‘Lift up your eyes and look about you:
    all assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
    and your daughters are carried on the hip.
5 Then you will look and be radiant,
    your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,
    to you the riches of the nations will come.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land,
    young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come,
    bearing gold and incense
    and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.
7 All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you,
    the rams of Nebaioth will serve you;
they will be accepted as offerings on my altar,
    and I will adorn my glorious temple.

8 ‘Who are these that fly along like clouds,
    like doves to their nests?
9 Surely the islands look to me;
    in the lead are the ships of Tarshish,[a]
bringing your children from afar,
    with their silver and gold,
to the honour of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendour.

This chapter is about the return of God’s people to Jerusalem and the wealth that will be brought to the city from all over the world.

But it also speaks, at least in part, of the influx of the nations (and resources) into the church. Every conversion is for the glory of God (9b) who, in turn, makes His people glorious. The last line takes us back to verses 1-3: ”for he has endowed you with splendour.”

I don’t know about you, but verse 5a comes close to describing how I feel when I see someone to turn to Christ. There is nothing quite like it.

Living in the British Isles, I want to say how thankful I am that the good news of the gospel reached these ”islands” (9a).

The prophecy about ”flocks” and ”rams” being gathered to Jerusalem to serve as ”offerings” (verse 7) was partly fulfilled during the reign of Darius king of Persia (see Ezra 6:9). Don’t forget this is a multi-layered prophecy, and although this was true of the restored city of Jerusalem in Old Testament times; after Jesus came into the world, animal sacrifices were no longer necessary (see Hebrews 10:1-5, 10-14).

Derek Kidner comments that ‘The gold and incense (6) remind the Christian reader of the harbingers of this migration in Mt.2, whose homage then, however, was perilous and whose gifts included the enigmatic myrrh (cf. Mk.15:23; Jn.19:39) – pointers to the struggle that still lay ahead.’ New Bible Commentary, pp.666/667.