Arise, Shine — Zion’s Glory, Isaiah 60–62

Light, garments, and new names, with the Anointed One speaking in the middle — whose words Jesus read in Nazareth, closing the book halfway through a sentence.

Whose Rising Is It?

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee” (Isaiah 60:1). Two commands come first, and everything after them is the reason Zion is able to obey. Hebrew couplets often complete across three or four verses instead of one, and 60:1–3 is the standard example (How to Read Isaiah). Whose light is it? The LORD rose on Zion first, and the Gentiles come to “the brightness of thy rising” only because of that.

The chapter ends brighter: “The sun shall be no more thy light by day … but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light” (60:19–20). The two verses match line for line, A-B-C, A-B-C as the Chiasm Exchange sets them out, and the second adds what the first lacked: “the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” John saw the same city, which “had no need of the sun … and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:23).

How does Zion get there? “A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time” (60:22). Compare “I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73). In April 2021 President Russell M. Nelson said he had “rejoiced as He has directed and executed the hastening of His work” (“Welcome Message”). Who hastens it? “I the LORD.” In HIS time.

What Sits at the Centre of Zion’s Chapters

J. Blake Couey’s outline of Isaiah 56–66, posted at the Chiasm Exchange, sets chapters 60–62 at the centre with the LORD as a warrior on either side, in 59:15–21 and 63:1–6 (Isaiah 56–66). Remember those warriors; they matter in Nazareth.

Inside 60–62 the same site posts a chart attributed to Professor Paul Kim (2005, SBL Formation of Isaiah group). Its outer rings pair a homecoming march (60:1–7) with a highway (62:10–12). The inner rings:

Isaiah 60:21–62:3 — inner rings (Kim)

D  (60:21–22) “the work of my hands”

E  (61:1) “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me”

F  (61:3) “the garment of praise”

H  (61:7) “everlasting joy”

H′  (61:8) “an everlasting covenant”

F′  (61:10) “the garments of salvation”

E′  (61:11) “so the Lord GOD will cause”

D′  (62:1–3) “in the hand of the LORD”

Kim’s chart, with strangers/Gentiles (61:4–6, 9) omitted. Hebrew centre: simchat ‘olam, berit ‘olam.

You might expect the Anointed One at the centre; the chart puts Him on the frame: “Lord GOD” opens His speech and closes it. And in the middle? What He came to give — joy that does not end, held in place by a covenant that does not end. The outer pairs are mostly themes, so hold the chart loosely; the inner pairs you can check in the King James text.

He Closed the Book in the Middle of a Sentence

Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, was handed “the book of the prophet Esaias,” found the place, and read; then “he closed the book … and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him”. Why were they staring? Partly because of where He stopped.

Isaiah 61:1–2 at Nazareth

Read  “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,”

Not read  “and the day of vengeance of our God”

63:4  “For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.”

Luke 4:19 ends at “the acceptable year of the Lord.” The next words in Isaiah wait for the Warrior of chapter 63.

“This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:16–21). THIS scripture, the part He read: He proclaimed the year and left the day. Where does Isaiah pick the day up again? In the Warrior from Edom (Isaiah 63:1–4). Isaiah holds two pictures side by side: one “brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (53:7), the other who has “trodden the winepress alone” (63:3). A mortal Messiah who atones and a millennial Messiah who finishes the work stand in the same book, and Jesus drew the line between them halfway through a verse, in public.

“Anointed” is mashach, the verb behind mashiach, Messiah. “Liberty” is deror, the release of the jubilee: “proclaim liberty throughout all the land” (Leviticus 25:10). Every fiftieth year debts were released and every man returned to his possession, a picture of the release the Anointed One now announced.

Beauty for Ashes

Isaiah 61:3 — three exchanges

“to give unto them beauty (pe’er) for ashes (’epher),”

“the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;”

“… the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified (lehitpa’er).”

Pe’er and ’epher share three consonants in a different order. The last word grows from the root of the first.

