This is the predominant meaning of the term, as applied to Israel, in Isa. xl.-lxvi. Israel's unrighteousness is her state of discredit and disgrace under the hands of God; her righteousness, which she hopes for, is her restoral to her station and destiny as the elect people. To our Christian habit of thinking, it is very natural to read the frequent and splendid phrases, in which _righteousness_ is attributed or promised to the people of God in this evangelical prophecy, as if righteousness were that inward assurance and justification from an evil conscience, which, as we are taught by the New Testament, is provided for us through the death of Christ, and inwardly sealed to us by the Holy Ghost, irrespective of the course of our outward fortune. But if we read that meaning into _righteousness_ in Isa. xl.-lxvi., we shall simply not understand some of the grandest passages of the prophecy. We must clearly keep in view, that while the prophet ceaselessly emphasizes the pardon of God _spoken home to the heart_ of the people, as the first step towards their restoral, he does not apply the term righteousness to this inward justification,[134] but to the outward vindication and accrediting of Israel by God before the whole world, in their redemption from Captivity, and their reinstatement as His people. This is very clear from the way in which _righteousness_ is coupled with _salvation_ by the prophet, as (lxii. 1): _I will not rest till her righteousness go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth_. Or again from the way in which righteousness and glory are put in parallel (lxii. 2): _And the nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory_. Or again in the way that _righteousness_ and _renown_ are identified (lxi. 11): _The Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness and renown to spring forth before all the nations_. In each of these promises the idea of an external and manifest splendour is evident; not the inward peace of justification felt only by the conscience to which it has been granted, but the outward historical victory appreciable by the gross sense of the heathen. Of course the outward implies the inward,--this historical triumph is the crown of a religious process, the result of forgiveness and a long purification,--but while in the New Testament it is these which would be most readily called a people's righteousness, it is the former (what the New Testament would rather call _the crown of life_), which has appropriated the name in Isa. xl.-lxvi. The same is manifest from another text (xlviii. 18): _O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments; then had thy peace been as the River, and thy righteousness like the waves of the sea_. Here _righteousness_ is not only not applied to inward morality, but set over against this as its external reward,--the health and splendour which a good conscience produces. It is in the same external sense that the prophet talks of the _robe of righteousness_ with its bridal splendour, and compares it to the appearance of _Spring_ (lxi. 10-11).