Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Ch. Isa 52:1-2. Here the prophet’s imagination takes a higher flight. The cup of indignation having finally passed from her hands, Jerusalem is summoned to shake off her stupor, and array herself in garments befitting her dignity as the bride of Jehovah. The description is influenced by the contrast (evidently intentional) to the taunt-song on the “daughter of Babylon” (ch. Isa 47:1 ff.).
put on thy strength ] Cf. ch. Isa 51:9.
the holy city ] as ch. Isa 48:2.
for there shall no more come &c. ] Note the correspondence with Isa 47:1; Isa 47:5.
the uncircumcised and the unclean ] i.e. not foreigners generally (as Joe 3:17), as if the passage expressed the exclusiveness of later Judaism, but the “destroyers” and “wasters” who at present desecrate her soil; see on Isa 49:17. Cf. Nah 1:15; Zec 9:8.
2. arise and sit down ] The meaning might be, “arise from the dust, and sit on thy throne,” a contrast to Isa 47:1.
loose thyself neck ] Better perhaps loose for thee the bonds &c.; the reflexive verb having the same force as an ethical dative. The alternative rendering of R.V. marg. “the bands of thy neck are loosed” represents the Hebrew consonantal text. The Qer, however, is here supported by the Ancient Versions, and is undoubtedly to be preferred.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ch. Isa 51:17 to Isa 52:12. The Lord will turn the Captivity of Zion
The three oracles into which this passage naturally falls are these: (1) Isa 51:17-23. The prophet, returning to the thought with which the book opens (ch. Isa 40:2), announces that the period of Jerusalem’s degradation has expired. The city is figured as a woman lying prostrate and senseless, intoxicated with the cup of the Lord’s indignation which she has drunk to the dregs, her sons unable to help her (17 20). But the cup is now taken from her and passed to the enemies who had oppressed and insulted her (21 23).
(2) Isa 52:1-6. In a new apostrophe, the image is carried on; let Zion lay aside her soiled raiment, and the emblems of her slavery, and put on her holiday attire (1, 2). Jehovah will no longer endure that His name should be blasphemed through the banishment of His people (3 6).
(3) Isa 51:7-12. A description of the triumphal return of Jehovah to Zion, obviously based on the last section of the Prologue (ch. Isa 40:9-11). The writer pictures the scene of joy within the city when the heralds of the King arrive (7, 8); he calls on the waste places of Jerusalem to break forth into singing (9, 10); and finally, turning to the exiles (as in Isa 48:20 f.) he summons them to hasten their escape from the land of their captivity (11, 12).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Awake, awake – (See the notes at Isa 51:9). This address to Jerusalem is intimately connected with the closing verses of the preceding chapter. Jerusalem is there represented as down-trodden in the dust before her enemies. Here she is described under the image of a female that had been clad in the habiliments of mourning, and she is now called on to arise from this condition, and to put on the garments that would be indicative of gladness and of joy. The idea is, that the time had come now in which she was to be delivered from her long captivity, and was to be restored to her former prosperity and splendor.
Put on thy strength – Hebrew, Clothe thyself with thy strength. The idea is, exert thyself, be strong, bold, confident; arise from thy dejection, and become courageous as one does when he is about to engage in an enterprise that promises success, and that demands effort.
Put on thy beautiful garments – Jerusalem is here addressed, as she often is, as a female (see the note at Isa 1:8). She was to lay aside the garments expressive of grief and of captivity, and deck herself with those which were appropriate to a state of prosperity.
The uncircumcised and the unclean – The idea is, that those only should enter Jerusalem and dwell there who would be worshippers of the true God. The uncircumcised are emblems of the impure, the unconverted, and the idolatrous; and the meaning is, that in future times the church would be pure and holy. It cannot mean that no uncircumcised man or idolater would ever again enter the city of Jerusalem, for this would not be true. It was a fact that Antiochus and his armies, and Titus and his army entered Jerusalem, and undoubtedly hosts of others did also who were not circumcised. But this refers to the future times, when the church of God would be pure. Its members would, in the main, be possessors of the true religion, and would adorn it. Probably, therefore, the view of the prophet extended to the purer and happier times under the Messiah, when the church should be characteristically and eminently holy, and when, as a great law of that church, none should be admitted, who did not profess that they were converted.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 52:1-6
Awake, awake
The essential elements of a Churchs strength
I.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL ELEMENTS OF STRENGTH. I use the word constitution in a legitimate sense, as including both the creed and the polity of a Church.
1. The creed. As a mans life is the outcome of what he believes, or does not believe, precisely so is the Churchs. But is not the Bible the acknowledged creed of all the Churches? No; no more than the stars are astronomy, or the flowers botany. The Bible is the source of the creed of all, but it is the creed of none, for the simple reason that the Bible, like every other writing, must be construed; and on many points it cannot be construed in the same way by all.
2. The government. Hers also that which is true of man is true of the Church. An army is stronger than a mob.
II. ADMINISTRATIVE ELEMENTS. But a Church is not only obliged to have certain constitutional and other laws, it is also obliged to administer them for the twofold purpose–
1. Of protecting itself against corruption and disintegration.
2. In order that it may efficiently fulfil its mission of witnessing for Christ, whereunto it was Divinely called.
III. SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS OF STRENGTH.
1. Peace. There must be battles with the common enemy, but no battles with itself.
2. Unity.
3. Co-operation.
4. Purity.
5. The Holy Spirit. (R. V. Foster, D.D.)
Gods call to a sleeping Church
1. This chapter is a trumpet-call to holiness. Jerusalem is called the holy city, and yet the passage is full of her sins. She was holy in the intention of God. So we are called not to be famous or wealthy but to be holy.
2. Her condition was characterized by–
(1) Unhallowed intercourse with the world (Isa 52:1). The uncircumcised and unclean in her midst.
(2) Slavish subserviency to the world (Isa 51:23). The moment the world sees Christians turning to it for pleasure or patronage, It becomes a very tyrant, over them.
(3) Utter helplessness and impotence. The figure of a wild bull in a net means strength reduced to helplessness by little things. Satan forged fetters of persecutions in early days, now he tries the net business. Many Christians are worthless because caught in a net of little compromises with the world and with conscience. The fainting (verse 20) points to the helplessness of the Christian Church in the presence of the moral and social evils of the day.
(4) They were asleep to it all.
3. The man who called Awake to Zion, had previously cried Awake to Isa 51:9).
4. To be awakened is not enough. If we go no further we shall go back either into indifference, or into rebellion, or into despair. The call is put on thy strength, put on thy beautiful garments. Garments of praise, cloth of zeal, beautiful covering of humility. In this the Christian must be always arrayed, for we are children of a King, and God wants us always to appear in Court dress. (C. Inwood.)
Awake, O Zion
O Zion! This is a case in which a place is named for the inhabitants. Leaving what is local and temporary and particular in the reference of these words, we proceed to consider them as addressed by the redeeming God to His Church now, and as calling upon.Christians to arouse themselves and revive, to bestir themselves, and to rise into a state of intelligent and Godlike activity. These words assume the presence of life in the people addressed. Those called to awake are not dead, but they sleep; and they sleep, so far as inactivity is concerned, as though they were dead.
I. CERTAIN OBJECTS OF VISION ARE IMPORTANT TO THE CHURCH OF GOD, and that these may be kept in view, God saith, Awake awake! Among the objects which we need to see are things behind us; and things before us; such things as are presented by sacred history and by inspired promise and prophecy. But the objects which I would now emphatically name, are ever-existent and ever-present spiritual objects–God our one Father, the Son of God our only Saviour, and the Comforter, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son–especially the Son of God, as the brightness of the Fathers glory, and as the propitiation which God has set forth. The things we need to see are the wondrous things contained in Gods Word, things of God and of man, things which accompany salvation, things of angels and of devils, things of Christ, things of the world around us and above us and beneath us. The Church of God maybe awake to lower and inferior things, and may be asleep to these highest things, or, if not asleep, but half awake, so that men seem like trees walking.
II. CERTAIN SOURCES OF SUPPLY AND FOUNTAINS OF PLEASURE AND MEANS OF HELP ARE IMPORTANT TO THE CHURCH OF GOD, and that these may be possessed and enjoyed and used, God saith, Awake, awake!
III. THERE IS GOOD AND GODLY WORK TO BE DONE BY ZION, therefore God saith, Awake, awake. Zion is like a nursing mother, with her heart full of cares and her hands full of work. Zion is a worshipper, and she has the incense of prayer and the sacrifices of thanksgiving to provide and to offer; Zion is an intercessor, and it is expected that in ceaseless prayer she will keep no silence, nor give the hearer of prayer rest; Zion is an almoner, and it is expected that having freely received she will freely give; Zion is a servant of the most high God, and she is bound to do all that her hands find to do with all her might. Her work is so various that Zion is as a husbandman, and as a builder, and as a vine-dresser. For work and service Zion is Divinely endowed, taught of God that she may teach godliness, consoled by God that she may comfort others, guided by God that she may lift up her voice with strength, and cry to the bewildered and the lost, This is the way, walk ye in it. There are two objects in the sphere of our present thought, toward which the Church of God requires to be faithful and therefore wakeful.
1. Her own endowments.
2. Her opportunities.
IV. THERE ARE BATTLES WHICH ZION IS CALLED TO FIGHT, AND VICTORIES TO BE WON WHICH ZION ALONE CAN WIN; therefore God bids Zion awake. Having interpreted the voice, let us note some of its features and characteristics–
1. The voice that would awaken us is Divine. It is the voice of a Ruler to His subjects, of a Master to His servants, of a Parent to His sons, of a Redeemer to His Redeemed.
2. The voice that would awaken us is powerful and full of majesty, a voice therefore that stirs, and that strengthens while it stirs him who listens to it.
S. The voice that would awaken us has in it a tone of reproach. It seems tosay, What! Zion asleep! Zion, already and recently quickened from the death of sin? Zion, who can see God, and the things that are eternal? Zion, who can possess the exceeding riches of Gods grace? Zion, who can handle as her own the things which angels desire to look into? Zion asleep in the day of her work, and in the hour of her conflict?
4. Yet this is a gracious voice. It is a voice that woos and wins while it stimulates and arouses.
5. The voice that cries, Awake, awake, is the voice of Zions God. There are degrees of wakefulness; and regarding the text as calling us to the most complete open-eyedness and watchfulness, let us arouse ourselves at Gods bidding. (S. Martin.)
The Church asleep
Look at this solemn fact–the Church of the living God asleep! Here are they who have been quickened from the death of sin into newness of life, and who have been called to walk with the living God, asleep. The people who are summoned to work in the field of the world, and to labour in the vineyard of the kingdom of heaven, asleep. The only people who can reasonably be expected to be awake and wide-awake, are asleep. Asleep, not in healthful, seasonable, necessary slumber, but asleep in the slumber of the sluggard, or the sleep of the drunkard, or the torpor of one smitten by atrophy or by apoplexy, or of one in a fatal swoon. (S. Martin.)
What sends the Church to sleep?
The intoxicating draught of some sinful carnal pleasure, or the opiate of some false doctrine, or the quietude of sinful inertness, or the darkness of cherished ignorance, or the monotony of formality, or the syren music of false teaching, hath sent Zion to sleep. (S. Martin.)
The sleeping Church
Thus sleeping, Zion doth not sympathize with the circumstances by which she is surrounded, she does not see the objects within range of her vision, she does not feel the influences which are moving and working around her, she does not meet the claims made for exertion, she does not enjoy her mercies, or take possession of her lawful inheritance. (S. Martin.)
The Church: its strength and its weakness
I. The text is a forcible reminder of the fact that THE CHURCH OF GOD, IN ALL AGES, MAY HAVE ITS TIMES OF WEAKNESS AS WELL AS ITS TIMES OF POWER. When the Church first went forth from Jerusalem, a little flock, scattered hither and thither by the storm of persecution, it was a time of power. It was then but an infant of days, but it sprang into a giant of strength. It was a day of power when the Church of Christ, as Paul Richter has said, lifted empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel. But a thousand years roll on, and a time of weakness follows this era of power. The giant sleeps; his strength is put off; he reposes amidst the scarlet trappings and gilded blazonry of the Papacy, and seems to have wilted into a senile imbecility. But again there came a time of power when, on the morning of the Reformation, the Church heard the cry, Awake, awake! and, springing up with renewed youth, it put on its strength. There was a time of weakness when the chill of formalism followed in the track of the Reformation, and the Church sank into the coma of a widespread paralysis; again, when a disguised Romanism riveted her fetters; and still again when the Socinian apostasy spread its blight over Great Britain. But then came times of power when the Church arose in quickened majesty to smite the tyrant with the broken fetters which had eaten into its own soul; and still again, times of wondrous spiritual revival, when the call sounded by Wesley and Whitefield, like the voice of the prophet in the valley of vision, seemed to awake the dead. Why these periods of weakness? The principle is plain: Divine power and human strength must work together, each in its appropriate sphere. As the terror of the iron chariots of the enemy paralyzed the strength of Judah, so that, the human part being wanting, the victory was lost; so, in the Church, if any cause supervenes to weaken, or render ineffective, the strength which God expects us to put forth, He will not depart from His plan, or interpose to save us from the results of our own weakness, or to hide us from the scorn and derision of the world.
II. WHAT IS THE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH, AND WHEN IS IT PUT OFF? In other words, what causes may supervene to weaken or render it ineffective?
1. The first element of power is the Gospel, the Word, the truth of God. If the truth of God is the instrument of power, and the human part of the work is simply its manifestation, then the strength of the Church must be weakened whenever the Gospel is subordinated to human themes.
2. Let us pass to the second element of the Church s power–the ministry. The Church is a giant; the Gospel is the instrument of his work–the weapon of his warfare. But what wields the weapon? The giants arm–this is the ministry. It is not an original power inherent in itself, but adelegated power. This is the power that, beginning at Jerusalem, went forth upon its mission of conquest–that made the heathen cry: These men that have turned the world upside down are come hither also!
(1) The ministry, as an arm of power, may be withered by a perfunctory education.
(2) The ministry may be ineffective from misdirected effort.
(3) The ministry must be a source of weakness instead of power to the Church, if it is not in sympathy with the hearts of the people, and the souls of perishing men.
3. The third and principal element of the Churchs power is the Holy Ghost. Since, then, the Spirit s power is the strength of the Church, the want of the Spirit is the weakness of the Church. If the Church is not an effective, aggressive power in the world, it is because it puts off or puts away the strength of the Spirit. This is done when we subordinate the Divine Spirit to human agency; when, by organization or by human eloquence, or by methods and appliances, or by running the Church on business principles, we seek to effect that which it is the special office of the Spirit to accomplish. It is greatly to be feared that we put away the strength of the Spirit when the Church–the whole Church, the ministry and the people, fail to realize our profound and absolute dependence upon the power of the Spirit for success in all work.
III. Let us listen to GODS CALL TO THE CHURCH TO PUT ON AND TO PUT FORTH HER STRENGTH. How shall we put on this strength? Power with God, in its first element, is the sense of our own weakness. How, then, shall we put on strength?
1. On our knees.
2. Let us put on the strength of the Word, as the apostle did, when he shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God.
3. Let us put on the strength of the ministry, as Paul did when he went forth in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace.
4. Let us put on the strength of the Spirit, as the early Church did when it was endued with power from on high. Then shall our work be mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds. (W. M. Paxton, D. D.)
Awake, Awake!
Let us take the central paragraph first (Isa 51:17). There Jerusalem is addressed as stupefied by some intoxicating potion. But her drunkenness is not of wine, nor of strong drink; she has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury. Such imagery is often used by the prophets, of the cup of Gods wrath drunk down by those on whom it descends, and inflicting on them the insensibility and stupefaction with which we are but too familiar as the effect of excessive drinking. The whole city has succumbed under the spell. Her sons have fainted, and lie strewn in all the streets, like antelopes snared in the hunters nets, from which their struggles have failed to extricate them. Amid such circumstances, the servant of Jehovah is introduced, crying, Awake, awake! stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury. There are other soporifics than the wrath of God: the air of the enchanted ground; the laudanum of evil companionship; the drugs of worldly pleasure, of absorption in business, of carnal security. The army of the Lord is too apt to put off the armour of light, and resign itself to heavy slumbers, till the clarion voice warns it that it is high time to awake.
I. ZION S APPEAL TO GOD. Awake, awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord.
1. The first symptom of awaking is a cry. It is so with a child. It is so with the soul. When Saul of Tarsus was converted, the heavenly watchers said, Behold, he prayeth. It is so with the Church.
2. The cry in this case was founded on a mistake. If there are variations in our inner life, it is because our rate of reception differs from time to time. It is not God who sleeps, but we. It is not for God to awake, but for us. It is not necessary for the Divine arm to gird on strength, but for the human to take that which is within its easy reach.
3. The cry is short and earnest. Earnestness is good, even though at first it may be in a wrong direction.
4. The best basis for our cry is memory of the past. Art thou not it that cut Rahab (i.e., Egypt)
in pieces, that pierced the dragon (i.e., of the Nile)
? It is well to quote past experiences as arguments for faith.
5. The arm of God is strong (Isa 51:13).
6. The arm of God is far-reaching. However low we sink, underneath are the everlasting arms.
7. The arm of God is tender (Isa 51:12).
II. THE APPEAL TO ZION. It is blessed to be awaked out of sleep. Life is passing by so rapidly; the radiant glory of the Saviour may be missed unless we are on the alert, or we may fail to give Him the sympathy He needs, and an angel will be summoned to do our work. Besides, the world needs the help of men who give no sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids, but are always eager to help it in its need. Being awake, we shall discover two sets of attire awaiting us. The first is strength, the other beauty; and each has its counterpart in the New Testament (Eph 6:1-24; Col 3:1-25). Put on the whole armour of God. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ–His temper, spirit, and character.
1. We must put on our beautiful garments. We cannot weave these. We are not able to spin such a cocoon out of our own nature, nor are we required to do so. They are all prepared for us in Jesus; we have only to put them on, by putting Him on. This can only be done when the heart is at leisure.
2. We must put on strength. We are not bidden to purchase strength, or generate it by our resolutions, prayers, and agonizings: but to put it on. It is already prepared, and only awaits appropriation.
3. We must expect to be delivered from the dominion of sin. Babylon had been bidden to descend from her throne and sit in the dust; Jerusalem is commanded to arise from the dust and sit on her throne. (F. B. Meyer, B.A.)
A call to exertion
I. THE CONSIDERATIONS WHICH JUSTIFY THIS APPEAL.
1. It is obvious that the passage assumes the possession of sufficient strength for accomplishing the end designed. As to effectual agency, all things are of God. With respect to our own province, that of instrumental action–our strength is ample, though the conversion of the world be the object of it. But wherein does our strength for the reconciliation of the world consist? Strength, in all cases, is the possession of adapted and sufficient means. Now the means of converting a sinner is the truth of the Gospel. Is Divine truth adapted and sufficient to this end? To this point inspired testimony is most direct and express. Matters of fact bring us to the same point. If any attempt should be made to evade the argument, by referring to the necessity of Divine influence, we reply that Divine influence is undoubtedly necessary to give the Gospel success. But it is also necessary to give success to the use of means in every other case. If there be in our hands adapted and sufficient means for bringing about the universal triumphs of the Gospel, there is manifest justice in the stirring appeal by which we are roused into action. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion! Persons who would reply to such a call, What is the use of telling me to labour?–it is God who must do everything, would merely subject themselves to a severe reproof, and a direct charge of making their pretended want of power a pretext for their love of sloth.
2. The text assumes the existence of inadequate exertion. It is appropriate only to a state of comparative indolence and slumber. The language calls not for a partial, but for an entire employment of our resources. Put on thy strength. The meaning cannot be less than this: The scenes which are in prospect will require your utmost efforts; the victory will be quite as much as you will be able to win; put into requisition, therefore, all your powers, and exert your whole strength.
II. THE TOPICS BY WHICH THIS CALL MAY BE ENFORCED.
1. Notice the interesting character of the object to be attained. The end contemplated in the text was personally and directly interesting to the parties addressed. Zion was called to exert herself for her own triumphs. It was for their restoration to the land of their fathers that the slumbering exiles were summoned to awake. We also should remember that the triumphs of Christianity are our triumphs, and the increase of the Church is our enlargement. Are we willing that the Church should continue to be small and despised, or do we really wish to see her arrayed in celestial beauty, and the joy of the whole earth? The interests of Zion are identified with those of a guilty and perishing world. The advancement of Zion is identified with the glory of her Lord.
2. The proximity of the most blessed results. Triumphs, and even our ultimate triumphs are at hand. The prospect of success is one of the most natural stimulants to exertion.
3. The necessity of exertion in order to the expected results.
4. The actual suspension of the issue upon our obedience. It suggests the animating sentiment, that the final glories of the Church are waiting for her awaking, and for that alone. (J. H. Hinton, M.A.)
The Churchs duty towards the world
In Isa 52:9, of the former chapter, the Church prays God to interfere on her behalf, to exert His omnipotent arm. In the seventeenth verse He calls upon the Church to do something to gain this object. And in my text, which is connected with, that exhortation, He repeats it: Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion, etc. If then, we would have the arm of the Lord with us in anything we do for His cause, we must do more than pray.
I. THE SPIRIT WHICH GOD ENJOINS HIS CHURCH TO EVINCE. The language of the text is metaphorical, and highly poetical; but it inculcates upon us, that we put on–
1. A spirit of wakefulness. Wakefulness is opposed to indifference and sloth.
2. A spirit of agression. Put on thy strength, O Zion. For what purpose? Certainly to oppose her foes; to make aggressions on the territory of the master spirit of evil. And what is the Churchs strength, which she is to put on! It consists in a large measure of Divine influences. The Churchs strength consists in spiritual wisdom and spiritual courage. The strength of the Church consists in the cheerful assurance of Gods love to us individually–in having it shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. The joy of the Lord is your strength. And it consists in daily communion with God. Come with me back to Pentecostal days, and see how the Church acted when thus equipped. She put on her strength, anal went forth in a spirit of aggression.
3. A spirit of piety. Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.
(1) What are the beautiful garments of the Church? Let the prophet expound his own language (Isa 61:10). These they are to put on, as on marriage days, as on holy-days, as on days of rejoicing.
(2) As garments are for dignity and beauty, so the Church is only beautiful when thus clothed. They are for defence and protection also, and in them as in a movable garrison we go about, resisting the inclemency of the weather; and these guard us against the curses of Gods law, and all the evils resulting from our misery and wretchedness; They distinguish between the sexes, and denote the station, and so the Church s garments distinguish her from the world.
(3) The Church puts on these garments, when she applies to Christ by faith and exhibits the fruits of His salvation in her life and conduct. Our Lord so interprets it: Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garment. And when holiness and faith meet in the character, how beautiful is it, and how fit for action!
II. THE EFFECTS WHICH WILL NECESSARILY AND CERTAINLY RESULT IF THE CHURCH OBEYS THE INJUNCTION OF HER LORD.
1. The conversion of souls. There shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean; metaphors descriptive of pollution arising from an unconverted state. Unregenerate souls shall not be found within her borders. This has been the result everywhere.
2. The union of the ministers of the Gospel. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing.
3. The renovation of the world (Isa 52:10). (J. Sherman.)
The Churchs strength
Strength is that which resides in a man, but is not exhibited save in so far as it is exercised and produces results. His garments, on the other hand, are visible to those who look at him; they constitute his outward appearance. So that this text refers both to the inward powers and capabilities of Christs Church, and to the visible aspect which it presents to the world. Zion has strength. The Church has sufficient means and power at its disposal to effect the purposes for which the Lord founded it. Those purposes are various in form, but perhaps they may be all summed up in the phrase–to impart to men the knowledge of their Saviour.
I. Let me mention one or two THINGS WHICH ARE GOOD AND USEFUL FOR THEIR PROPER WORK, BUT OF WHICH IT CANNOT BE SAID THAT ZIONS STRENGTH LIES IN THEM.
1. The recognition of religion by the State and its establishment by law. We find, as a matter of history, that in many cases when the favour of the governing powers has been most decided, the efficacy of the Church in converting sinners and spreading the Gospel has been feeble and languid; while, on the other hand, some of Zions most energetic and successful efforts have been made without any support at all from the secular authority, and even in spite of its opposition.
2. An active ministry. There are two aspects of this activity–by activity I understand diligence in preaching, in visiting the sick, in holding services, and so on. If the clergy are active because the people are zealous, then it is altogether well: it is a mark of strength. But if the clergy are active because no one else is, then it is a mark of weakness.
3. The multiplication of religious societies and other machinery. They are good, useful, necessary things. But they are too often made the excuse for serving God by proxy. The strength of the Church lies in the zeal for Christ of its individual members.
II. Put on the garments of thy dignity, continues the prophet, O Jerusalem, the Holy City. THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE OF THE CHURCH OUGHT TO BE SUCH AS TO COMMAND THE ADMIRATION EVEN OF THOSE WHO DO NOT BELONG TO IT. We may instance–
1. The garment of righteousness. The people of God ought to present unmistakably the aspect of a righteous people.
2. The garment of unity. It must be confessed that the servants of God do not present to the world the aspect of a united people. It is not simply difference of opinion that separates them: but there are slanders, mutual recriminations, misrepresentations of motives and conduct, suspicions, jealousies, party-spirit in all its hideous forms, combining to rend and ruin the beautiful garment of brotherhood in which Jerusalem ought to be clad.
3. The garment of worship. The Church ought to appear before all men as a city wherein the Lord is worshipped, where He receives the honour due unto His name. The true beauty of holiness is the sincere devotion of the people, and the natural result of such devotion, viz a really united offering of prayer and praise ascending to the throne of the heavenly grace. (J. C. Rust, M.A.)
Relapses in the history of the Church
Only two or three centuries after the death of the last of the apostles, history informs us, Christians were scarcely distinguishable from pagans. The golden-tongued and spiritually-minded Chrysostom would go home on Sundays from his pulpit in Antioch in Syria only to weep bitterly over the indifference of the Church and its defection from its first love. One has only to glance at the history of the Church during the Middle Ages to see that, through all those dark centuries, the Church was about as dark as the world, and but little less corrupt. The common people universally were forbidden to read the Bible, and would not have been able to read it had they been permitted to do so. Popes and cardinals, archbishops and bishops and all the lower orders of clergy had but little more hesitancy in committing murder, and all the sins in the decalogue, than they had in attending mass. The Savonarolas who stood up here and there and preached a better morality and a purer Gospel may be counted on the fingers of one hand. And the Church manifested its gratitude to them by burning them at the stake. (R. V. Foster, D.D.)
The Church tenacious of its life
The Church, by reason of the heavenly element in it, like a tree of the forest–tenacious of its life; when the old trunk dies a fresh twig springs from its roots; and when this decays another fresh twig aprils up in its turn. So Luther and his collaborators, by the grace of God, evoked from the dead Church of the Middle Ages a fresh and vigorous Protestantism. So Wesley and his co-workers evoked from the deadness of the later Anglicanism a still fresh and vigorous Methodism. The Presbyterian Church of John Knox also grew old, and has had its athletic offshoots. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion–and Zion after the awakening is never the Zion of the pro-awakening. (R. V. Foster, D. D.)
Zions awakening
Is the injunction obsolete? By no means. And the Church-catholic to-day is in the set of obeying it. Let us notice two or three significant indications–
1. Never in any period of the worlds history has the Bible been more universally and intensely studied than it is now. And the study of it is far, very far, from being prevailingly hostile.
2. As another indication of this fact I quote the old saying, In union there is strength; especially is it true when other essential elements of strength are not wanting. In this day there is a visible tendency towards union.
3. Another indication is the rapid progress in mission work. (R. V. Foster, D. D.)
Put on thy strength, O Zion
Zions strength
What is the strength of Zion? The strength of any community is primarily in the individuals who constitute it; so that the strength of the Church of God is, not entirely, but first of all, in the separate members of that body. The strength of Zion is also the power of every religious principle. It is the power of faith and hope and love; the power of patience and perseverance and courage and meekness. There is strength in all life, and Zion lives with the rich and full and eternal life of God within her. Knowledge is power, and the Church of the living God has the highest kind of knowledge. A settled faith is power, and Zion has a fixed and positive belief. Confidence and trust are power, and the Church of God relies upon God. Hope is power, and the hope of the Church is as an anchor sure and steadfast. Love is power, and godly charity never faileth. Patience, perseverance and courage are powers, before which obstacles yield and dangers flee away, and the Church of God is trained to be patient and steadfast and brave. The strength of Zion is the power of certain agencies and influences. The Church has power in her testimony to truth, in her intercession before God, and in her character as the leaven of society and the salt of the nations. Union is strength where alliance is wise and entire; where heart sympathizes with heart and hand joins in hand. We proceed to state reasons why God should thus speak to His Church.
I. GOD BIDS ZION PUT ON HER STRENGTH FOR SELF-MANIFESTATION. Not for self-magnification. Self-magnification is disloyal, traitorous and impious; self-manifestation is a plain duty (Mat 5:16). The Church of God can walk and work and endure; then why appear impotent and helpless? Strong winds make themselves heard. Strong sunshine makes itself felt. Strong life shows itself, whether in the animal or vegetable kingdom. And the Church, to be heard and seen and felt and known, must be strong.
II. GOD BIDS ZION PUT ON HER STRENGTH THAT HE MAY BE GLORIFIED. A redeemed man is a new creation and a Divine workmanship. A congregation of believing men, and the whole visible Church, are of God s founding. Ye are Gods husbandry; ye are God s building. Now if the husbandry appear as the field of the slothful, and as the vineyard of the man void of understanding; if it be all grown over with thorns, and nettles cover the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof be broken down; if the building appear to be defective in foundation, imperfect in construction, and framed together with bad material–the name of God, instead of being honoured, will be blasphemed (1Pe 2:9-10; Isa 43:21).
III. GOD REQUIRES ZION TO PUT OUT HER STRENGTH FOR THE SAKE OF HER OWN WELL-BEING. If the powers of the Church be inactive, they will decline. The staff faith, if never used, will decay, etc.
