Isaiah 51:11

So the ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing [=sighing, groaning (expression of grief or physical distress)] shall flee away.


Isaiah is prophesying something that was to become the experience of hundreds of thousands of Israelites  - some 200 years before it happened.

  1. •He was declaring an amazing experience of gladness and joy for these people.

  2. •These were people who, apart from the very elderly, had been born and raised in a foreign nation, as captives and slaves. They had been there for 70 years.

  3. •Psalm 137:1-4 captures the emotion of these captive people

  4. -but doesn’t describe the utter destruction, death and devastation that occurred in the days they were conquered and carried away captive by ruthless armies.

  5. -neither does it describe the curses of poverty and demon oppression, the crumbling of Israel’s society and economy, the result of it’s backsliding during the decades leading up to it’s day of ruin.

  6. •When Isaiah speaks of sorrow and sighing, mourning and groaning; he’s describing the personal distress that people, kids, young people, Mums and Dads, spanning many generations had known – it’s all they had known.


So Isaiah is declaring – it’s going to come to an end! The ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away!

  1. •ransom, redeem, rescue, deliver – something you can’t do for yourself! God was going to go and gather them up and bring them back to himself, his blessing, the land he had given them.

  2. •And he says “Zion”. This was one of many high points in the city of Jerusalem – a bit like One Tree Hill or Mount Victoria – they would come to Zion. 100,000 people can’t literally do that – so what the prophet is invoking is the state-of-being that Zion represented:

  3. -it’s where they had composed and sung those awesome songs of joy and worship

  4. -it’s where God – his very presence - had come and rested among them

  5. -it’s where their king had blessed them, fed them, danced with them

  6. -it’s where they had been free from oppressing enemies, unshackled from the shame and defeat of the past, free to laugh, free to sing, free to dance, free to give, free to love . . . they came to Zion!

  7. •Everlasting joy on their heads … listen to The Message: God’s ransomed will come back, come back to Zion cheering, shouting, joy eternal wreathing their heads, exuberant ecstasies transporting them— and not a sign of moans or groans.


“Everlasting” means this – it doesn’t stop. The same JOY that you’ll experience throughout eternity. It’s the JOY that God himself possesses.


(John 15:11) These things have I spoken to you, that my joy man remain in you, and that your joy may be full

  1. •You can never out-laugh God

  2. •Your joy level will never be too extreme for him

  3. •Jesus is a lot happier than we are, so don’t think he’s trying to dampen you down

  4. •There is no way you could ever get too happy for God.

  5. •You could never be too crazy, too spontaneous, too excessive in joy for him.


The Bible uses these phrases: exceeding joy; joy unspeakable and full of glory; fulness of joy. This is what wreathed their heads!

I’ve met a lot of Christian’s who believe their own death will be more powerful than Christ’s!

  1. -When THEY die they’ll have real joy

  2. -When THEY die they’ll really be free

  3. -When THEY die they’ll no longer have an old sin nature

  4. -When THEY die they’ll experience the ecstasies of God’s presence

But, our death achieves nothing! It is HIS death that has done all this for us! We can have everlasting joy on our heads … now, because of Jesus ransomed us!


This was the second time Isaiah had uttered these awesome words. The first time was in Isaiah 35:10


And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.


  1. •When Eugene Peterson got hold of that, this is how he put it:

The people God has ransomed will come back on this road. They’ll sing as they make their way home to Zion, unfading halos of joy encircling their heads, welcomed home with gifts of joy and gladness as all sorrows and sighs scurry into the night.


It’s emotional for them! Psalm 126 was the Psalm they wrote after the rescue of God, and they said

  1. -When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, (that in itself is a powerful statement – God associates his people with Zion – that is, the normal state of a person of God is the joy, presence, freedom, song and dance seen on Zion)

  2. -we were like those who dream (so wonderful they expected to wake up and find it wasn’t real after all)

  3. -then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with singing (our joy and happiness as the redeemed of the Lord is constant – laughing and singing is the natural emotional consequence of that)

  4. -‘Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God to Thee … ‘ Be emotional!


It was on Zion that King David danced and whirled and leapt about. Be crazy with the one you love!


They obtained gladness and joy . . . and sorrow – all the inner anguish of their fallenness, all the pain of the curse, all the terror of their seventy years in a godless land – all of it fled away.


Some five hundred years after this ecstatic experience for the families of Israel . . . being ransomed, being redeemed, being rescued and delivered took on a whole new dimension.


Jesus, the redeemer, went to a mountain called Calvary bearing in himself our whole captivity.

  1. •all the inner anguish of our sin fallenness: in fact, all our sin and our whole sinful nature

  2. •all the pain of the curse: our sickness, our poverty, our death

  3. •all the terror of our capture by the enemy: his oppression, torment and destruction

… on that mountain he became us so that we could become like him

… the God of sin-free life

… the God of outrageous love

… the God of unbelievable freedom

… the God of exceeding joy


And Isaiah saw this too …


Isaiah 25:6 – 10 (the “mountain” – Calvary)


If the families of Israel had good cause to be deliriously happy and overwhelmingly joyful … how much more those who found their redeemer hanging on a cross, bearing all the horror of their capture by sin!

  1. •It’s joy unspeakable and full of glory!

  2. •It doesn’t need me to die to have it – He died so I could feast everyday on all of him!


(The Message)
       But here on this mountain, God-of-the-Angel-Armies will throw a feast for all the people of the world, A feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines, a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts.

     And here on this mountain, God will banish the pall of doom hanging over all peoples, the shadow of doom darkening all nations. Yes, he'll banish death forever. And God will wipe the tears from every face. He'll remove every sign of disgrace from his people, wherever they are. Yes! God says so!

     Also at that time, people will say, "Look at what's happened! This is our God! We waited for him and he showed up and saved us! This God, the one we waited for! Let's celebrate, sing the joys of his salvation.  God's hand rests on this mountain!"




Back to the top



Gladness

and

Joy