The next verses are simply the expansion of these two clauses,--about the sea's flood and the wealth of the Nations. Vv. 6-9 look first landward and then seaward, as from Jerusalem's own wonderful position on the high ridge between Asia and the sea: between the gates of the East and the gates of the West. On the one side, the city's horizon is the range of Moab and Edom, that barrier, in Jewish imagination, of the hidden and golden East across which pour the caravans here pictured. _Profusion of camels shall cover thee, young camels of Midian and Ephah; all of them from Sheba shall come: gold and frankincense shall they bring, and the praises of Jehovah shall they publish. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to thee: they shall come up with acceptance on Mine altar, and the house of My glory will I glorify._ These were just what surged over Jordan from the far countries beyond, of which the Jews knew little more than the names here given,--tawny droves of camels upon the greenness of Palestine like a spate of the desert from which they poured; rivers of sheep brimming up the narrow drove-roads to Jerusalem:--conceive it all under that blazing Eastern sun. But then turning to Judah's other horizon, marked by the yellow fringe of sand and the blue haze of the sea beyond, the prophet cries for Jehovah: _Who are these like a cloud that fly, and like doves to their windows? Surely towards Me the Isles_[277] _are stretching, and ships of Tarshish in the van, to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, to the Name of Jehovah of Hosts and to the Holy of Israel, for He hath glorified thee._ The poetry of the Old Testament has been said to be deficient in its treatment of the sea; and certainly it dwells more frequently, as was natural for the imagination of an inland and a highland people to do, upon the hills. But in what literature will you find passages of equal length more suggestive of the sea than those short pieces in which the Hebrew prophet sought to render the futile rage of the world, as it dashed on the steadfast will of God, by the roar and crash of the ocean on the beach;[278] or painted a nation's prosperity as the waves of a summer sea;[279] or described the long coastlands as stretching out to God, and the white-sailed ships coming up the horizon like doves to their windows!
The rest of the chapter, from ver. 10 onwards, is occupied with the rebuilding and adornment of Jerusalem, and with the establishment of the people in righteousness and peace. There is a very obvious mingling of the material and the moral. The Gentiles are to become subject to the Jew, but it is to be a voluntary submission before the evidence of Jerusalem's spiritual superiority. Nothing is said of a Messiah or a King. Jerusalem is to be a commonwealth; and, while her _magistracy shall be Peace and her overseers Righteousness_, God Himself, in evident presence, is to be her light and glory. Thus the chapter ends with God and the People, and nothing else. God for an everlasting light around, and the people in their land, righteous, secure and growing very large. _The least shall become a thousand, and the smallest a strong nation: I Jehovah will hasten it in its time._
This chapter has been put through many interpretations to many practical uses:--to describe the ingathering of the Gentiles to the Church (in the Christian year it is the Lesson for Epiphany), to prove the doctrine that the Church should live by the endowment of the kingdoms of this world, and to enforce the duty of costliness and magnificence in the public worship of God. _The glory of the Lebanon shall come unto thee, fir-tree, plane-tree and sherbin together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary, and I will make the place of My feet glorious._