Isaiah 52:7

We appropriately regard shoe as the gospel preaching, for just as the shoe's protection wards off troublesome thorns and other injuries from our feet, so the authority of the gospel protects our most glorious way of life, which is often compared with advancing on foot. …

When they of whom it was foretold, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet," … announce this gospel of peace, then each one begins to be a son of peace when he obeys and believes this gospel, and, justified by faith, begins to have peace with God. However, according to the predestination of God he already was a child of peace. For it is not said, "He on whom your peace shall have rested, he will become a child of peace." "If a child of peace is there, your peace will rest on him."

814. What moves one to preach, is the instigation of faith: I have believed, therefore have I spoken (Ps 115[116]:10; 2 Cor 4; Rev 22); the spur of zeal: there came in my heart as a burning fire (Jer 20:9); the greatness of the reward: …

How beautiful. Here he proclaims joy to the liberated. And first, he describes their joy as to the reception of messengers, who, coming from Chaldea, announced it to them: beautiful, for it was beautiful and pleasant to the people to hear them announcing such things; …

to the preaching of the gospel (by the apostle, Rom. x. 15 ) plainly intimates that that deliverance was a type and figure of the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ, to which what is here said of their redemption out of Babylon ought to be accommodated. It is here spoken of as a great blessing, which ought to be welcomed with abundance of joy and thankfulness.

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This must be applied to the preaching of the gospel, which is a proclamation of peace and salvation; it is gospel indeed, good news, glad tidings, tidings of victory over our spiritual enemies and liberty from our spiritual bondage. The good news is that the Lord Jesus reigns and all power is given to him. Christ himself brought these tidings first ( Luke iv.

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Of him - Or, of them; the singular number being put for the plural. Returneth - In the days of the Messiah, God did discover and exercise his dominion over the world far more eminently than ever he had done from the beginning of the world until that time.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,....

How beautiful upon the mountains - This passage is applied by Paul to the ministers of the gospel (see Rom 10:15). The meaning here seems to be this: Isaiah was describing the certain return of the Jews to their own land. He sees in vision the heralds announcing their return to Jerusalem running on the distant hills. A herald bearing good news is a beautiful object; and he says that his feet are beautiful; that is, his running is beautiful.

Fully, and antitypically, the Gospel (Lu 2:10, 11), "beginning at Jerusalem" (Lu 24:47), "the city of the great King" (Mt 5:35), where Messiah shall, at the final restoration of Israel, "reign" as peculiarly Zion's God ("Thy God reigneth"; compare Ps 2:6).

How beautiful - The watchmen discover afar off, on the mountains, the messenger bringing the expected and much-wished-for news of the deliverance from the Babylonish captivity. They immediately spread the joyful tidings, Isa 52:8, and with a loud voice proclaim that Jehovah is returning to Zion, to resume his residence on his holy mountain, which for some time he seemed to have deserted. This is the literal sense of the place. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the joyful messenger,” is an expression highly poetical: for, how welcome is his arrival! how agreeable are the tidings which he brings! Nahum, Nah 1:15, who is generally supposed to have lived after Isaiah, has manifestly taken from him this very pleasing image; but the imitation does not equal the beauty of the original: - “Behold upon the mountain the feet of the joyful messenger, Of him that announceth peace! Celebrate, O Judah, thy festivals; perform thy vows: For no more shall pass through thee the wicked one; He is utterly cut off.” But it must at the same time be observed that Isaiah’s subject is infinitely more interesting and more sublime than that of Nahum; the latter denounces the destruction of the capital of the Assyrian empire, the most formidable enemy of Judah; the ideas of the former are in their full extent evangelical; and accordingly St. Paul has, with the utmost propriety, applied this passage to the preaching of the Gospel, Rom 10:15. The joyful tidings here to be proclaimed, “Thy God, O Zion, reigneth, “are the same that John the Baptist, the messenger of Christ, and Christ himself, published: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” From the use made of this by our Lord and the apostles, we may rest assured that the preachers of the Gospel are particularly intended. Mountains are put for the whole land of Judea, where the Gospel was first preached. […]