Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
An ode of congratulation to Zion on her restoration, at the Lord's second advent, to her true position as the mother Church, from which the Gospel is to be diffused to the whole Gentile world. The first promulgation of the Gospel among the Gentiles, beginning at Jerusalem, is an earnest of this. The language is too glorious to apply to anything that as yet has happened.
Arise - from the dust in which thou hast been sitting as a mourning female captive (Isaiah 3:26; Isaiah 52:1-2). The Chaldaic, Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic, all insert 'Jerusalem,' showing that they applied the prophecy to her.
Shine - impart to others the spiritual light now given thee (Isaiah 60:3). Margin and Gesenius translate, after the Vulgate, Septuagint, Chaldaic, and Arabic (Hebrew, 'owriy (H215)), 'Be enlightened;' be resplendent with prosperity: imperative for the future indicative (as the Hebrew idiom, when it joins two imperatives, understands the latter of the two as a future, resulting from the former), 'thou shalt be enlightened' (Isaiah 58:8; Isaiah 58:10; Ephesians 5:8; Ephesians 5:14). The Syriac supports the English version.
Glory of the Lord - not merely the Shechinah, or cloud of glory, such as rested above the ark in the old dispensation, but the glory of the Lord in person (Jeremiah 3:16-17).
Is risen upon thee - as the sun, (Malachi 4:2; Luke 1:78, margin.)