Isaiah, Prophet of Salvation, Book 4, part 16

Isaiah 26:7-9 says,

⁷ The way of the righteous is smooth; O Upright One, make the path of the righteous level. ⁸ Indeed, while following the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for You eagerly; Your name, even Your memory, is the desire of our souls. ⁹ At night my soul longs for You, indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently; for when the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

In a time when there was little or no roadbuilding equipment, the dirt roads were always full of ruts and rocks. This could even make it difficult to walk upright. It was customary to fix the roads when an important official was coming to a town, so that his chariot would ride smoothly or so that his horse would not stumble. So we read in Isaiah 40:3, 4,

³ … Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴ Let every valley [rut] be lifted up, and every mountain and hill [bump] be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley.

A “righteous” highway was a smooth road where one could travel quickly and easily. So also was “the path of the righteous” that was free of sin (obstacles). The prophet expressed his desire to follow “the way of Your judgments,” that is, the path or highway of true justice. Loving God and his neighbors as himself was his “way” of life.

Remembering God’s Name and Nature

Seeing the law as the expression of God’s nature, it was bound up in His “name,” because a name was also seen as an expression of nature or character. Hence, “God is love” is a way of saying that Love is God’s name. The tendency for men to forget someone’s name was likened to forgetting his nature, no longer remembering what he is like, or who he is.

So the prophet spoke of “Your name, even Your memory,” a word that goes back to the law of offerings. In Leviticus 2:2 we see that frankincense was to be added to a grain offering as a “memorial,” that is, to remember the nature of God.

To “know” His name was to know and understand His nature and thus also to understand how each law revealed some aspect of His “name.” The prophet revealed his longing to know God better. Every night his spirit sought God diligently. It is not that the prophet thought God had departed from him but that he wanted to know God’s nature more intimately and clearly.

The nightly revelations the prophet saw and understood were then tested during the day as he walked upon his own highway of life. Every revelation is put into the crucible to test it in real life to see if it was a genuine revelation or just a passing thought from one’s own mind. Isaiah knew that God’s judgments (that is, God’s just nature applied to correct the hearts of men) would have a positive result.

⁹ … for when the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

This is a concise statement revealing the purpose of divine judgment. It is not to destroy sinners but to teach them righteousness. The law is not about condemnation but about correction, so that the entire earth may conform to the image of Christ by the end of history. Most people will not learn righteousness prior to the Great White Throne, where the entire earth will experience His judgments. But when they are arrested, raised from the dead, and brought before His throne, every knee will bow and every tongue will “swear allegiance” (Isaiah 45:23) to Christ.

This Day of Judgment will begin a whole new era, where the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. That is the purpose of the “lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15), which is formed by the “river of fire” (Daniel 7:10). The river of fire proceeds out of the fiery throne (Daniel 7:9) and represents the judgments of the “fiery law” (Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV).

Isaiah tells us that when the inhabitants of the earth experience the judgments of the fiery law, they will learn righteousness. That era of divine judgment will be long, but not “everlasting.” It will end with the Jubilee, which is the prime law of grace, where God cancels all remaining debt whether a man deserves it or not.

Hence, the Hebrew word olam, usually translated “everlasting,” actually means an indefinite period of time. Its root word is alam, “to hide.” So olam means “hidden,” and when applied to time, it means a hidden, unknown, or unspecified period of time. It is indefinite, not infinite, and this preserves the law of Jubilee, along with God’s nature (Love) and plan for the earth.

Isaiah 26:10 then speaks of the wicked in the days of the prophet,

¹⁰ Though the wicked is shown favor [grace], he does not learn righteousness; he deals unjustly in the land of uprightness and does not perceive the majesty of the Lord.

This appears to contradict his statement in the previous verse until we realize that he is referring to the wicked who were living in his own time. Those wicked men had not yet experienced the judgment of God. They had not yet gone into captivity, nor had they been summoned to the Great White Throne in the day when God judges the entire earth.

Wicked people do not yet know the nature of God, for if they did, they would be completely undone and would fall to their knees. If they saw Him face to face, they would not be able to refrain from confessing Him and swearing allegiance to Him. Present day sinners have no revelation of His name/nature, but the day will come when all will be given this revelation of "the majesty of the Lord."