◄ Isaiah 60:6 ►
Caravans of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah, and all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
Study Bible
Caravans of camels will cover your land,

The restored Zion will receive the wealth of surrounding nations through the trade caravans that once crossed the deserts. Camels, indispensable for carrying costly goods over long distances, portray abundance arriving in overwhelming measure.

Gen 37:25 And as they sat down to eat a meal, they looked up…
Job 6:19 The caravans of Tema look for water; the travelers of Sheba…
Isa 21:13 This is the burden against Arabia: In the thickets of Arabia…

young camels of Midian and Ephah,

Midian descended from Abraham through Keturah, and Ephah was one of Midian’s sons (Genesis 25:1–4). Peoples formerly outside Israel’s covenant blessings will contribute to the honor and prosperity of the city where the Lord reveals His glory.

Gen 25:4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, and Hanoch.…
Jdg 6:5 For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents…
Jdg 7:12 Now the Midianites, Amalekites, and all the other people…

and all from Sheba will come,

Sheba was renowned for its commerce in southern Arabia, as seen in the queen of Sheba’s journey to Solomon with great riches (1 Kings 10:1–13). The nations’ coming to Zion fulfills the vision of kings and peoples seeking the wisdom, light, and reign of Israel’s God.

Psa 72:10-11 May the kings of Tarshish and distant shores bring tribute;…
1Ki 10:1-10 Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame…
Mat 12:42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment…

bearing gold and frankincense

Gold signifies royal tribute, while frankincense was used in worship and associated with costly trade from Arabia. The gifts brought by the Magi to the infant Jesus echo this vision, acknowledging the Messiah as the true King worthy of worship (Matthew 2:11).

Mat 2:11 On coming to the house, they saw the Child…
Lev 2:1-2 “When anyone brings a grain offering to the LORD,…
Exo 30:34 The LORD also said to Moses, “Take fragrant spices—…

and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.

Material wealth will not be the ultimate focus of this gathering. The nations will openly honor the Lord, turning from false gods to confess His glory and joining Israel in worship.

Isa 42:12 Let them give glory to the LORD and declare His praise…
Psa 66:2 Sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious.
1Ch 16:23-24 Sing to the LORD, all the earth. Proclaim His salvation…

Persons / Places / Events
1. Midian
A region and people located in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula. Historically, the Midianites were descendants of Abraham through Keturah and had interactions with the Israelites, both hostile and peaceful.

2. Ephah
A son of Midian, representing a tribe or region within Midian. The mention of Ephah highlights the specific groups within the larger Midianite community.

3. Sheba
A kingdom in the southern Arabian Peninsula, often associated with wealth and trade. The Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon is a notable biblical event, symbolizing the bringing of wealth and wisdom.

4. Gold and Frankincense
Precious commodities in ancient times, symbolizing wealth, divinity, and worship. These gifts are reminiscent of the offerings brought to Jesus by the Magi in the New Testament.

5. Proclaiming the Praises of the LORD
This event signifies the acknowledgment and worship of God by the nations, fulfilling the prophecy of the nations coming to the light of Israel.
Teaching Points
The Universal Call to Worship
Isaiah 60:6 highlights the prophetic vision of all nations coming to worship the Lord. This calls us to recognize the global mission of the Church and our role in spreading the Gospel to all peoples.

Symbolism of Gifts
The gold and frankincense symbolize the recognition of God's sovereignty and the worship due to Him. In our lives, we are called to offer our best to God, acknowledging His lordship over all.

Fulfillment in Christ
The prophecy finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the light to the nations. As believers, we are to reflect His light in our communities, drawing others to the worship of God.

Prophetic Hope and Encouragement
This passage offers hope that God's promises will be fulfilled. In times of darkness, we can trust in God's plan for His glory to be revealed among the nations.

Integration of Faith and Daily Life
Just as the nations bring their wealth to honor God, we are encouraged to integrate our faith into every aspect of our lives, using our resources and talents for His glory.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does the prophecy in Isaiah 60:6 encourage us to participate in global missions today?

