken man to an evangelist one day. And what is that? asked the seeker of souls. Be sure your sin will find you out. And if sheer mistakes survive and pursue, how much more our sins. There is no greater delusion than to imagine that sin can be committed, covered up, forgotten, and done with. Sin breeds. And its progeny slays the transgressor. The sowing of wild oats is followed by the inevitable harvest. An evil deed once done can never be undone: not even by the grace of God. And in it there may lurk an enemy that years after may rise up and strike his deadly weapon in your back. Old age may find you full of the sins of your youth. Sins long left behind may live on in your memory. Man never forgets, A chance word, an unconscious look, an innocent gesture may strike a slumbering chord, and the whole scene lives as vividly as ever. Neither remorse nor repentance can blot out the horrid thing from before your eyes. It will startle you in the very holy of holies, and disturb your very communion with God. If unpardoned it will fill your old age with terror, and your dying moments with the horrors of hell. The most terrible temptations lurk in the memory of past transgression, even after the sin is forsaken and forgiven. I have known a saint turned eighty lament with tears that, while he was forgetting the hymns which had been his delight for sixty years, the lewd songs of his teens came back upon him with overwhelming vividness and force. He couldnt pray, but some rollicking, filthy chorus would insist on being sung. It is from behind that the devil strikes home, and strikes hard. Look at the consequences of sin if you would realize the terrible forces that come up from behind. The devil persuaded you there would be no consequences. It was a passing pleasure. You were all right in the morning, and thought it was all over. It is never over. That was only the beginning. Drink, gambling, lust, passion, and greed, have followed stealthily for years, and sprung upon men unawares. The terrible results of sin may pursue you in your body. A man who never but once went into the house of the woman of whom Solomon says such terrible things, for nearly half a century went through the world crooked and in pain. The most awful thing I know that can come to a man out of his past, is to see his own sin working ruin in the soul of another. What a host follows hard after us! All the way is crowded with malignant and vicious enemies that seek to destroy us. And nearly all, if not every one of them, our own creation. They are the offspring of our folly, our sin, our shame.

2. There are perils ahead. Happily no man can see very far ahead.

II. THE GOOD MANS PATH IS ALSO BESET WITH GOD. The Lord is in the rear to protect, and in the van to guide.

1. God stands between us and our past.

(1) To forgive its sin.

(2) To cut off our retreat. The old Egyptian life had a strange fascination over the delivered people. The backsliding tendency is in us all. But the Rearguard is between us and Egypt. He will prevent our retreat, and by a sharp command urge us forward to the land of grapes. We need to be saved from ourselves, and He will so completely deliver us that the last longing for Egypt shall die, and all our desire shall be for the Canaan of perfect love.

(3) To de-fend against its assaults. Our worst enemies are at our backs, where we are most helpless The devil strikes from behind. But be not afraid, God is in the rear.

(4) To make our enemies His slaves. The forces of hell as well as the hosts of heaven are under His control.

2. God goes before us in all the way of the future. We dont know the way, but He does--every inch of it. For he prepared and appointed it. And more than that. He has trodden and tested it before our feet touch it. He knows. That is enough. He leads. I follow. We tread the same path. We share the same road. Why should I fear? He goes before us in all our service for Him. Philip found the eunuch already prepared for his message. And Ananias found Saul waiting to receive his ministrations. So as we go to our service we shall find the Lord has been there before us preparing our way. The Divine movement is always forward. God is behind, but He never turns back. He goes before, and the whole host moves forward. Our only safety is in progress. (S. Chadwick.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE VANGUARD AND REREWARD OF THE CHURCH

Isa_52:12. For ye shall not go out with haste, &c.

God’s salvation is a great salvation, because of its Divine origin, and because of the original dignity of man. It is not a rescue simply, but a deliverance; not an escape, but a victory; sin is not eluded, but destroyed. This has been the grand characteristic of all God’s deliverances.