IV. ZION IS REQUIRED TO PUT ON HER STRENGTH IN ORDER TO MEET THE CLAIMS OF A SINFUL AND SUFFERING WORLD.
V. GOD DIRECTS ZION TO PUT ON HER STRENGTH BECAUSE STRENGTH HAS BEEN GIVEN HER TO PUT ON.
VI. IS NOT THIS PUTTING ON OF STRENGTH AS ESSENTIAL TO ZIONS PEACE AND JOY AS TO HER OUTWARD PROSPERITY? (S. Martin.)
Thy strength of Zion
Thy strength of Zion is the strength of human nature. It is masculine energy, feminine susceptibility, the vivacity of childhood, the buoyancy of youth, and the force of maturity. It is the power of body, soul and spirit, it is intellectual power, emotional force, and moral strength. It is the strength of regenerated humanity, therefore spiritual and religious power; the strength of man redeemed unto God, and as redeemed, allied to God, dwelt in by God, and made strong by union with God. The strength of Zion is the strength of all that redeemed humanity is, and of all that is within human nature when regenerated and sanctified by the grace of God. (S. Martin.)
Strength put on by being put out
If a man put out his strength, he puts on strength, he appears clothed with strength as with a garment. Virgil furnishes us with an illustration: AEneas visits Drepanum in Sicily, and them by various games celebrates the anniversary of his fathers death. The combatants with the cestus are described. Dares first shows his face with strength prodigious, and rears himself amid loud murmurs from the spectators. He uplifts his lofty head, presents his broad shoulders, brandishes his arms and beats the air with his fists. And Entellus accepted his challenge, flung from his shoulders his vest, bared his huge limbs, his big bones and sinewy arms, and stood forth of mighty frame in the middle of the field. Forthwith each on his tiptoes stood erect, and undaunted raised his arms aloft in the air. Dares and Entellus, as they put out strength, put on strength. A working-man and a trained athlete, when asleep or otherwise in repose, appear clothed with weakness. All the muscles are relaxed, and the limbs are motionless and apparently powerless, as the parts of a marble statue. But when the athlete is engaged in some bodily exercise, or the working-man is handling his tools and lifting his materials, his appearance is that of one arrayed with power. As he puts out strength he puts on strength, nor can he put it out without putting it on. Adapting the expression of the idea to common utterance, we may read our text, Put out thy strength, O Zion. (S. Martin.)
Injunctions to be strong
My text harmonizes with words frequently addressed to Zion and to her sons (1Ki 2:2; Isa 35:4; Isa 40:9; Isa 40:31; Hag 2:4; Zec 8:9-13; 1Co 16:13; Eph 6:10; 2Ti 2:1). (S. Martin.)
Gods call to be strong
It is interesting to observe by how many voices God speaks as in our text. By the smarting of the conscience when the strength is withheld, and by the glowing of the conscience when the strength is consecrated; by the breadth of love which Gods law requires, and by the depth of privilege which the Gospel provides; by the correction administered when we are inactive and inert, and by the blessedness experienced when we abound in the work of the Lord, God is continually saying, Put on thy strength, O Zion. (S. Martin.)
Some elements of Church strength
1. Soundness in doctrine.
2. Purity of life among the members of the Church.
3. Thoroughness of organization for Church work.
4. Faithfulness in individual effort to do good.
5. Regularity of attendance upon the services of the Church.
6. Pecuniary liberality.
7. Unity among the members.
8. A prayerful spirit.
9. An abiding faith in the presence of God with the Church. Where these are to be found the Church will be strong. (D. Winters.)
The elements of the Churchs strength
I. THE GREATNESS OF HER AIMS. Great aims enthused great souls, and the Church proposed the conquest of the world for Christ.
II. THE MATCHLESS POWER OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH, which may be illustrated by the distinctively Christian doctrines of our moral ruin, redemption through a Divine-human Saviour, the possibility of a regenerate life, and the blessedness of an immortal hope.
III. But these doctrines needed a voice; hence another element of the Churchs strength is A WITNESSING MEMBERSHIP. All Christians may witness for the truth by the testimony of the lips, and also by the silent but potent ministry of the life.
IV. Another mighty force in the service of the Church is A CO-OPERATIVE PROVIDENCE.
V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. (Bp. W. X. Winde.)
The supreme point of energy
Men can rouse themselves to action. We cannot live continuously in ecstasy; we must live under ourselves, so to speak, or life will become a pain and a failure. We are, however, to have periods of special effort, hours of rapture, times of inspiration and sense of mightiness beyond all that is ordinary. There is more power in man than he may be aware of, and he should inquire what objects and pursuits are worthy of his enthusiastic devotion. Drive a horse from home, and in the course of the day he will show weariness which you may regard as a sign of utter exhaustion; but turn his head homeward, and see what a change takes place! How willingly he runs! How swiftly! He has put on his strength! Work for a person who is not a favourite, and the hands soon tire: every effort is a weariness to the flesh, every thought wears the mind; on the other hand, serve a person who is beloved, etc. Undertake any engagement which does not excite the interest of the heart, and how soon it becomes irksome. The mother waits upon her sick child, and wonders how she can endure so much. The mystery is in the love. We are strong when we work in the direction of our will. Where the will is right, the strength will assert itself. The question is not one of muscle but of purpose. What objects, then, are worthy of all our strength, all our mind, and all our heart? We may get at the answer negatively as well as positively.
I. NO OBJECT WHICH BEARS UPON THIS WORLD ONLY IS WORTHY OF THE SUPREME ENERGY OF MAN. Even in secular affairs we work by laws of proportion and adaptation. If a man employed a steam-engine to draw a cork, we should justly accuse him of wasting power. If a man spent his days and nights in carving cherry-stones, we should say he was wasting his life. We have a common saving–the game is not worth the candle–showing that in common affairs we do recognize the law of proportion, and the law that results do determine the value of processes. If, then, in the lower, how much more in the higher! Think of a being like man spending his lifetime in writing his name in the dust! There is a success which is not worth securing. Suppose a man should get all the money he can possibly accumulate; all the fame; all the luxury–what does it amount to?
II. SPIRITUAL OBJECTS ARE ALONE WORTHY OF THE SUPREME ENERGY OF MAN. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, etc.
1. They are akin to his own nature.
2. They touch every point of his being.
3. They prepare him for the solemnity and service of the future. Boundless are the prospects of the spiritual thinker! His library, the universe! His companions, the angels! His Teacher, God! In view of such prospects, how time dwindles, and how earth passes as a wreath of smoke! The spiritual thinker is independent of all the influences which make up the small world of the materialist–his citizenship is in heaven.
III. THE FACT THAT SPIRITUAL OBJECTS ALONE ARE WORTHY OF THE SUPREME ENERGY OF MAN SHOULD IMPEL TO DECISIVE ACTION. Put on thy strength–
1. For the time is short.
2. For the enemy is on the alert.
3. For the Master is worthy. The text addresses a call to the Church. The call is to activity. He who gives the call will give the grace. The Church is not to be feeble and tottering; it is to be strong, valiant, heroic. He who can do without the help of the strongest is graciously pleased to accept the service of the meanest. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Effort gives strength
I. PUT ON STRENGTH BY WAKEFULNESS. A slumbering life results in moral death.
II. PUT ON STRENGTH BY ACTIVITY. Activity imparts physical strength. We have only to look, at the compact and knotted lump of muscle on the blacksmith s forearm. The rower s chest is expanded by his exertions. The practised wrestler grips with an ironlike grasp the limbs of his opponent. Even a Samson is divested of his prowess by lolling in the lap of a Delilah. We put on intellectual strength by keeping the brain forces constantly moving. But most of all the moral and spiritual nature is strengthened by exercise. Great is the power of habit. It is a kind of second nature, and is the grand resultant of repeated acts.
III. PUT ON STRENGTH BY DEVELOPMENT. Art thou but a bruised reed, put on thy strength! Hast thou but one talent, put it out to usury. Moral and spiritual strength may be developed to the latest hour of a Methuselahs life, and eternity will be but an ampler sphere for the enlargement of the souls vast powers.
IV. PUT ON STRENGTH BY JOYFULNESS. Joy begets strength, and strength increases joy.
V. PUT ON STRENGTH BY HOPEFULNESS. The despairing are weak; but the hopeful are strong. I will endeavour, is the inspiring language of the hopeful. The Church may well be hopeful, for Gods promise is given for her encouragement.
VI. PUT ON STRENGTH BY UNITED PRAYER. The Churchs prosperous times are the praying times. The praying man is the strong man. (W. Burrows, B.A.)
Strength increased by use
A lady was watching a potter at his work, whose one foot was kept with never-slackening speed turning at swift wheel round, while the other rested patiently on the ground. When the lady said to him, in a sympathizing tone, How tired your foot must be! the man raised his eyes and said, No, maam; it isnt the foot that works thats tired; its the foot that stands. That s it. If you want to keep your strength, use it; if you want to get tired, do nothing. (Christian Budget.)
The danger of inaction
A magnet is sometimes seen in a chemists laboratory, suspended against a wall, and loaded heavily with weights. We ask the reason, and the scientist replies, The magnet was losing power, because it had not been used for some time. I am restoring its force by giving it something to do. (Sunday School Chronicle.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER LII
Jerusalem, in manifest allusion to the strong figure employed
in the close of the preceding chapter, is represented as fallen
asleep in the dust, and in that helpless state bound by her
enemies. The prophet, with all the ardour natural to one who
had such joyful news to communicate, bids her awake, arise, put
on her best attire, (holiness to the Lord,) and ascend her
lofty seat; and then he delivers the message he had in charge,
a very consolatory part of which was, that “no more should
enter into her the uncircumcised and the polluted,” 1-6.
Awaking from her stupefaction, Jerusalem sees the messenger of
such joyful tidings on the eminence from which he spied the
coming deliverance. She expresses, in beautiful terms, her joy
at the news, repeating with peculiar elegance the words of the
crier, 7.
The rapturous intelligence, that Jehovah was returning to
resume his residence on his holy mountain, immediately spreads
to others on the watch, who all join in the glad acclamation, 8;
and, in the ardour of their joy, they call to the very ruins of
Jerusalem to sing along with them, because Jehovah maketh bare
his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends
of the earth are about to see the salvation of Israel’s God,
9, 10.
To complete the deliverance, they are commanded to march in
triumph out of Babylon, earnestly exhorted to have nothing to
do with any of her abominations, and assured that Jehovah will
guide them in all their way, 11, 12.
The prophet then passes to the procuring cause of this great
blessedness to the house of Israel in particular, and to the
world in general, viz., the humiliation, sufferings, death,
burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ; a very
celebrated and clear prophet which takes up the remainder of
this and the whole of the following chapter.
NOTES ON CHAP. LII
Verse 1. There shall no more come into thee] For yabo, “shall come,” lebo, “to come,” is the reading of five of Kennicott’s and two of De Rossi’s MSS. This is the better reading, ki lo yosiph lebo, “There shall not add to come.”
The uncircumcised and the unclean.] Christians have turned many passages of the prophets against the Jews; and it is not to be wondered at, that in support of their obstinate and hopeless cause, they should press a prophecy into their service, and make it speak against the Christians. This Kimchi does in this place; for he says, by the uncircumcised, the Christians are meant; and by the unclean, the Turks. The Christians are uncircumcised; and the Turks, though circumcised, and using many ablutions, are unclean in their works.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Awake, awake; put on thy strength: God biddeth his church do that which she entreated him to do, Isa 51:9. And because Gods word is operative, and effectual, and his sayings are doings, this is a prediction and promise what she should do, that she should awake or arise out of her low estate, and be strong and courageous.
Put on thy beautiful garments: thy sorrows shall be ended, and thou shalt be advanced into a most glorious and blessed condition.
O Jerusalem, the holy city; O my church, which is every where called by the name of Zion or Jerusalem.
For henceforth there shall no more come into thee, either to molest thee, or to associate themselves with thee, or to defile or corrupt thee, the uncircumcised, heathens or infidels, who are commonly called uncircumcised; and the unclean; nor any others, who though they be circumcised, as the Jews generally were, are unclean in any thing: whereby he intimates that there should be a greater purity and reformation in the church than formerly there had been, which was eminently accomplished in the church and kingdom of Christ.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. strengthas thy adornment;answering to “beautiful garments” in the parallel clause.Arouse thyself from dejection and assume confidence.
the holy city (Neh 11:1;Rev 21:2).
no more . . . unclean(Isa 35:8; Isa 60:21;Joe 3:17; Rev 21:27).A prophecy never yet fulfilled.
uncircumcisedspiritually(Eze 44:9; Act 7:51).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion,…. Aben Ezra says, all interpreters agree that this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled, and so it is: by Zion is meant the church in Gospel times, in the latter day glory, which is called upon to awake out of sleep; and this repeated to show what a deep sleep had fallen on her, the danger she was in through it, and the vehemency of the speaker, or the great concern the Lord had for her; and this is the very state and case of the church of Christ now, and the prophecy respects our times, and what follow. There is a general carnal security, and spiritual drowsiness, which has seized the people of God; a non-exercise of grace among them, at least it is not a lively one; a sluggishness to and in duty; a contentment in the external performance of it; an indifference about the cause of Christ, and power of religion; and an unconcernedness about the truths and ordinances of the Gospel, the discipline of Christ’s house, and the honour of it; which the enemy takes the advantage of, and sows his tares of false doctrine and worship; wherefore it is high time to “awake” out of sleep, and to “put on strength”, or “clothe” e with it, and do the Lord’s will, and work and oppose the enemy. Saints are weak in themselves, but they have strength in Christ, and on him should they wait, to him should they look, and on him should they exercise faith for it; they should put on the whole armour of God, clothe themselves with it, resume courage, pluck up a good heart and spirit, and not fear any difficulties, dangers, and enemies.
Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; another name for the Gospel church, see Heb 12:22, and which is called “the holy city”; referring to the times in the latter day, when holiness shall more appear and prevail in the churches; when saints shall be built up in their holy faith, and more closely attend to holy ordinances, and walk in an holy conversation and godliness; and especially the New Jerusalem church state will answer to this name, and so it is called,
Re 21:2, and when the saints will “put on” their “beautiful garments”, as on holy days, and times of rejoicing; their mourning will be over, and all signs of it shall be laid aside; the witnesses will no more prophesy in sackcloth; the marriage of the Lamb will be come; the bride made ready, being clothed with fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness of the saints, the garments of Christ’s salvation, and the robe of his righteousness; which are the beautiful garments here meant, which serve for many, and answer all the purposes of a garment; as to cover nakedness, preserve from the inclemency of the weather, keep warm and comfortable, beautify and adorn; and beautiful they are, being all of a piece, large and long, pure and spotless, rich and glorious, and which make those beautiful that wear them; and though, being once on, they are never off again; yet saints sometimes are remiss in their acts of faith in putting them on, to which they are here exhorted; see Re 19:7,
for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean; this shows that the prophecy cannot be understood of Jerusalem literally, nor of the times of the Babylonish captivity, and deliverance from it, since after this the uncircumcised and the unclean did enter into it, Antiochus Epiphanes, Pompey, and the Romans; but of the mystical Jerusalem, the church of Christ, in the latter day, the spiritual reign of Christ; when the Gentiles, the Papists, meant by the uncircumcised and the unclean, shall no more “come against” them, as the words f may be rendered, and persecute them; and when there will be no more a mixture of Papists and Protestants, of heretics and orthodox, of hypocrites and saints; and when there will be few or none under a profession but will have the truth of grace in them; when every pot and vessel in Jerusalem will be holiness to the Lord, and the Heathen will be perished out of the land, Zec 14:21, and especially this will be true in the personal reign of Christ, in the New Jerusalem church state, into which nothing shall enter that defiles, or makes an abomination, and a lie, Re 21:27.
e , Sept.; “induere fortitudine tua”, V. L. “induere robur tunm”, Vitringa. f “non veniet contra te”, Gataker; “non perget invadere te”, Junius Tremellius “non pergent”, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The same call, which was addressed in Isa 51:9 to the arm of Jehovah that was then represented as sleeping, is here addressed to Jerusalem, which is represented as a sleeping woman. “Awake, awake; clothe thyself in thy might, O Zion; clothe thyself in thy state dresses, O Jerusalem, thou holy city: for henceforth there will no more enter into thee one uncircumcised and unclean! Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the chains of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion!” Jerusalem is lying upon the ground stupefied with the wrath of God, and exhausted with grief; but this shameful prostration and degradation will now come to an end. She is to rise up and put on her might, which has long been broken down, and apparently has altogether disappeared, but which can and must be constantly renewed, because it rests upon the foundation of an inviolable promise. She is to wake up and recover her ancient power, and put on her state robes, i.e., her priestly and royal ornaments, which belong to her as a “royal city,” i.e., as the city of Jehovah had His anointed one. For henceforth she will be what she was always intended to be, and that without any further desecration. Heathen, uncircumcised, and those who were unclean in heart and flesh (Eze 44:9), had entered her by force, and desecrated her: heathen, who had no right to enter the congregation of Jehovah as they were (Lam 1:10). But she should no longer be defiled, not to say conquered, by such invaders as these (Joe 3:17; Nah 2:1; compare Joe 3:7 with Nah 2:1). On the construction non perget intrabit = intrare , see Ges. 142, 3, c. In Isa 52:2 the idea of the city falls into the background, and that of the nation takes its place. does not mean “captive people of Jerusalem,” however, as Hitzig supposes, for this would require in accordance with the personification, as in Isa 52:2. The rendering supported by the lxx is the true one, “Sit down, O Jerusalem;” and this is also the way in which it is accentuated. The exhortation is the counterpart of Isa 47:1. Jerusalem is sitting upon the ground as a prisoner, having no seat to sit upon; but this is only that she may be the more highly exalted; – whereas the daughter of Babylon is seated as a queen upon a throne, but only to be the more deeply degraded. The former is now to shake herself free from the dust, and to rise up and sit down (viz., upon a throne, Targum). The captive daughter of Zion ( sh e bhiyyah , , Exo 12:29, an adjective written first for the sake of emphasis, as in Isa 10:30; Isa 53:11) is to undo for herself ( sibi laxare according to p. 62, note, like hithnachel , Isa 14:2, sibi possidendo capere ) the chains of her neck ( the chethib , they loosen themselves, is opposed to the beautiful parallelism); for she who was mourning in her humiliation is to be restored to honour once more, and she who was so shamefully laden with fetters to liberty.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Encouragement to Jerusalem. | B. C. 706. |
1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. 2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. 3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money. 4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. 5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.
Here, I. God’s people are stirred up to appear vigorous for their own deliverance, Isa 52:1; Isa 52:2. They had desired that God would awake and put on his strength, ch. li. 9. Here he calls upon them to awake and put on their strength, to bestir themselves; let them awake from their despondency, and pluck up their spirits, encourage themselves and one another with the hope that all will be well yet, and no longer succumb and sink under their burden. Let them awake from their distrust, look above them, look about them, look into the promises, look into the providences of God that were working for them, and let them raise their expectations of great things from God. Let them awake from their dullness, sluggishness, and incogitancy, and raise up their endeavours, not to take any irregular courses for their own relief, contrary to the law of nations concerning captives, but to use all likely means to recommend themselves to the favour of the conqueror and make an interest with him. God here gives them an assurance, 1. That they should be reformed by their captivity: There shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean (v. 1); their idolatrous customs should be no more introduced, or at least not harboured; for when by the marriage of strange wives, in Ezra’s time and Nehemiah’s, the unclean crept in, they were soon by the vigilance and zeal of the magistrates expelled again, and care was taken that Jerusalem should be a holy city. Thus the gospel Jerusalem is purified by the blood of Christ and the grace of God, and made indeed a holy city. 2. That they should be relieved and rescued out of their captivity, that the bands of their necks should be loosed, that they should not now be any longer oppressed, nay, that they should not be any more invaded, as they had been: There shall no more come against thee (so it may be read) the uncircumcised and the clean. The heathen shall not again enter into God’s sanctuary and profane his temple, Ps. lxxix. 1. This must be understood with a condition. If they keep close to God, and keep in with him, God will keep off, will keep out of the enemy; but, if they again corrupt themselves, Antiochus will profane their temple and the Romans will destroy it. However, for some time they shall have peace. And to this happy change, now approaching, they are here called to accommodate themselves. (1.) Let them prepare for joy: “Put on thy beautiful garments, no longer to appear in mourning weeds and the habit of thy widowhood. Put on a new face, a smiling countenance, now that a new and pleasant scene begins to open.” The beautiful garments were laid up then, when the harps were hung on the willow trees; but, now there is occasion for both, let both be resumed together. “Put on thy strength, and, in order to that, put on thy beautiful garments, in token of triumph and rejoicing.” Note, The joy of the Lord will be our strength (Neh. viii. 10), and our beautiful garments will serve for armour of proof against the darts of temptation and trouble. And observe, Jerusalem must put on her beautiful garments when she becomes a holy city, for the beauty of holiness is the most amiable beauty, and the more holy we are the more cause we have to rejoice. (2.) Let them prepare for liberty: “Shake thyself from the dust in which thou hast lain, and into which thy proud oppressors have trodden thee (ch. li. 23), or into which thou hast in thy extreme sorrow rolled thyself.” Arise, and set up; so it may be read. “O Jerusalem! prepare to get clear of all the marks of servitude thou hast been under and to shift thy quarters: Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck; be inspired with generous principles and resolutions to assert thy own liberty.” The gospel proclaims liberty to those who were bound with fears and makes it their duty to take hold of their liberty. Let those who have been weary and heavily laden under the burden of sin, finding relief in Christ, shake themselves from the dust of their doubts and fears and loose themselves from those bands; for, if the Son make them free, they shall be free indeed.
II. God stirs up himself to appear jealous for the deliverance of his people. He here pleads their cause with himself, and even stirs up himself to come and save them, for his reasons of mercy are fetched from himself. Several things he here considers.
1. That the Chaldeans who oppressed them never acknowledged God in the power they gained over his people, any more than Sennacherib did, who, when God made use of him as an instrument for the correction and reformation of his people, meant not so, Isa 10:6; Isa 10:7. “You have sold yourselves for nought; you got nothing by it, nor did I,” v. 3. (God considers that when they by sin had sold themselves he himself, who had the prior, nay, the sole, title to them, did not increase his wealth by their price, Ps. xliv. 12. They did not so much as pay their debts to him with it; the Babylonians gave him no thanks for them, but rather reproached and blasphemed his name upon that account.) “And therefore they, having so long had you for nothing, shall at last restore you for nothing: You shall be redeemed without price,” as was promised, ch. xlv. 13. Those that give nothing must expect to get nothing; however, God is a debtor to no man.
2. That they had been often before in similar distress, had often smarted for a time under the tyranny of their task-masters, and therefore it was a pity that they should now be left always in the hand of these oppressors (v. 4): “My people went down into Egypt, in an amicable way to settle there; but they enslaved them, and ruled them with rigour.” And then they were delivered, notwithstanding the pride, and power, and policies of Pharaoh. And why may we not think God will deliver his people now? At other times the Assyrian oppressed the people of God without cause, as when the ten tribes were carried away captive by the king of Assyria; soon afterwards Sennacherib, another Assyrian, with a destroying army oppressed and made himself master of all the defenced cities of Judah. The Babylonians might not unfitly be called Assyrians, their monarchy being a branch of the Assyrians; and they now oppressed them without cause. Though God was righteous in delivering them into their hands, they were unrighteous in using them as they did, and could not pretend a dominion over them as their subjects, as Pharaoh might when they were settled in Goshen, part of his kingdom. When we suffer by the hands of wicked and unreasonable men it is some comfort to be able to say that as to them it is without cause, that we have not given them any provocation, Ps. vii. 3-5, c.
3. That God’s glory suffered by the injuries that were done to his people (<i>v. 5): What have I here, what do I get by it, that my people are taken away for nought? God is not worshipped as he used to be in Jerusalem, his altar there is gone and his temple in ruins; but if, in lieu of that, he were more and better worshipped in Babylon, either by the captives or by the natives, it were another matter–God might be looked upon as in some respects a gainer in his honour by it; but, alas! it is not so. (1.) The captives are so dispirited that they cannot praise him; instead of this they are continually howling, which grieves him and moves his pity; Those that rule over them make them to howl, as the Egyptians of old made them to sigh, Exod. ii. 23. So the Babylonians now, using them more hardly, extorted from them louder complaints and made them to howl. This gives us no pleasing idea of the temper the captives were now in; their complaints were not so rational and pious as they should have been, but brutish rather; they howled, Hos. vii. 14. However God heard them, and came down to deliver them, as he did out of Egypt, Exo 3:7; Exo 3:8. (2.) The natives are so insolent that they will not praise him, but, instead of that, they are continually blaspheming, which affronts him and moves his anger. They boasted that they were too hard for God because they were too hard for his people, and set him at defiance, as unable to deliver them, and thus his name continually every day was blasphemed among them. When they praised their own idols they lifted up themselves against the Lord of heaven, Dan. v. 23. “Now,” says God, “this is not to be suffered. I will go down to deliver them; for what honour, what rent, what tribute of praise have I from the world, when my people, who should be to me for a name and praise, are to me for a reproach? For their oppressors will neither praise God themselves nor let them do it.” The apostle quotes this with application to the wicked lives of the Jews, by which God was dishonoured among the Gentiles then, as much as now he was by their sufferings, Rom 2:23; Rom 2:24.
4. That his glory would be greatly manifested by their deliverance (v. 6): “Therefore, because my name is thus blasphemed, I will arise, and my people shall know my name, my name Jehovah.” By this name he had made himself known in delivering them out of Egypt, Exod. vi. 3. God will do something to vindicate his own honour, something for his great name; and his people, who have almost lost the knowledge of it, shall know it to their comfort and shall find it their strong tower. They shall know that God’s providence governs the world, and all the affairs of it, that it is he who speaks deliverance for them by the word of his power, that it is he who speaks deliverance for them by the word of his power, that it is he only, who at first spoke and it was done. They shall know that God’s word, which Israel is blessed with above other nations, shall without fail have its accomplishment in due season, that it is he who speaks by the prophet; it is he, and they do not speak of themselves; for not one iota or tittle of what they say shall fall to the ground.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 52:1-12
ZION’S JOY IN THE SALVATION OF JEHOVAH
Vs. 1-2: DIVINE SUMMONS TO A NEW EXODUS
1. Zion (Jerusalem, as representative of the nation) is summoned, as in Isa 51:17, to arise from her stupor of grief and humiliation.
2. She is to clothe herself properly for that to which she is divinely called.
a. With strength – “the joy of the Lord” (Neh 8:10).
b. With her beautiful garments – of salvation and praise, (Isa 61:3; Isa 61:10; Psa 110:3; Exo 28:2; Exo 28:40; Zec 3:4; comp. Isa 49:18).
3. Henceforth to be a holy city indeed (Zec 14:20-21), she will never again be invaded by the uncircumcised and unclean, (Isa 35:8; Joe 3:17; Nah 1:15).
4. Shaking off the dust of her mourning (Isa 3:26; Isa 29:4; comp. Job 2:12-13), and loosing herself from the bonds of her captivity (Isa 47:6), she is to arise (Isa 60:1) and enter into the exalted position which divine love and mercy alone could have provided for her, (vs. 2; contrast Isa 47:1).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Awake, awake. He confirms the former doctrine, in order still more to arouse the people who had been weighed down by grief and sorrow. These things were necessary to be added as spurs, that the doctrine might more easily penetrate into their drowsy and stupified hearts; for he addresses the Church, which appeared to be in a benumbed and drowsy condition, and bids her “awake,” that she may collect her strength and revive her courage, he repeats it a second time, and with great propriety; for it is difficult to arouse and reanimate those whose hearts have been struck, and even laid prostrate, by a sense of God’s anger.
Put on thy strength. As if he had said, “Formerly thou wast dejected, and wallowedst in filth and pollution; now prepare for a happy and prosperous condition, to which the Lord will restore thee.” Thus he contrasts “strength” with despondency, such as is usually found when affairs are desperate; and he contrasts garments of beauty with filth and pollution.
For henceforth there shall not come to thee. The reason assigned by him is, that henceforth God will not permit wicked men to indulge their sinful inclinations for destroying it. Freed from their tyranny, the Church already has cause to rejoice; and security for the future holds out solid ground for joy and gladness. Yet Isaiah exhorts us to mutual congratulation when God is reconciled to his Church; and indeed if we have any piety in us, we ought to be deeply affected by her condition, that we may rejoice in her prosperity, and be grieved in her adversity. (37) In short, it ought to be the height of our gladness, as also the Psalmist says,
“
Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I remember not thee, and if thou be not the crown of my gladness.” (Psa 137:6.)
By the word come, he means what we commonly express by the phrase, (Avoir e entree,) “to have access.”
By the uncircumcised and unclean, he means all irreligious persons who corrupt the worship of God and oppress consciences by tyranny. It was customary to apply the term “uncircumcised” to all who were estranged from the Church, which had for its symbol “circumcision,” by which all believers were distinguished. But as very many persons, though they bore this outward mark of the covenant, were not better than others, in order to remove all doubt, he added the word “unclean;” for the mark of “circumcision is nothing in itself,” (Gal 5:6,) and (unless, as Paul says, there be added purity of heart) “is even reckoned uncircumcision.” (Rom 2:25,) Accordingly, he declares that henceforth such persons shall not be admitted into the Church, in order that, by the removal of corruptions, and the restoration of the worship of God, she may possess perfect joy. Yet I do not object to viewing these words as applied to outward foes, whom he calls by hateful names, that even the severity of the punishment may warn the Jews of the heinousness of their offenses.
(37) “ Pour rire et chanter quand elle florit, et pleurer lors qu’elle est persecutee.” “To laugh and sing when she is flourishing, and to weep when she is persecuted.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Isa. 52:1. Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.
I. THE CALL OF THE CHURCH TO ALMIGHTY GOD FOR HELP (Isa. 51:9).
This call implies,
1. That the Church felt itself to be in a very unsatisfactory state. The Church was in captivity, was subdued by a powerful and victorious foe. The enemy from which the Church is in danger now, triumphs not by force, but by subtlety. It is lamentable to see in how many instances the Church, instead of conquering the world, is conquered by it, and is held firmly in its soft but unrelaxing grasp. The Church seems now to be throwing open its gates to admit the enemy, mistaking him for a friend. The spirit of the world seems to be establishing itself in the Church. Oh! what slumber, what torpor, what a diminished power of prayer, what a practical underrating of the value of prayer, &c.