2. In what ways can we offer our "gold and frankincense" to God in our daily lives?

3. How does the fulfillment of this prophecy in the New Testament (e.g., the visit of the Magi) strengthen our faith in God's promises?

4. What are some practical ways we can reflect the light of Christ in our communities, as envisioned in Isaiah 60?

5. How can the imagery of nations coming to worship God in Isaiah 60:6 inspire us to foster unity and diversity within the Church?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Matthew 2:1-12
The visit of the Magi to Jesus, where they bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, echoes the prophecy in Isaiah 60:6, showing the fulfillment of nations bringing gifts to honor the Messiah.

Psalm 72:10-11
This psalm speaks of kings bringing gifts and bowing before the king, which parallels the imagery in Isaiah 60:6 of nations coming to honor the Lord.

Revelation 21:24-26
The vision of the New Jerusalem where the nations bring their glory and honor into it, reflecting the prophetic vision of Isaiah 60 where the wealth of nations is brought to God's people.
Sermons
An Arousing CallIsaiah 60:1-12
An Imperial MinistryJ. H. Jowett, M. A.Isaiah 60:1-12
Arise, ShineC. G. Scott.Isaiah 60:1-12
Christ Our LightA. Maclaren, D. D.Isaiah 60:1-12
Christ the Light of the WorldJ. B. Sumner, M. A.Isaiah 60:1-12
Isaiah 60Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.Isaiah 60:1-12
Light Breaking on the MountainsA. H. Bradford, D. D.Isaiah 60:1-12
Shining ChristiansIsaiah 60:1-12
Sunrise in the EastIbid.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Church: Her Functions and Her BlessednessA. Smellie, M. A.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Dawning of God's Light and its Awakening CallE. L. Hull, B. A.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Epiphany: Christ ManifestedG. Huntington, M. A.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Everlasting LightA. H. Bradford, D. D.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Glory of Spiritual IsraelJ. A. Alexander.Isaiah 60:1-12
The God-Lit ChurchA. Maclaren, D. D.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Gospel EraHomilistIsaiah 60:1-12
The Privilege and Prerogative of the Christian ChurchJ. S. Spilsbury.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Shining of the Common PlaceLife of FaithIsaiah 60:1-12
The True Light OfHomilistIsaiah 60:1-12
Thy Light is ComeProf. J. Skinner, D,D.Isaiah 60:1-12
The Rebuilding of the TempleE. Johnson Isaiah 60:1-14
The Church TriumphantW. Clarkson Isaiah 60:1-22
The Enlargement of the ChurchE. Erskine.Isaiah 60:5-8
The Glory of the Millennial ChurchJ. R. Macduff, D. D.Isaiah 60:5-8
Commercial Nations and Nomad Tribes Aiding the ChurchF. Delitzsch, D. D.Isaiah 60:6-9
DromedariesProf. J. Skinner, D. D.Isaiah 60:6-9
People
Ephah, Isaiah, Jacob, Kedar, Nebaioth, Tarshish
Places
City of the Lord, Ephah, Kedar, Lebanon, Midian, Nebaioth, Sheba, Tarshish, Zion
Topics
Acts, Bear, Bearing, Bring, Camels, Camel-trains, Caravan, Company, Cover, Covereth, Dromedaries, Ephah, Forth, Frankincense, Full, Giving, Gold, Incense, Midian, Mid'ian, Multitude, News, Praise, Praises, Proclaim, Proclaiming, Publish, Sheba, Shew, Spices, Tidings
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 60:6

