'In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a
strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye
the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter
in.'--ISAIAH xxvi 1-2.
What day is 'that day'? The answer carries us back a couple of
chapters, to the great picture drawn by the prophet of a world-wide
judgment, which is followed by a burst of song from the ransomed people
of Jehovah, like Miriam's chant by the shores of the Red Sea. The 'city
of confusion,' the centre of the power hostile to God and man, falls;
and its fall is welcomed by a chorus of praises. The words of my text
are the beginning of one of these songs. Whether or not there were any
historical event which floated before the prophet's mind is wholly
uncertain. If there were a smaller judgment upon some city of the
enemy, it passes in his view into a world-wide judgment; and my text is
purely ideal, imaginative, and apocalyptic. Its nearest ally is the
similar vision of the Book of the Revelation, where, when Babylon sank
with a splash like a millstone in the stream, the ransomed people
raised their praises.
So, then, whatever may have been the immediate horizon of the prophet,
and though, there may have stood on it some historical event, the city
which he sees falling is other than any material Babylon, and the
strong city in which he rejoices is other than the material Jerusalem,
though it may have suggested the metaphor of my text. The song fits our
lips quite as closely as it did the lips from which it first sprang,
thrilling with triumph: 'We have a strong city; salvation will God
appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous
nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.'
There are three things, then, here: the city, its defences, its
citizens.