20 Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thy sun shall no more go down - There shall be no total and long night of calamity, error, and sin. This is designed to describe the flourishing and glorious state of the church. It, of course, does not mean that there should be no times of calamity, no period of ignorance, no scenes of persecution; but it means that there should not be total night. Truth should reign on the earth, and there never would be a time when the light of salvation would be extinct. There never would be a time like that when Jerusalem was wholly destroyed, and a long total night came over the land. There never would be a time when the Sun of righteousness would not shine, or when the world would be wholly deprived of the illumination of his beams. The church would be perpetual. It would live through all changes, and survive all revolutions, and to the end of time the light of salvation would shine upon a darkened world. Since the Messiah came the light of revelation has never been wholly withdrawn from the world, nor has there been a period in which total and absolute night has come over all the church of God. But the prophet, probably, referred to far more glorious times than have yet occurred. The period is coming when the light of salvation will shine upon the earth with unclouded and universal splendor, as if the sun having ascended to the meridian should stand there in a blaze of glory age after age; when there shall be no alternation of day and night when the light shall not be obscured by clouds; and when there shall be no eclipse of his glory.
Neither shall thy moon - This language is poetic, and means that there would be no such obscurity in the church as there would be in the world should the sun and moon be withdrawn. Light and beauty unobscured would fill the whole heavens, and the darkness of night would be henceforward unknown.
Withdraw itself - Hebrew, יאסף yē'âsēp - 'Be collected,' that is, shall not be withdrawn, or shall not wane. The Septuagint, Οὐκ ἐκλείψει Ouk ekleipsei - 'Shall not be eclipsed,' or shall not fail.
The days of thy mourning - (See the notes at Isaiah 25:8). The description here, therefore, is one of great glory and happiness in the church. That period will yet arrive; and no friend of God and of the happiness of man can think of that time without praying most sincerely that it may soon come, when the Sun of righteousness, in the fullness of his glory, shall ascend to the meridian, and stand there without one obscuring cloud, and pour the splendor of the noontide beams all over a darkened world. Some of the ideas in this chapter, descriptive of the glorious times of the gospel, have been beautifully versified by Pope in his Messiah:
Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy tow'ry head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend:
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabcan springs!
For thee Idumea's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow;
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon them in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze,
O'erflow thy courts; the light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm forever lasts, thine own Messiah reigns!
Thy sun shall no more go down,.... This is a different sun from the former; this is the church's sun, and no other than the sun of righteousness, Christ Jesus; who has his risings and settings now, at least, in the apprehensions of his people; he sometimes withdraws himself, and is gone; and then returns again: but so it will not be in this state: the saints shall be for ever with him, and he shall be for ever with them; who will always behold his glory, and be enlightened by him; see 1-Thessalonians 4:16,
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; or, "shall not be gathered" (i), under a cloud; or "fail" (k), as the Septuagint version; or, "suffer a defect", as the Arabic version; as the moon does when in the wane, or is eclipsed. This may refer to this then present state of the church, which shall not fail; and to the blessings and comforts of it from Christ the sun, which will not cease, the enjoyment of them be ever interrupted. The Targum is,
"thy kingdom shall cease no more, and thy glory shall not be removed;''
and so Maimonides (l) interprets it of the kingdom of the Messiah, that shall endure for ever:
for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light; this is repeated for the confirmation of it:
and the days of thy mourning shall be ended (m); or, "completed"; shall be fully up, and so at an end: or, "shall be recompensed" (n); with an everlasting day of joy and pleasure; there will now be no more sin to distress the saints; no more temptations of Satan to annoy them; no more afflictions either of body or mind to trouble them; no more pain, or crying, or death; and so no more mourning; sorrow and sighing will flee away; all tears will be wiped from their eyes; and everlasting joy be upon their heads; see Revelation 21:4.
(i) "non colligetur", Montanus, Vitringa; "vel recolligetur", Vatablus; "occultabitur", Munster, Tigurine version. (k) , Sept. "deficiet", Pagninus. (l) Moreh Nevochim, par. 2. c. 29. p. 263. (m) "completi erunt", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "completisunt", Vitringa. (n) "Compensabuntur", Tigurine version.
There shall be no national and spiritual obscuration again as formerly (Joel 2:10; Amos 8:9).
mourning . . . ended-- (Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 21:4).
*More commentary available at chapter level.