For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
10. Comp. Psa 46:2 f.; Hab 3:6.
The first sentence may be rendered concessively: Though the mountains should remove and the hills be shaken, yet &c.
my covenant of peace ] (R.V.) Eze 34:25; Eze 37:26; Mal 2:5. that hath compassion ] as Isa 49:10.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the mountains shall depart – (See the notes at Isa 51:6).
The covenant of my peace – That is, the covenant by which I promise peace and prosperity to thee.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 54:10
For the mountains shall depart
Mountains stable, yet crumbling
Those who have been reared and nurtured among the everlasting hills always look upon them as old friends.
To them there is in mountain, valley and glen a peace reposing in the bosom of strength that soothes the heart to rest. Jean Paul says that the great hills are like great men–the first to catch and the last to lose the light; and he might further say that, like great men, they afford kindliest shelter in their mighty bosoms to the weary and heart-sore. While the idea of stability is connected with the everlasting hills, science, with stern truthfulness, alarms that they are gradually crumbling away. They say that the Alleghanies, in their prime were three thousand feet higher than human eyes have ever seen them. There was a time when the igneous forces possessed the advantage, and island and continent and alp rose triumphant over the sea. But for thousands of years the energies of fire have been wasting, and earthquake and fire have been smitten with the palsy of age. River and stream are filching soil from mountain and plain and restoring it again to the sea. Defiant granite, which baffled the lightnings that rent Sinai, and frowned upon the flood that drowned the world, shall yet be brought down by the continuous pelting of rain and the insidious sapping of frost. (A. Macfarlane.)
The unchangeable duration of Gods kindness and covenant
I. THE CHANGEABLE STATE AND FRAME OF THIS WORLD, which shall issue in its final dissolution. The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed. In opposition hereunto we have–
II. THE UNCHANGEABLE DURATION OF GODS KINDNESS TO, AND COVENANT WITH HIS PEOPLE. But My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenants of My peace be removed.
III. THE CONFIRMATION AND REASON OF THIS, as contained in the words, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee. (J. Guyse. D. D.)
The enduring in the universe
I. THE GOOD MANS EXISTENCE IS MORE DURABLE THAN THE MOUNTAINS. This is here implied. The people here addressed are supposed to live after the mountains have departed. The fact that a man is more durable than the mountains gives consistency to our life–and grandeur.
II. GODS KINDNESS IS MORE DURABLE THAN THE MOUNTAINS. My kindness shall not depart from thee. Gods kindness is more durable even than man. Though man will never have an end, he had a beginning. Gods kindness never had a beginning, and will never have an end. Kindness is the very essence of the Eternal, the root of all existence, the primal font of all blessedness in all worlds.
1. His kindness will continue notwithstanding the sins of humanity.
2. His kindness continues notwithstanding the sufferings of humanity. In fact, His kindness is expressed in human suffering. Does not the loving father often show more love to his child in correcting him for his offences than in gratifying his desires? There is kindness in the judgments that befall men. The most terrible judgments are but Gods mercy weeding the world of its evils.
III. THE UNION BETWEEN BOTH WILL BE MORE DURABLE THAN THE MOUNTAINS. My kindness shall not depart from thee. These words were addressed to His own people, and not to men in general; and the idea is, that His kindness will continue for ever in connection with the truly good. Gods kindness is indissolubly associated with the good. St. Paul challenges the universe to effect a separation. Who shall separate from the love of Christ? (D. Thomas, D.D.)