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Library
October 16. "Whereas Thou Hast Been Forsaken and Hated, I Will Make Thee a Joy" (Isa. Lx. 15).
"Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, I will make thee a joy" (Isa. lx. 15). God loves to take the most lost of men, and make them the most magnificent memorials of His redeeming love and power. He loves to take the victims of Satan's hate, and the lives that have been the most fearful examples of his power to destroy, and to use them to illustrate and illuminate the possibilities of Divine mercy and the new creations of the Holy Spirit. He loves to take the things in our own lives that have …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Walls and Gates
'Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise'--ISAIAH lx. 18. The prophet reaches the height of eloquence in his magnificent picture of the restored Jerusalem, 'the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.' To him the city stands for the embodiment of the nation, and his vision of the future is moulded by his knowledge of the past. Israel and Jerusalem were to him the embodiments of the divine idea of God's dwelling with men, and of a society founded on the presence of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Sunlit Church
'Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. 3. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.'--ISAIAH lx. 1-3. The personation of Israel as a woman runs through the whole of this second portion of Isaiah's prophecy. We see her thrown on the earth a mourning mother, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Morning Light
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. O ne strong internal proof that the Bible is a divine revelation, may be drawn from the subject matter; and particularly that it is the book, and the only book, that teaches us to …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Marvellous Increase of the Church
The church, when she uttered these words, appears to have been the subject of three kinds of feeling. First, wonder: secondly, pleasure: thirdly, anxiety. These three feelings you have felt; you are not strangers to them; and you will understand, while I speak to you as the children of God, how it is that we can feel at the same time, wonder, pleasure, and yet anxiety. I. First, the church of old, and our church now, appears to have been the subject of WONDER when she saw so many come to know the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

22D DAY. An End of Weeping.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "The days of thy mourning shall be ended."--ISAIAH lx. 20. An End of Weeping. Christ's people are a weeping band, though there be much in this lovely world to make them joyous and happy. Yet when they think of sin--their own sin, and the unblushing sins of a world in which their God is dishonoured--need we wonder at their tears?--that they should be called "Mourners," and their pilgrimage-home a "Valley of Tears?" Bereavement, and sickness, and poverty, and death, …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

Second Sermon for Epiphany
Showeth on what wise a man shall arise from himself and from all creatures, to the end that God may find the ground of his soul prepared, and may begin and perfect his work therein. Isaiah lx. 1.--"Arise, O Jerusalem, and be enlightened." [45] IN all this world God covets and requires but one thing only, and that He desires so exceeding greatly that He gives His whole might and energy thereto. This one thing is, that He may find that good ground which He has laid in the noble mind of man made fit …
Susannah Winkworth—The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler

Rev. Mr. Nichols's Address.
The Rev. W. F. Nichols, Rector of Christ Church, Hartford, and chaplain to Bishop Williams in his recent visit abroad, spoke of the first day of the commemoration at Aberdeen: He said it would be useless to deny that there was an individual pleasure in having this welcome to round out the happiness of getting back to one's home and one's work, as there was an individual pleasure at the honor the diocese had put upon those whom it had sent with the bishop to Aberdeen, and an individual appreciation …
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary

The Birth of England's Foreign Missions
1785-1792 Moulton the Mission's birthplace--Carey's fever and poverty--His Moulton school--Fired with the missionary idea--His very large missionary map--Fuller's confession of the aged and respectable ministers' opposition--Old Mr. Ryland's rebuke--Driven to publish his Enquiry--Its literary character--Carey's survey of the world in 1788--His motives, difficulties, and plans--Projects the first Missionary Society--Contrasted with his predecessors from Erasmus--Prayer concert begun in Scotland in …
George Smith—The Life of William Carey

The Last Days of the Old Eastern World
The Median wars--The last native dynasties of Egypt--The Eastern world on the eve of the Macedonian conquest. [Drawn by Boudier, from one of the sarcophagi of Sidon, now in the Museum of St. Irene. The vignette, which is by Faucher-Gudin, represents the sitting cyno-cephalus of Nectanebo I., now in the Egyptian Museum at the Vatican.] Darius appears to have formed this project of conquest immediately after his first victories, when his initial attempts to institute satrapies had taught him not …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 9

No More
Gerhard Ter Steegen Is. lx. 20 O past and gone! How great is God! how small am I! A mote in the illimitable sky, Amidst the glory deep, and wide, and high Of Heaven's unclouded sun. There to forget myself for evermore; Lost, swallowed up in Love's immensity, The sea that knows no sounding and no shore, God only there, not I. More near than I unto myself can be, Art Thou to me; So have I lost myself in finding Thee, Have lost myself for ever, O my Sun! The boundless Heaven of Thine eternal love …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