2. That whenever it became conscious of its unsatisfactory condition, there rises from it a call to the Lord of the Church for His gracious help for the renewal and quickening of life which comes from Him alone.
II. THE RESPONSIVE CALL OF THE CHURCHS LORD (Isa. 52:1). Whilst the Church is slumbering and inconsistent there is no beauty of character, no generous, earnest activity; but the effect of Gods answering prayer and putting forth His power is to stimulate the activity of the Church. There is a vast amount of latent power not put forth when the Church is slumbering. When God responds to the call of the Church, He calls that latent force into vigorous action, and then the Church arises and puts on again her fair garment, pure and white, which is the righteousness of the saints.
1. Awake! awake! When the Church is slumbering and inconsistent, instead of acting, it is acted upon by the world. The Church must be as wakeful as the world.
2. Put on thy strength. As if when slumbering the Church had thrown aside its armour and lost even the sinews of its strength. Certain elements of character constitute the Churchs strength; these she is to put on and exhibit in all their force. A man has strength, spiritual and moral, when he has fairly mastered a subject; when he has faith; when he has determination, fixed resolve; when he has sympathy; when he has courage. And now, says the Churchs Lord to her, Put on your strength; put on these characteristic elements of yours as a Church; put them forth in all their force; and then your enemies will be subdued, and vice, wickedness, immorality, blindness, inconsistency, and worldliness will fall.
3. Put on thy beautiful garments, &c. There is an assemblage of excellences which the Church is to exhibit to the gaze of the world, and which, when seen, even the world itself cannot fail to admire. This the apostle puts in another form which is very expressive, Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. the life of Christ will be reproduced in the history of His followers, and the beauties of character for which He was distinguished, will shine out in their lives. Our Lord summons us to all this; to awake and put on strength and exhibit lofty consistency, not for our own sakes alone. When there is power combined with beauty of character, then we shall not have to complain of defeat, but shall rejoice in victory, and in our Lords glory we shall see our own.J. C. Harrison: Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 526.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE WORK AND STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH
(Sermon preached before an Association of Churches.)
Isa. 52:1. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion.
Isaiah prophesied more than a hundred years before the captivity of Israel. Many of his predictions had to do with its termination. In his inspired anticipation, the period of Israels desolation is now coming to a close, and the day of their redemption is drawing nigh. Hence, in these latter chapters, he calls upon the exiles, under the figure of a captive female, to arise from the ground on which she has been sitting, to shake herself from the dust with which she has been covered, to lay aside all the emblems of her degradation, and prepare to return to the enjoyment of freedom and prosperity in the land of her fathers. By a figure still bolder, he summons the holy land and the holy city to clothe themselves in their best attire, and get ready for the reception of the liberated captive. Frequently he employs the proper names, Zion and Jerusalem, in their literal sense; but at other times Jerusalem is put for its inhabitants, and Zion represents the worshippers of the true God. In this latter sense I employ the term Zion now. In the preceding chapter we see the chosen people in a suppliant attitude, sending up to heaven the cryAwake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. In the text we listen to the responsive command of heaven, addressed to the praying Church,A wake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion.
More than five-and-twenty centuries have passed away since the echo of these words first fell on expecting ears; but there is a sense in which they are as much needed by the Church of our day as by the Zion to and for which Isaiah spoke and wrote.
I. THE WORK WHICH THE CHURCH HAS TO DO.
1. It has millions of heathen yet to evangelise. The kingdom which the Messiah came to set up, was to be bounded only by the globe; its subjects only by the entire race. But before it can reach its destined universality, its gospel must be proclaimed to all men, and the gods many and lords many of idolatrys empire must be destroyed. That is part of the work which Christ has intrusted to His Church. Glorious harvests have been reaped as the result of the Churchs toil. But large portions of the earth have yet to be won to our Saviour King. From the entire regions of darkness and death that are still under the dominion of false gods, it is computed that forty immortal beings go into eternity every minute, more than 2000 every hour, and more than 50,000 every day. Fifty thousand human beings daily hastening to a tribunal of which they never heard, and ushered into the presence of a God they never knew, because His own Church has hitherto failed to make Him known to the ends of the earth!
2. It has the Mohammedan imposture yet to overthrow. The mosque still stands on the very mount of Gods selection, where once Solomon worshipped, where Isaiah prophesied, where Asaph sung, and where Jesus taught. Nearly one hundred millions of the earths population are daily heard uttering the watchwordThere is one God, and Mahommed is His prophet. Never must we consider the Churchs work done until the crescent be made to give way to the cross, and the followers of the false prophet be brought to worship Jesus as the sent of God and the only Saviour of men.
3. It has multitudes of the Jews yet to convert to the faith of Christ. It is calculated that nearly six millions and a half of the seed of Abraham are, at this time, scattered about in the different nations of the earth. These must be sought, and instructed, and entreated until they are won to Christ.
4. It has the Papal apostasy to oppose. As far from the truth as it is in Jesus is it now as when our own Wicklyffe began to protest against its errors. As dishonourable to God, as injurious to society, as corruptive of morals, as dangerous to souls, as when Luther hurled at the whole system the thunders of his righteous indignation.
5. It has a growing infidelity to confront.
6. It has to meet and resist a form of religion which, while it holds fast the name of Christianity, denies and denounces most of its distinctive doctrines. I refer to that system which would pluck the crown of Deity from the Saviours brow, and reduce Him to the level of a mere man.
7. It has a vast region of indifference to invade. Wrapped in the slumbers of a spiritual death, multitudes care for none of these things.
8. It has a false liberalism to contend against. The parties that espouse this cause have a creed, and it runs somewhat in this strainThere is something good in all religions: no church is perfect, nor persons either: it matters not what sect a man belongs to, so that he has charity in his soul, and observes justice in his dealings: it matters not what doctrines a man believes, so that he is honest in his belief, forthis condition complied withhe may be an infidel and yet be saved. We must not let this evil go unchecked and unopposed. It is wrong in itself, it is dangerous and destructive in its tendencyand hence, as the witnesses for God, we must work to stop its progress and to neutralise its mischiefs.
9. It has certain tendencies of the age to keep in check. Such as the growing worldliness of professors of religionthe growing love of gaiety, amusements, and pleasure, which often leads to dangerous associations and the desecration of the Sabbatha spirit of daring speculation in tradethe deification of reason, which leads men to treat Gospel doctrines as they would mathematical problems, to question when they ought to believe, and to reject what they cannot comprehendthe rage for novelties, which begets a restless dissatisfaction with old truths however sound, and old ways however safethe irreverence with which sacred things are treated and spoken of.
10. It has lost ground to regain. The cause of spiritual religion has not kept pace with the progress which has been made in other things. Where, in some cases, the external machinery of religion has been pushed forward, there is reason to fear that the inward life of it has been sick and ready to die.
These are some of the claims which the times now passing over us present to the activities of the Church; and if the Church had nothing more to do than what has now been stated, it must be evident at a glance that its work is one of great magnitude and vast responsibility. The requirements of the case cannot be met by feeble resolves, low aims, or weak efforts. A Church asleep will not do for it. A Church reposing on the lap of its own privileges will not do for it. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion.
II. IN WHAT THE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH CONSISTS: AND HOW IT SHOULD PUT IT ON.
1. The first element of its renewed strength must be sought in its waking up to a sense of its past neglects and its present duties. Misconceptions on these points will be fatal to its power.
2. The Churchs love to Christ must be augmented. What was the secret of Apostolic doing, daring, and suffering? It was lovethe love of Christ constraining us. Could we but get the same hallowed fire in our heartscould we but get it to burn on, with a steady, constant, and augmenting flame, no service would be a weariness to us, no sacrifice a hardship, and no labour commanded by our Divine Master would be refused or neglected. If we can but get our hearts filled with the expansive and impulsive energy of Divine love, we shall soon be clad in the mantle of Divine strength.
3. There must be an increase of faith. Our warfare is the fight of faith, and our work is the work of faith. The Master whom we serve is the invisible God; the rewards we expect are unseen and future. The results of our labours are uncertain, except as we anticipate them by faith. Our obstacles are seen, our difficulties are felt. The natural exclamation of conscious weakness isthe work is too great for us. Too great indeed it would be, if we had to do it alone. But Omnipotence is pledged to help us, and success is guaranteed by Divine promise. We must have faith in that promise. Going forth strong in the power of faith, we may expect to see much greater things than we have ever yet beheld.
4. There must be an increase of fervent prayer. First must we become princes with God, and then shall we prevail with men. The Holy Spirit is given in answer to prayer. The special outpouring of that Spirit on the Church in its infancy, was preceded by special prayer. Gifts, zeal, activity, eloquence, fervour, will all be in vain without the Spirit of God. What the steam is to the engine, and what the winds of heaven are to the canvas-clad vessel, the influences of the Spirit are to the plans and activities of the Church. Without these influences there may be much husbandry but no harvest, much work but no progress. The known readiness of the Spirit to help and bless, should not supersede prayer but stimulate it.
5. There must be a deepened sense of personal responsibility. When charged with past neglects and sins, we must not attempt to shift the blame from ourselves and fasten it upon others. Against Thee, O Lord, have I sinned, and done evil in Thy sight. With respect to the future and its duties, we must be on our guard against being deluded by what may become to us the fiction of the Church. When we speak of the Churchs work and responsibilities, we must not give the least indulgence to the idea that we are speaking of some imaginary being or body, altogether separate and distinct from ourselves. The Church is composed of individual Christians, and the only responsibility of the Church as a whole is that which is brought into it by the individual responsibility of its separate members. Go daily to the throne of God with the inquiryLord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Be willing that God should answer it in any way He sees fit; and then as soon as it is answered, do that thing, whatever it may be, do it willingly, do it diligently, do it well.
6. There must be enlarged liberality. As compared with the givings of some bygone ages, the present scale of contributions to the cause of God may be admitted to be liberal. But what is given now, in a general way, bears but small proportion to what was given by the devout Jew to meet the requirements of the ceremonial law. The givings of both rich and poor to the cause of Poperythe princely sums of English earls, and the hard-earned pennies of Irish labourersmight well shame the stinted offerings of those who profess a purer faith. The sacrifices made by deluded multitudes in the worship of their false gods, make our ordinary rate of giving appear more like an insult than an offering. The servants of sin give incomparably more to the cause of corruption and death, than do the servants of the living God to the cause of religion and salvation. How will rich professors answer for themselves before God, who hoard up wealth for themselves and their heirs, and leave the cause of God to languish and die for want of support? The Churchs work will not be done until those of His servants, whom He makes stewards of His wealth, shall honour Him with something better than the crumbs which fall from their own table.
7. There must be more directness of aim in the pulpit. To preach before a congregation is one thing, to preach to it is another. To preach to men in the mass, is the method of some, to preach so as to make each man feelit is I, was the method of Paul (Col. 1:28).
8. There must be more of a devout and teachable spirit in the pew. The extravagant and often ridiculous demand for talent in the pulpit, must be moderated. When this is made the alpha and omega of ministerial fitness, of course the people take upon themselves to judge whether or not it exists in sufficient measure. Hence many go to the house of God, not to be instructed, edified in the faith, helped on in their way to heaven; but to sit in judgment on the preachers intellectual powers, that they may go and pronounce for or against what they have heard. Spiritual growth is the last thing thought of and least cared about. But this must be altered before Christians will advance and churches will work as they ought to do. When our people come to a right state of mind on this subject, they will think that man the best minister whose preaching brings the greatest number of souls to Christ, and is most successful in promoting the knowledge, purity, consistency, and usefulness of his flock. Men who really want to do Gods work, will feel that they have no time to waste in fruitless criticisms; and that human life is far too precious a thing to be frittered away in either compliments or complaints of Gods workmen.
9. The promotion of family piety must be made more a matter of business at home.
10. There must be more of mutual sympathy between Christians and churches. There must be co-operation for mutual support and for aggressive work in the name of Christ.John Corbin.
THE PERILS AND STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH
Isa. 52:1. Awake, awake, put on thy strength.
The words of the text were addressed by God to His people when in a state of peril. The enemy, like Delilah, about taking advantage of their drowsy condition, to deprive them of their strength.
I. THE COMMAND UTTERED TO THE CHURCH.
Awake, awake. The words, though indicating the low condition of the Church, in reference to its moral and spiritual mission, are still consoling; they prove that it was not dead. It was sleeping, and life is an essential condition of sleep. The Church at the time was in the nearest position possible for the living to be to the dead. Sleep resembles death in many respects. But it is not death. Hence the propriety of the command.
Why the Church to-day should obey the command.
1. Awake, awake, because the foundations of thy faith are threatened. Threats spring from various sourcesfrom the sceptical teachings of the age, from the oscillation of its own members, and especially from the fact, that so many of its teachers endeavour to persuade men that it matters not what they believe if they live properly. This is an attempt to deprive the Church of the fundamental truths of its creed that have enabled it to stand the storms of persecutions, that inspired its reformers, clothed its martyrs with power to suffer death on its behalf, and form the basis of this grand edifice the Christian Church (1Co. 3:11).
2. Awake, awake, because there are elements within thee that rapidly lead to apostasy, decay. The injury received by the Church from without, compared with that done within, is but very little. Joshua and his people had many evils to withstand and powerful enemies to conquer in taking the fortified cities of Canaan; but they had a greater loss and more shame through the action of Achan in their own camp than from all the enemies without. There are things still in the Church that demand that it should listen to the alarm of our text.
(1.) The ritualistic tendencies of a great number of its members. People that think more of the form than the spirit of the service, more of the person that speaks, than what he says; that clothe themselves in the ritual of religion and feel satisfied.
(2.) Worldliness. This evil principle manifests itself in various forms in Church life. There are some people that join the Church for mercenary purposes. Religion in our days is considered so respectable a thing, that a profession of it gives a person reputation, and helps him on; but mark this, it is possible to obtain a reputation by a mere profession of Christianity, and at the same time be void of its power (2Ti. 3:5). It manifests itself also in the lack of liberality, shown by many of its members in sustaining its funds. The poorer classes cannot afford to contribute large sums for this purpose; but when we find people enjoying all the luxuries of life and contributing meagrely towards the funds of the Church of the Most High, we feel it our duty to deal plainly with them. What converted Lots wife into a pillar of salt, brought Haman to the gallows, and sent Demas out of the Church into the world? Worldliness! And worldliness will again affect its victims in a similar manner, and the presence of such an enemy in the Church is a sufficient reason that it should listen to the voice of its Maker in our text.
(3.) The carelessness of a great number of its members with reference to purity of life. The standard of Christian morality is certainly too low in the minds of thousands of our fellow-Christians. The ripe fruits that adorn the Christian life (Gal. 5:22-23) are unknown to many professing Christians in our day.
In the presence of many enemies, the duty of the Church is clearly defined. Awake, awake, put on thy strength. She need not seek power outside her own resources. Put on thy beautiful garments. Open thine own wardrobe, clothe thyself in thine own apparel, that thy beauty and power may be perceptible.
II. IN WHAT DOES THE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH CONSIST?
1. In its devoting itself entirely to the work which it has to perform. The work of consecrating oneself to the moral and spiritual objects of the Church is too often neglected in these days. Remember, it is the men who entirely devoted themselves to the Lords service, independent of their own personal interest and safety, or of the sect or party to which they were connected, who have left their mark on the kingdom of evil.
2. In meditation. There is nothing so effectual to inspire the mind, and clothe the soul with courage, as meditation on the Lords dealings with His children (Psa. 77:11-20),
3. Prayer. With this the Church on earth is able to command the forces of heaven to the battle-field to fight on its behalf (2 Chronicles 20)
4. The word of God, which is called by Paul the sword of the Spirit, and is the offensive weapon of the Church. The Christian armour consists of both defensive and offensive weapons (Ephesians 6), and the Church is commanded to take the whole armour of God, that it may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.J. P. Williams.
I. Put on strength by wakefulness. Sleep of the body, up to a certain point, is needful and wholesome; but beyond that it is harmful. The drowsiness of the sluggard is injurious. Still more hurtful is spiritual drowsiness. A slumbering life results in moral death. Sleepy men are the easy prey of false teachers; their moral vision is obscured, and they do not easily discern between the true and the false; their critical faculties are paralysed, and they are not in a condition to try the spirits, whether they be of God. These times require men who are awake. The first two words of the text are not to be disconnected from the others, for by wakefulness we do put on strength. Awake from your dreams, open your eyes to behold the realities of life, and address yourselves to the duties to which God calls you.
II. Put on strength by activity. Activity develops strengthof body, of mind, of soul. Slothfulness is the secret and the cause of the spiritual weakness that abounds in our churches. What God requires of us is that by exercise we should develop the strength with which we have been endowed. It is not our possession of only one talent that He condemns; it is our having neglected to make use of it. Remember also, that Gods command to do a thing always implies His promise of help to well-directed endeavour. The Saviour said, Stretch forth thy hand! the obedient man obtained his reward, and found that the Divine word of command is a word of promise to the obedient. The prophet says to the weak, Put on thy strength; and, obeying, they shall rejoice in a refreshing baptism of Divine energy. Out of weakness, those who have obeyed this command have been made strong by the processes of spiritual development. To the development of the physical powers there are limits; but to the development of moral power there is none. Here there may be constant growth and progress. Eternity will be but an ampler sphere for the enlargement of the souls vast powers.
III. Put on thy strength by joyfulness. Joy, and not sadness, should be the characteristic of those whose final destiny is heaven. Joy begets strength, and strength increases joy. Put on thy beautiful garments of holiness and joy, O Zion! remembering always that the truly holy are the solidly and permanently joyful.
IV. Put on thy strength by hopefulness. The despairing are weak, the hopeful are strong. In view of Gods promises made for her encouragement, the Church may well be hopeful. There is one in our text, which we may read, For henceforth there shall no more come against thee the uncircumcised and unclean. Though oftentimes we stand on the towers of Zion as timid, fearful watchers, with little faith in the Divine promise of protection, the Church is safe (Zec. 2:5). Let us, then, be hopeful, let us be strong for the work and the warfare to which we are called.W.
THE THREEFOLD TRUMPET-BLAST
Isa. 52:1. Awake, awake, &c.
It is to the Church of Christ sleeping that the threefold trumpet-blast of the text comes.
I. A CALL TO WAKEFULNESS AND WATCHFULNESS. Awake, awake! zion never needed this trumpet-call more imperatively than now. Upon her the spirit of slumber has fallen. But all are not asleep; and those who are awake should take the trumpet, and with a blast as loud and as long as though life and immortality were at stake (see Eze. 33:3) sound the alarm. For,
1. The foundations of our faith are threatened. The sappers and miners are at work inside as well as outside; and they would delight to remove the cornerstones and shake the whole fabric of the temple of truth.
2. The enemy is coming like a floodin the shape of intemperance, vice, greed, infidelity, and horrible wickedness, enough to afflict our souls and affright the world. (See the daily papers.)
3. Is not the visible Church drifting from Christ? We need to be on our guard against both enemies without and subtle traitors within; traitors who, themselves wakeful, are imposing on those who are in a state of unconscious slumber.
(1.) Is not one section of society drifting to Rome? Ritualism is rampant, loud-voiced, defiant. Roman Catholicism walks abroad in the light of day, and flaunts her flags in the eyes of all men. Think of her pilgrimages, her noble perverts, and her persistent policy of aggression, and ask what it all means.
(2.) Is not another section drifting fast into Rationalism? The so-called men of culture are almost all of them Rationalists, either covertly or avowed. Men like the late Strauss, in theology; Buckle, in history; our own J. Stuart Mill, in philosophy; with Professors Tyndall and Huxley, in science. These, and men of kindred sympathies and sentiments, are the foremost leaders of thought in our day, and their whole following are being led, some willingly, some unconsciously, into the bleak regions of Rationalism, if not into blank Atheism.
(3.) Is not still another section, by far the largest, too, drifting into utter worldliness? Is not the spirit of the world dominant? Is not indifferentism in relation to religion painfully apparent?Is there not too much reason to fear that, on these three waves, society in Englandincluding a large section of the visible Churchis drifting from Christ?
II. THE CHURCH IS CALLED TO GIRD HERSELF FOR CONFLICT. Put on thy strength, O Zion! She is within reach of strength enough to vanquish every foe. Let all her members, individually and collectively, put on,
1. The strength of personal consecration.
2. The strength of spiritual unity. Unity is strength. The powers of evil are united. The Church cannot afford to be split up into contending sects. We must present ourselves as an unbroken phalanx to the foe. See our Lords high-priestly prayer (John 17). What might not a united consecrated Church do?
3. The strength of the arm of the Lord (Isa. 51:9). The strength belongs to the Church, and is available by prayer, which moves the arm that moves the world; by faith, which takes hold of the strength of God, and has omnipotence at its command (Isa. 27:5). All things are possible to him that believeth.
III. THE CHURCH IS CALLED TO CLOTHE HERSELF WITH SPIRITUAL BEAUTY. Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem. The Church has provided for her a spiritual wardrobe. Put on,
1. The garment of a meek and quiet spirit. Rest in God. Calmness and tranquillity of mind are at once evidences and sources of power.
2. The garment of holiness. This is the most beautiful garment of all, while holiness is also the measure of spiritual power.
3. The garment of heavenly zeal. Men of the world and the emissaries of evil are zealous. We must meet them with a zeal greater and more divine.
Let the Church of Christ thus awake, put on her strength, and clothe herself with spiritual beauty, and she need not fear for the future. Victory is sure.
The command of the text comes to individual churches.
(1.) Let each of us take it as the voice of God to himself.
(2.) Let us awake promptly: life is passing, and the evil growing.
(3.) Let us avail ourselves of all available strength and beauty.
(4.) Let us make our consecration in sight of the cross and crown (Heb. 13:20).The Study, 1874, p. 723.
The condition of Judeaconquered, degraded, captive, indifferent to Zion, feebleno courage, temple demolished, &c., byeword and reproach.
I. THE THREEFOLD EXHORTATION OF THE TEXT.
1. Awake, awake. Sleep often too accurately describes the condition of Gods Church. Many are at ease in Zion. The prophets prophesy smooth things, and the people love to have it so. They cry, a little more sleep, &c. But if the work of life is to be done, we must awake to a sense of our duty. It was whilst men slept that the adversary sowed the tares. During a period of spiritual apathy, what injury has been inflicted! Awake to the work of the soul, the evil of sin, &c. In commerce, &c., how wakeful men are!
2. Put on thy strength. The journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, and the expulsion of the enemy from the holy city, required strength. We are called to be strong in the Lord. The times call for a robust piety. Were Gods people to put forth their strength, what success would be achieved, how soon would be ushered in the new heavens, and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. In embattled array against the Church, are the ten thousand forms of vice and scepticism, of sin and error.
3. Put on thy beautiful garments. The Church is to be attractive. The unloveliness of Christians is often apparent. The beauty of the Church is her holiness.
II. THE HAPPY EFFECTS OF OBEDIENCE.
The Church will be the home, 1, of the regenerate; 2, of the entirely sanctified.Benjamin Browne.
I. AN INVENTORY OF THE BELIEVERS WARDROBE.
1. The robe of righteousness (Isa. 61:10; Psa. 132:9). How beautiful this robe. Bring forth the best robe. It covers completely, unlike scanty garments in which men array themselves.
2. The garment of humility (1Pe. 5:5). This is well pleasing in Gods sight. He hates flaunting garments of pride. It is a Christlike virtue (Php. 2:8).
3. The garment of praise (Isa. 61:3). This is a beautiful robe. One of the same kind is worn by angels.
4. The garment of gladness (Psa. 30:11; Php. 4:4).
1. These garments can always be worn; there is a dress reserveda bridal dress, the wedding garmentto be worn at the marriage supper of the Lamb. White robe of redeemed. Symbol of purity, victory, joy.
2. These soul garments never wear out.
3. They cost us nothing.
4. In addition to dress, some people like to wear ornaments,harmless weakness, when not carried to excess. The believer is exhorted to adorn himself with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. This can be worn without exciting envy or vanity.
II. THE EXHORTATION CONCERNING THESE GARMENTS.
Wear them. You cannot get better. You dishonour the Giver by not wearing them. You set light store by His gifts.T. E. R.
JERUSALEM A TYPE OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
Isa. 52:1. Jerusalem the holy city.
Consider the ancient Jerusalem in its typical representation of the Church of Christ.
I. It was the city of the Divine choice (Psa. 132:13-18). The Church is the choice of the Lord; it contains the united congregation of His saints, those who have been called by His Gospel, who have believed in His Son, and who have been the living partakers of His heavenly grace. Over these God rejoiceth. With these He has His delights. Unto these He manifests Himself as He doth not unto the world. (See Joh. 14:23; 1Pe. 1:23-24.)
II. It was the city of Divine rule and authority. Here God made known His laws and judgments; deposited His living oracles, His holy statutes; revealed His will, and recorded His blessed word. And by these the inhabitants of Jerusalem were to be governed. Obedience to these secured the favourable tokens of Gods love and favour. So in the new Jerusalem of His Church. Here He has revealed. His holy will, not by the oracle, or over the material mercy-seat, but by His own Son, and by making His living Church the pillar and ground of truth. By depositing within it the doctrines, and ordinances, and commandments of the Gospel. And the divine presence and favour is only secured by unswerving fidelity to the charge with which God has intrusted her.
III. Jerusalem was the city of Divine services. Here met the tribes of Israel who came to worship before the Lord. Here were presented the sacrifices and offerings of the people. Here God was worshipped and adored. Here the voice of prayer and praise was heard in Gods holy temple. Here the religious festivals were celebrated, and God honoured in His sacred institutions. Such is the Church of Christ, the Jerusalem, &c. Here those who have believed, and are of the saved, are united together in the holy bonds of fellowship and love. Here they meet to observe all things their Divine Head has commanded them (Act. 2:41).
IV. Jerusalem was the city of Divine blessing. His special love and care was directed to it (Psa. 87:2). His providential benignity surrounded it. The Lord was the keeper and protector of the holy city. Within it He poured down the blessings of His grace, and caused His favour to dwell, even life for evermore. (See His gracious engagements and promises, Psa. 132:15, &c.) So God pre-eminently blesses His spiritual Zion. Unto His people He gives exceedingly great and precious promises. They are blessed with the unsearchable blessings of His grace, with all the fulness of His love, with all the blessings of providence. God supplies all their need. Defends from all their enemies, and keeps and saves unto eternal life.
V. Jerusalem was a city of distinguished immunities and privileges. It was an honour to have been born in her. Her sons were freemen of the most favoured city under heaven. Her inhabitants had numerous opportunities of enjoying religious services, they had the presence of the priests and teachers of the law of God. Happy were the people in such a case, &c. Still greater and more precious the immunities and privileges of the people of God. They enjoy spiritual liberty, have exalted titles, and possess immunities of the most glorious and heavenly character. Access to Gods gracious throne. The sweet fellowship of His Holy Spirit. Delightful seasons of refreshing from the Divine presence, and experimental overflowings of that peace which passeth all understanding.
APPLICATION.
1. Are we the citizens of the Jerusalem from above? Have we been born in her? Born from above? &c. Do we possess the spirit of her heavenly inhabitants?
2. How great the responsibility of such. It is theirs to exhibit the glory of divine grace, in calling and saving them, by a conversation which becometh the Gospel of Christ. To show forth His praises, &c. To pray for her peace, and to labour for her prosperity. To display the spirit of love and harmony towards all the citizens, and to yield loyal subjection and hearty obedience to Christ the rightful Lord and King.
3. Unlike the earthly Jerusalem, she shall never become a prey to her enemies. Her walls shall never be cast down, nor her streets become waste (Mat. 16:18).Jabez Burns, D.D.: Types and Metaphors, pp. 8385.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
4.
EVANGELIZE, CHAPTER 52
a.
REDEMPTION
TEXT: Isa. 52:1-6
1
Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
2
Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
3
For thus saith Jehovah, Ye were sold for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
4
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there: and the Assyrian hath oppressed them without cause.
5
Now therefore, what do I here, saith Jehovah, seeing that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them do howl, saith Jehovah, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed.
6
Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak; behold, it is I.
QUERIES
a.
Who are the uncircumcised and unclean?
b.
Why does Jehovah say, What do I here . . .?
c.
Doesnt Israel know Gods name? (verse six)
PARAPHRASE
Attention! Alert yourself! You will be strong and beautiful, My True Zion! You will be My holy dwelling place and those who have not made covenant with Me will not, from the day of your establishment, be given entrance. But you must do your part, O True Zion, and shake yourself free from the filth and enslavement of Babylonian paganism. When I deliver you from your captivity, you must return to your royal messianic destiny. I am your Sovereign. When I send you into exile it will be because I exercise My absolute sovereignty and not because someone pays Me to do it. When I redeem you from your exile it will be because I exercise My absolute sovereignty and not because I pay someone to release you. When you went down to Egypt, you went of your own choice and Egypt enslaved you without the right to do so; the Assyrians had no right to take some of you into exile. And now, what do I have in the Babylonian exilethe same thing! Babylons intent is without moral justification and motivated by wicked rebellion against My sovereignty. The rulers of Babylon are already screaming out their hateful threats and blasphemies. But I am going to save you, O Zion, from Babylon. And when I do reveal My sovereignty in this unequivocal manifestation, true Zion will acknowledge Me as her Savior in a way she has never done before; she will recognize that it is I, Jehovah, who is calling her back to her messianic destiny.
COMMENTS
Isa. 52:1-2 DISSOCIATION FROM PAGANISM: AS before, the prophet is speaking of the future Babylonian exile in the present tense. He is directing the exhortation to his small band of disciples (the remnant which shall form the nucleus of Zion). This remnant must prepare itself for imminent exile into pagan Babylon. It must strengthen itself by believing what Isaiah is predicting about its Messiah and its messianic role. Zion must commit itself to an adornment of holiness so that when it is taken captive it will be able to keep itself separated from the filth and enslavement of heathenism with which it will be so alluringly surrounded. Zion must not allow the fleeting pleasures of Babylonian ungodliness lure her from her throne (her royal messianic queenship).