I. THE ESSENTIALLY SYMBOLIC CHARACTER OF THE CAPTIVITIES AND DELIVERANCES OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

The history of Israel is the Divine key to the history of man. The Egyptian bondage has the broadest meaning. Of Christ, of you, of each one, the words are true: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” There were two great captivities of Israel; they were born in one; the other they earned by sin. These represent our natural bondage, and the self-earned serfdom of the soul. Therefore also two deliverances. There is one Deliverer, and one deliverance from both captivities. In each case the method of His deliverance was the same,—a glorious manifestation of the might of the redeeming arm of God. At first sight, there is a contrast as well as a likeness. One might feel inclined to say that the Exodus was a flight. This contrast was, no doubt, before Isaiah’s mind (Deu_16:3; Exo_12:31-39). From Babylon they went forth in orderly array, with the king’s good-will, and by his royal command (Ezra 1) But under the surface the grand features are identical; in neither case did they steal away; they obeyed Jehovah’s will; the angel of His presence guided them, and His judgments were on all who sought to resist their departure. Here it was that Isaiah saw and asserted the likeness, “Jehovah shall go before you,” &c. (Exo_13:21-22; Exo_14:19-20).

II. THE GREAT DELIVERANCE WHICH IS FREELY OFFERED IN THE GOSPEL.

1. The reason of our protracted discipline. God will not have us “go out with haste, nor go forth by flight.” Many Christians can look back to some period, and say, “Would God that I had then been taken home!” Others in the hour of trial say, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” Not by the short, straight way, but by the long, weary, desert path, God led His pilgrims; a band of trained veterans, they entered at length into Canaan. It is this experience which, at sore cost of pain, God is laying up within us; this patient waiting is a store of power and wisdom, the worth of which will only be manifested as we press the borders of Canaan.

2. “The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rereward.” The Lord has gone before us; it is this which makes our progress a triumph; it is in Him we find the way to the conqueror’s rest.

(1.) He has gone before us in bearing to the uttermost the penalty of sin.

(2.) He has gone before us in breaking the power of evil (Joh_14:27; Joh_16:33). You have but to strive with a beaten foeman.

(3.) He has gone before us in the way of the wilderness, through life’s protracted discipline, to glory (Heb_5:7-9). Sorrow is transfigured by the resurrection and glorification of Christ; and He has gone “to prepare a place for you.”

“And the God of Israel shall be your rereward;” He shall gather up the stragglers of the host (Isa_40:10-11); the weak ones shall not be downtrodden, nor the halting left hopelessly in the rear (chaps. Isa_41:10; Isa_43:1-7). The cause is God’s, the power His, and His shall be the glory of the everlasting victory.—J. Baldwin Brown, B.A.: Sermons, pp. 419–427.

The Church of Christ is continually represented under the figure of an army; yet its Captain is the Prince of Peace; its object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition. The spirit of war is at the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the Gospel. Nevertheless, the Church on earth has, and until the second advent must be, the Church militant, the Church armed, warring, conquering. It is in the very order of things that so it must be. Truth could not be truth in this world if it were not a warring thing, and we should at once suspect that it were not true if error were friends with it. It is but a rule of nature that holiness must be at enmity with sin. And every child of God proveth by experience that this is the land of war. Now, how comforting is this text to the believer who recognises himself as a soldier, and the whole Church as an army!

I. The whole Church of God may trust in this great twofold promise.

1. Jehovah will go before you. Has He not gone before His Church in act and deed? Perilous has been the journey of the Church from the day when first it left Paradise even until now. I see the Church going out from Ur of the Chaldees; afterwards going down to the land of the cruel Pharaohs. But now the Church has to come up out of Egypt, and God goes before her still. But why need I go through all the pages of the history of the Church of God in the days of the old dispensation? Hath it not been true from the days of John the Baptist until now? If you read the history of the Church, you will be compelled to confess that whenever she went forward she could discern the footsteps of Jehovah leading the way.

2. “The God of Israel will be your rereward.” The original Hebrew is, “God of Israel shall gather you up.” Armies in the time of war diminish by reason of stragglers, some of whom desert, and others of whom are overcome by fatigue; but the army of God is gathered up; none desert from it if they be real soldiers of the cross, and none drop down upon the road. The Church of Christ has been frequently attacked in the rear. It often happens that the enemy, tired of opposing the onward march by open persecution, attempt to malign the Church concerning something that has either been taught, or revealed, or done in past ages. Now the God of Israel is our rereward. I am never at trouble about the attacks of infidels or heretics, however vigorously they may assault the doctrines of the Gospel. If they must attack the rear, let them fight with Jehovah Himself. Perhaps the later trials of the Church may represent the rereward. It always has been so with the Church—a time of prosperity and then a period of persecution. Can you now conceive the last great day when Jehovah the rereward will gather up His people?

