Also the sons of the alien, that join themselves to Jehovah, to minister unto him and to love the name of Jehovah, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and holdeth fast to my covenant;
God speaks this promise over people who had every reason to think themselves shut out — foreigners with no natural claim on Israel's God. What does it mean to join yourself to the LORD? Why is the sabbath named here? And when does this promise come true?
The chapter deliberately widens the circle. It names two cases: the foreigner and the eunuch. Birth shut out the first; his body shut out the second. God's salvation reaches past Israel's own descendants.
These verses that specially speak of the stranger and the hopeless – the eunuch – clearly show that the earthly blessings of God's salvation will not be confined to the godly remnant of Israel. Such people need not think of themselves as shut out from blessing, saying, "The LORD has completely separated me from His people." Suppose there are people among the nations who fear the LORD, who keep His sabbaths, who choose the things that please the LORD, and who make use of the promise of blessing given on the ground of grace. They too will have a portion in God's house.
The phrases in this verse are not empty religious form. One writer reads them as marks of a real change of heart, and presses the point with a question.
Read Isaiah 56, where God promises Jewish blessings, and yet it only says "my salvation is near to come." God says of these people that they choose the things that please Him, that they take hold of His covenant, that they join themselves to the Lord to serve Him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be His servants. Will anyone say that God is here describing unconverted people?
What qualifies these people is not ancestry. It is character, and their own grip on what God has promised.
It is a wonderful thing to see in this fifty-sixth chapter that even the foreigner's son and the despised are encouraged to lay hold of the covenant of the Lord. God looks for moral qualifications in those who are to share the glory to come… So even those whom Israel would count as outsiders will have an everlasting name, and He will make them joyful in His house of prayer, if they are marked by these things and "take hold" of the covenant and "join themselves to the Lord."
Why does the sabbath keep coming up here? Because of what it stood for.
The sabbath was the sign of God's covenant with Israel, so it had to be kept faithfully.
The verse leads on to the promise of God's house as a house of prayer for all nations. One writer ties that opening to the last days and to the cross.
Isaiah 56 clearly goes beyond promise to Israel. It moves on to the last days. It secures the blessing for the Remnant, and then passes that blessing on to the Gentile. His house shall be "a house of prayer for all nations" — that is, for those who have taken hold of Jehovah's covenant… It goes on, no doubt, to the new state of things, but its foundation was laid in the Cross.
Commentators differ on how much of this is happening now. Another writer keeps the fulfilment future, though its principles already work in the gospel:
We do not deny that Isaiah 55 gives broad moral principles of grace on God's part, and that Isaiah 56 shows that grace flowing out to the Gentiles. Both are realised now in the gospel and the church, even more fully than anything set out here… So, if this is right, there is nothing to move the fulfilment of this blessed fruit of the cross away from the future, however wide the words may be.
The Ethiopian court official of Acts 8 was both a foreigner and a eunuch. He fits Isaiah's description — and he received more than the prophet promised.
Our passage mentions the eunuch in particular, and Acts 8 tells the story of the Ethiopian eunuch. He was indeed one of the "sons of the stranger" who were seeking to "join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord." What the prophet promised to such people was made good to him in a fuller measure. He was not given a place "in My holy mountain," but was "called … into the grace of Christ." (Gal. 1:6).
- Joined — The outsider acts first: he joins himself to the LORD and takes hold of the covenant. Birth shuts nobody out.
- Loving — The service here springs from love for God's name. Commentators read these marks as the signs of a converted heart, not empty form.
- Marked — The sabbath is the sign of God's covenant with Israel. The stranger who keeps it shares Israel's blessing.
- Gathered — Next comes a place in God's house, a house of prayer for all nations. Its foundation was laid at the cross, and its full display is still ahead.
- Enlarged — The Ethiopian official of Acts 8 fits Isaiah's description. He received more than the prophet promised: not a place on the holy mountain, but a call into the grace of Christ.
even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.
Isaiah 56 speaks to people who had every reason to feel shut out of Israel: foreigners, and eunuchs who could leave no children behind. God promises them a place in His own house — and He gives that house a name that reaches far past Israel.
One writer reads verses 3–8 as God's answer to people who assumed blessing could never reach them.
These verses speak in particular of the stranger and the hopeless — the eunuch. They clearly show that the earthly blessings of God's salvation will not be limited to the godly remnant of Israel. Such people need not see themselves as shut out from blessing, saying, "The LORD has utterly separated me from His people." Suppose there are people among the nations who fear the LORD. They keep His sabbaths and choose the things that please Him. They take up the promise of blessing on the ground of grace. Then they too will have a portion in God's house, and come into the everlasting blessing and joy of God's earthly people.
Another writer traces the promise to a man who was both foreigner and eunuch: the Ethiopian of Acts 8.
This passage, verses 3–8, is one to note carefully. The door was open to anyone, no matter where they came from, who truly feared the Lord and sought Him and His covenant among His people... Our passage mentions the eunuch in particular. In Acts 8 we have the story of the Ethiopian eunuch. He was indeed one of the "sons of the stranger" who were seeking to "join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord." The prophet's promise to such people came true for him in fuller measure still. He was not given a place "in My holy mountain," but was "called… into the grace of Christ."
The stranger does not just get through the door. What he brings counts like anyone else's.
Since it is all grace here, there is one law and one way for all. The stranger may share in this happy delight of drawing near to the Lord. Isaiah says this about the sons of the stranger in the purpose and grace of God: "their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar."
An open door does not erase every difference. One writer describes a coming age with Jerusalem at the centre and worship reaching far beyond it.
Jerusalem will be the great centre of earthly worship for everyone. Besides that, this passage speaks of literal offerings coming from the nations everywhere... Both belong to the future age, and to that alone. Israel will form the inner circle for the earth. But that does not shut out true and acceptable worship among the nations everywhere; "for My name," He says, "shall be great among the nations, says Jehovah of hosts."
Jesus quoted this verse when He cleared the temple. One writer compares that day with an earlier cleansing.
It was His house, and He claimed His right to cleanse it. He quoted Isaiah 56:7, and He described its condition in the words of Jeremiah 7:11: "My house shall be a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves." He had cleansed it once before, at the start of His ministry (John 2:14–16). That first time He acted as Son, and called the house His Father's: "Do not make My Father's house a house of trade." Now, as Jehovah Himself, He cleansed it: "My house," He said.
The scene Isaiah paints is still future. Even so, one writer draws a line to today: who prays now, and who will pray then.
There is only one house of God on earth, and it is a house of prayer for all men. It is made up of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ... The difference about the house of God now is that we pray for all. In the future day all nations will be able to pray there themselves. We now pray for the kings and rulers of the nations (1 Tim. 2:1).
- The house — God claims a home on earth and names it Himself. He calls it a house of prayer, and the name settles what belongs there.
- The far-off — God names the foreigner and the eunuch first. The two who seemed shut out are the two He calls in.
- The altar — the welcome goes past the door. God accepts the stranger's offerings on the same footing of grace as anyone's.
- All peoples — in the age to come, Jerusalem stands at the centre and worship rises among the nations everywhere.
- The theft — Christ found the house turned into a den of thieves and cleansed it as its Owner. His people take up its true work now, praying for all.