The aim of this passage is spiritual Jerusalem. That is evident from the prediction that the uncircumcised and the unclean would no more come into her. It cannot be literally or physically intended. Jerusalem has suffered literal invasion and occupation by one uncircumcised culture after another. First the Babylonians, then the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Mohammedans, Crusaders, Arabs, and even today there are Gentile citizens of Jerusalem. What this passage refers to ultimately is the Israel of God over which the Messiah rules, the church of Christ. Those not in covenant relationship to God through obedience to Christs gospel (the uncircumcised) and those not purified from sin by the atoning blood of the Suffering Servant (the unclean) will not come into the ultimate Zion, no matter what their genetic ancestry may beJew or Gentile. It is interesting to note that Joel predicts, in his messianic conclusion, that strangers shall never again pass through Jerusalem (Joe. 3:17); and on the other hand Ezekiel, in his portrayal of the glorious messianic era to come, predicts that aliens will be given an inheritance and be as native born sons (Eze. 47:21-23). It is apparent, therefore, that when the messianic kingdom was to come, people were to become citizens of that kingdom, not as a result of being born a Jew and circumcised in the flesh, but by being reconciled to the Messiah of God through faith. All who are not thus reconciled are strangers and uncircumcised and unclean and cannot enter spiritual Jerusalem. That is precisely what the New Testament teaches (cf. Rom. 2:28-29; Rom. 4:9-25; 1Co. 6:9-11; Gal. 3:1 to Gal. 5:25; Gal. 6:12-16; Eph. 2:11-22; Php. 3:2-11; Heb. 12:18-29).
God promises to physically deliver Zion from her captors. But Zion herself must make the choices and do the deeds of holiness that separates her from Babylonian wickedness. Verses one and two are saturated with imperatives (commands): Awake; put on; Shake; arise; sit; loose are all commands for Zion to act. This is what distinguishes spiritual Zion from genetic Israelholiness by choice.
Isa. 52:3-6 DELIVERANCE FROM PERSECUTION: Jehovah will act to deliver Zion from captivity in a display of divine sovereignty. He will give her up to captivity according to His sovereign plan and rescue her through the same sovereignty. No one will pay Jehovah to exile herno one will force Him toand no one will pay Him to rescue her. She will remain in captivity for exactly the time Jehovah assigns (70 years) and she will be delivered.
In verses four and five Jehovah pronounces the guilt of Zions oppressorspast, present and future. Gods sovereign decision to chasten Zion does not relieve her oppressors of guilt. The people of God went down to Egypt of their own choice with Jacob during the famine. And the Egyptians, by their own choice, enslaved and persecuted Gods people. Israels persecutors during Isaiahs lifetime, the Assyrians, were acting by free moral choicenot because they were forced to. Now therefore, what do I here . . . may be paraphrased, Now, what do I have here . . . in the imminent exile into Babylon? It is the same situation! God will use the exile to chasten the sinful nation of Judah, but at the same time the Babylonians will be held responsible and found guilty. Their captivity of Judah was clearly an unjustified act of aggression. The sovereign God of all mankind declares any nation or people guilty who perpetrate the same acts of unprovoked aggression against other peoples (cf. our comments, Minor Prophets, on Obadiah and Amos ch. 13). Babylon, like all the other oppressors of Israel, attacked without due cause. Although the sovereign Jehovah may use the wicked assaults of the heathen empires as tools of chastening (cf. Isa. 10:5 ff; Jer. 27:1-22, etc.), that does not mean the heathen empires are guiltless for making their own moral choices to Touch the apple of His eye (cf, Zec. 2:8) without justifiable provocation. These Babylonians howl out harsh orders to their captives (cf. Daniel 1-6) and blaspheme the name of Jehovah continually. What they are doing with Gods people is certainly not in agreement with the will of God.
When Jehovah decides, in His own sovereign time-schedule, to deliver Zion from Babylonian captivity (cf. Jer. 27:22; Jer. 25:11), then Zion will know His name. His name is Jehovah (YHWH, He who causes to be . . .) (cf. Special Study, Vol. II, O.T. Names for God, pg. 126f.). Jehovah is the name for Covenant-God, and here the faithfulness and sovereignty of God to keep His covenant promises is emphasized.
QUIZ
1.
What are the beautiful garments Zion is to put on?
2.
Are we to understand the banishment of the uncircumcised literally?
3.
Why say the daughter of Zion is to be redeemed without money?
4.
Why point out that Assyria oppressed Zion without cause?
5.
What is the name of God that Israel shall know?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
LII.
(1) Awake, awake . . .The repetition of the burden of Isa Ii. 9, 17, indicates, by a subtle touch of art, the continuity of thought. The call is addressed as before to Zion, as a castaway. It summons her to the highest glory. She is to put on the garments of beauty, which belong to her as the priestly queen of cities. (Comp. Exo. 28:2.) The alien and the impure shall no longer ride victorious through her streets, as in Isa. 51:23. (Comp. Eze. 44:9, and the picture of the heavenly Jerusalem in Rev. 21:2.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1, 2. Put on strength Not splendour, (Gesenius,) but “strength,” imparted through conscious union with Jehovah.
Beautiful garments Rather, garments of beauty, giving the prominence really due to the latter noun, itself alone expressing the intended chief thought, which is holy character; “garments” being the embellishments with which the character is set off. Such character the people of Jerusalem are assumed now to possess, and to have no further association with the uncircumcised and the unclean, who have already had too much to do with defiling the purity of Israel.
Shake from the dust A contrast is here intended with the description of Isa 47:1. Zion has long been a captive seated on the ground, clothed with sackcloth, and dust on her head; but she is now bidden to shake off the dust of her captivity, and to stand or sit in her complete freedom.
Bands of thy neck The Hebrew text is expressive:
Loosed are the bands, or chains, which held thee in slavery; arise, and be at energetic work.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Chapter 52 The Call To Jerusalem – The Rise of the Servant.
The Third Call to Awake – Spoken To Zion/Jerusalem As The Redeemed Woman ( Isa 52:1-12 Yahweh Will Redeem His People ( Isa 52:1-6
The drunken woman is no more. Now the new Zion, rising out of the old, is to put on her beautiful garments. She must clothe herself with the righteousness and salvation which has been provided by God. For it is He Who will provide her with the garments of salvation and cover her with the robe of righteousness as He welcomes her as the equivalent of His Bride (Isa 61:10; Isa 62:5; Isa 54:5; Eph 5:25-27). What she must do is put them on by responding to Him.
Isa 52:1-2
‘Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion.
Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.
For henceforth there will no more come to you
The uncircumcised and the unclean.
Shake yourself from the dust, arise,
Sit down, O Jerusalem,
Loose yourself from your neck bands,
O captive daughter of Zion.’
Note the double intensities. ‘Awake, awake, — put on, — put on.’ There is a sense of urgency here. Having had her cup of staggering taken from her hand she can now take the next step. She can arise, shake herself free of the dust, take off her chains, the chains of Assyria (Isa 52:4) and all others who will have come against her, and reclothe herself. She can be freed from her chains. For she is promised that none shall enter her again who is not within the covenant, and none who would defile God’s holy city. But she is to do it in righteousness. God will never accept an unrighteous bride.
Here we have described for us the pure city that can never be defiled. It is the city where nothing impure can enter in (Rev 21:27). It is the everlasting city. In the ‘garments of beauty’ we are probably to see the high priestly garments of Exo 28:2, ‘garments made for glory and for beauty’. She is probably here to be seen as not only reinstated but as becoming the holy nation, the kingdom of priests of Exo 19:5-6.
‘There will no more come to you the uncircumcised and the unclean.’ Certainly the mention of circumcised refers to participation in God’s covenant. Only those who are ‘circumcised’ may enter. But to the prophets circumcision had in mind not only the physical act but the circumcision of the heart. What mattered was that the heart was made right, that God’s covenant was within their hearts and that they walked in His ways (Deu 10:16; Deu 30:6; Jer 4:4; Jer 6:10; Jer 9:26; Eze 44:7; Eze 44:9). Being clean meant being free from anything that could contaminate and make them unworthy to approach God. Thus the idea is that only those can enter who are true to the covenant and pure and undefiled. It is the prophet’s idea of spiritual perfection.
Note therefore the indication that all the Gentiles who flock to her will be circumcised, that is, bound by the covenant. That is why Paul stresses that all true Christians are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ (Col 2:11-13).
This picture of Jerusalem rising from the dust counteracts Isa 51:23, and is in direct contrast to the experience of proud Babylon. God’s enemy, Babylon, went from her throne into degradation, Jerusalem is raised from degradation to her throne. For in the end Babylon and all her beauty (Isa 13:19), and all that its stands for must go into the dust, and in the end God’s true people will all arise from the dust (Isa 26:19) to give Him glory and be made glorious.
There is no reason at all for to thinking that here Isaiah has the future Babylonian captivity in mind. It does not figure in his thinking for he is not aware of the full details of what is to come. He knows only of the captivity under Assyria, ruling Judah from Babylon, of a future invasion by Babylon to strip Jerusalem of all its treasures and its future kings, of the future punishment of Babylon for what it is, and then of the restoration of Jerusalem to full holiness (Isa 4:3), and final triumph.
The picture here is thus of Jerusalem, and of Jerusalem where she was, and what she will finally be. His final picture here is not of some particular time in history but of God’s saving action in the end when He will restore His own. We may certainly see it as accompanying and following the action of Cyrus (Isa 44:28 to Isa 45:13), and the rebuilding of the city and the Temple, for that is the first stage in her reinstatement, but no historical environment is specifically described there or here. And Isaiah is now looking beyond that to the final triumph. A Jerusalem into which no one who is literally uncircumcised can enter is hardly an earthly reality, and in no way can we see Isaiah as saying that all who are circumcised will enter it. It is quite clear that the circumcision of the heart is what is in mind, as Paul so clearly saw (Rom 2:25-29). The picture is in terms of Isa 4:3. So there is a sense in which the arising and dressing of Jerusalem takes us in Isaiah’s eyes to the end of time. For this is restored and purified Jerusalem, it is ideal Jerusalem, the holy city, now clothed in beautiful clothing with all chains removed, the place where only those united with God by covenant can come, where all that is impure is excluded. It is the final Paradise, God’s final intention for His people (Rev 21:10 to Rev 22:5).
But unknown to Isaiah her clothing in beautiful garments will take a long time. It will commence not long after his time, it will advance at the first coming of Christ, and it will continue on through two thousand years and more. Once the king has come it will go on through the centuries. But at last she will be ready, clothed in the righteousnesses of the saints, as the bride of Christ, ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-8).
Isa 52:3-6
‘For thus says Yahweh,
“You were sold for nothing,
And you will be redeemed without money.
For thus says the Lord Yahweh,
My people went down at first into Egypt to sojourn there,
And the Assyrians oppressed them without cause.
Now therefore what do I here, says Yahweh,
Seeing that my people is taken for nothing.
Those who rule over them do howl, says Yahweh,
And my name is continually all the day blasphemed.
Therefore my people will know my name,
Therefore they will know in that day that I am he who speaks.
Behold me.” ’
Note the connecting ‘for’. Jerusalem can be raised from the dust precisely because Yahweh has acted to redeem her.
There could be no clearer indication that Isaiah see Jerusalem’s two great enemies as having been Egypt, and as being at this time Assyria. He does not go beyond Assyria. (Overall rule by Babylon is simply not in mind). These are the nations to whom Israel was ‘sold’. But His people had not been dealt with fairly. They had only gone to Egypt to sojourn there. The Assyrians had had no cause to oppress them. Why then had they been taken into bondage? There had been nothing right about either bondage. They had been ‘sold for nothing’, for they had been ‘taken’. No price had been paid. It was theft. Neither Egypt nor Assyria had any rights over them. So Yahweh feels quite justified in redeeming her for nothing.
The fact that Yahweh used both Egypt and Assyria as His means of chastening His people does not alter the position. Yahweh may do what He will. But that provides no excuse for Egypt and Assyria. They did what they did because of their sinfulness, not because they were obeying Yahweh. We note again the two nations who are seen as oppressors at this stage.
And now the position is that those who rule over her ‘howl’. The verb usually indicates mourning and weeping and distress. However in Hos 7:14 it probably indicates a howling of self-pleasing and self-gratification, possibly sexual. That may be the meaning here. They howl because they take advantage of them, because they get their enjoyment by misusing them. It is a howl of glee, of rapaciousness. Thus is calumny brought on the name of Yahweh for allowing His people to be treated in this way. Furthermore the thought may include that some of His people had joined in with the wild behaviour and had themselves blasphemed Yahweh in their enjoyment of it. All are guilty.
‘You will be redeemed without money.’ This must be taken strictly. Redemption demands a payment, but as she was bought without money she will be redeemed without money. Yahweh is too powerful to submit to demands for ransom. Yet she has to be redeemed, so if not by money, how? The question is left in suspense for it will be answered later (see chapter 53). For the freeness of their redemption compare Isa 55:1-2; Isa 35:10; Isa 51:11 (where her current oppressors are to be dealt with in the same way as Egypt was).
The result of Yahweh’s redemption of them will be that His people will ‘know His name’ that is, thoroughly know and understand Who and What He is. And they will know Who has spoken to them, saying ‘Behold me.’ For they will see Him as He is. And from His saving action they will know that He is truly the faithful Kinsman Redeemer of His people, willing to pay any price for those on whom He has set His love.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Yahweh Is Called On To Awake and Reveal His Power and Israel Are To Awake To The Power And Holiness Of Their Redeeming God ( Isa 51:9 to Isa 52:12 ).
God having given to His faithful people the commands to ‘listen — attend — listen’ the prophet now calls on Yahweh also to awaken on behalf of His people, for Him too there is a plea that He listen to the call of His people. It is then followed by a call to all His people to awake. Thus there is a threefold call to ‘awake, awake’, in Isa 51:9; Isa 51:17 and Isa 52:1, firstly to Yahweh and then to His people. The tension is now mounting. Note the constant use of repetition. ‘Awake, awake’ (three times). ‘Depart, depart’ (Isa 52:11). There is a sense of urgency. This will then be followed by the depiction of the cost of the salvation that is being offered to them in Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12, as the Servant’s destiny is described in full. The culmination of their deliverance is near.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Putting on Our Strength Isa 52:7 tells us how to put our strength, or else return to our former bondages. In his book The Anointing, Benny Hinn gives a wonderful interpretation of Isa 52:1-2. “Awake, awake” – He explains that the cry, “Awake, awake!” is a call to prayer. We are to shake off our lethargy and seek the Lord with all our might. “ put on thy strength” – As we do this we find that our lives are transformed. We tap into a divine source of supernatural strength. We are able to stand against the wiles of Satan and our own fleshly passions. “O ZionO Jerusalem, the holy city” The names “Zion” and “Jerusalem, the holy city” are symbolic of the Church. “put on thy beautiful garments” We will find ourselves clothed with righteousness so that sin cannot soil us. This allows our conscience to remain pure before God so our faith and confidence in God to hear our prayers becomes strong and certain. “for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean” We will no longer have fellowship with the wickedness of this world, but will live a life set apart. “Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down” We will be able to rise up and shake off the dust of misery and defeat that the world lives in and be set free from the bondages of this world. We will rise up and go about our daily affairs in the liberty that Christ has set us free. We will sit down and rest in the true peace of God that the world cannot know. “loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion” – We will have the strength and wisdom to break Satan’s grip on every area of our lives and stay free from the sin that keeps coming back to enslave us. [69]
[69] Benny Hinn, The Anointing (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992), 43-4.
In Isa 52:3-5 we are told the consequences of not seeking the Lord. It will bring us back into the old bondages of sin, oppression and sorrow that we were redeemed from. For those who seek His face, they will know Him and the power that is available through His marvelous name (Isa 52:6). There are those who will pay the price to lay aside their own will and proclaim to others the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Isa 52:7).
Isa 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Isa 52:1
Isa 29:10, “For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.”
Isa 52:1 “put on thy strength, O Zion” Comments – Our strength is our joy (Neh 8:10).
Neh 8:10, “Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength .”
Isa 52:1 “put on thy beautiful garments” Comments The priestly garments were the most beautiful garments worn in the Jewish culture. The putting on of the priestly garment gave one access into the presence of God (1Sa 30:7).
1Sa 30:7, “And David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David.”
In addition, this phrase may be interpreted as putting on the garments of praise, and taking off the sackcloth of mourning (Isa 61:3).
Isa 61:3, “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”
Isa 52:1 “O Jerusalem, the holy city” Comments – This is figurative for God’s sanctification of His people and their place to dwell in God’s presence.
Isa 52:1 “for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean” Comments – The enemy will no more triumph over them.
Isa 52:2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
Isa 52:2
Isa 52:2 “loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion” Comments – Bands refer to the chains used to carry people into captivity.
Isa 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Isa 52:3
Isa 52:4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
Isa 52:4
Isa 52:5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.
Isa 52:5
Isa 52:6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.
Isa 52:6
Isa 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Isa 52:7
Rom 10:15, “And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”
Mat 28:18-20, “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Promise of Redemption
v. 1. Awake, awake! Put on thy strength, O Zion, v. 2. Shake thyself from the dust, v. 3. For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for naught, v. 4. For thus saith the Lord God, v. 5. Now, therefore, what have I here, v. 6. Therefore My people shall know My name,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Isa 52:1-6
FURTHER ADDRESS OF THE PROPHET TO JERUSALEM. Zion is exhorted to rise from the dust, throw off her bonds, and assert her freedom (Isa 52:1, Isa 52:2). God will deliver her from this third captivity for his Name’s sake, which her oppressors blaspheme (Isa 52:3-6).
Isa 52:1
Awake, awake; put on thy strength (comp. Isa 51:9). God can help those only who help themselves. The “arm of the Lord” having been called upon to “put on strength” in order to help Zion, Zion is now exhorted to do her part, and put on her own strength. Nor is she to stop there; she is further to rut on her beautiful garmentsto array herself in the glorious robes which befit her as a royal and a holy city, and show herself once more a queen, instead of being content to remain grovelling as a captive (Isa 51:20, Isa 51:21). Henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised. Foreigners shall no more visit Jerusalem to injure her or exult over her misfortunes (comp. Joe 3:17). When the influx of the Gentiles comes (Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6, Isa 49:22, etc.), it will be one of Gentiles who are “circumcised in heart and lips,” and no longer “unclean” (Act 10:15).
Isa 52:2
Shake thyself from the dust (compare the opposite command given to Babylon, “Come down, sit in the dust” Isa 47:1). Zion was to arise, shake from her all trace of the dust in which she had been so long lying, and then calmly seat herself upon a seat of dignity. Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck. The Hebrew text has. “The bands of thy neck are unloosened;” i.e. I have caused thy chains to fall from theethou hast only to “rise,” and thou wilt find thyself free. Captives in ancient times were often fastened together by a thong or chain passed round their necks. Daughter of Zion. The prophet passes, by an easy transition, from the city to the nation, which continues to be the object of address in the remainder of the discourse.
Isa 52:3
Ye have sold yourselves for nought; rather, for nought were ye sold. God received nothing when he allowed his people to become the slaves of the Babylonians. He took no price for them (see Isa 50:1), and therefore is free to claim them back without payment (comp. Isa 45:13). He has but to say the word; and he is about to say it.
Isa 52:4
My people went down into Egypt the Assyrian oppressed them. Israel had experienced three captivities. They “went down” voluntarily into Egypt, on invitation, to sojourn, and were there cruelly and unjustly reduced to a servile condition (Exo 1:13, Exo 1:14). They (or a great part of them) were violently carried into captivity by the Assyrian kings, Tiglath-Pileser (2Ki 15:29), Sargon (2Ki 17:6), and Sennacherib, who, without cause, grievously “oppressed” them. Now they are suffering under a third captivity in Babylonia. What is to be the Divine action under these circumstances?
Isa 52:5
What have I here? rather, what have I to do here? i.e. what is the task before methe work that I have to perform? There are three principal considerations by which the answer to this question has to be determined.
(1) The Babylonians have obtained possession of the Israelites without purchasefor nought;
(2) they use their authority harshly and brutally; and
(3) they continually blaspheme the Name of Jehovah. All three are grounds for bringing the captivity to an end, and coming forward with the cry of a deliverer, “Here I am.” Make them to howl; rather, howl; i.e. insult over the captives with shouts and yells of triumph. The prophet is speaking of the Babylonian oppressors, not of the native “rulers,” who exercised a certain amount of authority over the captives (see Delitzsch and Cheyne). My Name is blasphemed. Cruel taskmasters vexed the captives by insulting their God.
Isa 52:6
Therefore. Because of the “howling” and the “blasphemy.” My people shall know my Name; i.e. “my people shall know by practical experience that I am all that my name of El or Elohim’the Strong,’ ‘ the Powerful’implies.” They shall know in that day. The “day” when God would come to their help and deliver them from their oppressorswhen they would call upon him, and he would manifest himself (Isa 58:9), responding to their appeal as distinctly as though he said, “Here I am.”
Isa 52:7-12
A VISION OF THE DAY OF DELIVERANCE. The prophet sees the messenger come bounding over the mountains of Judaea, to bring the news to Jerusalem that her deliverance is come (Isa 52:7). The angelic watchers sing with joy (Isa 52:8). The prophet calls upon the waste places of Jerusalem to do the same, and dwells on the greatness of the mercy wrought (Isa 52:9, Isa 52:10). Finally, he exhorts the exiles to avail themselves of the permission to quit Babylon, and prophesies that they will go forth in peace, without hurry, under the guidance and protection of God (Isa 52:11, Isa 52:12).
Isa 52:7
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! (comp. Nah 1:15, which is almost a repetition of the passage). The primary meaning is undoubtedly that assigned to the words in the introductory paragraph; but this does not hinder there being also a secondary meaning, viz. the Messianic one of Rom 10:15. Jerusalem’s deliverance is a type of the redemption of the world by Christ. That saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! So long as Israel was in captivity, and Jerusalem in ruins, God’s earthly sovereignty (1Sa 12:12) was in abeyance. The moment that the Jews were set free and allowed to return and to rebuild their city, his. sovereignty was re-established.
Isa 52:8
Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; literally, The voice of thy watchers. They have lifted up the voice; they sing (or, shout joyfully, Kay) together. The “watchmen” are regarded by some as the prophets of the Captivity-time (Delitzsch), by othersas the faithful who “waited for the redemption of Israel” (Kay); but are considered by the best critics (Cheyne, Alexander) to be “supersensible beings,” or, in other words, angels, who “watch” over the fortunes of Israel, and sympathize with their weal and woe (see Dan 4:13, Dan 4:17, Dan 4:23, etc.). These “watchers” now “sing” or “shout” with joy. They shall see eye to eye (compare the “face to face” of Num 14:14; Deu 34:10). The “watchers” would watch closely God’s dealings with his Church, and would see them as clearly as a man sees his friend when he leeks into his face. When the Lord shall bring again Zion. It is, perhaps, best to translate, with Houbigant and Mr. Cheyne, “When the Lord shall return to Zion.” The prophet sees God as the Leader of his people, not merely by his providence bringing them back, but “returning” at their head (camp. Isa 52:12).
Isa 52:9
Ye waste places of Jerusalem (comp. Isa 44:26; Isa 49:19; Isa 64:10, Isa 64:11). The city had not been wholly destroyed. Only the temple, the royal palace, and the houses of the nobles had been “burnt with fire” (2Ki 25:9; 2Ch 36:19). The poorer houses had been left. Even these, however, must in the space of fifty years have for the most part fallen into decay. The ruins are now called upon to join in the general chorus of rejoicing, as they rise from their ashes. Hath comforted hath redeemed. Perfects of prophetic certitude.
Isa 52:10
The nations the ends of the earth. It may well add to the general joy that the work wrought for Israel is not “a thing done in a corner,” but one on which the eyes of the” nations” have been turned. and to which the attention of” the ends of the earth” has been called (comp. Isa 41:5). The holy arm of Jehovah, made bare for battle, has been seen far and wide. The world has stood to gaze at the contest between Persia and Babylon.
Isa 52:11
Go ye out from thence; i.e. “from Babylon”the standpoint of the prophet in the present chapter being Jerusalem. When the time came, earnest exhortations to depart would be found not superfluous, for there would be an indisposition on the part of some to quit their possessions, and of others to affront the perils of the way. Touch no unclean thing. Bring with you none of the Babylonian idols, none of the Babylonian charms, spells, and the like (see the comment on Isa 47:9). Be ye clean; rather, purify yourselves. The departing captives generally are called upon to avoid polluting themselves with the unclean things of Babylon; but for those who bear the vessels of the Lord this negative purity is insufficient. They are for-really to purify themselves (2Ch 29:34) before undertaking their sacred office. By “the vessels of the Lord” we must understand those which Nebuchadnezzar carried off from the temple (2Ki 25:14-16; Dan 1:2), and which, on the return of the Jews from captivity, were restored by Cyrus (Ezr 1:7-11) and Artaxerxes (Ezr 8:25-34).
Isa 52:12
With haste by flight. As at the going forth from Egypt (Exo 12:33; Exo 16:5). Then they were “thrust out;” now there would be no need of hurry. They would have the free permission of their sovereign to depart at their own time, and might proceed with calm deliberateness. God would go before them, as he did on that former occasion (Exo 13:21), though not now visibly; and he would also defend them from attacks by the way, being at once their Guide and their Rereward, or Rearguard.
Isa 52:13-15
PRELUDE TO THE “GREAT PASSIONAL.” It is generally allowed by modern commentators that this passage is more closely connected with what follows it than with what precedes. Some would detach it altogether from Isa 52:1-15. and attach it to Isa 53:1-12. But this is not necessary. The passage has a completeness in itself. It is a connecting link. The exaltation of Israel, the collective “Servant of the Lord” (Isa 44:1, Isa 44:21), brings to the prophet’s mind the exaltation of the individual “Servant“ (Isa 42:1-7; Isa 43:10; Isa 49:1-12), through which alone the full exaltation of Israel is possible. He is bound to complete his account of the individual “Servant“ by telling of his exaltation, and of the road which led to it. This is done in Isa 53:1-12; in what has been called the “Great Passional.“ But the “Great Passional” needs a “prelude,” an “introduction,” if only as indicative’ of its greatness. And this prelude we have here, in these three verses, which briefly note
(1) the fact of the exaltation;
(2) the depth of the humiliation preceding it; and
(3) the far-extending blessedness which shall result to the world from both.
Isa 52:13
My Servant shall deal prudently; rather, shall deal wisely; i.e. shall so act throughout his mission as to secure it the most complete success. “Wisdom is justified of her children,” and of none so entirely justified as of him “in whom were all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid away” (Col 2:3). Exalted and extolled; or, high and lifted upthe same expressions as are used of the Almighty in Isa 6:1 and Isa 57:15. Even there, however, seems to the prophet ,rot enough; so he adds, “and exalted exceedingly” (comp. Isa 53:10-12 and Php 2:6-9).
Isa 52:14
As many were astonied at thee. The world was “astonied” to see, in One come to deliver it, no outward show of grandeur or magnificence, no special beauty or “comeliness” (Isa 53:2), but a Presence unattractive to the mass of men at all times, and in the end so cruelly marred and disfigured as to retain scarcely any resemblance to the ordinary form and face of man. The prophet, as Delitzsch says, sits at the foot of the cross on Calvary, and sees the Redeemer as he hung upon the accursed tree, after he had been buffeted, and crowned with thorns, and smitten, and scourged, and crucified, when his face was covered with bruises and with gore, and his frame and features distorted with agony.
Isa 52:15
So shall he sprinkle many nations. The Septuagint has, “So shall many nations marvel at him;” and this translation is followed by Gesenius and Ewald. Mr. Cheyne thinks that the present Hebrew text is corrupt, and suggests that a verb was used antithetical to the “astonied” of Isa 52:14, expressing “joyful surprise.” It is certainly hard to see how the idea of “sprinkling,” even if it can mean “purifying,” comes in here. Kings shall shut their mouths at him; rather, because of him. In reverential awe of his surpassing greatness (comp. Mic 7:16). That which had not been told them shall they see. They will learn the facts of Christ’s humiliation, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension to heavenevents that it had never entered into the heart of man to conceive, and of which, therefore, no tongue had ever spoken.
HOMILETICS
Isa 52:1, Isa 52:2
God helps those who help themselves.
It is a law of God’s providence to require of men, as conditional to his assisting them, some corresponding effort. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Mat 7:7). He is always ready to give; but he will have men stretch out their hand to receive. For the careless and the apathetic, he willperhaps we might say, he cando nothing. Thus he calls men into his Church, but they must arise and obey the call; he offers them grace, but they must use the means of grace; he is willing to grant them eternal life, but upon this life they must “lay hold” (1Ti 6:12). When he delivered his people out of Egypt, he required them to “rise up, and go forth,” and make long and toilsome marches through a dreary wilderness; and only after forty years of effort did he bring them to Canaan. So, too, when he would deliver them from Babylon, those only were delivered who braced themselves for a great exertion, left all that they had, affronted peril (Ezr 8:31), undertook the difficult and wearisome journey (Isa 43:19) from Chaldea to Palestine. The reason would seem to be that God, in all his dealings with man, is disciplining him and training him, eliciting the good that is in him, and causing it to acquire strength by active exercise, thus fitting him for a higher state of existence than the present, and leading him onward toward the perfection which he designed him to reach.
Isa 52:11
The special need of purity in them that bear the vessels of the Lord.
It is the duty of all to avoid impurity, to “touch no unclean thing,” to “perfect holiness in the fear of God.” But a special purity is required of those who, by holding any sacred office, are brought nearer to God than others, and as it were serve continually in his presence. Hence the numerous directions in the Jewish Law with respect to the prieststheir consecration, their ablutions, their vestments, their sin offerings, and the like (Le Isa 8:2 -35; Isa 9:1 -24). Hence, moreover, such injunctions as the following: “Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou [Aaron], nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations: that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (Le Isa 10:9, Isa 10:10). “They [the priests] shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh. They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the Name of their God: for the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and the bread of their God they do offer: therefore, shall they be holy” (Le Isa 21:5, Isa 21:6). “He that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the annointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes; neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother; neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the Lord. And he shall take a wife in her virginity” (Le Isa 21:10-13). Everything approaching to uncleanness is to be carefully eschewed by such as minister in holy things; they are to be under a law more strict than that which binds ordinary men; they are to avoid everything at which weak brethren might take exceptionto shrink from even the shadow of an impure stain. Many things are harmless in the ordinary layman which are not harmless in the clergyman, who is especially bound to “walk warily,” to be a pattern to the flock, to abstain from even the appearance of evil, to “let not his good be evil spoken of” (Rom 14:16).