Fears and their antidote
When God called the Jewish captives to go forth to their own land, they began to be full of fears about the future. They mused over possible or imaginary difficulties. They groaned under prospective burdens. How should they get across the wilderness? From whence should they receive their supplies? Who would protect them from the roving bands of robbers? And even if they should really live through all the perils of the wilderness, and get safe again into Palestine, how would they find the country? Would it be desolate and waste, or cultivated and attractive? Would it be free from enemies, or full of foes T Who was then to be their shield and buckler, their strong tower, their rock of defence to save them? It was this temper of mind which the prophet was commissioned by Jehovah to remove. Why, said the fervid son of Amos, are you so fearful? Think of Gods momentary anger, and eternal mercy (verses 7, 8). Think of the covenant which God made to the preacher of righteousness (verse 9). Think of the most stable and enduring things of which you know: not of fortresses–they can be demolished, and not one stone be left upon another that is not thrown down; nor yet of temples, though they rear their heads and smite the stars, like the temple of Bolus in the city which has so long been your home. Think, not of those, but of the everlasting mountains. What so secure, so deep-rooted, so enduring? Yet, the mountains shall depart, etc. (verse 10).
I. THE TEMPER OF THE JEWISH CAPTIVES IS ALSO THE TEMPER OF MANY GODLY MEN IN OUR DAY. The words of the prophet are words which they also need to hear, to be reassured and to recover their confidence and hope.
1. We have fears about matters purely secular.
2. There are fears which spring from matters as purely spiritual.
3. Fears also arise from temptations. These temptations are very many and very subtle.
4. There are foes to face, other foes than Satan, but who may be prompted by his evil counsels. What will be our condition in relation to them? There are foes in our own heart, foes in our own house, foes in our daily toil and our rest. Shall we be able to meet and overcome them?
5. Perhaps, with a very large number of devout and godly men, the greatest source of fear is the possibility of the coming on of an hour of darkness.
6. In numberless other instances, the fear originates through a morbid apprehension of death, a hatred of it that is far more Pagan than Christian, a shrinking back from the thought of dissolution, and all that dissolution carries with it.
II. LET US NOW LOOK, NOT AT THE FEARS, BUT AT THEIR TRUE ANTIDOTE. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, etc.
1. Here is the declaration of the perpetual providence of God.
2. Another antidote to fear is given in the Divine pledge of peace. The covenant of My peace shall not be broken. When the sacred writers speak of Gods covenant, it is at once apparent that they are describing the things of heaven in the language of earth. But when the word is used as in the case before us, it stands for a Divine pledge or promise. Remember, still further, that peace was a word which, in the estimation of the Jew, carried with it every possible earthly advantage. It meant more than the cessation of hostility. It meant, opportunity for business; success in commercial ventures; home-life, home-joys, to which the ancient Hebrew was so partial; quiet, love, happiness. The blessings which Jehovah promised to the Jews were manifold; but all those blessings were summed up in this one expressive word–peace. So also to us, in the later economy. Gods pledge to us is–peace, putting the still larger Christian meaning into that word. But when God promises that the covenant of His peace shall not be broken, He expects us to fulfil our part of the covenant. He gives no assurance of peace, if we swerve from Him.
3. The Divine assurance of mercy is another antidote to fear. The Lord, who hath mercy on thee. Mercy was the basis of all Gods treatment of the ancient Jews. Mercy is still the foundation of Gods dealings with us. (J. J.Goadby.)
The unchangeableness of Gods covenant the saints security
I. AN ACCOUNT GIVEN OF A COVENANT, which is ascribed to God, and said to be a covenant of peace.
II. THE SPRING AND SOURCE OF THIS COVENANT. Kindness and mercy.
III. A MOST SOLEMN ASSURANCE OF THE STABILITY, PERPETUITY, AND UNCHANGEABLENESS OF IT. It shall not depart nor be removed.
IV. THE AMPLIFICATION OR FARTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THIS SECURITY. This is as the waters of Noah unto Me, and though the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, etc. (S. Wilson.)
My kindness shall not depart from thee
Kindness
There is something very suggestive in that word kindness. Kindness is originally that which is felt and shown to ones kind or kin. Kind is kinned; so that, according to the primitive signification of the word, kindness grows out of natural relationship. And this is really the basis of Gods kindness. Men are His children: and the relation of parent and child implies kindness. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)
The kindness of God
The word kindness as applied to Deity is a very comprehensive term. It embraces the attributes of love and mercy in all their manifestations and numerous relations, and may be understood to be one with pity, compassion, sympathy, and tenderness.