II. The individual believer should lay hold upon this great twofold promise. We are now come to the last Sabbath of the year. Two troubles present themselves, the future and the past. We shall soon launch into another year, and hitherto we have found our years years of trouble, &c. Perhaps we are trembling to go forward. Foreseeing trouble, we know not how we shall be able to endure to the end, &c. Let this sweet morsel now cheer you. The Lord Jehovah will go before you. He has gone before you already. Your future path has all been marked out,—

1. In the great decrees of His predestination. Remember, you are not a child of chance. If you were, you might indeed fear.

2. In the actual preparations of His providence. God always makes a providence beforehand, ready for His people when they get to the place. We do not know how the future lies in the bowels of the past, and how what is to be is the child of that which is. As all men spring from their progenitors, so the providence of to-day springs from the providence of a hundred years past. The events of next year have been forestalled by God in what He has done this year and years before. I am certain of this, that on the road I am to travel during the next year, everything is ready for me. You are not going through a land that God has not prepared for you.

3. In the experience of Christ. As to our future troubles for next year, and the remnant of our days, Jesus Christ has borne them all before. He has conquered every foe.

Now I hear one say, “The future seldom troubles me; it is the past—what I have done and what I have not done; how I have sinned, and how I have not served my Master as I ought, &c. Oh! it is the rereward that is most unsafe. I dread most the sins of the past.” “The God of Israel shall be your rereward.” Notice the different titles. The first is “The Lord,” or properly, JEHOVAH—JEHOVAH will go before you. That is the I AM, full of omniscience and omnipotence. The second title is “the God of Israel,” that is to say, the God of the Covenant. We want the God of the Covenant behind, because it is not in the capacity of the I AM, the Omnipotent, that we require Him to pardon sin, to accept our person, to blot out the past, and to remove iniquity by the blood of Christ. Now let me always think that I have God behind me as well as before me, let not the memories of the past, though they cause me grief, cause me despair.

CONCLUSION.—Are there any here to-day whose hearts God hath touched, who desire to join this great army? The past shall all be blotted out; God shall be thy rereward. And as for the future, thou chief of sinners, if now thou enlistest into the army of Christ by faith, thou shalt find the future shall be strewn with the gold of God’s grace, and the silver of His temporal mercies; thou shalt have enough and to spare from this day forth even to the end, and at the last thou shalt be gathered in by the great arms of God, that constitute the rear-guard of His heavenly army.—C. H. Spurgeon: The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 230.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Isaiah

MARCHING ORDERS

Isa 52:11 - Isa 52:12.

These ringing notes are parts of a highly poetic picture of that great deliverance which inspired this prophet’s most exalted strains. It is described with constant allusion to the first Exodus, but also with significant differences. Now no doubt the actual historical return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity is the object that fills the foreground of this vision, but it by no means exhausts its significance. The restriction of the prophecy to that more immediate fulfilment may well seem impossible when we note that my text follows the grand promise that ‘all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God,’ and immediately precedes the Messianic prophecy of the fifty-third chapter. Egypt was transparent, and through it shone Babylon; Babylon was transparent, and through it shone Christ’s redemption. That was the real and highest fulfilment of the prophet’s anticipations, and the trumpet-calls of my text are addressed to all who have a share in it. We have, then, here, under highly metaphorical forms, the grand ideal of the Christian life; and I desire to note briefly its various features.