Isa 52:13
The wisdom of Messiah’s life upon earth.
Perhaps nothing shows more clearly the perfect “wisdom” of our Lord’s life upon earth than the fact that, among all his detractors, not one has been able to point out any unwisdom in any part of it. Almost all men do unwise things, things which they regret to have done, things which do them harm, which injure instead of promoting the objects that they have in view. But our Lord’s whole course was guided by the most perfect wisdom (Isa 11:2). Wisely he conformed in all respects to the Jewish Law, though he was above the Law. Wisely he led, not the ascetic life, but the life of ordinary humanity. Wisely he chose his disciples among those who were poor and ignorant and powerless, so that it might be evident they did not convert the nations by their natural gifts, but by wielding a supernatural influence. Wisely he declined to be made an earthly king, so that ambition cannot be laid to his charge. Wisely he submitted himself to the powers that be, that neither revolutionist nor anarchist might be able to make a shelter of his example. Wisely he covered himself with a cloud, hid up his glory, did his great miracles comparatively in secret (Joh 7:4), let the knowledge of his true Divinity steal upon men by degrees. The wisdom wherewith he executed his mission is seen in the success of that mission. How quickly did the “little flock” grow into a Church to be counted by thousands (Act 2:41; Act 4:4), and the thousands become tens of thousands, and the tens of thousands increase into millions, until the whole Roman empire was converted, and the “kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ” (Rev 6:15)! And what but infinite wisdom could have inspired a teaching which should attract both Jew and Gentile, both civilized man and barbarian, both haughty noble and down-trodden slave; which should, moreover, suit alike the requirements of both ancient and modern times, and be as much valued in the nineteenth century after its publication as in the first? By the wisdom” science falsely so called” (1Ti 6:20)of Greece and Rome “the world knew not God” (1Co 1:21); by the wisdom, the true wisdom, of Christ the whole civilized and much of the barbarian world now knows God. The result is the effect of that “prudent dealing,” or true wisdom in act and word, which Jesus Christ, the “Servant of Jehovah,” showed forth during the three and thirty years of his life upon this earth.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 52:1-12
The redemption of Jerusalem.
I. THE SUMMONS. It comes from the Divine representatives. She had been called upon to arise and to stand up, and now she is to put on her strength and her robes. “Strength returns to Zion when the arm of Jehovah is mighty within her.” It is useless to counterfeit the semblance of strength which does not exist. Nor is strength merely a matter of the will; but there ever is a secret fund of strength in the hearts of those who know that God has not forsaken them. In a sense, hope comes to those who rouse themselves from dejection, and “power to him that power exerts.” The highest success promised is to human endeavour, and is not to be enjoyed without human endeavour. The beautiful garments are to be put on in preparation for the era of moral beauty and holiness. There is a true symbolism in dress. There is a garb appropriate to mourning and woe; another attire becomes the spirit of gladness and expectation. And there is, so to speak, a dress of the soula habit of the mind which expresses the hope of better things even amidst darkness and disappointment. As there were robes, figuratively speaking, which became a holy and priestly city; as there were seemly robes for Aaron the priest;even so for him who looks upon himself as a “king and priest unto God,” there is a suitable bearing and character, determined by the sense of the high destiny in store. “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” So high a destiny is in store for Jerusalem; no more are the unclean to enter her sacred precincts (cf. Joe 3:17), but only the worshippers of the true God. Typically, the promise points to future times, when the Church of God shall be pure as when, in the great world-harvest, the tares shall be gathered out, and the wheat be gathered into the eternal garner. Let, then, Jerusalem shake herself from the dustfrom that posture which expresses mourning and humiliation (Job 2:13), and take a lofty and honourable place. “Ascend thy lofty seat!” (Louth). “Arise and sit erect” (Noyes). “Rise, sit upon the throne of thy glory” (Chaldee). She is to shake the chains from her limbs, for her captivity is drawing to an end. Has she been sold? Nay; Jehovah has received naught for her. “It is not a sale, but only a temporary transfer.” He can receive them back and renew his covenant with them. “You shall be redeemed.“ There was to be a remarkable proof of the power and sovereignty of God. For usually slaves and captives are not given up without a ransom. That they may expect this to be done, Jehovah reminds them of what has been done. He who had delivered from Egypt could deliver also from Babylon. And the like applies to the sufferings under Sargon, and Sennacherib, and Tiglath-Pileser. And now what was fitting for him to do in the case of the third great captivity, that of Babylon? He has come down to see and consider. And the result is that he “must return to Jerusalem, else his gracious purposes will be frustrated. But in its present state he cannot do so; therefore Jerusalem must arise from its humiliation.” In their pride and contumely, the Babylonians both oppress the people and blaspheme the Name of their God. Another reason, then, for his interposition. Thereforefor all these reasonsthe people shall know his Name, shall experience what it is to have a God whose Name is Jehovah; as in the days of deliverance from Egypt. He is One who, in answer to the people’s cry, responds, “Here am I!” Thus the leading thought remains, that Israel is Jehovah’s people, and he is their God. “Enclosed by God from amidst all other nations, to be the seat of his worship, and the great conservatory of all the sacred oracles and means of salvation. The Gentiles might be ca]led God’s own, as a man calls his hall or his parlour his own, which yet others pass through and make use of; but the Jews were so as a man accounts his closet or his cabinet his ownthat is, by a peculiar incommunicable destination of it to his own use.” And again, “The whole work of man’s redemption carries in it the marks, not only of mercy, but of mercy acting by an unaccountable sovereignty. He gives the world to know that his own will is the reason of his proceedings. If the sun is pleased to shine upon a turf, and to gild a dunghill, when perhaps he looks not into the chamber of a prince, we cannot accuse him of partiality. The short but significant saving, ‘May I not do what I will with mine own?’ being a full and solid answer to all such objections” (South).
II. VISIONS OF REDEMPTION. “The prophet passes into an ecstasy. What he sees with the inner eye he expresses pictorially. He has told us already of the ideal Zion ascending a high mountain, and acting as herald of the Divine Deliverer. Now he varies the picture. It is Zion to whom the herald is seen to comebounding over the mountains” (Cheyne). The feet give a greeting before the mouth utters it (Stier). The soul of prophet and of poet delights in the mountains; they give forth in visible form the sublimity with which his soul is charged (cf. Eze 6:1). The mountains speak of the eternity of God; upon them the epiphany of the Deliverer may in a sense be expected, as they silently speak of his righteousness, of a constancy which is not to be moved. How welcome the messenger who tells of the fall of a city of the oppressors (Nah 1:15), such as Nineveh! How still more welcome he who comes to bear tidings from the spiritual world to the spirits of men (Rom 10:15; Eph 6:15)! The proclaimer of peace is at hand, and “peace” is another word for “salvation.” But there can be neither peace nor salvation in this distracted world, except under a strong governmentthe government of the King of kings. :Now the tidings are that “God has resumed the crown which he had laid aside.” “Thy God has become King!” Celestial watchers are heard, lifting up their voices with a ringing cry, as they from their high seat behold the return of Jehovah to Zion. They “note every advance of the kingdom of God, seeing it eye to eye, as a man looks into the face of his friend; so near are the two worlds of sight and of faith” (Cheyne). The return of Jehovah to Zion means the return of spiritual power and joy and freedom. All earthly relations melt away into the spiritual realities. The real banishment is the separation of the soul from God; the true return from exile is when the soul can say, “God exists; God is nearis for me.” Bondage is in ourselves; redemption and comfort are when we realize again that there is anothera “Not-ourselves that makes for righteousness,” an Eternal Love, in short, in the sense of which all limitation must be forgotten. Jehovah has bared his holy arm for action in the face of all the nations; and the whole world has seen the salvation of God. Then, in prospect of such a redemption, what should be the conduct of the faithful? They must refuse to touch the unclean thing; they must be purified and become pure. They must regard themselves as armour-bearers of Jehovah, since he, as a man of war, is going forth to fight the battles of his people, and to establish his kingdom in the earth. The king, upon solemn occasions, had with him a troop of armour-bearers (1Ki 14:28). And so must he, to whom the shields of the whole earth belong (Ps 47:10), be followed by his band of faithful warriors. And not again in hurrying fearfulness, as in the days of the exode from Egypt, but rather with the calm and solemn march of troops who are marching to assured victory are they. to go forth from Babylon. The application was made by St. Paul, and ever may be made, to Christians (2Co 6:17, 2Co 6:18). Babylon is a type of the world; the necessity of “coming out” from that Babylon is the necessity of the disciples of Jesus separating themselves from the evil that is in the world. So in Rev 18:4 Babylon stands for the evil course of the present worldthe spirit of pride and impurity and persecution. If, instead of armour-bearers, the rendering “bearers of the vessels of Jehovah” be preferred, then the allusion will be to the priests and Levites (Num 1:50; Num 4:15). Upon such officials the obligation to be holy rests. Whether in war, or in the peaceful service of tabernacle or temple, the principle is the same. Men set apart to such service are bound to illustrate their office by an apartness of manners and of life. A select calling implies a select spirit. It has not been “finely touched” except to “fine issues.” There may be an allusion in the “vessels” to Ezr 1:7, Ezr 1:8, or the facts there mentioned. How marked is that “boundless exhilaration” which belongs to these prophecies of restored Jerusalem! “Much good poetry is profoundly melancholy; now the life of the people is such that in literature they require joy. If ever that ‘good time coming,’ for which they long, was presented with energy and magnificence, it is in these chapters; it is impossible to read them without catching its glow. And they present it truly and with the true conditions. It is easy to misconceive it on a first view, easy to misconceive its apparent condition; but the more these chapters sink into the mind and are apprehended, the more manifest is the connection with universal history, the key they offer to it, the truth of the ideal they propose for it” (Matthew Arnold).J.
Verse 13-Isa 53:3
The Servant of Jehovah: his wondrous career.
“Behold!” A new and remarkable object calls for attention. It is the “Servant of Jehovah.” He has been humiliated and rejected, but he is on his way to exaltation and honour.
I. HIS FELICITOUS WISDOM. There enters into the idea of the word here used prosperity and good success, as in Jos 1:8; Jer 10:21. For wisdom, the devout wisdom, the wisdom of duty in obedience to the Divine commands, alone can bring that good success. Compare what is said of the Righteous Branch in Jer 23:5; and see also for the word, 2Ki 18:7; Pro 17:8. Some render the words “shall be intelligent; ‘ others, “shall be prosperous.” The description applies to any who are endued with the Divine Spirit for practical ends.
II. HIS EXALTATION. There is a heaping up of verbs denoting exaltationhe shall be high, and lifted up, and lofty exceedingly. The highest pitch of honour, the loftiest possible rank, shall be his, and that in view of the universe. The right hand of Godthe subjection of angels and authorities and powers, and every name that is namedare similar images (Mar 16:19; Eph 1:20-22; Php 2:9; 1Pe 3:22). If the Servant be not the Messiah, at least very similar language is used of him (Psa 89:27). The exaltation bears a direct relation to the previous humiliation. The last would become first; the most despised would yet become the most honoured. Having volunteered for the lowest place on behalf of man’s good, he would be exalted by the Divine hand to the highest possible. Once men were stupefied as they looked on his disfigured form, hardly bearing the semblance of a man. So did Job’s friends stand aghast as they beheld him from a distance in his misery. But there shall be a magnificent contrast. Kings shall yet be dumb for admiration in his presenceowning his superior dignity (Job 29:9; Job 40:4). They will be eye-witnesses of things which had been previously inconceivable (cf. also Micah 8:16; Psa 147:1-20 :42; Job 5:16).
III. REVELATION IN THIS CONTRAST. The popular heart has everywhere delighted in such contrasts, between princely greatness and lowly guise or disguise. So the Greek Odysseus, on his return, is seen sitting lowly amidst the ashes of his hearth. And the Indians (Lyall, ‘Asiatic Studies’) relish in the highest degree such representations. We not only love surprise, but we feel that it is a Divine method to work by surprise. “Power keeps quite another road than the turnpikes of choice and will, namely, the subterranean and invisible tunnels and channels of life. Life is a series of surprises. God delights to hide from us the past and the future. ‘You will not remember,’ he seems to say, ‘and you will not expect.’ Every man is an impossibility until he is born, everything impossible until we see a success. The ardours of piety agree at last with the coldest scepticism, that nothing is of ourselves or our worksthat all is of God. There is nothing at last in success or failure, but more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal. The results of life are uncalculated and incalculable” (Emerson).
IV. HUMAN INCREDULITY ABASHED. HOW few believed the prophecies concerning the Servant! How few had eyes to see “such supramundane sights, when nothing on earth seemed to suggest them”! to discern the arm of Jehovah, that mysterious Divine Power, in its secret working! They were blinded by the evidence of the senses. He was as a slight and insignificant plantbut a shoot or sucker from the root brought up out of Egypt. Without that winning grace or imposing majesty that might have been expected, he failed to captivate men’s hearts. He seemed isolated, sad sick, and men fled from his presence as it he had been a leper. But the result shows how little Providence reeks of our poor logic of appearances, our connections of cause and effect. Life is not so plain a business as it appears. “Presently comes a day, with its angel-whisperings, which discomfits the conclusions of nations and of years!” We boast of our common sense and experience; yet there is a Divine element ever at work to defeat our calculations and to astound us with its operations. The lesson is to be ever waiting and expectingever looking up for manifestations of that Divine wisdom which hides to reveal itself, that Divine power which is energizing unspent when all our resources are at an end, that Divine beauty which lurks beneath the dimmest forms and the meanest disguises.J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
Isa 52:7
Beautiful messengers.
“How beautiful upon the mountains,” etc.! Not so with the warrior. His garments are dyed in blood; his track is over desolated cornfields and ruined vineyards. Look at the footsteps of the servants of God.
I. THE MESSENGERS. They are not self-inspired or self-commissioned. They are sent of God. From Jerusalem the apostles are to go forth; over her all-surrounding mountains they go to tell the story of the angels’ song, the Messiah’s ministry, and the redeeming cross. How beautiful!to publish peace!
1. Peace between man and man.
2. Peace between God and man.
3. Peace between nation and nation.
4. Peace in a man’s own soul.
II. THE MESSAGE. “Good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation.” Blessed word! But how often narrowed and marred through human interpretation!
1. We are saved from ourselves. And this salvation is going on within us day by day, as we grow in grace.
2. We are saved from guilt. As we can only be by an atonement where the offering is without spot.
3. We are saved from all that is inimical in the evil that is without us. For the Saviour knows our enemies, is stronger than our enemies, and will subdue them under his feet. “Thy God reigneth,” and, mystery of mysteries, the cross is his sceptre. “I, if I be lifted up; will draw all men unto me.”W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 52:1
The strength of the Church.
The Zion of Old Testament Scripture is the Christian Church of the New. We have here, therefore, a commanding summons to clothe ourselves, as Churches of Christ, with the strength which is especially our own: “Put on thy strength, O Zion.”
I. IS WHAT THE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH CONSISTS. Not, as we are too apt to imagine, in wealth, in territory, in buildings, in material defences of any kind: all this is the strength of the world, but not of the Church. Its strength is in:
1. Steadfastness in truth and holiness. The reed by the river-side, shaken with every ripple of the water, bent with every breath of the breeze, is the type of weakness; the massive granite rock, against which the waves of centuries have dashed, but which remains unmoved from base to summit, is the type of strength. Jesus Christ wants his Church to be strong, in that it stands fast
(1) in the truth (Eph 4:14; 1Co 16:3; Php 1:27):
(2) in spiritual freedom (Gal 5:1);
(3) in holiness.
The very success of the Church has occasioned danger here. There is much less of gross iniquity in modem society than in past times. The distinction between the people of God and the enemies of his truth is not so apparent. The spirit of worldliness does not show itself in such malignant forms. Evil, by “losing all its grossness,” has lost half its hideousness, and is therefore more seductive and successful than it was. The Church needs to be peculiarly strong in holiness to repel the insidious attacks of our day on its purity.
2. Fruitfulness. The strength of the fruit-bearing tree is in bearing much and good fruit. Herein is God glorified in us, as a Church, that we “bear much fruit.” What fruits does a strong Church bear? Those of pure and gentle thoughts, of kind and generous feelings, of true and helpful words, of upright and honourable deeds, of acceptable and spiritual worship.
3. Usefulness. The strongest object we know of is the sun; and its strength is found in radiating life-giving light and heat, century after century: it is the strength of ceaseless, unmeasurable beneficence. To this strength Christ is calling his people. They are to be clothed with and to exercise this benign and blessed power; they are to be distributing on every hand, to instruct the ignorant, to comfort the sorrowful, to guide the perplexed, to reclaim the fallen, to bring into the kingdom of God them that are afar off.
II. THE WAY TO SECURE IT. Physical strength cannot, indeed, be assumed at will; but it can be attained by a sick man arousing himself from his lethargy, sloth, and folly, and adopting the measures which minister to bodily well-being. Let the spiritually feeble:
1. Take due spiritual nourishment. The Bread of life, the Water of life, invigorating privileges, are within our reach.
2. Take due spiritual exercise. To him that hath is given, and the man who labours imperfectly at first will gain strength and skill as he puts out his power; every effort to do good is so much strength gained for future usefulness as well as so much power put forth in present activity.
3. Seek the inspiring influences which come from God: “They that wait on him shall renew their strength.”C.
Isa 52:1
The beauty of the Church.
We are more apt to thank God for the bounty than for the beauty of the earth; but if one is the more necessary, the other is the higher gift of the two; if the one satisfies the cravings of the body, the other ministers to the hunger and the thirst of the soul. With what lavish hand has God supplied it! What colour, what variety, what elegance, what symmetry, what loveliness, and what grandeur on the surface of the earth, in hill and mountain, in sea and sky! And if we appreciate the beauty of his handiwork, does not he delight in the beauty of our service? does not he say to us, “Put on thy beautiful garments”? What are the beautiful garments of the Church of Christ; what is it that makes it attractive and comely in his pure sight?
I. SPIRITUALITY IN ITS WORSHIP. It is better to worship God in a beautiful structure than in a barn; in skilful, artistic song than with unregulated voice; in becoming language than in distracted exclamations. It is better, because
(1) we ought to give to a Divine Saviour the very best we can bring, and therefore our taste and culture rather than our crudeness and our vulgarity; and because
(2) we should seek to attract by excellency to the house of the Lord, and not repel by unsightliness and discord. But this is not the beauty for which Christ looks: the beauty of the Church’s worship is in its genuineness, its spirituality, its inward and intrinsic worth (see Psa 50:14; Joh 4:23, Joh 4:24; Heb 13:15). The reverent thought, the hallowed feeling, the solemn vow, the consecrated spirit, the song which comes from a grateful heart, the attitude of earnest docility that longs to learn that it may hasten to obey,these are the beautiful garments of devotion.
II. EXCELLENCY OF LIFE. A good profession is a good thing, but integrity of character and blamelessness of life is a better thing. The uprightness which would rather suffer than sin; the faithfulness that keeps the unremunerative engagement; the purity that repels the ugly thought as well as the filthy word and the foul action; the truthfulness which prefers to offend man rather than to grieve the Spirit of God; the generosity which loses all sight of self in the needs and cries of weakness or sorrow;these are the beautiful garments in which the Divine Lord would see his servants clothed.
III. DEVOTEDNESS OF LABOUR. Much more, in quantity, is now done in Christ’s name than heretofore. But whether the life of the Church is so much the fairer in its Master’s view depends chiefly on the spirit of its service. If our work in the sanctuary, or the Sunday school, or the committee-room, or the cottage, be perfunctory, constrained, tinged or it may be coloured with self-seeking, unspiritual, there is but little beauty in it in the sight of the Pure One. We should aim to make our whole life beautiful in the sight of our Saviour; let obedience be prompt and cheerful, the discharge of duty conscientious and thorough; let submission be ready and unrepining, liberality generous and hearty, courtesy cordial and graceful, etc. So shall we be arrayed in beautiful garments.C.
Isa 52:2
The dignity of the Church. Jerusalem was to arise from the dust of humiliation,
and to sit down “with dignity and composure” on a seat of honour, taking her true position among the nations of the earth. The Church of Christ is called to rise from any undignified position into which she may have fallen, and to assume One that is in keeping with her origin and her estate. But the question is, in what the dignity of the Church consists. It is clear that dignity has various applications, according to its subject. The dignity of a sovereign is in one thing; that of a scholar is in another thing; that, again, of a servant is something quite different. It is not found in any particular deportment or in any especial surroundings. The Church that seeks to secure its dignity by attaching to itself those external honours or trappings which worldly kingdoms demand for the maintenance of their honour completely mistakes its position. To be truly dignified is to act in a way that is worthy of our origin and in harmony with our position. The true dignity of the Church is realized by its acting in a way that becomes the offspring of Christ, and that is suited to an institution which exists to illustrate his truth and to extend his reign. It consults its dignity and commends itself to the honour of the wise when
I. IT MAKES ITS APPEAL TO THE HUMAN JUDGMENT, and not to superstitious fears.
II. IT RELIES ON THE ATTACHMENT OF ITS FRIENDS for the necessities of its existence.
III. IT REFUSES TO COUNT IMPOSSIBLE THAT WHICH ITS MASTER CHARGES IT TO ACCOMPLISH, viz. the subjection of the whole world to his sway.
IV. IT LISTENS WITHOUT ALARM TO THE PREDICTIONS OF ITS FOES, and goes calmly and energetically on its way of holy service.C.
Isa 52:2-9
The liberty of the Church.
“Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”
I. THE RIGHT OF THE CHURCH TO LIBERTY. The sight of the daughter of Zion in chains was very pitiable in the prophet’s eye. How much more grievous the spectacle of a Christian Church in bondage, enslaved and oppressed! The Christian Church, being composed of those who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, and being called into existence for the purpose of extending a spiritual kingdom amongst men, cannot possibly submit itself to the rule of the world without abdicating its functions and forfeiting its essential privileges. It has a native, Christ-given right to decide upon its own constitution, to choose its own officers, to worship God according to its own convictions, to act freely upon the world in disseminating its principles. It is oppressed and (more or less) enslaved when authority presumes to dictate, or when rank or wealth claims to direct, in these high, and spiritual matters.
II. THE LIMITATIONS OF ITS FREEDOM. The Church is not free to “do what it likes” in all these matters; that is licence, not liberty. Its freedom is limited by the will, and defined by the word, of its Divine Lord. Under all circumstances, it is bound to consider what Christ would have it do. Beyond his will it may not move.
III. ITS ATTITUDE UNDER OPPRESSION.
1. A patient submission to the absolutely inevitable. In early Christian times, and under the domination of tyrannical powers since then, the Church has had to accept such share of liberty as was allowed, patiently and devoutly waiting for an extension.
2. A calm, brave assertion of its duty to its Lord; often under censure, hardship, cruel suffering.
3. A seizure of the earliest opportunity to enter upon its right. “Loose thyself,” God says to his people. When the bonds can be broken, break them; when the door can be opened, unbar it; when the way is clear to holy liberty, take it without hesitation or delay.
IV. ITS EXULTATION IN THE HOUR OF RELEASE. (Isa 52:7-10). The prophet foresees the liberation of Israel, and breaks out into a strain of surpassing eloquence and joy. Probably the escape from bondage to freedom is calculated to excite the keenest transports of delight of which the human heart is capable. So has it been in many hundreds of instances of individual release, and so it has been in cases of national and of ecclesiastical deliverance. Speech and song have been far too feeble to utter the rapture of the hour. At such a time the best forms which abounding and overwhelming joy can take are:
1. Gratitude to God, showing itself in praise. It is the Lord whose providence opens the way, whose arm strikes off the shackles (see Isa 52:3, Isa 52:6, Isa 52:10).
2. Recognition of the fact that liberty is useless, and even dangerous, unless it is well employed, and a consequent determination to spend the acquired freedom in holy service.C.
Isa 52:11, Isa 52:12
Christian pilgrimage.
We may regard the departure and journey of the Israelites from Babylon to Jerusalem as pictorial of our departure from the “far country” of sin for the heavenly Zion. Thus considered, we are taught
I. THAT ENTRANCE ON THE NEW PATH SHOULD BE AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE AS WELL AS WISDOM. It was an eminently wise thing on the part of the Israelites to return to Jerusalem. Whatever interests, pecuniary or social, they may have formed in exile, their true heritage was in the land of their fathers; the politic in their policy remained, but the wise in their wisdom left. This, however, was not the only or the main inducement. They were called to return as an act of obedience. The Lord their God summoned them. It was a Divine voice that arid, “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence.” Our true interest demands that we should leave “the City of Destruction” and seek “another which is an heavenly.” Only a false prudence detains; wisdom, deep and true, urges to depart. But this is not the only consideration. God our Divine Father, Jesus Christ our righteous Lord, commands us. tie calls us to leave the kingdom of unrighteousness and to enter the path of holy service. To linger is to be guiltily disobedient; to set forth is to do the will of God.
II. THAT ENTRANCE ON CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE SHOULD BE AN ACT OF DELIBERATE CONVICTION. “Ye shall not go out with haste.” There should, indeed, be no delay; but, on the other hand, there should be no hurry. More than once Jesus Christ checked the advances of disciples who were acting on impulse rather than conviction (Mat 8:18-22; Luk 14:28-33). Do not take the greatest step which can possibly be taken without earnest thought, deep deliberation, repeated prayer.
III. THAT CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE, ESPECIALLY THE DIRECT SERVICE OF GOD, SHOULD BE CHARACTERIZED BY PURITY. “Touch no unclean thing; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” The Israelites were not to soil their hands with any forbidden or ill-acquired treasures; and the Levites were to take peculiar care that their hands were clean, for they would bear the sacred vessels of the temple. All Christian men must see to it that their hearts are uncorrupted and their hands undefiled by the many evils which are in the world. Anything like covetousness, envy, unchastity, intemperance, vindictiveness, makes service unworthy, and Divine worship unacceptable. By watchfulness and prayer let the ministers of Christ, more especially, cleanse their hearts and their hands.
IV. THAT THE GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD MAY BE COUNTED UPON ALL THE WAY. “The Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward;” i.e. there shall be a complete defence from danger; though enemies should threaten you before and behind, you shall find an ample security in God. We find ourselves assailed by spiritual perils coming from opposite quarters: we are tempted by fanaticism on the one side and by indifference on the other; by pietism and secularism; by presumption and distrust; by undue asceticism and laxity; by superstition and scepticism; but if we are obedient and reverent in spirit, our God will be a shield against every foe.C.
Isa 52:13-15
The wisdom of suffering service.
The fact that these and the following verses refer to the Messiah is no reason why we should not find in them practical lessons for the guidance of our own life, the culture of our own character. For Christ came, not only to do for us a work which we could not possibly do ourselves, but also to be the Exemplar whom we are to follow in the paths of righteousness and peace.
I. OUR FIRST CARE SHOULD BE TO SERVE. He who is the Anointed of the Lord, the Highest among the highest, is spoken of as “my Servant.” And from the beginning to the end of his course he thought and spoke of himself as of One that “was sent,” that was charged to do an appointed work. The spiritual greatness he manifested was in giving himself up to the service of mankind. “I am among you as he that serveth.” We should count it not our dishonour but our honour that we live to serve. We act worthily of him from whom we came, and of that One who was the very Son of man, when we spend our faculties in humble, holy service. We miss the end of our being and take the lowest rank that can be taken when we fail to serve God and our kind. We commit the greatest wrong and we make the supreme mistake.
II. AS SERVANTS WE MUST BE WILLING TO SUFFER. A good soldier endures hardship and runs great risks. A good servant of God will be prepared to do the same. Jesus Christ went on to the work before him by surrendering himself to the blows and buffetings that awaited him. He endured enough sorrow to change his countenance; he went through trials enough to leave a deep mark upon his outer manhood. He did not stop to inquire how many or how grievous were the afflictions in store for him. The only thing he asked about was the Father’s will and the world’s necessity. If we are true servants of our Saviour and of mankind, this will be our spirit too.
III. SUFFERING SERVICE WILL BE FOLLOWED BY BLESSED EXALTATION. According to the severity of the suffering was the greatness of the exaltation with the holy Servant of Jehovah (Isa 52:14, Isa 52:15). To the depth of his humiliation answered the height of his uplifting, to the gloom of the darkened path on earth the glory of the heavenly home. So shall it be with us: if we suffer with our Lord we shall reign with him; and as we suffer so shall we reign. The deeper we go beneath the waves of sacrificial suffering the higher shall we rise in the celestial kingdom. Herein is heavenly wisdom. Had Jesus Christ elected to take the crown which was offered him at the outset (see Mat 4:8), he might have gained some glories without the shame through which he passed. But he would have forfeited the “many crowns” he now wears and will for ever wear. But God’s Servant “dealt prudently,” i.e. chose wisely and not with superficial, short-sighted policy; and now he is “exalted and extolled and made very high.” Let it be our wisdom, after him, to choose suffering service, looking for the large and the long, though it be the far, reward of reigning in glory by the side and in the service of our Saviour.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 52:1, Isa 52:2
The restored castaway.
