Moses describes God’s mercy in Deuteronomy 30. If Israel return to God, obey His voice with all their heart and soul, then God would restore their fortunes and have mercy on them, gathering them from among the people they had been scattered. Israel were offered a choice between life and good, death and evil. The choice of life and good wasn’t beyond their reach, in heaven or across the sea, instead it was “very near” them, in their mouth and heart. “Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him“.
Isaiah 2 paints a future for those who choose life, a time when “the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains… and all the nations shall flow to it“. This is a future where “the haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day“.
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord” is Isaiah’s plea to Israel, and to us.