I. First, then, we have it set forth as a march of warrior priests.

Note that phrase-’Ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.’ The returning exiles as a whole are so addressed, but the significance of the expression, and the precise metaphor which it is meant to convey, may be questionable. The word rendered ‘vessel’ is a wide expression, meaning any kind of equipment, and in other places of the Old Testament the whole phrase rendered here, ‘ye that bear the vessels,’ is translated ‘armour-bearers.’ Such an image would be quite congruous with the context here, in which warlike figures abound. And if so, the picture would be that of an army on the march, each man carrying some of the weapons of the great Captain and Leader. But perhaps the other explanation is more likely, which regards ‘the vessels of the Lord’ as being an allusion to the sacrificial and other implements of worship, which, in the first Exodus, the Levites carried on the march. And if that be the meaning, as seems more congruous with the command of purity which is deduced from the function of bearing the vessels, then the figure here, of course, is that of a company of priests. I venture to throw the two ideas together, and to say that we may here find an ideal of the Christian community as being a great company of warrior-priests on the march, guarding a sacred deposit which has been committed to their charge.

Look, then, at that combination in the true Christian character of the two apparently opposite ideas of warrior and priest. It suggests that all the life is to be conflict, and that all the conflict is to be worship; that everywhere, in the thick of the fight, we may still bear the remembrance of the ‘secret place of the most High.’ It suggests, too, that the warfare is worship, that the offices of the priest and of the warrior are one and the same thing, and both consist in their mediating between man and God, bringing God in His Gospel to men, and bringing men through their faith to God. The combination suggests, likewise, how, in the true Christian character, there ought ever to be blended, in strange harmony, the virtues of the soldier and the qualities of the priest; compassion for the ignorant and them that are out of the way, with courage; meekness with strength; a quiet, placable heart hating strife, joined to a spirit that cheerily fronts every danger and is eager for the conflict in which evil is the foe and God the helper. The old Crusaders went to battle with the Cross on their hearts, and on their shoulders, and on the hilts of their swords; and we, too, in all our warfare, have to remember that its weapons are not carnal but spiritual, and that only then do we fight as the Captain of our salvation fought, when our arms are meekness and pity, and our warfare is waged in gentleness and love.

Note, further, that in this phrase we have the old, old metaphor of life as a march, but so modified as to lose all its melancholy and weariness and to become an elevating hope. The idea which runs through all poetry, of life as a journey, suggests effort, monotonous change, a uniform law of variety and transiency, struggle and weariness, but the Christian thought of life, while preserving the idea of change, modifies it into the blessed thought of progress. Life, if it is as Christ meant it to be, is a journey in the sense that it is a continuous effort, not unsuccessful, toward a clearly discerned goal, our eternal home. The Christian march is a march from slavery to freedom, and from a foreign land to our native soil.

Again, this metaphor suggests that this company of marching priests have in charge a sacred deposit. Paul speaks of the ‘glorious Gospel which was committed to my trust.’ ‘That good thing which was committed unto thee by the Holy Ghost, keep.’ The history of the return from Babylon in the Book of Ezra presents a remarkable parallel to the language of my text, for there we are told how, in the preparation for the march, the leader entrusted the sacred vessels of the temple, which the liberality of the heathen king had returned to him, to a group of Levites and priests, weighing them at the beginning, and bidding them keep them safe until they were weighed again in the courts of the Lord’s house in Jerusalem.

And, in like manner, to us Christians is given the charge of God’s great weapons of warfare, with which He contends with the wickedness of the world-viz. that great message of salvation through, and in, the Cross of Jesus Christ. And there are committed to us, further, to guard sedulously, and to keep bright and untarnished and undiminished in weight and worth, the precious treasures of the Christian life of communion with Him. And we may give another application to the figure and think of the solemn trust which is put into our hands, in the gift of our own selves, which we ourselves can either waste, and stain, and lose, or can guard and polish into vessels ‘meet for the Master’s use.’

Gathering, then, these ideas together, we take this as the ideal of the Christian community-a company of priests on the march, with a sacred deposit committed to their trust. If we reflected more on such a conception of the Christian life, we should more earnestly hearken to, and more sedulously discharge, the commands that are built thereon. To these commands I now turn.