Athanasius under Julian and his Successors; Fourth and Fifth Exiles. Feb. 21, 362, to Feb. 1, 366
(a) The Council of Alexandria in 362. The eight months of undisturbed residence enjoyed by Athanasius under Julian were well employed. One of his first acts was to convoke a Synod at Alexandria to deal with the questions which stood in the way of the peace of the Church. The Synod was one of saints and confessors,' including as it did many of the Egyptian bishops who had suffered under George (p. 483, note 3, again we miss the name of the trusted Serapion), Asterius of Petra and Eusebius of Vercellae, …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

That the Grace of Devotion is Acquired by Humility and Self-Denial
The Voice of the Beloved Thou oughtest to seek earnestly the grace of devotion, to ask it fervently, to wait for it patiently and faithfully, to receive it gratefully, to preserve it humbly, to work with it diligently, and to leave to God the time and manner of heavenly visitation until it come. Chiefly oughtest thou to humble thyself when thou feelest inwardly little or no devotion, yet not to be too much cast down, nor to grieve out of measure. God ofttimes giveth in one short moment what He …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

The Restoration of Israel is Only Made Possible by the Second Advent of Christ.
Under this head we shall seek to prove briefly three things--that Israel as a nation will be restored, that Israel's restoration occurs at the Return of Christ, that Israel's restoration will result in great blessing to the whole world. That Israel as a nation will be actually and literally restored is declared again and again in the Word of God. We quote now but two prophecies from among scores of similar ones:--"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

The General Spread of the Gospel
"The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters covers the sea." Isa. 11:9. 1. In what a condition is the world at present! How does darkness, intellectual darkness, ignorance, with vice and misery attendant upon it, cover the face of the earth! From the accurate inquiry made with indefatigable pains by our ingenious countryman, Mr. Brerewood; (who travelled himself over a great part of the known world, in order to form the more exact judgment;) supposing the world to be divided …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Twentieth Day for God's Spirit on the Heathen
WHAT TO PRAY.--For God's Spirit on the Heathen "Behold, these shall come from far; and these from the land of Sinim."--ISA. xlix. 12. "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands to God."--PS. lxviii. 31. "I the Lord will hasten it in His time."--ISA. lx. 22. Pray for the heathen, who are yet without the word. Think of China, with her three hundred millions--a million a month dying without Christ. Think of Dark Africa, with its two hundred millions. Think …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

The Temptation of Jesus
The proclamation and inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven' at such a time, and under such circumstances, was one of the great antitheses of history. With reverence be it said, it is only God Who would thus begin His Kingdom. A similar, even greater antithesis, was the commencement of the Ministry of Christ. From the Jordan to the wilderness with its wild Beasts; from the devout acknowledgment of the Baptist, the consecration and filial prayer of Jesus, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the heard …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Order of Thought which Surrounded the Development of Jesus.
As the cooled earth no longer permits us to understand the phenomena of primitive creation, because the fire which penetrated it is extinct, so deliberate explanations have always appeared somewhat insufficient when applying our timid methods of induction to the revolutions of the creative epochs which have decided the fate of humanity. Jesus lived at one of those times when the game of public life is freely played, and when the stake of human activity is increased a hundredfold. Every great part, …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

Brave Encouragements
'In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, 2. Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 3. Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6.
Several interpreters, Paulus especially, have asserted that the interpretation of Micah which is here given, was that of the Sanhedrim only, and not of the Evangelist, who merely recorded what happened and was said. But this assertion is at once refuted when we consider the object which Matthew has in view in his entire representation of the early life of Jesus. His object in recording the early life of Jesus is not like that of Luke, viz., to communicate historical information to his readers. …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Extent of Messiah's Spiritual Kingdom
The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever! T he Kingdom of our Lord in the heart, and in the world, is frequently compared to a building or house, of which He Himself is both the Foundation and the Architect (Isaiah 28:16 and 54:11, 12) . A building advances by degrees (I Corinthians 3:9; Ephesians 2:20-22) , and while it is in an unfinished state, a stranger cannot, by viewing its present appearance, form an accurate judgment …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

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