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'Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien
shall be your plowmen and your vine dressers. But ye shall be called
the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God'
(Isa. 61:5,6).
Israel are here seen in their position as the royal priesthood, and the
surrounding nations as their servants. It was one of the great duties of the
priest to teach:
'For the priest's lips should keep knowledge; and they should seek the
law at his mouth' (Mal. 2:7; see also Lev. 10:11),
and therefore when the millennial kingdom is set up we find that the mountain
of the Lord's house shall be set up as the head of the mountains, and to this
centre all the nations shall 'stream' and shall say:
'Let us go
up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of
Jacob; and
He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths:
for out of
Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem'
(Isa. 2:3).
The R.V. margin of Psalm 72:10 reads:
'The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall render tribute',
Turning to Isaiah 25 we may notice some further limitations that may at
first surprise us. A feast is to be made unto all peoples, but it is to be
held 'in this mountain' (verse 6). The veil that is cast over all the
peoples and which is spread over all nations is to be done away, but once
again it is 'in this mountain' (verse 7). In the same context we have these
two opposite thoughts:
'He will swallow up death in victory' (verse 8).
'Moab shall be trodden down, or threshed, even as straw is threshed
under the wheels of the threshing cart' (verse 10).
This threshing of Moab is connected with the mountain of the Lord, for it
reads:
'For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall
be threshed, etc.'.
When the desert blossoms as the rose, when the eyes of the blind see, and the
ears of the deaf hear, when the ransomed of the Lord return to Zion, Isaiah
35, the same chapter, says:
'Behold, your God will come with vengeance' (verse 4).
We must therefore be prepared to find in the millennial kingdom the execution
of judgment. Not only so, but Scripture reveals that there will be sin in
that kingdom, and death as a consequence; in other words, the king who shall
reign will:
'Rule them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel' (Psa. 2:9).