II. Note the separation that befits the marching company.

‘Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the midst of her.’ In the historical fulfilment of my text, separation from Babylon was the preliminary of the march. Our task is not so simple; our separation from Babylon must be the constant accompaniment of our march. And day by day it has to be repeated, if we would lift a foot in advance upon the road. There is still a Babylon. The order in the midst of which we live is not organised on the fundamental laws of Christ’s Kingdom. And wherever there are men who seek to order their lives as Christ would have them to be ordered, the first necessity for them is, ‘Come out from amongst them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.’ There is no need in this day to warn Christian people against an exaggerated interpretation of these commandments. I almost wish there were more need. We have been told so often, in late years, of how Christian men ought to mingle with all the affairs of life, and count nothing that is human foreign to themselves, that it seems to me there is vast need for a little emphasis being put on the other side of the truth, and for separation being insisted upon. Wherever there is a real grasp of Jesus Christ for a man’s own personal Saviour, and a true submission to Him as the Pattern and Guide of life, a broad line of demarcation between that man and the irreligious life round him will draw itself. If the heart have its tendrils twined round the Cross, it will have detached them from the world around. Separation by reason of an entirely different conception of life, separation because the present does not look to you as it looks to the men who see only it, separation because you and they have not only a different ideal and theory of life, but are living from different motives and for different ends and by different powers, will be the inevitable result of any real union with Jesus Christ. If I am joined to Him I am separated from the world; and detachment from it is the simple and necessary result of any real attachment to Him. There will always be a gulf in feeling, in purpose, in view, and therefore there will often have to be separation outward things. ‘So did not I because of the fear of the Lord’ will have to be said over and over again by any real and honest follower of the Master.

This separation will not only be the result of union with Jesus Christ, but it is the condition of all progress in our union with Him. We must be unmoored before we can advance. Many a caravan has broken down in African exploration for no other reason than because it was too well provided with equipments, and so collapsed of its own weight. Therefore, our prophet in the context says, ‘Touch no unclean thing.’ There is one of the differences between the new Exodus and the old. When Israel came out of Egypt they spoiled the Egyptians, and came away laden with gold and jewels; but it is dangerous work bringing anything away from Babylon with us. Its treasure has to be left if we would march close behind our Lord and Master. We must touch ‘no unclean thing,’ because our hands are to be filled with the ‘vessels of the Lord.’ I am preaching no impossible asceticism, no misanthropical withdrawal from the duties of life, and the obligations that we owe to society. God’s world is a good one; man’s world is a bad one. It is man’s world that we have to leave, but the lofties, sanctity requires no abstention from anything that God has ordained.

Now, dear friends, I venture to think that this message is one that we all dreadfully need to-day. There are a great many Christians, so-called, in this generation, who seem to think that the main object they should have in view is to obliterate the distinction between themselves and the world of ungodly men, and in occupation and amusements to be as like people that have no religion as they possibly can manage. So they get credit for being ‘liberal’ Christians, and praise from quarters whose praise is censure, and whose approval ought to make a Christian man very uncomfortable. Better by far the narrowest Puritanism-I was going to say better by far monkish austerities-than a Christianity which knows no self-denial, which is perfectly at home in an irreligious atmosphere, and which resents the exhortation to separation, because it would fain keep the things that it is bidden to drop. God’s reiteration of the text through Paul to the Church in luxurious, corrupt, wealthy Corinth is a gospel for this day for English Christians, ‘Come out from among them, and I will receive you.’

III. Further, note the purity which becomes the bearers of the vessels of the Lord.

‘Be ye clean.’ The priest’s hands must be pure, which figure, being translated, is that transparent purity of conduct and character is demanded from all Christian men who profess to bear God’s sacred deposit. You cannot carry it unless your hands are clean, for all the gifts that God gives us glide from our grasp if our hands be stained. Monkish legends tell of sacred pictures and vessels which, when an impure touch was laid upon them, refused to be lifted from their place, and grew there, as rooted, in spite of all efforts to move them. Whoever seeks to hold the gifts of God in His Gospel in dirty hands will fail miserably in the attempt; and all the joy and peace of communion, the assurance of God’s love, and the calm hope of immortal life will vanish as a soap bubble, grasped by a child, turns into a drop of foul water on its palm, if we try to hold them in foul hands. Be clean, or you cannot bear the vessels of the Lord.

