Let Your Light Shine
Day 270 – 27 September
Come, Let Us Walk
“Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD.” (Isaiah 2:5, NIV)
Two Words on the Road to Santiago
On the paths that cross northern Spain towards Santiago de Compostela, strangers greet one another with two words: “¡Buen Camino!” The phrase means “good way”, and walkers toss it over their shoulders to anyone else carrying a pack in the same direction. The greeting asks nothing about where the other walker set out from or how fast they go, because a shared road is introduction enough.
Enough walkers now share that road to have set a new record every year since 2022. The Pilgrims’ Office in Santiago issued more than 530,000 compostelas in 2025, the certificate given to those who cover at least the final hundred kilometres on foot. Each pilgrim carries a credencial, a pilgrim’s passport, and over that last stretch the pilgrim must collect at least two ink stamps a day on it from the places along the way.
Along the way, stamp by stamp, the card turns into a record of the whole road. Isaiah once saw a road like that in a vision, crowded with travellers from every nation, and all of them climbing.
A River That Ran Uphill
All of them climbing gave the scene its direction. In the last days, the prophet said, the mountain of the LORD’s temple would rise above every hill, and “all nations will stream to it” (Isaiah 2:2, NIV). The verb behind “stream”, venaharu (and they will stream), belongs with nahar (river), so Isaiah described whole peoples flowing like a river, a river that ran uphill (Brown, Driver and Briggs).
Uphill water has been drawn by something stronger than gravity, and the nations in the vision came drawn by a hunger to learn. “Come,” they said to one another, “let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths” (Isaiah 2:3, NIV). Verse 4 then showed what their walking produced: swords beaten into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and a world that had forgotten how to make war.
War was forgotten because walking had been learned. The nations wanted His paths under their feet, and in Isaiah’s telling they were first on the road.
Come, and Let Us
First on the road were the outsiders, and in verse 5 Isaiah turned to face his own people. To them he spoke two words grown from one root: lekhu venelkhah (come, and let us walk). Both come from halakh (to walk, to go), the Hebrew verb that stood behind Monday’s walking, and the pairing is deliberate. Lekhu (come, go) is a plural command. Venelkhah (and let us walk) is a cohortative, the Hebrew form a speaker uses to urge on a company that includes himself (Gesenius, §48).
Himself included: the whole verse turns on that. Isaiah could have stood at the roadside and pointed the way, yet he stepped onto the road and said “us”.
“Us” was also an echo. Keil and Delitzsch heard the nations’ own words coming back in verse 5, so that their “Come, let us go” in verse 3 returned as the prophet’s “Come, let us walk”. Drawing on Hitzig, they set Isaiah beside Paul in Romans 11:14, stirring his countrymen to a noble jealousy. Matthew Poole put it more bluntly: the sight of the Gentiles so willing ought to move Israel to go with them, or before them. Rashi, the eleventh-century Jewish commentator, read the verse as the nations themselves speaking, urging Jacob’s house to join the road.
Joining the road meant joining the light. Anathea Portier-Young has observed that verse 5 repeats the nations’ invitation while adding one new word, and the word is light: be’or YHWH (in the light of the LORD). The nations walked towards the light; Jacob’s house was invited to walk inside it. Thursday’s proverb held the same two roots together in holekh va’or (going and shining), and here Isaiah set walking and light side by side again, in a single breath.
Six Stamps on One Card
A single breath can carry a whole week, the way one small card carries a whole pilgrimage. Six stamps already sit on this week’s card, one for each morning.
Each morning left its own mark. Monday’s shows the walk itself, peripateō (to walk about), the ordinary going of a life beside a God who keeps step at walking pace. Tuesday’s shows a small clay lamp, the ner (lamp) of Psalm 119:105, throwing light enough for the next step. Wednesday’s looks freshly rinsed, since katharizei (keeps on cleansing) in 1 John 1:7 told of a washing that carried on while the feet kept moving. Thursday’s glows gold, the colour of a dawn that holekh va’or (going and shining) promised would keep brightening towards noon. Friday’s bears a flame that the dark reached for and missed, because katalabē (may overtake) in John 12:35 recalled the Light that darkness never mastered. Saturday’s is stitched in thread, a coat laid out for morning, and Romans 13:13 asked us to wear it euschēmonōs (becomingly, decently), with Christ Himself put on as the garment.
A garment, a flame, a dawn, a washing, a lamp and a walk: counted backwards, the six stamps tell the week, and every one of them was personal. Sunday adds the seventh, and Isaiah pressed it onto the card in a single word: us.
“Us” changes every stamp that came before it. The lamp now swings in many hands. The washing goes on across a whole company, for John joined walking in the light to “fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7, NIV). The dawn rises over a crowded road. Every stamp on the card was personal, and none of them was ever private.
Passing the Word Along
Privately held, an invitation travels nowhere, and Isaiah’s book shows how far this one has come. Its first “come, let us” came from the LORD’s own mouth: “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18, NIV), in Hebrew lekhu-na venivvakhechah (come now, and let us settle it together). The nations passed the same shape of words to one another in 2:3, and the prophet passed it on to Jacob’s house in 2:5. Every link in that chain began with a God who said “come” first and has never once withdrawn the offer.
The offer reaches you this morning in the same words. Some scholars, following Gerhard von Rad, hear Isaiah’s mountain behind the saying at the heart of this month: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14, NIV). If they are right, the light on Zion’s hill now shines through a people spread across every town, and the pilgrimage runs in both directions, with the light drawing people up and the people carrying the light out.
Carrying the light out looks a great deal like two words on a Spanish path. Today is the Lord’s Day, and gathering for worship is Isaiah 2:3 in miniature: a company going up together to be taught His ways. Someone will arrive this morning unsure whether they belong on the road. Say “Buen Camino” in whatever words your church uses, and mean “let us”.
“Let us” is the most generous phrase in the verse, and it sits at the heart of this year’s theme. Paul became “all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22, NIV) by walking at other people’s pace, and value is added the same way: a hand at the elbow, a slower stride, a seat saved beside you, a cup of coffee after the service with the person who sat alone. Invite without instructing, walk beside the one you invite, and keep the door as open as it was kept for you. The road is climbing, the lamp is lit, and there is room on it for one more.
Declaration
I am on the road this morning, and I am in good company. The walk, the lamp, the washing, the dawn, the unconquered light and the clothes laid out for the day are gifts I carry, and none of them is mine alone. Today I will say “come” to someone and mean “let us”. I will greet the traveller beside me as a fellow pilgrim, match my stride to the one who walks slowly, and hold open the invitation that was first held open for me. The road is climbing, the light is rising, and we are walking in it together.
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