I. The kindness of Deity is UNCHANGEABLE. It is contrasted with the mutability of earthly objects–even with the mightiest and the most endurable–The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed.
II. The kindness of God is UNIVERSAL, while in some cases it is SPECIAL.
III. The PERPETUITY of this kindness. It shall not depart from thee. The kindness of Deity has its law. It may be granted, or it may be withdrawn, conditionally; and the law of kindness acts in union with the law of justice. (W. D.Horwood.)
The covenant of My peace
Gods peace-giving covenant
The covenant of My peace does not give the sense as fully as My covenant of peace; i.e. My peace-giving covenant. (J. A. Alexander.)
The blessings and stability of the covenant of grace
I. A VIEW OF THE PARTIES CONCERNED IN MAKING THIS COVENANT.
II. A VIEW OF THE BLESSINGS CONTAINED IN IT.
III. A VIEW OF THE STABILITY AND CERTAINTY OF THIS COVENANT, WITH ALL ITS BLESSINGS AND BENEFITS, TO EVERY TRUE BELIEVER. (J. Kidd, D. D.)
The covenant of Gods peace
1. It proceeds from Him as the God of peace.
2. In this way He hath formed between Himself and His people the most intimate, endearing connection, ratified by the Mediator, who is our peace.
3. All the blessings requisite to their peace and felicity are therein bestowed. (R. Macculloch.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; which hath been verified in some mountains and hills, that by earthquakes, or otherwise, have been removed from their places. But these kind of absolute expressions are ofttimes comparatively understood, of which See Poole “Isa 51:6“; and so the sense is, The mountains shall sooner depart from their places, than my kindness shall depart from thee. As when it is said absolutely, I desired mercy, and not sacrifice, it is meant comparatively, I desired mercy more than sacrifice, as it is explained in the following clause.
The covenant of my peace; that covenant whereby I have made peace and friendship with thee, and have promised unto thee all manner of happiness, which frequently comes under the name of peace in Scripture. The sense of the place is, that God will not cast off his Christian church, as he did cast off the church of the Jews; and that the new covenant is established upon better and surer promises than the old, as is observed, Heb 8:6,7, &c., and elsewhere.
That hath mercy on thee; who doth thus with thee not for thine own merits, but merely for his own grace and mercy.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. (Isa 51:6;Psa 89:33; Psa 89:34;Rom 11:29).
covenant of my peace(2Sa 23:5). The covenantwhereby I have made thee at peace with Me.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed,…. As sometimes by earthquakes, and as they will at the last day, when the earth shall be dissolved, and all in it, things the most solid, firm, and durable: it may be understood comparatively; sooner shall these depart and be removed than the kindness and covenant of God: it may be interpreted figuratively of revolutions in kingdoms and states, and particularly of the abolition of Paganism in the times of Constantine; and which is expressed in much such language; “the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places”, Re 6:14. Kimchi observes, that mountains and hills may be interpreted of the kings of the nations; with this compare Re 6:15:
but my kindness shall not depart from thee; the love of God to his people is an everlasting love; it always continues; it never did, nor never will depart, notwithstanding their fall in Adam, their depraved state by nature, their actual sins and transgressions, their many revoltings and backslidings; though the Lord may hide his face from them, and afflict them, still he loves them; whatever departs from them, his kindness shall not; though riches may flee away from them, friends stand aloof off from them, health may be taken away, and life itself, yet the love of God is always the same; and so, whatever providences may attend his church and interest in any period of time, he has the same paternal care for it, and kindness for his people, as ever:
neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed; the covenant of grace made with Christ and his people in him from everlasting, so called, because peace is a considerable article of it; even that peace which was upon the heart and thought of God from everlasting; the scheme of which was drawn by him; all things relating to it were settled in this covenant, as that Christ should be the Maker of it, and that it should be made by his blood; besides, peace includes all the blessings of grace which that covenant is stored with; and the covenant is the spring and source of all peace, spiritual and eternal: moreover, as this refers to Gospel times, the new covenant is here meant, and the publication of it, in which the Gospel of peace, or peace by Jesus Christ, is preached unto men; to which may be added, that one part, at least, of the sense of the passage, may be, that notwithstanding all the troubles and exercises the church of Christ should meet with from Rome Pagan or Papal, yet the promise and covenant of God, that it should enjoy peace and prosperity in the latter day, should never be made void, but should have its sure and certain accomplishment:
saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee; for all springs from the mercy of God, and not the merits of men; and therefore the fulfilment of the covenant and promises may be depended upon.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“For the mountains may depart, and the hills may shake; my grace will not depart from thee, and my covenant of peace will not shake, saith Jehovah who hath compassion on thee.” Jehovah’s grace and covenant of peace (cf., Num 25:12) stand as firm as the mountains of God (Psa 36:7), without departing from Jerusalem ( instead of the usual ) and without shaking; and they will be fulfilled. This fulfilment will not take place either by force or by enchantment; but the church which is to be glorified must pass through sufferings, until it has attained the form which answers to the glory promised to it on oath. And this will also take place; for the old Jerusalem will come forth as a new one out of the furnace of affliction.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
10. For the mountains shall indeed be moved. He confirms the former statement, and declares that sooner shall the whole world be turned upside down, than his mercy shall fail. It would be idle to put the question here, how “the mountains shall be moved, or the hills shall shake;” for the comparison is drawn from those things which appear to be strongest and most deeply rooted, in order to show that the foundation of the Church is far more durable. “Mountains” are very strong, and earthquakes do not so frequently take place in them as in plains; and therefore the Lord declares that, although that vast and huge mass of “mountains be moved,” or the heavens fall, yet his covenant shall endure, and his mercy towards the Church shall not fail. In this sense it is said in the Psalm, “The Lord shall reign, the world shall be established.” (Psa 93:1) In another passage it is even said,
“
Though the heavens pass away, the Church of God shall remain unshaken.” (Psa 102:26)
My mercy. In the word “mercy,” it ought to be remarked what is the nature of the foundation of the covenant; for we can have no friendship with God: unless he have mercy upon us, and receive us by free grace. (71)
The covenant of my peace. He calls it “the covenant of peace,” because the Lord offers to us all that belongs to perfect happiness; as the Hebrew writers also, under the word “peace,” include all posterity. Since therefore this covenant contains solid and perfect happiness, it follows that all who are excluded from it are miserable.
Saith Jehovah, who hath compassion on thee. By saying that it is he “who hath compassion” on her, he again confirms what was formerly said, that he will be reconciled in no other way, and for no other reason, than because he is compassionate and ready to pardon.
(71) “ S’il ne nous recoit gratuitement, en pardonnant nos offenses;” “Unless he receive us through free grace, by pardoning our offenses.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) For the mountains shall depart.Better, may depart. The same bold hyperbole is found in Psa. 46:3; Jer. 31:36; Mat. 24:35.
The covenant of my peace.The phrase is taken from Num. 25:12, and re-appears in Eze. 34:25; Eze. 37:26. Peace, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, includes well-nigh all that is wrapped up in the salvation of the New.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 54:10 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
Ver. 10. For the mountains shall depart. ] See Mat 24:35 Psa 46:2 . See Trapp on “ Mat 24:35 “ See Trapp on “ Psa 46:2 “
But my kindness shall not depart from thee.
Neither shall the covenant of my peace.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah
THE PASSING AND THE PERMANENT
Isa 54:10
There is something of music in the very sound of these words. The stately march of the grand English translation lends itself with wonderful beauty to the melody of Isaiah’s words. But the thought that lies below them, sweeping as it does through the whole creation, and parting all things into the transient and eternal, the mortal and immortal, is still greater than the music of the words. These are removed; this abides. And the thing in God which abides is all-gentle tenderness, that strange love mightier than all the powers of Deity beside, permanent with the permanence of His changeless heart. The mountains shall depart, the emblems of eternity shall crumble and change and pass, and the hills be removed; but this immortal, impalpable, and, in some men’s minds, fantastic and unreal something, ‘My loving kindness and the covenant of My peace,’ shall outlast them all. And this great promise is stamped with the sign manual of Heaven, being spoken by the Lord that hath mercy on thee.’