And further, remember that no priestly service nor any successful warfare for Jesus Christ is possible, except on the same condition. One sin, as well as one sinner, destroys much good, and a little inconsistency on the part of us professing Christians neutralises all the efforts that we may ever try to put forth for Him. Logic requires that God’s vessels should be carried with clean hands. God requires it, men require it, and have a right to require it. The mightiest witness for Him is the witness of a pure life, and if we go about the world professing to be His messengers, and carrying His epistle in our dirty fingers, the soiled thumb-mark upon it will prevent men from caring for the message; and the Word will be despised because of the unworthiness of its bearers. ‘Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.’

IV. Lastly, notice the leisurely confidence which should mark the march that is guarded by God. ‘Ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward.’

This is partly an analogy and partly a contrast with the story of the first Exodus. The unusual word translated ‘with haste’ is employed in the Pentateuch to describe the hurry and bustle, not altogether due to the urgency of the Egyptians, but partly also to the terror of Israel, with which that first flight was conducted. And, says my text, in this new coming out of bondage there shall be no need for tremor or perturbation, lending wings to any man’s feet; but, with quiet deliberation, like that with which Peter was brought out of his dungeon, because God knew that He could bring him out safely, the new Exodus shall be carried on.

‘He that believeth shall not make haste.’ Why should he? There is no need for a Christian man ever to be flurried, or to lose his self-command, or ever to be in an undignified and unheroic hurry. His march should be unceasing, swift, but calm and equable, as the motions of the planets, unhasting and unresting.

There is a very good reason why we need not be in any haste due to alarm. For, as in the first Exodus, the guiding pillar led the march, and sometimes, when there were foes behind, as at the Red Sea, shifted its place to the rear, so ‘the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rereward.’ He besets us behind and before, going in front to be our Guide, and in the rear for our protection, gathering up the stragglers, so that there shall not be ‘a hoof left behind,’ and putting a wall of iron between us and the swarms of hovering enemies that hang on our march. Thus encircled by God, we shall be safe. Christ fulfils what the prophet pledged God to do; for He goes before us, the Pattern, the Captain of our salvation, the Forerunner, ‘the Breaker is gone up before them ‘; and He comes behind us to guard us from evil; for He is ‘the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the Almighty.’

Dear brethren, life for us all must be a weary pilgrimage. We cannot alter that. It is the lot of every son of man. But we have the power of either making it a dreary, solitary tramp over an undefended desert, to end in the great darkness, or else of making it a march in which the twin sisters Joy and Peace shall lead us forth, and go out with us, and the other pair of angel-forms, ‘Goodness and Mercy,’ shall follow us all the days of our lives. We may make it a journey with Jesus for Guide and Companion, to Jesus as our Home. ‘The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

52:12 not leave in a hurry: At the time of the Exodus the people had to leave quickly (see Exod 12:11, 31-36). Isaiah drew this contrast to emphasize the newness of God’s plan. • protect you from behind: See Exod 13:21; 14:19-20.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

As your fathers did out of Egypt.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

not . . . with haste--as when ye left Egypt (Exo 12:33, Exo 12:39; Deu 16:3; compare Note, see on Isa 28:16). Ye shall have time to cleanse yourselves and make deliberate preparation for departure.

Lord--Jehovah, as your Leader in front (Isa 40:3; Exo 23:20; Mic 2:13).

rereward--literally, "gather up," that is, to bring up the rear of your host. The transition is frequent from the glory of Messiah in His advent to reign, to His humiliation in His advent to suffer. Indeed, so are both advents accounted one, that He is not said, in His second coming, to be about to return, but to come.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(12) Ye shall not go out with haste . . .—The words contrast the exodus from Babylon with that from Egypt (Exo_12:39; Deu_16:3). In the essential point, however, of Divine protection, the resemblance would be greater than the contrast. Jehovah would still be once more both the vanguard and the rear-guard of the great procession.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. Unlike the former exodus, the departure is to take place deliberately and in perfect security, without haste (Exo_12:11; Deu_16:3), a representation differing somewhat from Isa_48:20.

the Lord will go before you] Exo_13:21 f., &c.