Ashes went on a mourner’s head. Pe’er is a headdress or turban (so Brown-Driver-Briggs). The swap is heard before it is understood, and then the last word of the verse, “glorified,” turns out to be built on the same root. The LORD makes the mourner beautiful, and in doing it He is beautified. How is God glorified here? By making broken people beautiful.

He said it once already: “the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified” (60:21). Same verb, same planting, same purpose.

“The Opening of the Prison to Them That Are Bound”

Most Christians read the prisoners of 61:1 as a figure for sin, and fairly so. But Isaiah has real prisoners in view elsewhere, who are “shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited” (24:22). Visited by whom? Peter answers. Christ, “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit … went and preached unto the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:18–19). A strand of doctrine that begins in the Old Testament, is claimed by Christ, and is expounded by His chief Apostle.

On October 3, 1918, President Joseph F. Smith saw the Son of God appear among the faithful dead, “declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful,” and sending messengers to “proclaim liberty to the captives who were bound” (D&C 138:18, 31). Isaiah’s words. Then the vision names who was present:

Doctrine and Covenants 138:42

“And Isaiah, who declared by prophecy that the Redeemer was anointed to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that were bound, were also there.”

Isaiah was THERE. The prophet who wrote 61:1 watched the Anointed One fulfil it, and of everything Isaiah wrote, this is the verse President Smith identified him by. And the work goes on in temples today, because, as Joseph Smith wrote, “the prisoners shall go free” (D&C 128:22).

Garments of Salvation, Garments of Vengeance

“He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments” (61:10). Follow the clothing. Before chapter 60 the Warrior “put on the garments of vengeance for clothing” (59:17). After 62 He comes with “dyed garments” (63:1), and in between He clothes His people with praise, salvation, and righteousness. What He wears in judgment He takes on Himself; what they wear, He gives. Nobody in these chapters weaves their own robe.

The bridegroom’s “ornaments” are pe’er again, the headdress given for ashes, and “decketh himself” is yekahen, from the word for priest. The people named “the Priests of the LORD” in 61:6 are dressed as priests by 61:10.

Nephi prayed, “wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness!” (2 Nephi 4:33), and Jacob taught that the righteous will be “clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Nephi 9:14). Critics call that an anachronism; see Refuting “The Robe of Righteousness”. Latter-day Saints recognize the language of sacred clothing here. The robe is covenant clothing, and it is a gift.

Hephzibah — A Name from the Mouth of the LORD

Zion enters chapter 60 “forsaken and hated” (60:15). Then the names come — the city of the LORD, walls Salvation and gates Praise, Priests of the LORD — and then the promise: “thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.” “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken … but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah” (62:2–4) — “my delight is in her” and “married.” The chapter ends on “A city not forsaken” (62:12).

Who gives a new name? The one who owns the covenant. “To him that overcometh will I give … a white stone, and in the stone a new name written” (Revelation 2:17), and the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that it is given “to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom” (D&C 130:11). It starts at baptism, when we TAKE His name (Mosiah 5:8). In the end He gives us one.

Notice who speaks first in chapter 62. “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace” is the LORD, and then “I have set watchmen upon thy walls … which shall never hold their peace day nor night,” so the watchmen say His own line back to Him (62:1, 6). Then everyone is told to lift up a standard, for “thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him” (62:10–11). Salvation is a Person, and He answers at the end of the Bible: “Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me” (Revelation 22:12).

Key References

Arise, Because He Has Risen on You

Isaiah 60 commands Zion to shine and tells her in the same breath that the light is not hers. A contradiction? No. It is the only kind of shining the gospel knows. The Light of the world told His disciples that they were the light of the world, and to the Nephites He explained how: “hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up” (3 Nephi 18:24).

So you do not arise by working up a glow. You arise because His glory has already risen on you, and you stand where it can be seen. The mourner does not make the beauty; she receives it. When darkness covers the earth — and it does — what are you told? Arise. Shine. Thy light is come.

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