“Arise, and sit down O captive daughter of Zion.” “The verses are a poetical description of the liberation of a female captive from degrading slavery, and it is designed to represent the complete emancipation of the Church from tyranny and persecution.” The call is peculiar as judged by Western associations, but quite natural in view of Eastern habits. The female is pictured as crouching on the ground, huddled in the dust, in the depressed and miserable attitude of the slave. She is called to “arise,” shake off the dust of her degradation, put on beautiful garments, and sit down like a lady. Jerusalem, or Zion, as it is called, is regarded as a “castaway,” given over for a time, by God, into the power of the Babylonians. Now her restoring-time has come. She is to put on again the garments of beauty, which belonged to her as the priestly queen of cities. Jowett puts the point of these verses in the following sentences: “The captive daughter of Zion, brought down to the dust of suffering and oppression, is commanded to arise and shake herself from that dust; and then, with grace, and dignity, and composure, and security, to sit down; to take, as it were, again her seat and rank amid the company of the nations of the earth, which had before afflicted her and trampled her to the earth.” Dealing with the truths suggested in their applications to us, we consider
I. GOD IS THE STERN EXPERIENCES OF LIFE. We lose much by not carefully discriminating the kinds of things that are gathered up into the word “affliction.” Disasters and failuresthe various forms of trouble that come in our outward sphere of relationsgive us, and are intended to give us, quite other ideas of God than we get from bodily pains or bereavements. To see God in a captivity, a slavery, a business ruin, is an altogether harder thing than to see God in a disease or a family anxiety. The danger of Israel while in Babylon was that it might wrongly regard God’s stern dealing, and, helplessly, hopelessly grovel in the dust of despair. And still there is the grave danger of our responding by hardness, stubbornness, self-willedness, when God’s ways with us seem stern. But the stern may be the precise expression of perfect love finding adaptations and adjustments. A distinction may be helpfully made between God’s work of softening and God’s work of humbling. We may see the softening work illustrated in Job or in Hezekiah. We may see the humbling work illustrated in Manasseh, who must be dragged off into captivity, and feel the bitterness of the prison-house; or in Israel as a corrupt, self-willed nation, which must feel what it was for the Babylonian “iron to eat into its soul.”
II. GOD LIMITING THE STERN EXPERIENCES OF LIFE. As a rule, such Divine dealings are not greatly prolonged. It is, indeed, in the very nature of them that they should not be long continued. They are like punishment by whipping, which is soon over and clone with. Relatively to the life of a nation, seventy years of captivity is only a “little while.” And in a later verse of this prophecy we find God exactly expressing how limited his stern experiences had been: “In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment.” And the expression of the apostle most strictly applies to this class of Divine dealings: “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment.” If we come, then, into God’s stern hands, they are our Father’s hands, and love will strictly limit the stern dealings to the “needs be;” and this great confidence may quiet our souls and give peace, even while we suffer, or endure, or struggle.
III. GOD RESTORING FROM THE STERN EXPERIENCES OF LIFE. Zion is restored; Jerusalem is rebuilt; Manasseh comes back to his throne; Job’s latter end is brighter than his beginning. Justice is God’s strange work, mercy is his delight. Above everything else he is the Redeemer, the Restorer, finding ever more joy in restoring than we can find in being restored. It is as if he were glad with infinite gladness when he can take the cloud away, and let his smile break through again upon us. What seem to us extravagant, ecstatic pictures of the restored glory of the Jewish nation, are really intended to impress on us what a joy God finds in his redeemings. This is expressed for us in the assurance of the Lord Jesus, that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that rcpenteth.” And so far as we are really good, and like God, we find singular pleasure in putting things straight again, in reconciliations, in helping others to recover themselves and start afresh.
IV. MAN RESPONDING GLADLY TO THE NEW JOY OF GOD‘S RESTORATIONS. To this God calls in our text. It is as if he had said, “I am glad; now be you glad.” There could be restorings, accept them at once, and lovingly and thankfully. Rise up out of all those depressions and despairings of captivity. Shake the very dust of the old troubles off. Dress in festal robes. Sing joy-songs. Realize your swiftly coming honours. “Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” Sit down in stately, royal style, as if the promise were possession, and you entered on it when God gave his assurances. How sadly we fail in hesitating about the acceptance of what God gives!R.T.
Isa 52:3
A priceless redemption.
“Ye shall be redeemed without money.” This truth is more fully stated in Isa 55:1. Here we only note two senses in which God’s redemption of Israel from the captivity of Babylon, and of us from the captivity of sin, may be called a priceless redemption.
I. BECAUSE ITS VALUE IS BEYOND ANY PRICE MAN CAN FIND. A man may hear of a “pearl of great price,” and be willing to sell all else that he may have in order to get possession of it. But redemption is a pearl of such price that no man’s all could suffice for its purchase. Illustrate what returning to a regenerate Jerusalem was for the captives. And what had they by which they could buy such a national restoration? What relation would it bear to the matter if they put all their wealth together? And we are not redeemed from sin with “corruptible things, such as silver and gold,” so that we could recompense him who gave the silver and gold for us, by giving him our silver and gold; “but with the precious blood of Christ,” the value of which no human scales can measure, and which no human wealth could buy. The price of our redemption is “beyond all measure of so much.” Compare the poetical estimate of the value of “wisdom,” in Job 28:12-19.
II. BECAUSE IT IS GIVEN WITHOUT ASKING ANY PRICE AT ALL. We could not pay the price. We should not have it at a price, if we could pay. It cannot be bought. Illustrate how men put a fictitious price on things which they do not wish to sell; and how they refuse to name any price at all when they are determined that the thing shall be a free gift. So God’s redemption is priceless, for he does not want to sell. Nay, it is priceless, for it can only be received as a gift. “God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” How strange that this very “pricelessness” should be our greatest stumbling-block! We have a saying that “only nothing worth can be got for nothing;” and we find ourselves applying it to God’s free gift of salvation. To illustrate this very human weakness, a man bought the entire stock of a herring-vendor, and sent him round a district of poor people, to cry, “Herrings for nothing!” and give them away. He was laughed to scorn, and not one person was found willing to receive. It is hard to believe that a priceless redemption is offered to us “without money and without price.”R.T.
Isa 52:6
Knowing God’s Name.
By that is meant finding out for ourselves all that is involved in his Name; proving for ourselves what he can and will do, even for us. The prophet has recalled to mind the deliverance from Egypt, and is full of the revelation which was then made, to Moses, of God’s Name. Elsewhere it has been shown that God’s Name is twofold.
1. An incommunicable namea bare assertion of existence, “Jehovah, I am.”
2. A relational name, that sets us upon observing what God has done and does. “The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.” Now we gain illustration from another incident in the Mosaic history. Moses, in one of the sternest experiences of his life, asked for the infinite comforting of being shown the Lord‘s glory; and this was the Divine response, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the Name of the Lord before thee.” Evidently the adequate impression of God’s goodness is “knowing God’s Name.” And the special point of goodness dwelt on in our text is the goodness that restores us from the consequences of our own follies and sins.
I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD‘S NAME THAT COMES BY REVELATION. This is mainly a head knowledge, and does not, of necessity, influence the spirit or the conduct.
II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD‘S NAME THAT COMES THROUGH THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS.
1. As recorded in the Word.
2. As met with in life.
This is helpful, but it is secondary knowledge. And the response we make to it is goodness upon other people’s persuasion, and is only likely to last so long as the persuasion lasts. Like the parasite, we are ,good just as long as we have somebody else’s life to drink of.
III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD‘S NAME THAT COMES THROUGH OUR OWN EXPERIENCES. We never really know God until we know him for ourselves, by our own soul-sight and soul-touch. This is well expressed by the saint of old, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” In the text God assures his people that his restoring mercies shall be a personal revelation of himself to them; and, knowing him, they shall know the full joy of full trust.R.T.
Isa 52:7
The message glorifying the messengers.
Immediate reference is to the heralds who go on in advance of the returning exiles to proclaim to Jerusalem that “the time to favour her, yea, the set time has come.” And to those who send the heralds, as well as to those who receive them, they seem beautiful for the sake of their message. And this is the only worthy reason for glorying in the ministers of Christwe love them “for their work’s sake” (see St. Paul’s use of this verse in relation to the first preachers of the gospel, in Rom 10:15). In the poetical style of the East, the watchmen are represented as standing upon their watch-tower, or post of observation, and stretching their vision to the utmost point of the horizon, as if in eager expectation of a news-bearing messenger. On a sudden the wished-for object appears in sight, on the summit of the distant mountain, speeding his rapid way to the city, while the watchmen, anticipating the tenor of his tidings, burst forth in a shout of gratulation and triumph. The imagery strikingly represents the expectant attitude and heedful vigilance of the believing part of the teachers and pastors of the nation of Israel on the eve of the Messiah’s manifestation. Illustrating the precise point indicated in the heading of this homily, we note
I. THE SNARE OF A MINISTER IS SETTING HIMSELF BEFORE HIS MESSAGE. Even an apostle felt the power of this temptation, and, having overcome it, he says, “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.” The snare is felt especially when there is pride of intellect; a notion of remarkable individuality; the conceit of genius; a rhetorical delivery; or a popular, attractive power. We are sometimes obliged, with grieved hearts, to acknowledge that, in those to whom we listen, there is “more of the man than the message.” The messenger may stand in front of the King. All workers for Christ need to deal watchfully with themselves, lest they be overcome of this fault, and find the people forgetting themselves in the flattery of the herald. Popular preachers are in sore need of great grace. Self-conceit takes strangely subtle forms when it enters in and dwells with God’s ministers.
II. THE JOY OF A MINISTER WHEN HE CAN LOSE HIMSELF IN THE GLORY OF HIS MESSAGE. Compare Samuel Rutherford’s exclamation, “God is my witness, that your salvation would be two salvations for me, and your heaven two heavens for me.” Our Lord Jesus Christ ever stood back, and let his Father speak to men through him; and we shall never know the joy of our work until we also can stand backright backand let Christ speak to men through us.R.T.
Isa 52:10
The world taught through God’s dealings with his people.
In every age God’s elect people are set in the world’s eye; God’s ways with them are revelations of himself to all onlookers. The world is educated, elevated, by means of its elect nations, just as the social range, the Church sentiment, the doctrinal beliefs, and the family life are raised and toned by God’s elect sons and daughters. In this sense “no man liveth unto himself;” no national experience is limited to the nation; God’s salvations of some are intended to be, and are adapted to be, in varied senses, salvations for all. “The Lord makes bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations.” The figure of “making bare the arm” is explained by the Eastern custom of wearing long and loose robes, and by the ancient custom of hand-to-hand conflict. “The warrior, preparing for action, throws off his mantle, tucks up the sleeve of his tunic, and leaves his outstretched arm free.” The prophet is thinking of the way in which news of the crossing of the Red Sea spread abroad among the nations then in Canaan, carrying great impressions of the august and awful power of Jehovah, the God of the Jews. In a similar but smaller way, the return from Babylon was noised abroad among the nations, carrying impressions of God’s faithfulness to his promise. And so with the salvation in Christ Jesus, which was but suggested and foreshadowed by all the previous deliverances; it was for the whole world, though it found its first sphere in the Jewish nation. “Beginning at Jerusalem,” of it this must be thought and said
“Salvation! let the echo fly
The spacious earth around.”
This topic is suited for a missionary sermon, and familiar truths may be set under the following headings.
I. NEWS OF SALVATION IN CHRIST DESERVE TO BE KNOWN. It is the “great salvation,” the “common salvation,” the “only salvation;” for there is “none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we can be saved.” It is a full salvation and a free salvation.
II. NEWS OF SALVATION IN CHRIST WILL SURELY BE KNOWN. Whether we are pleased to aid the spreading or not. The word is running very swiftly. Like the sunshine, its light “is going out into all the world.” Illustrate the spreading of the gospel, and its ameliorating and ennobling influences.
III. WE MAY HAVE THE JOY OF MAKING THAT SALVATION KNOWN. Show in what practical ways, and plead for direct personal interest in all missionary work.R.T.
Isa 52:11
Cleanness a condition of service.
“Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” The expression recalls the importance attached in the Jewish economy to the preparation of the priests and Levites for solemn tabernacle engagements. They were required to “sanctify themselves” before undertaking any ritual service, because the impression of the holiness of the work must rest on them, and be made through them upon the people. So when the captives were about to return to their own land, as monuments of Divine restorings and salvations, due impressions must be made of the holiness God demanded of all who served him, and the responsibility lay especially on the Levites of making this impression. They may be taken as types of air those who are now engaged in Christ’s serviceto whom he has committed any trusts. The question is sometimes discussed, in view of the notion of apostolical succession, whether a man who is morally bad can officially communicate Divine grace. We do not venture an opinion on such a question, but we do say that, to right feeling men and women, the connection between personal wickedness and pious work is offensive and distressing. Our souls revolt from the association of the two things, and respond to the demand of the text for personal purity in all who attempt to do God’s work in the world. Two things may be dwelt on.
I. CLEANNESS AS HARMONY WITH OUR WORK. We seek for harmony everywhere. In arranging colours of dress or fittings of house. In the relation of man’s profession and his conduct; between a man’s work and the spirit in which he does it. Broken harmony is unpleasing to us. Clean work calls for clean hands. Now, God’s work, whatever form it takes, is holy work; and we never undertake it aright, save as due impressions of its holiness rest upon us. God himself is most holy. His gospel most holy. Immortal souls, as objects of his redeeming love, most holy. The Word that brings healing and life most holy. And, therefore, everybody who comes into relation with these Divine persons and things ought to be toned in harmony with them. Open how this presses on us the importance of spiritual culture.
II. CLEANNESS AS FITNESS FOR OUR WORK, AND POWER IN DOING IT. It is, in fact, our endowment. We often think of holiness as quality, but we need to discern that it is power, and our best power; the feather that wings our arrow; the nerve-force that gives energy to our blow; the mesmeric influence before which even stem, hard souls must yield. The pure do the best work in the world for God. Saintly souls are almost almighty.R.T.
Isa 52:14
Surprise at the appearance of God’s Servant.
Whatever may be the immediate and historical reference of this term “servant,” of this we may feel quite surethe full reference must be to Messiah, and to the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah. Now, it is certainly singular that no trustworthy traces of the appearance of our Lord have come down to us. Everybody may imagine for himself what were the features and expression of his Divine Master; and it is better that our free imaginations should have no limitations to the representation of any artistic genius. We remember in an exhibition observing a number of paintings of the thorn-crowned head. The faces of our Lord precisely differed according as the artist was Spanish, Italian, or English, or had made the uncertain attempt of creating a face of Jewish type. All that Scripture asserts is that, so far as face and form were concerned, there was nothing arresting about Christ; you might have passed him by as a common man. It is even suggested that, as with his servant Paul, men might have rudely said that his “bodily presence was contemptible.” Dean Plumptre remarks, “These words (of Isa 52:14) conflict strangely with the type of pure and holy beauty with which Christian art has made us familiar as its ideal of the Son of man. It has to be noted, however, that the earlier forms of that art, prior to the time of Constantine, and, in some cases, later, represented the Christ as worn, emaciated, with hardly any touch of earthly comeliness; and that it is at least possible that the beauty may have been of expression rather than of feature or complexion”
I. WHAT MESSIAH WASIN FACT. In no way striking. Not aristocratic-looking, or handsome, or big. Just a man, simple, undistinguished-looking. Dekker, one of our early English poets, says
“The best of men that e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.”
II. WHAT MESSIAH WASCONTRARY TO EXPECTATION. Jewish hopes fashion a hero-king, a patriot like Judas Maccabaeus, a restorer of David’s line of kings. Instead, he was a simple Man, who lived a life; a Sufferer who bore a burden of peculiar sorrows; a Man who seemed to end his life in failure and shame.
III. WHY WAS MESSIAH THUS DIFFERENT TO ALL EXPECTATION OF HIM? Because men are so enslaved to the literal, the temporal, the earthly. There was nothing in the Man to attract, because God would have us feel the attractions of the Divine Saviour.R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 52:1-2. Awake, &c. This second apostrophe is again directed to the church, about the time of the manifestation of the kingdom of God. The prophet, by the Spirit, beholds this church, heretofore brought out of Egypt, and delivered from the Assyrians, again, to its great grief, mixed with the profane and impure multitude, by whose means the name of God was daily blasphemed, Isa 52:5. He commands her, therefore, to lay aside her old dress, which was suitable to the ancient dispensation, and to assume a new and spiritual one, as being now about to enter upon that state and oeconomy, which should exclude the hypocrite and profane. The metaphor is taken from a virgin, or any woman in distress, to whom, sitting as a captive, amidst grief and defilement, her bridegroom or husband being absent, news of immediate deliverance are brought, and of the change of her present condition for the better; wherein, united to her husband, she should enjoy all the prosperity that she desired; and who for that purpose is ordered to dress and adorn herself agreeably to this state. By the uncircumcised and the unclean, are to be understood, in a mystical sense, the impure in heart and work. See 2Co 7:1. Rev 21:27.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
IV.THE FOURTH DISCOURSE
The Restoration of the City Jerusalem
Isaiah 52
This chapter closely connects with 51. We see this even outwardly by Awake, Awake, Isa 52:1, which plainly refers back to the same words, Isa 51:9. The Isa 51:17-23 we have already recognized as a transition to chap. 52 from the fact that in them the discourse of Jehovah exchanges with that of the Prophet, and that Jerusalem is addressed. But by Jerusalem, then, we must understand the population of Jerusalem, whereas chap. 52 deals entirely with the city as such, i, e., with the holy places ( ). At the same time in chap. 52 the Prophet alone speaks, or at least only as the publisher of the words of Jehovah. The chapter divides into two parts. In the first (Isa 52:1-6) the Prophet shows why the city of the sanctuary must be restored. The name, i.e., the honor of Jehovah demands it. In the second part (Isa 52:7-12) the holy place looks forward immediately to the entrance of its holy inhabitants, who come, under Jehovahs guidance, from the unholy land. We observe the accomplishment of the restoration.
1. THE NAME OF JEHOVAH DEMANDS THE RESTORATION OF JERUSALEM
Isa 52:1-6
1Awake! awake! put on thy strength, O Zion;
Put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city:
For henceforth there shall no more come into thee
The uncircumcised and the unclean.
2Shake thyself from the dust;
Arise, 1and sit down, O Jerusalem:
Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck,
O captive daughter of Zion.
3For thus saith the Lord,
Ye have 2sold yourselves for nought;
And ye shall be redeemed without money.
4For thus saith the Lord God [Jehovah],
My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there;
And the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5Now therefore, what have I here, saith the Lord,
3That my people is taken away for nought?
4They that rule over them make them to howl, saith the Lord;
And my name continually 5every day is blasphemed.
6Therefore my people shall know my name:
Therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak:
6Behold it is I.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa 52:2, Hithp, of like meaning with , , ,; Isa 52:3; Isa 52:5, .
Isa 52:2. cannot be construed with , so as to read: sit upright (Gesen.). For the Prophet certainly does not mean that Jerusalem shall sit up; it must stand up, i.e., raise itself up wholly. Nor can (with Koppe, Hitzig), be rendered captive people; for then there must be between and . Rather is imperative from .From this it appears that I do not take in Isa 52:2, a, as subject, but as in apposition with the subject. The subject is . One might also regard as the object of . But it seems to me better to suit the context and also Isaiahs style of thought generally, to take Jerusalem as meaning the unity of city and inhabitants. Then, too, it results that the clause is to be construed as a parenthesis, and that Kri is the correct, original reading.
Isa 52:5. is part. Hithpoel or Hithpoal, with assimilated .
Isa 52:6. In the second clause is repeated (comp. the repetition of Isa 59:18) but not , which must be supplied.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The first two verses contain the theme. In Isa 52:1 the holy city is summoned to awake to consciousness of new strength and new glory, for from henceforth it will be preserved from all desecration. In Isa 52:2 the captive people of Jerusalem is summoned to shake itself from the dust of the captivity, to cast away the chains and now again to dwell, as Jerusalem. On the promise follows an historical proof (Isa 52:3-4). Jerusalem is like a worthless possession, given away to the enemy without gain or compensation; so it shall without gain for the enemy be redeemed (Isa 52:3). For what gain had the Lord when His people languished in Egyptian bondage, and when Assyria oppressed it (Isa 52:4)? And now, too, i.e., after the deportation of the nation by the Babylolonians, the Lord has in Jerusalem nothing but an empty place. The people are dragged away into exile; its oppressors howl in cruelty and haughtiness, while the name of the Lord is continually blasphemed as that of a powerless, conquered God (Isa 52:5). But as it is impossible for the name of the Lord to remain covered with this infamy, the Lord will again reveal His name to His people. They shall at the right time know who is their God, and what it means when He says: here am I (Isa 52:6).
2. Awakedaughter of Zion.
Isa 52:1-2. This address to Zion begins with the same words that Isa 51:9 begin the address to the arm of Jehovah. It is like an echo which that call has found in the heart of Jehovah. It seems to me incorrect to take (with Dathe, Gesen., Hitzig, etc.), in the sense of ornament, splendor, according to Psa 96:6; Psa 132:8. Why should Jerusalem become merely glorious again? Why not strong and glorious, after having been weak and covered with infamy? The figurative expression occurs only here (comp. Isa 61:10). That by Zion is to be understood the city, as also Hitzig, Knobel, Delitzsch have recognized, appears plainly from . This expression (comp. on Isa 48:2) intimates wherein the strength and glory of Jerusalem consists. As the earthly dwelling-place of Jehovah, Jerusalem stands high in power and honor above all other dwelling-places of men on earth. But hitherto the holy city was only too often exposed to desecration by the uncircumcised and the unclean (the heathen) coming into the city, not with the intent of paying humble homage, but with a hostile intent. As often as this happened, it was a proof that Jerusalem had so far lost its strength as not to be able to protect its , magnificence. In the future that shall not happen again. The strength of Jerusalem shall ever be so great that it will be able to preserve its magnificence. The words are repeated, Nah 2:1, in which verse the initial words of both clauses are taken from our text and Isa 52:7 (comp. on Isa 51:19-20). Into Jerusalem, now clothed with new power and honor, the banished people shall enter again. They had languished in slavery. They had lain in the dust (Isa 47:1). Jerusalem must rise up from the dust (Isa 33:9; Isa 33:15), shaking it off, and stand up, and dwell again as Jerusalem (see Text. and Gram.). Neither the city without people, nor the people without city is the true Jerusalem. The chief thing is that Jerusalem will cease to be a desert, and become inhabited again by its people as it ought to be.
3. For thus saithit is I.
Isa 52:3-6. The foregoing promise of a restored Jerusalem is now accounted for by explaining that the honor of Jehovah Himself demanded the restoration. For, says the Lord, ye were sold for nothing. here can only mean that in surrendering the holy people, the holy land, and the holy city, the Lord received no corresponding indemnification. [Comp. Psa 44:12.] For there was given to Him no other holy people, land, or city for them. Therefore He had, as it were, in respect to earthly possession, got only injury, yea, as Isa 52:5 even says, mockery and scorn to boot (comp. Isa 48:9 sqq.). That cannot go on so. The infamy, that has in this way come on the name of the Lord, must be washed out by His making those nations, (who might mock after the fashion intimated Num 4:15 sq.; Deu 9:28; Eze 20:14), feel His power in such a way as simply to compel them to surrender the people of Israel. This is the meaning of and ye shall be redeemed without money. Isa 52:4-5 give the historical proof that Israel was sold for nothing. The first time was in Egypt, while Israel dwelt there as a stranger. The Prophet merely intimates this. Regarding the Egyptian bondage one sees this from the fact that he designates the entire Egyptian episode by the words . By (according to Gen 12:10, where it is said of Abraham) he seems to allude merely to the original object of the going down to Egypt. But we see from that he means all that Israel experienced in Egypt. For those that went down were as yet no nation. But it was just the nation that must suffer all that, on account of which their stay in Egypt is called the first example of being sold. Also the expression and the Assyrian oppressed them is merely an intimation. Every sort of injury that Assyria did both to the kingdom of Israel, and to the kingdom of Judah is included in it. What did the Lord get by that first Egyptian exile? Nothing, but that, for the time being, the already chosen and consecrated land stood empty. The plan of the Lord to provide for Himself a place of revelation and worship, which He had already begun to realize through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, suffered by that a postponement of several hundred years. Assyria, too, ill-treated Israel , i.e., for nothing ( defectus, not being, comp. on Isa 41:29, with the pretii only here, yet comp. Job 7:6). For what equivalent in goods of like sort was given to the Lord in place of what He lost by Assyria? Third, the Lord looks on the condition He sees created by the Babylonian Exile. , in my opinion, can be referred neither to heaven (Hitzig), nor to the lands of the Babylonian exile (Rosenmueller, Stier, Ewald, Umbreit, Delitzsch and, in another sense, Knobel). Was then Jehovah transported to Babylon along with the people? The context every way demands that we refer to Jerusalem. For 1) the holy city ( Isa 52:1), is the fundamental thought of the chapter. It treats of the reinhabiting of it, as its standing empty was opposed to Jehovahs interests. To this standing empty there is plain enough allusion in My people went down into Egypt Isa 52:4; less plainly in the Assyrian oppressed them. But Assyria had only wished to empty the holy city, and only partly emptied the holy land. 2) It is quite plain that in for my people is taken away the Lord has before His eyes the desolation of the holy land and city. If the people are taken away, then the land and city are empty. In that case what does the Lord find there? Shall the beasts and the land do Him honor? Is it not His will to reveal Himself to men, and to be known and honored by them? No; more extendedly than He does in regard to Egypt and Assyria, the Lord shows that Babylon has emptied His land and city , i.e., without a corresponding equivalent of like sort. And, indeed, they do this with wicked haughtiness. They are rough, savage drivers, that with wild howls use their power over Israel. With most commentators, I refer those that rule over them to the Chaldeans (Isa 14:5; Isa 49:7). The Israelitish princes would hardly be called , seeing they had nothing more to command. They were at most . The meaning singers is not adequately supported by Num 21:27, and moreover does not suit the context. , rendered by the LXX. sometimes , sometimes , occurs only thirty times in the Old Testament (nine of these in Isaiah see List), and means chiefly the howl of woe. But I cant see why it may not signify other sorts of howling, as howl of rage, howl of vengeance, howl of victory, just as well as our German heulen and the Latin ululare, with which, moreover, it is radically related. It is certainly no flattering expression. The overweening conquerors, that do not spare the people, spare their God as little. They praise their idols as being more powerful (Isa 10:10 sq.). Hence the Lord must complain that His name is blasphemed the whole day (comp. Isa 51:13; Isa 28:24; Isa 62:6; Isa 65:2; Isa 65:5).
The conclusion is drawn in Isa 52:6 : because Jerusalems desolation is of no profit to the Lord, but rather an injury to His honor, the Lord will reveal His name, i.e., His being (Isa 30:27). Israel shall know what his name is, i.e., what it means, or what sort of a name it is. Whether one think of or or , in each of these names, and still more in all together, there lies the meaning of the absolute, eternal, powerful being. In that day points to the time in which the Lord has concluded the restoration of Jerusalem. When this time is fulfilled, one will appear and say: here am I. Then Israel shall know that this is its God, Jehovah. For He will speak His here am I so powerfully, so precluding all opposition, that all will recognize the Lord and Master of the world. Thus the Prophet has proved that the restoration of Jerusalem must necessarily follow.
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2. THE RESTRORATION ACCOMPLISHED
Isa 52:7-12
7How beautiful upon the mountains
Are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace;
That bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation;
That saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
87Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice;
With the voice together shall they sing:
8For they shall see eye to eye,
When the Lord shall bring again Zion.
9Break forth into joy, sing together,
Ye waste places of Jerusalem:
For the Lord hath comforted his people,
He hath redeemed Jerusalem.
10The Lord hath made bare his holy arm
In the eyes of all the nations;
And all the ends of the earth
Shall see the salvation of our God.
11Depart ye ! Depart ye! go ye out from thence,
Touch no unclean thing;
Go ye out of the midst of her;
9Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.
12For ye shall not go out with haste,
Nor go by flight:
For the Lord will go before you;
And the God of Israel will 10be your rereward.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa 52:7, . particip.; Isa 52:11, , imper. Niph.; Isa 52:12, .
Isa 52:7, is Pilel from , for according to the law underlying the formation of these verbs, stands for . and for ; [see Green 174, 1]
Isa 52:11. is imper. Niph. from .
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. In an exalted poetic personification the Prophet describes the actual accomplishment of the restoration of Jerusalem. He sees Jerusalem in ruins and uninhabited, yet the ruins are watched by spirit-spies that wait for the resurrection of the city. And look! A messenger comes with the glad news: Jehovah is King (Isa 52:7). And then the spies rejoicing see eye in eye the Lord returning to Zion (Isa 52:8). Then the ruins of Jerusalem are summoned to rejoice that the Lord has redeemed His people and His city (Isa 52:9), and has shown the strength of His arm and His salvation to all nations (Isa 52:10). Now also there issues at length to the people of Jerusalem the summons to return home from the lands of exile. But, since Jerusalem is now cleansed and sanctified anew, they must touch nothing unclean, and must be cleansed themselves and bear the vessels of Jehovah (Isa 52:11). For this cleansing they will have time. For they will not go out in haste as in the flight from Egypt, since Jehovah Himself will both lead their expedition and protect their rear against attack (Isa 52:12). It is seen that here, too, the Prophet distinguishes between the city and the inhabitants, and sees in the reunion of both the salvation of the future.
2. How beautifulof our God.
Isa 52:7-10. The words: upon the mountains publisheth peace occur again Nah 2:1 (Isa 1:15), where also, in the second half of the verse, are found the words forshall no more pass through thee, which are a modification of the language of Isa 52:1. If we were correct in pronouncing the passage Isa 51:19 to be the original in comparison with Nah 3:7, it follows that there is a like relationship in the present instance. But apart from that, Nahum in the present instance appears as a dilution of our text. How flat is his instead of the very poetical ! Lowth remarks that, the imitation does not equal the beauty of the original. And does not this have the appearance of an attempt to avoid the difficulty of the proper signification of ? Moreover is manifestly a smoother mode of expression, more accordant with common usage, than the harsher and less frequent (Isa 52:1). And it may be further noted, that , which Nahum uses for , occurs shortly before in Isaiah (Isa 51:23), so that Nah 2:1 b (Isa 1:15 b) appears to be combined from the elements of Isa 51:23; Isa 52:1.