will be your rereward] your rear guard; see Exo_14:19.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight,.... As persons afraid of their enemies, of being pursued, overtaken, and detained by them; privily or by stealth, like fugitives, as the Oriental versions render it; in like manner as the Israelites went out of Egypt: but it signifies, that they should go out openly, boldly, quietly, and safely, and without fear of their enemies; yea, their enemies rather being afraid of them. So the witnesses, when they shall rise, will ascend to heaven in the sight of their enemies; which will be followed with a great slaughter of some, and the terror of others, Rev 11:12,

for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rearward; the Lord will be their Captain, and will lead the van, so that they shall follow in order, and without any tumult or fear; and though they shall make all necessary dispatch, yet no more haste than good speed; the Lord, going before, will check all tumultuous and disorderly motions; and he also will bring up the rear, so that they shall be in no fear of the enemy attacking them behind, and where generally the weaker and more feeble part are; but the Lord will be gathering them up, or closing them, as the word (q) signifies; so that they shall be in the utmost safety, and march out of Babylon with the greatest ease and freedom, without any molestation or disturbance. The allusion may be to the Lord's going before, and sometimes behind Israel, in a pillar of fire and cloud by night and day, as they passed through the wilderness.

(q) , Sept.; "colligens vos", Montanus; "congregabit vos", V. L. Syr. Ar.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

For ye shall not go out with haste - As if driven out, or compelled to flee. You shall not go from Babylon as your fathers went from Egypt, in a rapid flight, and in a confused and tumultuous manner (see Deu 16:3). The idea here is, that they should have time to prepare themselves to go out, and to become fit to bear the vessels of the Lord. It was a fact that when they left Babylon they did it with the utmost deliberation, and had ample time to make any preparation that was necessary.

For the Lord will go before you - Yahweh will conduct you, as a general advances at the head of an army. The figure here is taken from the march of an army, and the image is that of Yahweh as the leader or head of the host in the march through the desert between Babylon and Jerusalem (see the notes at Isa 40:3-4).

And the God of Israel will be your rereward - Margin, ‘Gather you up.’ The Hebrew word used here (אסף 'âsaph) means properly to collect, to gather together, as fruits, etc. It is then applied to the act of bringing up the rear of an army; and means to be a rear-ward, or guard, agmen claudere - as collecting, and bringing together the stragglers, and defending the army in its march, from an attack in the rear. The Septuagint renders it, ‘The God of Israel is he who collects you’ (ὁ ἐπισυνάγων ὑμᾶς ho episunagōn humas), that is, brings up the rear. The Chaldee, ‘The God of Israel will collect together your captivity.’ Here the chapter should have closed, for here closes the account of the return of the exiles from Babylon. The mind of the prophet seems here to leave the captive Jews on their way to their own land, with Yahweh going at their head, and guarding the rear of the returning band, and to have passed to the contemplation of him of whose coming all these events were preliminary and introductory - the Messiah. Perhaps the rationale of this apparent transition is this.

It is undoubtedly the doctrine of the Bible that he who was revealed as the guide of his people in ancient times, and who appeared under various names, as ‘the angel of Yahweh,’ ‘the angel of the covenant,’ etc., was he who afterward became incarnate - the Saviour of the world. So the prophet seems to have regarded him; and here fixing his attention on the Yahweh who was thus to guide his people and be their defense, by an easy transition the mind is carried forward to the time when he would be incarnate, and would die for people. Leaving, therefore, so to speak, the contemplation of him as conducting his people across the barren wastes which separated Babylon from Judea, the mind is, by no unnatural transition, carried forward to the time when he would become a man of sorrows, and would redeem and save the world. According to this supposition, it is the same glorious Being whom Isaiah sees as the protector of his people, and almost in the same instant as the man of sorrows; and the contemplation of him as the suffering Messiah becomes so absorbing and intense, that he abruptly closes the description of him as the guide of the exiles to their own land.

He sees him as a sufferer. He sees the manner and the design of his death. He contemplates the certain result of that humiliation and death in the spread of the true religion, and in the extension of his kingdom among men. Henceforward, therefore, to the end of Isaiah, we meet with no reference, if we except in a very fcw instances, to the condition of the exiles in Babylon, or to their return to their own land. The mind of the prophet is absorbed in describing the glories of the Messiah, and the certain spread of his gospel around the globe.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; but securely, and in triumph, being conducted by your great Captain, the Lord of hosts. And therefore you will have both the greater obligation, and the more leisure and opportunity, to cleanse yourselves from all filthiness.