So then, dear friends, I think I shall most reverentially deal with these words if I handle them in the simplest possible way, and think, first of all, of that great antithesis that is set before us here-what passes and what abides; and, secondly, draw two or three plain, homely lessons and applications from the thoughts thus suggested.
I. First, then, we have to deal with the contrast between the apparently enduring which passes, and that which truly abides.
But our text does not stop there. It brings into view the transiency of the transient, in order to throw into greater relief and prominence the perpetuity of the abiding. If we had nothing abiding beyond this perishable material universe, it would indeed be misery to exist. Life would be not only insignificant but wretched, and a ghastly irony, a meaningless, aimless ripple on the surface of that silent, shoreless sea. The great ‘But’ of this text lifts the oppression from humanity with which the one-sided truth of the passing of all the Visible loads it.
And so turn for a moment to the other side of this great text. There stands out above all that is mortal, which, although it counts its existence by millenniums, is but for an instant, visible to the eye of faith, the Great Spirit who moves all the material universe, Himself unmoved, and lives undiminished by creation, and undiminished if creation were swept out of existence. Let that which may pass, pass; let that which can perish, perish; let the mountains crumble and the hills melt away; beyond the smoke and conflagration, and rising high above destruction and chaos, stands the calm throne of God, with a loving Heart upon it, with a council of peace and purpose of mercy for you and for me, the creatures of a day indeed, but who are to live when the days shall cease to be. ‘My kindness!’ What a wonderful word that is, so far above all the cold delusion of so-called theism! ‘My kindness!’ the tender-heartedness of an infinite love, the abounding favour of the Father of my spirit, His gentle goodness bending down to me, His tenderness round about me, eternal love that never can die; the thing that lasts in the universe is His kindness, which continues from everlasting to everlasting. What a revelation of God! Oh, dear friends, if only our hearts could open to the full acceptance of that thought, sorrow and care and anxiety, and every other form of trouble, would fade away and we should be at rest. The infinite, undying, imperishable love of God is mine. Older than the mountains, deeper than their roots, wider than the heavens, and stronger than all my sin, is the love that grasps me and keeps me and will not let me go, and lavishes its tenderness upon me, and beseeches me, and pleads with me, and woos me, and rebukes me, and corrects me when I need, and sent His Son to die for me. ‘My kindness shall not depart from thee.’
But even that great conception does not exhaust the encouragement which the prophet has to give to souls weighed upon with the transiency of the material. He speaks of ‘the covenant of My peace.’ We are to think of this great, tender, changeless love of God, which underlies all things and towers above all things, which overlaps them all and fills eternity, as being placed, so to speak, under the guarantee of a solemn obligation. God’s covenant is a great thought of Scripture which we far too little apprehend in the depth and power of its meaning. His covenant with you and me, poor creatures, is this, ‘I promise that My love shall never leave thee.’ He makes Himself a constitutional monarch, so to speak, giving us a plighted word to which we can appeal and go to Him and say, ‘There, that is the charter given by Thyself, given irrevocably for ever, and I hold Thee to it. Fulfil it, O Thou God of Truth.’
‘My covenant of peace.’ Dear friends, the prophet spoke a deeper thing than he knew when he uttered these words. Let me remind you of the large meaning which the New Testament puts into them. ‘Now the God of Peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, through the blood of the everlasting Covenant, make us perfect in every good work, to do His will.’ God has bound Himself by His promise to give you and me the peace that belongs to His own nature, and that covenant is sealed to us in the blood of Jesus Christ upon the Cross, and so we sinful men, with all the burden of our evil upon us, with all our sins known to us, with all our manifest failings and infirmities, can turn to Him and say, ‘Thou hast pledged Thyself to forgive and accept, and that covenant is made sure to me because Thy Son hath died, and I come and ask Thee to fulfil it.’ And be sure of this, that no poor creature upon earth, however lame his hand, who puts out that hand to grasp that peaceful covenant-that new covenant in the blood of Christ-can plead in vain.
