In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah We have a strong city; salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks.
Isaiah 26 opens with a song. Chapter after chapter before it has described cities pulled down and human greatness left in ruins. Now one city is called strong, and the verse says why: its walls are God's salvation, not stone.
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The song rises while God is still pulling the world's strongholds down. Faith sings it in the middle of the wreckage.
Here is the rod of God striking everything into the dust. He lays cities low and leaves strong places desolate. Mighty Babylon and all the great places of the earth count for nothing. Yet while all this ruin goes on, faith takes up its happy song and says, "We have a strong city; He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks." This city rests on the admitted ruin of everything, and the mighty power of God Himself put it there. Who can shake it?
Jerusalem has been attacked more than any other city. What ends that history is not thicker stone but the defence God appoints.
The prophecy still centres on the actual place: Jerusalem and mount Zion. The city will at last be strong, because its protection will be the salvation God will have appointed. No other city has been attacked so often as Jerusalem. But at last its sorrows will be over, and its people will be called "the righteous nation which keeps the truth."
If salvation is the wall, human strength adds nothing. And when the proud city falls, it falls under the feet of the poor.
In Isaiah 26 the remnant sing in praise of the character of this deliverance. They have a strong city, but its bulwarks are the salvation of God. The strength of man has no place here; it is the foot of the poor that treads down the lofty city. It is the judgment that the righteous God executes Himself.
The singers are still inside the trouble. They sing their song of rescue before the rescue comes, and that is where its comfort lies.
They have not come out of the tribulation. But they count without wavering on the Lord's faithfulness to bring them through. In this confidence they can say beforehand what their songs of deliverance will be… They can look all the trouble ahead in the face, however extreme and unspeakable it is. They can do this because they are now by faith in their strong city, and so they can say, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." Afflicted saint! What a lesson of strong comfort is here.
One writer asks what a wall built by human hands really says about a city. It marks a low condition — and the promised city will not need one.
But what, I ask, is this wall? It is only another witness of Jerusalem's degradation. In her coming days of strength and beauty, when she is the city of the Kingdom… "salvation" will be her wall. God will then appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks. The Lord Himself, like her mountains, will stand round about her. Her walls will be called Salvation, and her gates Praise.
Commentators differ over how far the verse reaches. Some keep it to Jerusalem restored. One writer points to John Bunyan, who read the wall of salvation as the road a believer travels:
"Now I saw in my dream that the highway Christian was to go up had a wall on either side, and that wall was called Salvation, Isa. 26:1. So burdened Christian ran up this way, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back… Just as Christian came up with the Cross, his burden came loose from his shoulders and fell from his back."
- Ruin first. God brings down every rival stronghold first. Only then does He call one city strong.
- Salvation as wall. God appoints the defence. The city's strength is a gift, not an achievement. Human strength has no place in it.
- Sung early. The singers are still in the trouble. They sing the rescue by faith — comfort for anyone suffering now.
- No masonry needed. A wall built by hand marks a low condition. In the promised city God Himself stands round about her, her walls called Salvation and her gates Praise.
- The road home. Applied to the believer, the same walls line the highway to the Cross, where the burden falls off.
Open ye the gates, and the righteous nation which keepeth faithfulness shall enter in.
Isaiah 26 is a song set in a day still to come. Its second line shouts to the gatekeepers: throw the city open. Who is let in? What does it mean to keep faith? And on what ground do the gates open at all?
The chapter names a day that has not yet come.
Then in the opening verse of Isaiah 26, we get the joyful song that will ring out in the land of Judah in that day. The prophecy still centres on Jerusalem and Mount Zion. The city will be strong at last. Its protection will be the salvation that God will have appointed. No other city has suffered so many sieges as Jerusalem. But at last its sorrows will be over, and people will call its inhabitants "the righteous nation which keeps the truth."
The song rises out of total wreckage. The chapters before it level the great cities of the earth. That ruin is what makes this city unshakable.
In the twenty-sixth chapter, which closes that section, you have a song of salvation. Here is the rod of God striking everything into the dust. Cities fall, strong places become desolate, and mighty Babylon and all the great places of the earth count for nothing. Yet in the middle of all this ruin, faith takes up its happy song and says, "we have a strong city, salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks." Who can shake what the mighty power of God Himself has founded on the admitted ruin of everything?
A gate lets people in. It also shuts people out.
When Noah went into the ark, God shut the door; but in Isaiah, chapter 26, we read of a new song in the land. "We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in." There are two sides to this: preserving what is right, and keeping out what is not. The righteous nation comes in. This looks on to the world to come and the display of the glory.
The phrase gets its force from what the nation will have become just before this day. Kelly reads the title against Israel's record with the truth, at the first coming of Christ and at the last days.
The Jewish people, or the larger part of them, will have abandoned Scripture in the last days. At Christ's first coming it could be said that "salvation is of the Jews"; they had the truth but held it in unrighteousness. But before the Lord comes the second time, the great mass of the nation will not hold the truth but a lie, the great deceit of the last days, the lie of Antichrist instead of the truth of Christ. Their unrighteousness will be manifest and fatal.
Kelly reads the phrase as "the righteous nation which keeps faithfulness." The title is not a badge worn by a crowd.
Here we have the blessed contrast of all this: there is a remnant whom God will make into a strong nation, and their name is "The righteous nation which keeps faithfulness." In verse 3 it is not merely that there is a general profession of the nation, but there will be an individual reality among them. In the past they carried the title "the holy nation." In the future it will be real, both in the nation as a whole and in each person. That is a comfort to all who love them. No common privileges are ever meant to make us less mindful of individual fidelity.
The singers are not yet safe when they sing.
They have not yet come out of the tribulation. But they count on the Lord's faithfulness to bring them through, and in that confidence they can say in advance what their songs of deliverance will be… They call upon the gates to open "that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in." They can look all the trouble in between full in the face, however extreme and beyond words it is. By faith they are already inside their strong city, and they can say, "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." Suffering believer, what a lesson of strong comfort is here!
- Song — the words belong to a day still ahead. Judah will sing them, with Jerusalem free at last of the sieges that mark its history.
- Walls — the city is strong because God appoints salvation as its defence. Faith sings this while God lays everything human in the dust.
- Gates — opening them has two sides. They keep what is right inside, and shut out what is not.
- Truth — the title cuts against Israel's record. Once they held the truth in unrighteousness. Before Christ returns, most will hold a lie instead. The nation that enters keeps faith.
- Now — the singers are still in the trouble when they sing. Shared privilege never replaces personal faithfulness. You can sing about the end before the end arrives.