How beautiful (lovely) are the feet. The expression refers neither to the sound nor to the sight of the feet (that bound like gazelles over the mountains Delitzsch); but is a poetical metonymy. The feet stand for what they do. The feet walk, come. The coming, the advent of the messenger of good tidings is lovely (so Lowth). The coming over the mountains is also poetic embellishment (comp. on Isa 13:4). It is not probable that is to be taken collectively, Why not use the plural directly? And why suppose a plurality of messengers? It would be neither more poetical, nor historically more likely. , The contents of the glad tidings is presented in a sacred triad. One might say that peace is most general (comp. Isa 9:5-6 and the greeting ), good refers more to corporeal goods (comp. 1Ki 10:7; Job 22:18; Psa 104:28), salvation more to spiritual salvation (, hence the name of the Redeemer ). But all are comprehended in the words thy God reigneth. The antithesis to this is the dominion of the world-power. The kingdom of God denotes the sole dominion of Jehovah on earth, that implies the discontinuance of the dominion of all that is world-power. The return from the Exile represents only the feeble beginning of the restoration of Gods reign. When John the Baptist and Jesus Himself proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mat 3:2; Mat 4:17), the latter was about to lay the immediate foundation of it. But the whole period of the Church is as a pause, during which, along with many outward retrogressions, there is only a quiet, inward extension and deepening, and a weak, partial outward progress (comp. Rom 10:15 [where Paul quotes our Text. Tr.]). The completion will only take place when the Lord will come again visibly to realize His inward and outward sole dominion on earth (Rev 12:10; Rev 19:6). All these periods of time are comprehended in the gaze of the Prophet.
The cry of the messenger of good news comes from without. It is heard in Jerusalem by the [watchers]. As Jerusalem still lies waste, these must be invisible, spirit-watchers, as it were the genii of the place. I do not comprehend how any one can think that the prophets are meant here. Were there then prophets in Jerusalem while it lay waste? And yet the message came to Jerusalem and not to the exiles. [The Authors own conception must be regarded as inferior to any other that has been entertained. It is objectionable even as introducing heathenish imagery which is wholly foreign to Bible poetry. If these watchers are genii of the locality as it were, then, as in effect is said below, the messenger of good news is a similar genius? But the persons of the scene are all personifications, and Jerusalem itself is treated dramatically. It is represented as looking for the good things to come. Watchers are on the look-out, and the expected messenger appears. The language paints the emotions of such a crisis. The Jerusalem of this picture is not a solitude, as the Author says, but is expressly peopled. It is Jerusalem ideally conceived to suit the spiritual realities of this prophecy. To identify the messengers or watchers as prophets or the like is an unnecessary restriction and objectionable, as it mars the unity and beauty of the scene presented, which is simply that of a messenger of good news drawing near to a walled town, whose watchmen take up and repeat his tidings to the people within (J. A. Alex.).Tr.] is an exclamation as Isa 13:4; Isa 40:3; Isa 40:6; Isa 56:6. Like a joyful echo the rejoicing of the spies11 responds to the shout of the messenger. But they rejoice not merely at the message, but more that they may behold the instant fulfilment of it. For eye in eye ( Num 14:14) they see Jehovahs return to Jerusalem. That may not be translated here to lead back [Eng. V. bring again ] appears from the fact that the bringing back of the people is not yet spoken of, but only the return of Jehovah to Jerusalem, which He had forsaken as a desolate and desecrated place (comp. Isa 52:5). The spies see the Lord., take possession again of the place of His sanctuary. No man sees that. As the and the are spirits, therefore, that return is one invisible to human eyes, but quite within the cognizance of the eyes of spirits (hence ) It is accomplished in transcendent, spirit-corporeal reality. The desolate ruins of Jerusalem, however, are summoned to burst forth into joy because Jehovah has compassionated His people (Isa 51:3), has redeemed Jerusalem. The Prophet sees in that transcendental occupation of Jerusalem the guaranty and principle of the redemption. The perfects and are perfecta prophetica. And parallel with these perfects stands also Isa 52:10. For by the redemption of Jerusalem the spiritual eye sees unveiled also to the nations what hitherto was manifest only to the former. The Lord hath made bare His holy arm means, that that redemption shall be made manifest to the nations as Jehovahs act. I do not think, therefore, that the expression here is to be compared to that baring of the arm that the warrior does in order to fight with more freedom. But the sense is as in Isa 53:1; Exo 8:15 (19); Luk 11:20. Jehovah reveals Himself to the nations as the originator of the events by which the redemption of Israel is accomplished, that all the ends of the earth (Isa 45:22) may see with eyes the salvation that the Lord has prepared for His people.
3. Depart yeyour rereward.
Isa 52:11-12. Now that the Lord has again seized possession of His anciently chosen holy place, the people of Israel also is summoned to return thither from the lands of exile. They must get away ( comp. Isa 30:11; Lam 4:15) and go out. But as they are to come to the holy city, into which nothing unholy must come (comp. Isa 52:1), they must not make themselves unclean by contact with what is unclean. Yea, as the holy vessels, (which the Prophet implies have been taken away as spoil,) are to be brought back along with them (comp. Ezr 1:7 sqq.), they must undergo the legal requirements of purification. The Prophet has certainly in mind here the Levites and the purification prescribed for them (Num 8:6 sqq.) since, during the journey through the desert, the service of bearing devolved especially on them (Num 4:47, comp. Isa 52:24 sqq., Isa 52:49). Our passage recalls Isa 35:8, where the way on which the redeemed return is called a holy way, that nothing unclean shall go on, Abundance of time and opportunity will be given to prepare for the holy expedition by suitable purification. For this departure shall differ from the departure out of Egypt in not being in haste and like a flight. The latter was like a flight, because those long detained by Pharaoh were obliged to avail themselves of the moment he was willing to let them go. For he might suddenly change his mind, even though at that time men were urging their departure (Exo 12:33; Exo 12:39). But from the second exile Israel should go forth as lord and conqueror (comp. Isa 46:1-2; Isa 47:1 sqq.). haste, which Isaiah uses nowhere else, is manifestly an allusion to Exo 12:11, where it is said of eating the Passover: and ye shall eat it , and Deu 16:3, where in reference to the unleavened bread it is said: for in haste () thou earnest forth from the land of Egypt. As only occurs in our text and the two passages in Deut., so, too, occurs again only Lev 26:36, where of wicked and exiled Israel it is said, that, in the land of its enemies, it shall become cowardly and inclined to groundless . Thus in the choice of the word , there appears to be an allusion intended. Israel went out from Egypt also under the protection and guidance of its God. But it was in haste and as if fleeing. If then it is promised here that the departure from Babylon (the suffix refers to Babylon) shall not be so, (and that because the Lord will go before the expedition and close it up (agmen claudens, alluding to Jos 6:9; Jos 6:13; Num 10:25), we must suppose that the Prophet implies an activity of God in guiding and protecting in reference to their enemies, such as is described in the passages cited above: Isa 46:1-2; Isa 47:1 sqq.; comp. Isa 45:1-2; Isa 48:14; Isa 48:20.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 52:1-6. This comforting assurance applies especially also to the spiritual Zion, the Church of Christ. It should ever arouse itself to be courageous and joyous in the midst of outward distress and weakness. The true Church is the holy city of God in which are found nothing but righteous and holy ones, gloriously adorned with the robe of Christs righteousness and with garments of salvation (Isa 61:10), strong in the Lord., and in the power of His might, (Eph 6:10), able to do all things through Christ who strengtheneth them, (Php 4:13), whose strength is mighty even in the weak (2Co 12:9), whereby they are strengthened with all might according to His glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness (Col 1:11), free from the bands of their neckfrom sins as the snares of the devil by whom they were taken captive at his will (2Ti 2:26). (For because they were sold for nothing under sin, i.e. to the pure loss of their Creator and Lordthey shall also be redeemed for nothing, i.e., without their robber and oppressor receiving any indemnity). So the church becomes a congregation that has neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing, but is holy and unblameable (Eph 5:27). In the visible church (of the called) there are indeed many unclean, unholy hypocrites, like chaff amid the corn (Mat 3:12), like bad fish in a net (Mat 13:48), these will in due time be separated from the believers and elect and be cast into everlasting fire. Whereas the others shall be led into everlasting life, into the kingdom of everlasting glory (Mat 25:46). Let us therefore gratefully acknowledge and lay hold on the precious grace of Christ that we may be found among the number of the elect.Renner.
2. On Isa 52:1-6. If God has promised us redemption from the wicked world, as He has doubtless done, so ought we to flee out of it every day with all our thinking and imagining and doing. Israel had the command never to settle firmly forever in Babylon, but to await in faith their departure and to be ready for it. To this end Zion should put on her divine strength, her spiritual adornment, i.e. the faith unto righteousness, that she may become as a new, purified congregation free for herself. That came to pass first in the New Testament when Gods people were founded not any more on things earthly, but only upon the gracious word of God which each one can receive in faith. Faith is the greatest power on earth, for it partakes of the omnipotence of God, Therefore Gods people, when they strengthen themselves in faith, will break their bondage, and the world (which has indeed never paid God for the dominion with which it has long plagued us, but was only used for a season against us as a rod of anger) must, against its will, let the church go free. Israel was indeed a guest in Egypt, and later Assyria ill-used it. But now it is still worse; the world is ever more enraged against us. God will not always let it go on so; but because the heathen, in their conceit, boast and triumph over Israel, as if by their own might they had them and even their God in their power, God will reveal Himself to His people with glorious help. Diedrich.
3. On Isa 52:7. Est cottatio legis et evangelii et commendatio Christi loquentis per apostolos suos. Qui docent legem, sunt tristes bubones et terrent ululatu suo sed nuntii evangelii habent amabiles pedes, afferunt enim laetissimum verbum pro conscientiis turbatis. Luther.
4. On Isa 52:7. Such poor wretched people, who know nothing of God, are not aware of their own misery and everlasting need, who are over head and ears in sin, and know not how to help the least of them,I say, what better, greater, more joyful, can happen to such people than such a messenger, who, in the first place, announces peace, i.e. who brings the certain tidings that God would be at peace with us, and neither condemn nor be angry with us on account of our sins. On the other hand, who preaches good tidings of good, i.e. he gives the comfort that God will not only not punish according to out desert, but will give and vouchsafe to us His Spirit, His righteousness and all grace. In the third place, who proclaims salvation, i.e. who promise? and comforts us with the assurance that we shall be helped against the devil and death forever. And to comprehend all in one morsel, who can say in truth to Zion, i.e., to believers, thy God is king, i.e. God Himself will receive thee, He will Himself be thy Lord and King; He Himself will teach and instruct thee with His mouth, He Himself will protect thee, and neither office will He any longer devolve on men, but will execute Himself. Veit Deitrich.
5. On Isa 52:8. Preachers ought to be watchers (Eze 3:17). Therefore they ought neither to be silent about sins and a scandalous life, nor about spreading doctrine that is false. If they are so, they are dumb dogs (Isa 56:9). Cramer.
6. On Isa 52:9-10. When the conversion of the Jews takes place, it will not happen in a corner, but be so glorious and conspicuous that every one must confess: the Lord has done that. Starke.
7. On Isa 52:11-12. Dost thou like to keep company with the wicked, and wouldst yet be a Christian? That cannot be; for what communion has light with darkness (2Co 6:14)? Christians are holy people. How would it ever do to make ones self unclean with sinners? Therefore sigh in all earnestness: Create in me a clean heart, O God, etc. (Psa 51:12).The Church of Christ and every true believer has in Christ a faithful guide and leader, a mighty protector in distress. If they journey at His command and in their calling, He goes before them. Starke.
8. On Isa 52:11. This passage is cited by the Roman Catholics as authority for the celibacy of the priests. The Apology of the Conf. August. remonstrates against this application of the passage in Art. 11. De conjugio sacerdotum, p. 248, ed Hase; comp. pp. 241, 27; 244, 41.
On Isa 52:12. Est insignis exhortatio, ut simplici fide in solum Christum, ducem nostrum, respiciamus, qui nos colliget, ut maneamus in verbo et simus tuti ab omnibus peccatis. Sic legimus de quadam Sancta Moniali. Ea cum tentaretur ob admissa peccata, nihil aliud respondit, quam se Christianam esse. Sensit enim, se nec suis malis operibus damnari, quod haberet Christum, nee bonis operibus salvari posse, sed Christum pro se traditam victimam satisfecisse pro peccatis suis. Luther.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 52:1-6. Comfort and admonition to the church in time of distress. 1) Wherein the present distress consists (Isa 52:4-5 : how the world-power has ever been hostile to the kingdom of God); 2) What the church in this distress must correct in itself (Isa 52:2 : it must make itself inwardly free from worldliness); 3) What the church has to hope in this distress: a. that the Lord will defend His own honor (Isa 52:6); b. that He will not suffer His enemies to have the advantage (Isa 52:3 : He can for a while let them appear to have it by seeming to surrender His church to their enemies; but He will, at the right moment, take it away from them again); c. that in consequence of this the church will again become strong and glorious (Isa 52:1).
2. On Isa 52:7-10. The lovely harmony brought about in the church by the glad tidings of Christ; 1) In the messengers who start it; 2) In the doctrines that continue its sound; 3) In the hearts that re-echo it. Lauxmann, in Zeugnissen ev. Glaubens von V. F. Oehler, Stuttgart, 1869.
3. On Isa 52:11-12. The church of the Lord may come to a situation that will compel it to go out of its previous relations. In that case it is important to observe three things: 1) Not to defile itself by participating in the nature and practices of the world; 2) Not to act with imprudent haste or cowardly fear; 3) To confide in the guidance and protection of the Lord.
Footnotes:
[1]dwell as Jerusalem.
[2]been sold for.
[3]for.
[4]Their rulers howl.
[5]all day.
[6]Here am I.
[7]Hark, thy watchmen t They raise the voice! Together they rejoice.
[8]For eye m eye they see, as Jehovah returns to Zion.
[9]Cleanse yourselves.
[10]Heb. gather you up.
[11][The Author uses the word Spher. Its common meaning is spies or scouts. It is therefore so rendered in the text, and also because he interprets the scene as a solitude, and the as look-outs watching for the resurrection of the city (see ab. p. 565). They are therefore no watchmen in any ordinary sense: not even guardian genii, but only as it were ghostly videttes. One must wonder why the service would require many, i.e., enough to get up a scene of popular rejoicing such as the passage depicts. The entire conception is so extraordinary that the temptation has been strong to translate Spher watchers, and thus gloss over what seems to be the Authors peculiar idea. He amplifies It below.TR.]
V.THE FIFTH DISCOURSE
Golgotha and Sheblimini [sit at my right hand.Tr.]
Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12
The transition from Isa 52:12 to Isa 52:13 is abrupt only in outward appearance. The attentive reader will see that inwardly there has been due preparation for it. For it was said already, Isa 49:3-4, that the Servant of the Lord, by whom the Lord will glorify Himself, will be surprised by this success as the unexpected reward of His afflictions. It is said, moreover, Isa 49:5-6; Isa 49:8 sqq., that the restoration of Jerusalem will be accomplished by the Servant of the Lord. Also, Isa 50:1, it is said, that Israels sin was the ground of its repudiation. In the same chapter, ver.4 sqq., is described the readiness of the Servant of the Lord to endure the sufferings laid on Him. Our present section (Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12; the erroneous division of chapters arose from supposing that Isa 52:13-15 continues, as the foregoing context, to speak of the people of Israel) shows us how these two particulars are inwardly connected: the sufferings that the Servant of Jehovah must bear, and which make Him appear as a refuse of mankind (Isa 49:7) are nothing else than the atoning sufferings that He representatively takes on Himself, but from which He will issue as the high, glorious and mighty Ruler (comp. Isa 49:7 with Isa 52:13; Isa 52:15; Isa 53:12).
Chapters 4957 are like a wreath of glorious flowers intertwined with black ribbon, or like a song of triumph, through whose muffled tone there courses the melody of a dirge, yet so that gradually the mournful chords merge into the melody of the song of triumph. And at the same time the discourse of the Prophet is arranged with so much art that the mourning ribbon ties into a great bow exactly in the middle. For chap. 53 forms the middle of the entire prophetic cycle of chaps. 4066. It has four chapters of the second Ennead, and thirteen chapters of the second and first Enneads before it, and four chapters of the second Ennead and thirteen chapters of the second and third Enneads after it.
Who is the Servant of God, that forms the chief object of our prophecy? That we are not to think of Uzziah, Hezekiah, Josiah, Jeremiah (Saadia, Grotius, Bunsen, K. A. Menzel, Stoats u. Relig. Gesch. der Knigr. Israel u. Juda., Breslau, 1853, p. 298 sq.), or even of Isaiah himself, hardly requires proof at the present day (comp. Gesenius Komm. p. 170 sqq.). Or need we pause to refute the view, that the whole Jewish people is the Servant of God, that therefore the speakers Isa 53:2 sqq. are the heathen who recognize that Israel has borne their (the heathen) sins? This is the view that the Rabbins put forward since they have begun to carry on polemics with Christians. But even Christian expositors have joined them, among whom Hitzig is to be named foremost. But it has often been shown, that Israel did not suffer as an innocent for the guilty heathen, but that it suffered for its own guilt; and that it has not borne its sufferings meekly, but with sullen anger, and, as far as possible, with obstinate resistance. Comp. especially McCaul, The doctrine and exposition of the 53 of Isaiah.V. Fr. Oehler, Der knecht Jehovahs im Deuterojesaja II., p. 66 sqq.Wuensche, Die Leiden, des Messias, Leipzig, 1870, p. 35 sqq. Many Rabbins, indeed, as David Kimchi and Isaak Troki, have modified this view, saying, that not Israel thinks thus of itself, but the heathen will so say, when they see that the faith of Israel is the truth, and on the contrary their faith is error (Wuensche, l. c., p. 36). On the other hand, McCaul has called attention to the fact that Isa 53:11-12, Jehovah Himself describes the suffering of His Servant as expiatory.Others understand that by the Servant of Jehovah is meant the ideal Israel, i.e., the higher unity of the nation. This higher unity suffered, not because it consisted of nothing but guilty ones, but, on the contrary, in spite of its consisting only partially of such. It suffered therefore, because not all had sinned and yet all must suffer, in a certain sense innocently, and is so far a prophecy (not prediction) relating to Christ. So Vatke (Religion des Alten Test., 1835). But to this it is to be objected, that this view amounts to a distinction between the better and worse part of the nation to which the text makes no reference whatever. For it manifestly does not contrast one part of the nation with another part, but the entire nation with the one Servant of God. The Prophet does not distinguish guilty and innocent in the nation. He sees in the nation only guilty ones. This he utters plainly, ver.Isaiah 6 : all we like lost sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.Others understand the true worshippers of Jehovah to be meant by the Servant of God. This is the view that Knobel represents. According to this the Prophet in Isa 53:2-6 speaks in the first person plural, because he puts himself among the people, and would be a voice out of the midst of the totality. His view of the sufferings of the Servant was only partially that of the nation, for the rest (viz., in respect to the cause of their sufferings) this ought to have been their view. That is, the sufferings of the Exile, which were regarded as punishments for the sins of the nation, concerned (according to Knobel) especially the true worshippers of Jehovah, who obstinately clung to their nationality, and were very zealous for Jehovah and opposed to idols. They were especially the . The mass of the people, on the other hand, that did not cling strictly to the ancestral religion, stood in good terms with the heathen, and, on the whole, found themselves in tolerable relations. This explanation is so unnatural and inwardly conflicting that it refutes itself. It would have the suffering Servant of Jehovah represent the true worshippers of Jehovah, and those, that in Isa 52:2-6 speak of the Servant in the first person plural, to be the apostate Israelites, constituting the great mass of the nation. Then the worshippers of Jehovah and those apostates are opponents. Yet verily the apostates can not speak of the worshippers of Jehovah with great reverence and deep sympathy. In their mouth the name Servant of Jehovah could only be used in mockery. They could only be supposed to say: It is well that such fools are among us: then the hatred of the heathen will discharge itself on them without hurting us. But that serves them right. Why do they not do as we? Why do they not howl along with the wolves? They might fare as well as we, were they only prudent. In some such way must the apostates speak of the worshippers of Jehovah, if their real sentiments were to appear. But the words sound quite otherwise, that, according to Knobel, come out of the midst of the nation. They are words of the highest reverence. Knobel feels this himself, and hence he makes the Prophet speak these words, expressing thereby, not what the mass of the people actually thought, but what they ought to have thought! How unnatural! The Prophet of Jehovah, who can only be thought of as a worshipper of Jehovah, speaks as the representative, not of such worshippers, but of the great apostate mass of the nation. He expresses, however, not, indeed, the sentiments that these actually harbored, but such as they ought to harbor! What comedy is this? Verily, if such a distinction between apostates and worshippers of Jehovah be allowed, the Prophet could only meet the former with rebuke. He could only hold up to them their apostacy and admonish them to bear the infamy of Jehovah with the true Israelites, rather than to roll it off, in craven treachery, on their fellow-countrymen.According to another view the Servant of Jehovah represents the prophetic class or the prophetic institution. Thus in various modifications especially Gesenius and Umbreit; whereas Hofmann understands that by the Servant of God is meant Christ indeed, but only as a prophet. What is said of the sufferings of the Servant does, indeed, in a general way, apply well enough to the prophetic calling; for the prophets were often enough obliged to suffer distress, judgment, contempt, death for the sake of that calling. Yet one thing remains, that under no circumstances can be said of a prophet, viz., that God the Lord cast on Him the guilt of the people, that He bore the sin of the people, that by His wounds the people were healed and made well. If, indeed, one is determined to find in our passage only the idea of suffering in a calling and not suffering as a representative, I must say that this is only possible by means of an artful exegesis, and refer to the following exposition for the proof of this opinion. Comp. moreover the Doctrinal and Ethical thoughts.
I hold the Messianic interpretation to be the only one that is natural and founded on the sound of the words. When Knobel affirms that the Old Testament knows nothing of a suffering Messiah, and that Deutero-Isaiah knows nothing of a Messiah at all, it just depends on the way one expounds the passages in question. If one does this in the way exhibited in the above sample of Knobels style of exegesis, then one can interpret away from every passage whatever he dislikes, and interpret whatever he likes into it. Whoever sees that Christ is the Lamb of God that bears away the sin of the world according to the eternal counsel of God already revealed in the Old covenant, must recognize the connection between this fact and Old Testament prophecy; he must especially recognize in Isaiah 53 the outline of that plan of salvation.
As, speaking generally, all types of the old covenant combine in the one image of the , so also, in a narrower sphere, the various typical forms of the Servant of Jehovah, given partly in the nation of Israel generally (Isa 41:8 sqq.), partly in the pious core of the nation (Isa 14:1-5), partly in the prophets (Isa 44:26), finally unite in the one figure of the personal Servant of Jehovah. As the species of primitive rock form both the deepest foundation and the highest summit of the earths body, so is Christ at once the original and fulfilment of all prophecy. He is in particular both the inmost core and the crowning summit of all typical forms of the Servant of Jehovah. It is to be observed, however, that the Servant of Jehovah is not a type-form co-ordinate with the types of the prophet, priest, and king. But He represents alone the character of the lowly, unsightly, pitiable Servant-form or the sorrowful form as far as that is common to all those type-forms. For that the Old Testament knows also a king of the sorrowful form is evident from Zec 9:9. Hence it is, of course, not correct to say, that in Isaiah 53 is drawn the form of the messianic Priest, King, or Prophet. For Isaiah 53 treats only of the Servant of Jehovah, and only of the Priest, King, or Prophet, so far as even in these also the poor, lowly Servant appears. Hence, too, one may not say that all the persons of the old covenant that have ever been designated (as servants and instruments of God) by the name Servant of Jehovah, are servants of God in the Isaianic sense. This specific Servant of Jehovah, that we find in Isaiah 40-53 as type of the poverty and lowliness of the Messiah, does not appear at all in the older writing. When Moses (Exo 14:31; Jos 1:1-2; Jos 1:13; Psa 105:26; 2Ki 18:12, etc.), Jacob (Gen 32:10), the Patriarchs (Exo 32:13; Deu 9:27) are designated by this name, it is as the servants of Jehovah, without giving prominence to the form of the servant. What servant-form would one find in the angels, who are also called the servants of God in Job 4:18? It is, indeed, possible that the idea of a servant-form veiling the inward glory gradually developed from observing the contrasts in the life of a David (comp. Psa 18:1; Psa 89:4; Psa 89:21; Psa 132:10; Psa 144:10; 2Sa 7:5; 2Sa 7:8; 2Sa 7:18; 2Sa 7:20 sq., etc.), of a Job (Isa 1:8; Isa 2:3; Isa 42:7-8) of the prophets (2Ki 9:7; 2Ki 9:36; 2Ki 10:10; 2Ki 14:25; 2Ki 17:23, etc.), yea, of the pious in general (Psa 19:12; Psa 19:14; Psa 31:17; Psa 35:27, etc.). But we first find this idea crystallized into a fixed form in the second part of Isaiah. Later writers may have taken the expression from Isaiah, and applied it in his sense, especially to the people of Israel (comp. Jer 30:10; Jer 46:27-28; Psa 136:22). But one must be on his guard about taking every use of the word by later writers in the Isaianic sense. Thus Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 25:9) is called servant of Jehovah, but certainly not in Isaiahs sense. Before and in Isaiah, is never found conjoined with any other name of God than . It is remarkable, that Moses, in later writings, beside being called (2Ch 1:3; 2Ch 24:9), is also called (1Ch 6:34; 2Ch 24:9; Neh 10:30; Dan 9:11).
Our prophecy subdivides into three parts. The first (Isa 52:13-15) contains the theme of the prophecy; the second (Isa 53:1-7 treats of the lowliness of the Servant; the third (Isa 53:8-12) treats of his exaltation.
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1. THE THEME OF THE PROPHECY
Isa 52:13-15
13Behold, my servant shall 12deal prudently,
He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
14As many were 13astonied at thee;
His visage was so marred more than any man,
And his form more than the sons of men:
15So shall he 14sprinkle many nations;
The kings shall shut their mouths at him:
15 For that which had not been told them shall they see;
And that which they had not heard shall they consider.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Ver.13. see List. The three-degree climax must neither be pressed, nor regarded as without significance. It is a rhetorical expedient for expressing the superlative (comp. Php 2:9; Act 2:33; Act 5:31; Eph 1:20 sqq.).That may mean to raise ones-self maybe seen Isa 30:18.The conjunction of and in that order is Isaianic: Isa 2:12-14; Isa 10:33.
Ver.14. is used here as in Exo 1:12 (Gesen.). Therefore, with most expositors, I hold the clause to be a parenthesis, that explains why many are astonished at the Servant. In regard to the change of person, there is notoriously great freedom in Hebrew, and also in Isa 1:29; Isa 2:6; Isa 14:30; Isa 33:2; Isa 33:6; Isa 41:1; Isa 42:20; Isa 14:8; Isa 14:21). Haevernick, (Theol. d. A. T., p. 248), Hahn and V. F. Oehler regard the two clauses with as the two degrees of the apodosis. Haevernick urges that does not mean adeo, and in that he is of course correct. It is only the comparative ita, not the intensive tam or adeo. But he is wrong in urging the rarity of the parenthesis in Hebrew, and asserting that can only introduce the apodosis. Hahn, who pronounces the change of persons carelessness, which one has not the least right to assume (he does not reflect, however, on the frequency of this usage!) is of the opinion, that as Isa 52:11-12 speak of Israel, and Isa 52:13 of the Servant, so, too, Isa 52:14 speaks first of Israel, and then of the Servant. But that is quite a superficial construction. For there is a chasm between Isa 52:12-13. With ver.13 there begins a new, specifically different section, and it is on the contrary quite unnatural and against the context to refer again to the nation. V. Fr. Oehler apparently avoids this unnaturalness by referring also ver.13 to the nation, and letting the transition to the servant begin with . But this construction also does violence to the text. from , Kal unused, Piel corrupit, pessum dedit, is any way . . Analogous formations corruptio, corruptum, Lev 22:25 and pernicies, Eze 9:1. It is uncertain and indifferent as to sense which is the chief form, or (syncopated from (Haevernick, et al.) or as e.g., , . The expression is explained from the capability of the preposition to express a negation. Deformity away from the man is deformity or disfigurement to an appearance no longer human. has an analogous meaning in the clause . For here also the literal meaning is: his form is away from men, i.e., no longer human.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. These verses, which by their contents necessarily belong to chap. 53 according to the common manner of the Prophet, stand in front as giving the theme. Ver.13 sets forth the final goal: the glory and sublimity of the Servant of Jehovah. But in roughest contrast with this stands the way that He must go in order to reach that goal: deepest suffering, by which He almost loses His human appearance (ver.14). But as the humiliation is deep, so is the exaltation high: the Gentile world and its kings will worship Him that is exalted out of suffering, for they, for whom the salvation appeared not to be destined, will also have a share in it (ver.15).
2. Behold my Servantthey consider.
Vers.1315. The expression points to the reciprocal relation of means and end. He that uses the means that lead to the end is wise. The Servant of God will use no false means, therefore He is wise. never of itself has the meaning of ; but in the sapienter rem gerere there is impliedly the bene rem gerere (comp. Jer 10:21; Pro 17:8). Hengstenberg sees in a retrospect to 1Sa 18:14-15 where this word is used of David (comp. 1Ki 2:3; Psa 101:2; 2Ki 18:7). But he seems to me to go too far when, according to the parallel passage cited, he understands to mean the wise administration of government, and Stier has properly protested against this construction. Yet we may suppose there is an allusion involving only comparison and not equalization. For the Servant of God appears here, not indeed as king, but as one that, like David, from a small, mean beginning worked himself aloft to high honor.
But the splendid description of ver.13 anticipates merely the end. This end crowns a course of development of the contrary character. It passes through night to light, per ardua ad astra. The vers.14, 15 say this. For many the Servant of God became an object of horror ( comp. Lev 26:32; Eze 27:35; Eze 28:19). But in the same proportion that He first provokes horror by the deformity of His appearance, He will later provoke wondering reverence. His visage was so marred,etc. [His look however was in that degree disfigured to the inhuman, and His form not like a son of mans. Dr. Naegelsbachs translation.Tr.]. These words are a parenthesis (see Text. and Gram.). There occurs accordingly a change of person, which, as Hengstenberg remarks, is explained by the parenthesis containing a remark of the Prophet, in which, naturally, the Servant is spoken of in the third person. But by this the continuation of Jehovahs discourse in ver.15 is also diverted from the second to the third person (see Text. and Gram.).