My brother, have you done that? Have you entered into this covenant of peace with God-peace in believing, peace by the blood of Christ, peace that fills a new heart, peace that rules amidst all the perturbations and disappointments of life? Then you may be sure that that covenant will stand for evermore, though the mountains depart and the hills be removed.
II. Now turn with me to a few practical lessons which we may gather from these great contrasts here, between the perishable mortal and the immortal divine love.
What folly it is for a man to risk his peace and the strength and the joy of his life upon things that crumble and change, when all the while there is lying before him open for his entrance, and wooing him to come into the eternal home of his spirit, this covenant! Here are we, from day to day, plunged into these passing vanities, and always tempted to think that they are the true abiding things, and it needs great discipline and watchfulness to live the better life. There is nothing that will help us to do it like a firm grasp of the love of God in Jesus Christ. Then we can hold these mortal joys with a loose hand, knowing that they are only for a little time, and feeling that they are passing whilst we look at them, and are changing like the scenery in the sky on a summer’s night, with its cliffs and hills in the clouds, even while we gaze. Where there was a mountain a moment ago up there, there is now a depression, and the world and everything in it lasts very little longer than these. It is only a film on the surface of the great sea of eternity-there is no reality about it. It is but a dream-a vision, slipping, slipping, slipping away, and you and I slipping along with it. How foolishly, how obstinately, we all cling to it, though even the very grasp of our hands tends to make it pass away, as the children coming in from the fields with their store of buttercups and daisies in their hot hands, which by their very clutch hasten the withering. And that is just our position. We have them for a brief moment, and they all perish in the using. Oh, brother, have you set your heart on that which is not, when all the while there, longing to bless and love us, stands the Eternal God, with His unchanging love and faithful covenant of His perpetual peace? Surely it were wiser-wiser, to put it on the lowest ground-to seek the things that are above, and, knowing as we do that the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, so make our portion the kindness which shall not depart, and seek our share in the peace that shall not pass away.
But there is another lesson to be put in the same simple fashion. Surely we ought to use thoughts like these of my text in order to stay the soul in seasons which come to every one sometimes, when we are made painfully conscious of the transiency of this Present. Meditative hours come to us all-moments when perhaps some strain of music gives us back childhood’s days; when perhaps some perfume of a flower reminds us of long-vanished gardens and hands that have crumbled into dust; when some touch of a sunset sky, or some word of a book, or some providence of our lives, comes upon the heart and mind, reminding us how everything is passing. You have all had these thoughts. Some of us stifle them-they are not pleasant to many of us; some of us brood over them unwholesomely, and that is not wise; but the best use of them is to bear us onward into the peaceful region where we clasp to our troubled hearts that which cannot go. If any of us are making experience to-day of earthly change, if any of us have hearts heavy with earthly losses, if any of us are bending under the weight of that awful law, that everything becomes part and parcel of that dreadful past, if any of us are looking at our empty hands and saying, ‘They have taken away my god and what have I more?’ let us listen to the better voice that says, ‘My kindness shall not depart from thee, and so, whatever goes, thou canst not be desolate if thou hast Me.’