For the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward; so that none shall be able either to oppose and stop you in your march, or to fall upon you in the rear, as enemies commonly do.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Ye shall not go out with haste, nor… by flight — As went Israel from Egypt in earlier history. This is but an illustrative allusion. The present redeemed Israel has matured to high and blessed trust in Jehovah, who is near to them, who is both before them and their rear-guard to protect. They have nothing to fear, and they may possess themselves in perfectly peaceful calmness. How true to the case of the sanctified Christian as compared with his earlier experiences. God is consciously present to protect in every emergency.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

With haste... by flight. As at the going forth from Egypt. (Exo_12:33 Exo_16:5) Then they were "thrust out;" now there would be no need of hurry. They would have the free permission of their sovereign to depart at their own time, and might proceed with calm deliberateness. God would go before them, as he did on that former occasion, (Exo_13:21) though not now visibly; and he would also defend them from attacks by the way, being at once their Guide and their Rereward, or Rearguard.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Not by flight - But securely, and in triumph, being conducted by your great captain the Lord of hosts. Rereward - So that none shall be able either to oppose you in your march, or to fall upon you in the rear.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

“For not in haste shall ye go out, and in flight ye shall not depart; for going before you (is) Jehovah, and bringing up your rear the God of Israel.” This verse is crowded with allusions to the earlier history of Israel, some of which consist in the adaptation of expressions with which the Hebrew reader was familiar, but which must of course be lost in a translation. Thus the hasty departure out of Egypt is not only recorded as a fact in the Mosaic history (Exo 11:1; Exo 12:33; Exo 12:39) but designated by the very term here used (Exo 12:11; Deu 16:3) meaning terrified and sudden flight. There is likewise an obvious allusion to the cloudy pillar going sometimes before and sometimes behind the host (Exo 14:19-20) and possibly to Moses’ poetical description of Jehovah as encompassing Israel with His protection (Deu 32:10). These minute resemblances are rendered still more striking by the distinction which the Prophet makes between the two events. The former exodus was hurried and disorderly; the one here promised shall be solemn and deliberate. The connection of the verse with that before it may be easily explained. The ‘for’, as in many other cases, has relation to an intermediate thought which may be easily supplied though not expressed. Or rather, it has reference to the promise, implied in the preceding exhortation, of protection and security. From this verse, taken in connection with the one before it, we may derive a confirmation of our previous conclusions; first, that the image there presented is a military no less than a priestly one; and secondly, that this whole passage has a wider scope and higher theme than the deliverance from Babylon, because the latter is no more vividly exhibited to view than the deliverance from Egypt; and if this is a mere emblem, so may that be, nay it must be, when we add to the consideration just presented, the result of the inductive process hitherto pursued in the interpretation of these prophecies, viz. that the deliverance of Israel from exile does not constitute the theme of the predictions, but is simply one remarkable historico-prophetical example which the Prophet cites in illustration of his general teachings as to the principle and mode of the Divine administration, and his special predictions of a great and glorious change to be connected with the abrogation of the old economy.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye shall

Contra. Exo 12:33; Exo 12:39.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

for...goes before you Two things at the end of this verse explain two things in its beginning, [viz.] For not with haste shall you go forth. What is the reason? For the Lord goes before you to lead you on the way, and one whose agent advances before him to lead him on the way his departure is not in haste. And not in the flurry of flight shall you go, for your rear guard is the God of Israel. He will follow you to guard you from any pursuer. Comp. (Num. 10:25) “And the division of the camp of Dan shall travel, the rear guard of all the camps.” Whoever goes after the camp is called מְאַסֵּף, the rear guard, because he waits for the stragglers and the stumblers. Similarly, Scripture states in Joshua (6: 13): “And the rear guard was going after the Ark.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Not with haste, as was the case at the departure from Egypt.

For the Lord, that is, the Glory of the Lord,

is going before you. ומאספכם And your gatherer, that is, he who gathers the people scattered by the exile. I however, explain it and your rereward; God will surround them from all sides; His Glory will be before and behind them. Comp. מאסף rereward (Num. 10:25)

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.