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 9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
       in the morning my spirit longs for you.
       When your judgments come upon the earth,
       the people of the world learn righteousness.

 10 Though grace is shown to the wicked,
       they do not learn righteousness;
       even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
       and regard not the majesty of the LORD.
Isaiah 26:9-10 brings it all together for me.  This chapter speaks to me of Jesus’ coming at the end of the Tribulation, to establish His new kingdom on Earth.  However, before He can do that, He has to clean house.

The thing to notice is that His judgement will be just, and that is …

Isaiah 16’s verse on righteousness is pretty standard, talking of Jesus’ future reign on earth:
 5 In love a throne will be established;
       in faithfulness a man will sit on it—
       one from the house of David—
       one who in judging seeks justice
       and speeds the cause of righteousness.
It adds a few details that we haven’t seen covered in other “righteousness” verses however.  For example, one of God’s motivations in establishing Christ’s throne is love.  But then, that’s of no surprise, as scripture is filled with talk of God’s love of the righteous.

However, something about this scripture is a complete and utter surprise to me… its context.  Isaiah is not talking about Israel or the future church, but a …

 1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
       from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
       the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
       the Spirit of counsel and of power,
       the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -

 3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
       He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
       or decide by what he hears with his ears;

 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
       with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
       He will strike the …

 6 For to us a child is born,
       to us a son is given,
       and the government will be on his shoulders.
       And he will be called
       Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
       Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

 7 Of the increase of his government and peace
       there will be no end.
       He will reign on David’s throne
       and over his kingdom,
       establishing and upholding it
       with justice and righteousness
       from that time on and forever.
       The zeal of the LORD Almighty
       will accomplish this.
You can read a pretty decent article about this Messianic verse at truthnet.org.  It is not a perfect article, but it is well worth the read. The article discusses Isaiah 9:6 together …

Isaiah 5 tells a parable of a vineyard that was created with hard work and sweat, but for some reason produced only sour grapes.  In this parable, God is the owner of the vineyard…
 7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty
       is the house of Israel,
       and the men of Judah
       are the garden of his delight.
       And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
       for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
The interesting thing is that God of all the ingredients of righteousness, He wasn’t looking for belief or obedience.  He wasn’t looking for purity in relationship.  He wasn’t looking for any of the things that make one righteous.  No, He was looking for the characteristics that demonstrate that …

As we go to Isaiah 1, to see what else there is to learn about righteousness, we find that the very first chapter speaks of Israel’s loss of righteousness, and God’s promise to bring them back… 
 19 If you are willing and obedient,  –> (i.e., if they are righteous)
       you will eat the best from the land;

 20 but if you resist and rebel,
       you will be devoured by the sword.”
       For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

 21 See how the faithful city
       has become a harlot!
       She once was full of justice;
       righteousness used to dwell in her—
       but now murderers!

- - -

 26 I will restore your judges as in days of old,
       your counselors as at the …

Given the importance of being righteous, it might seem surprising to see the following biblical advice:
 16 Do not be overrighteous,
       neither be overwise—
       why destroy yourself?

 17 Do not be overwicked,
       and do not be a fool—
       why die before your time?

 18 It is good to grasp the one
       and not let go of the other.
       The man who fears God will avoid all extremes .
In other words:
Don’t be a know-it-all.

Don’t go out of your way to do wrong things.

Strive to be righteous, without forgetting you are a sinner. 
Reading on…
 19 Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful
       than ten rulers in a city.

 20 There is not a righteous man on earth
       who does …

 14 When times are good, be happy;
       but when times are bad, consider:
       God has made the one
       as well as the other.
       Therefore, a man cannot discover
       anything about his future.
To me, this means that times change, and that God has your path laid out for you.  But are we completely out of control?  No, for death is not our fate, but our destiny.  We go through the times that God has laid out, but we choose how to respond to them.  God has not laid out our actions.  On the other hand, because we don’t know what the times hold for us, looking at how things are now will is not indication that times won’t change… …

 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
       but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

 5 It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke
       than to listen to the song of fools.
So far in Ecc. 7, we’ve seen 2 things: 1)We need to keep our eyes on Heaven, to be joyous of people’s passage there, and to look forward to it ourselves. 2)Mourning and sorrow are signs of a heart that loves and delights.  Verse 4 builds on that, saying that such are the wise.  Essentially, fools seek out pleasure because they lack love and delight… but they never find it because they won’t themselves feel pain, and …

 3 Sorrow is better than laughter,
       because a sad face is good for the heart.
Okay. In verses 1 and 2, we saw the author saying death is better than life, but in death we go to Heaven.  He said it’s better to go to funerals than parties, but funerals are where you celebrate someone else’s entry to Heaven.  But then in verse, he says sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.  Now that one’s weird.

I looked up sorrow and found the following definition in webster:
deep distress, sadness, or regret especially for the loss of someone or something loved.
Not very helpful to be honest.  But then I found this other definion …