The three highest categories in Isaiah’s spiritual hierarchy or ladder to heaven all operate under the terms of the Davidic Covenant—God’s covenant with King David and his heirs. Candidates for these spiritual levels minister God’s law and word to others and serve as temporal saviors to their families and kindreds by interceding with God on their behalf.
Having repented of their sins and expiated their iniquities or generational dysfunctions, persons in God’s “sons” and “daughters” category attain a degree of purity and perfection identified with holiness. God answers their petitions to bless and protect those to whom they minister on account of the spiritual merits they have acquired through living righteously.
God acknowledges them as his sons and daughters because their attributes now resemble his own. Re-created closer to his image and likeness—male and female—they have experienced spiritual rebirth or ascent beyond a saved state to an exalted or glorified state. Collectively called “the Daughter of Zion,” to them Israel’s God comes on earth to reign in peace.
Isaiah 61:10I rejoice exceedingly in Jehovah; my soul delights in my God. For he clothes me in garments of salvation, he arrays me in a robe of righteousness—like a bridegroom dressed in priestly attire, or a bride adorned with her jewels.
Isaiah 26:7–9The path of the righteous is straight; you pave an undeviating course for the upright. In the very passage of your ordinances we anticipate you, O Jehovah; the soul’s desire is to contemplate your name. My soul yearns for you in the night; at daybreak my spirit within me seeks after you. For when your ordinances are on the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Isaiah 62:11–12Jehovah has made proclamation to the end of the earth: Tell the Daughter of Zion, See, your Salvation comes, his reward with him, his work preceding him. They shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of Jehovah; and you shall be known as in demand, a city never deserted.
In his Day of Judgment on the wicked of his people and the nations, God delivers his sons and daughters from destruction. As his elect, they return from the four directions of the earth, from the isles of the sea, and from all nations in a new exodus to the place Zion. Persons in Isaiah’s seraph category bring them to safety in Zion, there to receive lands of inheritance.
Isaiah 43:5–7Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, Give up! to the south, Withhold not! Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth—all who are called by my name, whom I have formed, molded and wrought for my own glory.
Isaiah 51:11Let the ransomed of Jehovah return! Let them come singing to Zion, their heads crowned with everlasting joy; let them obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing flee away.
Isaiah 60:1–4Arise, shine, your light has dawned; the glory of Jehovah has risen upon you! Although darkness covers the earth, and a thick mist the peoples, upon you Jehovah will shine; over you his glory shall be visible. Nations will come to your light, their kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you! They have all assembled to come to you: your sons shall arrive from afar; your daughters shall return to your side.
In the pattern of proxy saviors under the terms of the Davidic Covenant, God’s sons and daughters obtain God’s physical protection of those to whom they minister. Whereas in his Day of Judgment God delivers the Zion/Jerusalem category of his people from destruction indirectly, he delivers his sons and daughters directly through divine intervention.
As when King Hezekiah interceded with God to protect his people against an Assyrian army that demanded Jerusalem’s surrender, so God’s sons and daughters intercede with him to save them and those to whom they minister when destruction threatens. Like Hezekiah, who suffered to pay the price of his people’s deliverance, so they willingly suffer.
Answering for the disloyalties to God of those for whom they intercede under the terms of the Davidic Covenant, God’s sons and daughters obtain his protection of themselves and their dependents. As their proxy saviors, they offer an acceptable sacrifice to God by humbly submitting to his will as they pass through a temporary a descent phase of tests and trials.
Isaiah 38:1–3In those days Hezekiah became gravely ill. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him and said, Thus says Jehovah: Put your house in order. You will die; you will not recover. At this Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed to Jehovah: I beseech you to remember, O Jehovah, how I have walked before you faithfully and with full purpose of heart and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah wept disconsolately.
Isaiah 38:4–6Then the word of Jehovah came to Isaiah: Go and tell Hezekiah, Thus says Jehovah, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; I will protect this city.
Isaiah 37:35–36I will protect this city and save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David. Then the angel of Jehovah went out and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. And when men arose in the morning, there lay all their dead bodies!