And then, still further, let me remind you that this same thought may avail to give to us hopes of years as immortal as itself. We do not belong to the mountains and hills that shall depart, or to the order of things to which they belong. There is coming a very solemn day, I believe, not by any mere processes of natural decay as I take it, but by the action of God Himself, the Judge that ‘day of the Lord that shall come as a thief in the night’-when the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, and the throne of judgment shall be set, and you and I will be there. My brother, lay your hand on that covenant of peace which is made for us all in Christ Jesus the Lord, and then ‘calm as the summer’s ocean we shall be, and all the wreck of nature’ cannot disturb us, for we shall abide unshaken as the throne of God. The mountains may pass, the hills be removed, but herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of ‘judgment,’ for that kindness shall not depart from us, and God’s gentle tenderness is eternal as Himself. Then we shall not depart from it either, and we are immortal as the tenderness that encloses us. God’s endless love must have undying creatures on whom to pour itself out, and if to-day I possess-as we all may possess in however feeble a measure-some sips and prelibations of that great flood of love that is in God, I can look unblanched right into the eyes of death and say, ‘Thou hast no power at all over me, I am eternal because the God that loves me is so, and since He hath loved me with an everlasting love, His loving-kindness shall not depart from me. Therefore, seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, I know that I have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and because He lives I shall live also.’ The hope that is built upon the eternal love of God in Christ is the true guarantee to me of immortal existence, and this hope is ours if, and only if, we come into the covenant-the covenant of peace. God says, ‘I will love thee, I will bless thee, I will keep thee, I will pardon thee, I will save thee, I will glorify thee, and there is My bond on that Cross, the new covenant in His blood.’ Close with the covenant that God is ready to make with you, and then ‘life and death, principalities and powers, things present and things to come, height and depth, and every other creature shall be impotent to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
the mountains: Isa 51:6, Isa 51:7, Psa 46:2, Mat 5:18, Mat 16:18, Mat 24:35, Rom 11:29, 2Pe 3:10-13
the covenant: Isa 55:3, 2Sa 23:5, Psa 89:33, Psa 89:34, Mal 2:5, Heb 8:6-13, Heb 13:20, Heb 13:21
that hath: Isa 49:10, Eph 2:4, Eph 2:5, Tit 3:5
Reciprocal: Gen 8:21 – neither Gen 9:9 – General Gen 49:26 – everlasting hills Deu 32:22 – foundations 1Ki 17:7 – the brook 1Ch 1:4 – Noah Job 14:18 – the mountain Job 18:4 – the rock Job 26:10 – until Psa 89:28 – mercy Psa 89:37 – and as Psa 125:5 – peace Isa 55:13 – an everlasting Jer 31:36 – those Jer 33:20 – General Lam 3:17 – thou Eze 16:42 – and will Zec 6:13 – and the Joh 20:26 – Peace Rom 3:3 – shall 2Th 3:16 – give Heb 6:17 – the immutability Rev 4:3 – a rainbow
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Even the most substantial and immovable of things do not compare with the firmness of God’s promise. The Lord will again reshape the surface of the earth, as He did with the Flood, only the next time it will be with a great earthquake (cf. Rev 16:17-21). Even global changes would not alter this promise to preserve His people in intimate relationship with Himself. This promise is so firm and formal that it constitutes a covenant, a covenant guaranteeing peace with them and for them (Heb. shalom, wholeness of divine blessing). This is probably a reference to the New Covenant (cf. Jer 31:31; Jer 32:40; Eze 37:26; Luk 22:20; 1Co 11:25; 2Co 3:6; Heb 8:8-12). [Note: See J. Dwight Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come, pp. 164-77.] Young, 3:368, interpreted it as a reference to the theological covenant of grace. [Note: Young, 3:368.] Another scholar claimed that the covenant of peace was an ancient Near Eastern motif in primeval myth. [Note: Bernard F. Batto, "The Covenant of Peace: A Neglected ancient Near Eastern Motif," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1987):187-211.] Yahweh would renovate the earth because He has compassion on His people; He desires to bless them.
"How was it possible for God to enter into the Sinai Covenant with his people? They had to be delivered from Egypt by ’Moses, my servant’ (e.g., Num 12:7). How is it possible for God to enter into a (new) covenant of peace with Israel and all the nations of the world? It is possible through the deliverance brought about by the self-sacrifice of ’my Servant,’ who is the expression of the eternal love of God. ’Break forth with a shout!’" [Note: Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, p. 424.]
"Just as the Noahic settlement was formalized into a perpetual covenant, so the work of the Servant leads to a covenant pledging peace in perpetuity." [Note: Motyer, p. 449.]
Throughout this passage more than just the deliverance of Israel from the exile is in view. More than the deliverance of Israel from sin is in view. The deliverance of all humanity from sin by the Servant is in view. However, Israel is the primary focus of the prophecy.