Since Isa 50:10 the expression servant has not been used. Chapters 51, 52 spoke of the people of Israel without applying to them the designation Servant of God. According to hlers exposition, in Isa 52:14 to Isa 53:12 also the personal Servant of God is not spoken of; and now Isa 52:13 must not be introduction to what follows, but recapitulation of what precedes! After previously speaking of Israels elevation, and bringing this contemplation to a close in every respect, is it now again to be discoursed on? A section treating of the personal Servant of God ought to begin with a statement having the Servant of God for subject, and yet this Servant of God must not be the one of whom the new section treats, but the one of which the foregoing section treated, yet without designating it as the Servant of God! In this way ver.13, from being a most suitable and artistic beginning of the new section, becomes an unsuitable conclusion of the foregoing one. Of course one will not venture to take in the sense of adeo, which it does not have. But it is equivalent to corresponding to, in that degree that, and involves the meaning that the horror of the people answers to the looks of the Servant, so that the former is prompted by the latter. There will be a certain equality between fortunate and unfortunate consequences, in the same degree that one was horrified at Him, He will also provoke joyful wonder and reverence (Isa 52:15). is to spring, and with the exception of our text is used in the Old Testament (in twenty places) only of the springing or spurting of fluids. It occurs in this sense also Isa 63:3. This use is especially frequent in the Pentateuch, where the various acts of purification and consecration are spoken of, which were performed by sprinkling with blood or water. Hence very many expositors, following the Vulg., and Syr., as Luther, Vatabl., Forer., Grotius(who yet also approved the of the LXX. since he says, minari est veluti aspergi fulgore alicujus, for which Vitringa reproves him sharply), Lowth (whom however this exposition does not satisfy), Rambach, Hengstenberg, Haevernick, Hahn,etc. [Barnes, J. A. Alex., Birks,etc.], have taken in the sense of asperget, [to asperse, besprinkle] and have considered the reference to be to the atoning power of the blood of Christ (Christus virtutem sanguinis a se fusi instar Magni Pontificis domus Dei applicabit ad purificationem conscientiarum gentium multarum. Vitringa). This explanation was the one generally received by the church. But it is correctly objected to it, that never means to be–sprinkle but always to spout, to make burst, and is always followed by the accusative of the spurted fluid, with or of the remoter object that is spurted on. Perhaps on this account the Targ. Jonat., then Saadia and Abenezra gave the rendering disperget. But apart from this meaning not being grammatically established, it does not at all suit the context. There has been an effort to change the reading. Thus the Englishmen Durell and Jubb, whom Lowth quotes, would read , which they then take in the sense of the of the LXX.: so shall many nations wonder at him. But Piel of never occurs, and the meaning would be dragged in. J. Dav. Michaelis would point after the Arabic naziha (amoenus fuit, oblectavit), accordingly the sense would be: so shall He be the delight of many Gentiles. This conjecture, also, must be called too far-fetched. The most satisfactory explanation is the one now approved by most expositors (since Ch. Dav. Martini,Comment. philol. crit. in Jes. cap. 53 Rost. 1791): He will make spring up, which springing up is taken either as the expression of joy or of astonishment, surprise, or of reverence, and is construed in antithesis to Isa 52:14. Also Stier, Delitzsch, V. Fr. hler share this view. I side with them because I know of nothing better. The thought in itself, indeed, seems to me suitable. For one can, of course, suppose that the Prophet means to oppose to that horror with which the suffering Servant was regarded, a surprised springing up proceeding from respectful astonishment. One might quote as a parallel Isa 49:7. And one might also fittingly refer to Jer 33:9 ( ) and Hab 3:6 ( ). But nevertheless it remains an unfortunate affair, that is used in the Old Testament only of the springing or spurting of fluids, and never of persons, and that for the latter use one can only appeal to Arabic analogies (naza, see Gesen.Thes. p. 868 a). In my opinion, it is possible that the reading is not correct. Perhaps we ought to read as in Hab 3:6. That would give the same sense by means of a genuine Hebrew word, though one, indeed, not frequently used. For tremuit, subsilivit occurs beside only Lev 11:12; Job 37:1. If was the original reading in our text, it were alowable to think that the contents of chap. 53 occasioned the substitution of the priestly word for the one that may have fallen out in some way, or have become indistinct. [The foregoing review of the state of the question concerning , and the Authors own despairing attempt, dispose one to say the old is better and to adhere to the English accepted version. J. A. Alex., says of the other views and especially of that stated above to be the most generally adopted by modern expositors: The explanation is in direct opposition to a perfectly uniform Hebrew usage, and without any real ground even in Arabic analogy. The ostensible reasons for this gross violation of the clearest principles of lexicography are: first the chimera of a perfect parallelism, which is never urged except in cases of great necessity; and secondly, the fact that in every other case the verb is followed by the substance sprinkled, and connected with the object upon which it is sprinkled by a preposition. But since both constructions of the verb to sprinkle are employed in other languages (as we may either speak of sprinkling a person or of sprinkling water on him), the transition must be natural, and no one can pretend to say, that two or more examples of it in a book of this size are required to demonstrate its existence. The real motive of the strange unanimity with which the true sense has been set aside, is the desire to obliterate this clear description, at the very outset, of the Servant of Jehovah as an expiatory purifier, one who must be innocent Himself in order to cleanse others.Another objection to the modern explanation of the word is, that it then anticipates the declaration of the next clause, instead of forming a connecting link between it and the first.Some that hold the modern view, as our Author and Delitzsch, may not be charged with what J. A. Alex, pronounces the real motive of it. See above the introduction to this section. But surely it is easier to conjecture that has the force and construction involved in the old view (if that rendering can be charged with being no better than conjecture) than to resort to such a conjecture as that of the Author.Tr.].The added by no means represents, in relation to ver.14a, merely a (quantitative) intensification (see immediately below on ver.14 b). Shall shut their mouths is a sign of reverence (comp. Mat 7:16, and in general Isa 49:7). is causal: on account of His surprisingly imposing appearance they are dumb. To understand the causal clause as Delitzsch does (what was never told they see, what was never heard they hear) the text must read . But the additional , of which that explanation makes no account, intimates rather that the Prophet lays the emphasis on the antithesis between the Jews and the Gentiles. Hence he adds before the word . Many heathen nations trembled before Him in reverence, and their kings were dumb before Him, whereas Israel felt only aversion for Him. Thus it happened that those did not recognize Him to whom He was announced in advance, whereas those to whom nothing about Him was announced saw Him and understood (Isa 65:1; Isa 66:19). It is clear, therefore, that and refer to the prophetic announcement that preceded the historical appearance of the Servant of Jehovah, and prepared the way for it. It was just that Israel, prophetically acquainted with Him in advance, that did not receive Him; whereas the heathen, that yet were without such preparation, made Him welcome. [The last clause, in grammar, admits equally the received version or that of the LXX. given above (Birks translates as Dr. Naegelsbach does.Tr.). But St. Pauls quotation, Rom 15:20-21, where this very promise, as rendered above, is made the rule and law of his own conduct as the Apostle of the Gentiles, seems decisive in favor of the latter meaning (LXX., Vulg., Luth., Crusius, Stier). Beside the authority of an inspired comment, the context favors this construction. That wide publication of the gospel, to which Paul applies the words, and in which he was the chief instrument, explains how it would be that many nations and kings should come to do homage to Messiah. Birks.Tr.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12. This chapter, that has already silenced so many scoffers, and led so many honest doubters to believe, when they compared the prophecy with the fulfilment, and when the wonderful agreement with the history of the suffering, death and resurrection of our Redeemer shone upon them so glorious and clearthis master-piece from the armory of God, whose power unbelieving Israel even at this day fears so much that it has gone on omitting it from its yearly selections from the prophets for the weeks, but in doing so has given powerful testimony against itself and for the truth of the gospelthis chapter is a precious jewel of our Bible. Axenfeld, Der Proph. Jes., A Lecture, 1870, p. 60 sq.
2. On Isa 52:13. In the Midrasch Tanchuma, Fol. 53, c. 3, 1, 7 it reads: i.e., this is the King Messiah, He will be higher than Abraham, and raise Himself up more than Moses and be exalted above the angels of the ministry. On this Wuensche l. c. remarks p. Isaiah 42 : This passage is additionally important from the fact that it teaches the doctrine of the sublimity of the Messiah, so strongly opposed by the later Jews. He rises above all created being; even the angels of the ministry may not be compared with Him in respect to their dignity and rank.
3. On Isa 52:14. It is remarkable that the church in the times of persecution before Constantine, conceived of the bodily form of the Lord as ugly: (Clem. Alex. Paedag. III. 1. . Origen, C. Cels. VI.: ); the secularized church of the Middle Age conceived of Him as a form of ideal beauty (comp. the description of the form of Jesus in Nicephorus Callisti L. II. c. 7, and in the letter of the Pseudo-Lentulus, comp. Herz. R. Enc. VIII. p. 292 sqq., Delitzsch Jesus and Hillel, 1865, p. 4); the church of the Reformation took a middle course: It is quite possible that some may have been as beautiful in body as Christ. Perhaps some have even been more beautiful than Christ. For we do not read that the Jews wondered at the beauty of the Lord. Luther.
4. On Isa 53:4-5. Justin Martyr (Apol. I. c. 54) sees in Asklepios, the physician that healed all diseases, a type of Christ parallel to that of the Servant who bears our sickness. Edward Mueller, Parallels to the Messianic prophecies and types of the Old Testament from Greek antiquity (Jahrbb. f. Klass. Philol. v. Fleckeisen VIII. Supplem.-Bd. 1 Hft. p. 5).
5. On Isa 53:4-6. The peculiarity of V. Hofmanns doctrine of the atonement seems to me to have its root in this, that he distinguishes a two-fold wrath of God against sinful humanity, viz., how God is angry with sinful humanity that is destined to be brought back again into love-fellowship with Him, and how He is angry with those who refuse obedience to His work of salvation. (Schutzschriften fr eine neue Weise die alte Wahrheit zu Lehren III. Stck, Noerdlingen, 1859, p. 13 sq.). In both instances His anger is an enmity of the holy Living (One) against sin that delivers the sinner to death. But in the one case it delivers him to death in order to redeem him out of it, in the other case that he may remain in it. Had God not intended to save mankind, then the death to which He delivered those first created would have been complete and enduring. There appears to me to be a contradiction in this. For first it is said, that had God not intended to redeem mankind, then the first pair had been delivered to complete and enduring death. And then it is said, that the wrath of God does so deliver the one that is disobedient to His work of salvation over to death that he abides in it. Thus eternal death appears at one moment as punishment for sin in itself, and at another as punishment for rejecting the work of salvation. That God did not deliver over to complete and enduring death the first pair and their descendants was then merely because He had formed the purpose to redeem mankind. Therefore one would still think that what the Redeemer suffered made it possible for the divine righteousness to remit to men the complete and abiding death. Consequently, one might still think that Christ, by His death had given the divine righteousness an equivalent for the complete and abiding death of mankind. But, according to Hofmann, such is not the case. For he asserts that the wrath of God delivers to abiding death only those that refuse obedience to His work of salvation. For this reason Christ did not bear the torments of damnation. Indeed for this reason a redemption from eternal death is neither possible nor necessary. For those that do not accept the work of salvation cannot be redeemed from eternal death at all, while those that do accept need not to be redeemed, because eternal death belongs in fact only to those that do not accept the work of salvation. There we have I think a circulus vitiosus. In view of the redemption, the first pair and their descendants are not punished with the eternal death that their sin in itself deserves, but only with corporeal death. But the Redeemer does not die in order to redeem men from eternal death, for the latter is suddenly only the consequence of unbelief in the work of salvation. But the Redeemer dies to redeem men from that punishment which was laid on them as a mitigated sort in view of the redemption. For Christ was only subjected to that anger with which God was angry at those who were destined to a re-entrance into His fellowship of love, not to that which abides on those who are disobedient to the grace of God, l. c. p. 14. Consequently one would think Christ only redeemed us from bodily death. And yet from that we are not redeemed. Hofmann says, indeed: we do not abide in it (p. 51). It is true, the redeemed do not abide in it. But that is only for the reason that they are also redeemed from eternal death. For were the latter not the case, then the bodily death would only be a transit to what is worse, i.e., to eternal death. Therefore eternal death is the punishment, not only of not believing inredemption, but of sin in general. But Christ redeemed us from sin and its punishment generally, and not merely from what remained of the punishment that, with reference to the redemption, was from the first remitted to us.
6. On Isa 53:4. Hic est articulus justificationis, credere Christum pro nobis possum, sicut Paulus quoque dicit: Christus est foctus maledictum pro nobis. Neque enim satis est, nosse, quod Christus sit passus, sed, sicut hic dicit, credendum etiam est, quod nostros languores tulerit, quod non pro se, neque pro suis peccatis sit passus, sed pro nobis; quod illos morbos tulerit, illos dolores in se reciperit, quos nos oportuit pati. Atque hunc locum qui recte tenet, ille summam Christianismi tenet. Ex hoc enim loco Paulus tot epistolas, tot sententiarum et consolationum flumina hausit.Christianus quasi in alio mundo collocatus neque peccata neque merita aliqua nosse debet. Quodsi peccata se habere sentit, adspiciat ea, non qualia sint in sua persona, sed qualia sint in illa persona, in quam a Deo sunt conjecta, hoc est videat, qualia sint non in se nec in conscientia sua, sed in Christo, in qao expiata et devicta sunt. Sic fiet, ut habeat purum ac mundum cor ab omni peccato per fidem, quae credit, peccata sua in Christo victa et prostrata esse. Luther.
7. On Isa 53:4. We have many wrath and fire mirrors of the just God, how He thunders and lightens on account of sin; such as the flood, Genesis 7; Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19; Pharaoh and all his, Exodus 14. But what are all those to this, that God so dreadfully racked and smote His only begotten Son, the highest and infinite good, that a stone in the ground might have lamented, and even the hard rocks did rend asunder on account of it at the time of His suffering? Cramer.
8. On Isa 53:5. O mirabile genus medicinae, ubi medicus aegrotat, ut aegrotis sanitatem efferat.Medico occiso sanati sumus. Quis unquam audivit talia?Tota vita Christi crux fuit et martyrium, et tu quaeris gaudium?Omni diligentia atque vigilantia caveamus, ne vulneret diabolus quod sanavit Christus. Augustin. Est jucundissima consolatio: livores ipsius sunt nostrum emplastrum. Atqui nos meriti eramus livores et ipsi debebatur sanitas. Si quis ergo sanitatem optat, ille non suam castigationem et crucem consideret, sed tantum respiciat in Christum et credat, tum sanabitur, hoc est, habebit justitiam eternam. Luther.
9. On Isa 53:6. Sin isolates men, because its principle is egoism. Every one accordingly makes himself a centre, around which all must revolve. But by this we lose the true, all-controlling, right guiding centre, and are as stars that are become excentric, that must finally dash to pieces on one another.Redimit pretiose, pascit laute, ducit sollicite, collocat securi. Bernhard of Clairvaux.
10. On Isa 53:6. God laid on Him the sin of us all. That is the great enigma of the Christian doctrine of atonement. It is the point that for so many is a stone of stumbling, since it appears as if God outwardly and arbitrarily transfers the guilt of men to One, who, Himself innocent, has no inward, real relation whatever to the guilt of another. And this is verily one of the mysteries of Christian doctrine. The Lord says: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit, Joh 12:24. And Paul says: Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? And in the same connection he says: Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed [justified: Marg.] from sin, Rom 6:3; Rom 6:6-7. It is true, Christ stood alone in death, and though he had the imputed sin, the organic connection of our sin with Him was wanting. But in the sequel He suddenly stands as the centre of a great complex of fruit. By baptism we are all baptized into Him, and in fact such as we are by nature, with our old Adam and all its sins. Yet now Paul says that our old man is crucified with Christ in baptism. Therefore he assumes that we men are in the sequel transposed into the communion of the death of Christ, and that our justification rests on the fact that we have actually died with Christ. Still it will be said that this itself is an enigma; that one can as little solve one riddle by another, as cast out one devil by another. But perhaps the new enigma still shows where we must direct our inquiring thoughts in order at last to find the solution.
11. On Isa 53:8. Innocent Lamb of God, yea, Thou shalt have seed; as long as the sun continues Thy name shall extend to posterity (Psa 72:17). Out of anguish and out of the judgment hast Thou come, and who will declare to the end the extent of Thy life? The lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has overcome, to open the book and to break its seven seals. Now they sing to Thee a new song, and Thine whom Thou hast bought with Thy blood say eternally: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature (says the seer) which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. Tholuck.
12. On Isa 53:9. Sepeliri se passus est Dominus 1) ut sabbatum redemtionis responderet sabbato creationis, quod illius typus fuit; 2) ut testaretur, se non sed fuisse mortuum. Unde Tertullianus recte: non sepultus esset, nisi mortuus; 3) ut sepulcra nostra consecraret in contactu corporis ipsius sanctissimi sanctificata (Jes. 27:19; 57:2); 4) ut praefiguraret quietam nostram spiritualem ab operibus carnis (Heb 4:9-10). Foerster.
13. On Isa 53:9. Christ can boast both sorts of innocence, viz., causae and personae. For He suffers in the greatest innocence, and is above that innocent through and through in His whole person and nature, to the end that He might restore what He took not away (Psa 69:4). For we ought to have such an high priest (Heb 7:26).Cramer.
14. On Isa 53:10. Hujus sacrificii expiatorii quatuor sunt privilegia: 1) est propitiatio pro totius mundi peccatis (1Jn 2:2); 2) in hoc idem est (Ephes. Isa 5:2); 3) est unicum semelque tantum oblatum (Heb 7:27); 4) hoc unico sacrificio Christus consummavit in eternam eos, qui sanctificantur (Heb 10:14).Foerster.
15. On Isa 53:11. Christ makes righteous not by communicating His essential righteousness, but by communicating His merit. For He bears their sins. The means, however, by which this righteousness comes to us is His knowledge that consists in true saving faith. Plus est credere Christo, quam deliquisse saeculo.Ambrose. Justificat multos agnitione sui.Cramer.
16. On Isa 53:11. (). Plato Derep. L. II., 362, d. e., describes the righteous man, who, in purest and completest exercise of virtue, unconcerned about the opinion of the world and the outward effects of his conduct, on his own part only reaps infamy and shame, suffering and abuse of every sort for his righteousness, and yet, unswervingly pursuing his aim, most cruelly racked, and tormented, bound, robbed of eyesight by the rudest violence, remains ever true to himself, and at last suffers the most infamous and cruel death as the reward of his virtue, the death of the cross. Ed. Mueller, l. c., p. 11. Comp. Doellinger, Heidenthum und Christenthum, 1857, p. 300.
17. On Isa 53:12. Let even the hardest stone strive against the Lord Christ, all must still become vain pottery that dash themselves against Him, as it is written: Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder (Mat 21:24). And as Luther says: Therefore Christ says, also; Good people do not brush against me, let me be the rock, and do not get into conflict with me; for if not, then I say for certain, I am a stone, and will not be afraid of jugs because they have big bellies, and which, the more they are swelled out, are the easier shattered and the easier to hit. My good Saul, it will go hard for thee to kick against the goads, said the Lord Christ to Saul, and although he resisted, he had still to yield. For as it is written: even the strong shall he have for a prey.Tholuck.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12. The suffering of our glorified Lord Jesus, how I., it is not recognized; II., yet is carried out; III., glorified. Gotfried Arnold, Ev. Botschaft der Herrlichkeit Gottes, 4 Aufl., p. 338 sqq.
2. On Isa 53:1-5. Concerning the various reception of the word of the cross by men. C. F. Harttman, Passionspredigten, Heilbronn, 1872, p. 169.
3. On Isa 53:1. The mount Golgotha. 1) A scene for the display of unbelief and belief. The rulers of the people, the mass of the people, the one murderer give evidence of unbelief; the mother of Jesus and the other women, together with John, the Centurion, the thief were believing. But the greatest example of faith is given by the Son of God Himself, who is called a beginner and finisher of our faith. 2. A place where the arm of the Lord is revealed to us.Harttmann, l. c., p. 277.
4. On Isa 53:1. Concerning the reasons for the bad reception men give the word of the cross. 1) One cannot fruitfully consider it, if one does not recognize his own ruin. 2) It shows us our profound inability to help ourselves. 3) There is involved in it the obligation to die with Christ. 4) It is treated in such a frivolous and common-place manner.Harttmann, l. c., p. 169. The grand turning point in the race of Adam and the new Israel. Gaupp, Prakt. Theol., 1. Vol., p. 509. How the suffering and death of Christ are the greatest thing that has ever occurred in the history of the world. For 1) It is the greatest wonder; 2) it is a work of the last necessity; 3) it is a work of the highest love; 4) it is a work of the greatest blessing. Pfeiffer, in Manch. Gaben u. ein G. III. Jahrg., p. 248.
5. On Isa 53:4 sqq. How can the suffering of death by an innocent One, bring salvation to the guilty? 1) If the righteous One freely sacrifice Himself for the guilty. 2) If His sacrifice is an adequate payment for the guilt of the other. 3) If the guilty uses the freedom from punishment that has been obtained to the salvation of his soul. Herbig, in Manch. Gaben u. ein G., 1868, p. 256.
6. On Isa 53:4-5. Concerning the justifying and saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, that especially in a dying person must appear flourishing and strong. 1) How one must press on to it through conflict. 2) How it is afterwards full of power, life, peace, righteousness, salvation, blessedness. Rieger H. C. Superint. in Stuttgart, Funeral Sermons, 1870, p. 187.
7. On Isa 53:3 sqq. Christ assumed no temporal honor or reputation, but with words and works contradicted all that would have praised, honored, and celebrated Him. For He ever shunned the honor of this world, and gave not even the slightest cause for it (Joh 6:15). Yea, in great humility He allowed the greatest contempt and blasphemy to be uttered against Him; for the Jews reproached Him with being a Samaritan, that had a devil and that did His miracles by the power of Satan (Joh 8:48). Men treated His divine doctrine as blasphemy. He was pestered by murderous cunning, many lies and calumnies, finally betrayed, sold, denied, struck in the face, spit upon, crowned with thorns, scourged, wounded, condemned, forsaken by God and man, stripped naked as a malefactor, yea, hanged up as a curse (Gal 3:13), while every one mocked at Him, laughed at His prayers, cast lots for His clothes, gave Him gall and vinegar to drink in His dying extremity (Joh 19:29). Lastly, He died on the tree in the greatest infamy and contumely, His dead body was pierced and opened on the cross, and at last buried as a wicked person; yea, even after His innocent death. He was reproached with being a deceiver (Mat 27:63). Men also contradicted His resurrection. And so in life and death and after death He was full of contumely. Joh. Arndt, Wahr. Christenth. Buch 2, kap. 14.
8. On Isa 53:4-6. This text is the only medicine, and true, sure and approved theriac against that hurtful soul-poison, despair. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; and afterwards all we like sheep have gone astray, but the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Thou hearest that He speaks of sins and iniquity; and that thou mayest not think He speaks of some particular people, and not of thee and me, the Holy Spirit lets the words go out strong, and lets this resound: He was wounded for our transgression, He was bruised for our iniquity. Item: God laid all our sin on Him. That means even that no man is excepted.
Now that this is true, that Christ, the Son of God, laden with the sin of all men, was on that account wounded and bruised, wilt thou regard God as so ungracious or so hard, that He will let a debt be paid Him twice? Or shall Christ have suffered such distress and death in vain? In fine; God laid thy sins on Christ; it follows that they no more rest on thee. God wounded Him for thy sins; it follows that thou shalt not bear the punishment. God smote Him for thy sake; it follows that thou shalt go free. Veit Dietrich.
9. On Isa 53:8-10. Is it not really a contradiction to say, that the Servant shall live long because He is taken out of the land of the living? And also, that He will have seed, when He shall have given His life an offering for sin? One sees here that the Prophet has some presentiment of the higher nature of Him whom he presents to us here as the Servant of Jehovah. According to the New Testament view, one must be cut off from the so called land of the living, but which is in truth the land of those devoted to death, in order to reach the land of true, of eternal life. Thus it is hereby intimated, that Christ will die in order to rise up again to everlasting life. Yea, even more! It is also intimated (Isa 53:10), that precisely by the giving up of His life He will accomplish, as it were, an act of generation, the result of which will be an immeasurably numerous and immortal posterity. For by His death He gives us eternal life (comp. Joh 12:24). The strange death of Christ: 1) By His death He laid down what was mortal in Him, and now appears wholly as the eternal living One; 2) by His death He gives life to them that were a prey to death.
10. On Isa 53:10. The death of Christ: 1) Who willed and decreed it? (God Himself: it pleased the Lord to bruise Him). 2) Why did God will it? (He must give His life an offering for sin). 3) What are His fruits? (He shall see seed and live long, etc.). After Spurgeon, The Gospel of the Prophet Isaiah.
11. On Isa 53:11-12. As the exaltation of Christ corresponds in general to His humiliation (comp. Php 2:5-11), so also it corresponds in particulars: 1) Because His soul was in tribulation, He will see His pleasures and be satisfied. 2) Because He bore the sins of many, so He, the righteous One will by His knowledge make many righteous. 3) Because He was made like the wicked, He shall have the great multitude for a prey and the strong for spoil.
Footnotes:
[12]Or, prosper.
[13]horrified.
[14]make spring up.
[15]For those to whom nothing was told, they see it, and those who have heard nothing, they understand it.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 960
DESPONDENCY REPROVED
Isa 52:1-3. Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion: put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
NOTHING is more common, than for men to cast reflections upon God, when the fault is wholly in themselves. The ungodly world, when urged to devote themselves to God, agreeably to the divine commands, will allege, that those commands are themselves unreasonable, because it is not in their power to obey them. Thus they cast the blame, not on themselves, for the inveteracy of their evil habits and the alienation of their hearts from God, but upon God himself, as requiring so much at their hands. It were well if this disposition were not found also amongst persons professing godliness. But the godly themselves, under the power of temptation, are apt to complain of God, as unwilling to hear their prayer, and to deliver them from their troubles; when, in fact, they neglect to use the means through which alone they are authorized to expect success. This the Jewish Church had done; saying, in a querulous tone, to God, Awake, awake; put on strength, O arm of the Lord! But the Lord retorts upon them the accusation, and says, Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion! that is, Do not stand complaining of me, as if I were inattentive to your welfare; but exert the powers which ye have; and, in the diligent use of them, expect my promised blessing.
The words thus explained will give me a just occasion to observe,
I.
That we should exert ourselves, as if all depended on our own efforts
To this the Jews were called, in the midst of all their discouragements
[In the Babylonish captivity, despondency prevailed amongst them, as if it were not possible for them ever to be delivered. But it became them, like Daniel, to study the prophecies relating to their captivity; and, in a state of holy preparation, confidently to expect deliverance at Gods appointed time. Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord; for ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rere-ward [Note: ver. 11, 12.].
The promise, that there should no more come into Jerusalem the uncircumcised and the unclean, evidently directs our minds to a period yet future: for not only was Jerusalem invaded after their return from Babylon, but the very worship of the temple was suspended by Antiochus: their city also, and temple, und polity, were subsequently destroyed by the Romans; and their whole nation have now remained above seventeen hundred years in a state of utter desolation and dispersion. But they must not on that account despond. The prophecies relating to their future restoration shall surely be fulfilled: and it becomes them all to be in a state of holy expectation; just as Abraham was, when, at the distance of two thousand years, he saw the day of Christ, and rejoiced. This gives us what I apprehend to be the true view of our text: God directs his complaining people to anticipate with joy that blissful period: Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; (even as a bride expecting the speedy arrival of the bridegroom:) for there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean: (after their restoration, no Chaldean, or other foe, shall ever overwhelm them more.) Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.]
To this also every desponding saint is called
[There is no condition that can justify a desponding inactivity. The word of God is full of exceeding great and precious promises, which shall all be fulfilled in their season, to those who rely upon them. These we should contemplate: we should treasure them up in our minds: we should plead them before God in prayer: we should expect assuredly the fulfilment of them: however long or dark our night may be, we should look with confidence for the returning light of day: we should know, that the goings forth of Jehovah for the salvation of his people are prepared as the morning; and that he will appear at the appointed hour. However frequently vanquished by our spiritual foes, we should return to the charge, strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. We should never, for a moment, suffer the thought of our weakness to discourage us: we should rather make it a reason for exertion, in the full confidence, that when we are weak, then are we strong; and that God will perfect his strength in our weakness. This is the very instruction which an inspired Apostle gives us: Work out, says he, your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure [Note: Php 2:12-13.]. The man with the withered hand is a fit example for us to follow. The command given him by our Lord was, Stretch forth thine hand. He did not indolently reply, I cannot; but immediately made an effort to comply; and, in the attempt, he was strengthened to perform the deed [Note: Mat 12:13.]. So would it be with us, if, in Obedience to Gods word, and in dependence on his grace, we addressed ourselves to the duties which we have to perform: our light would soon rise in obscurity, and our darkness be as the noon-day. The very exhibition of a lamp from a broken pitcher, if done in faith, should be sufficient to overcome the strongest foe [Note: Jdg 7:16-21.].]
From Gods reply to his complaining people we learn,
II.
That we should expect every thing from God, as if there were no need of personal exertions
Such was the instruction given to the Jews
[Captives are wont to be redeemed with money. But what prospect had the Jews of being liberated from captivity on such terms as these? They were despoiled of every thing; and had no friend to interpose in their behalf, and to pay a ransom for them. But, says God, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ve shall be redeemed without money. Look back, and see, What did ye ever gain by all the transgressions by which ye provoked me to cast you off? Know then, that as ye never received any thing in return for your souls, so shall ye never be called upon to give any thing for the liberation of them. This was specifically promised; and the very person who should liberate them was proclaimed by name three hundred years before any such person existed in the world [Note: Isa 44:28; Isa 45:13.]: and it was fulfilled at the time predicted; yea, so literally fulfilled, that not only were they permitted to return to their native land, but means were afforded them for rebuilding their city and temple; and the vessels which had been taken away by the Chaldean monarch, were restored to them, for the service of the sanctuary, and the worship of their God [Note: 2Ch 36:22-23 and Ezr 1:2-11.].
In what precise manner their future restoration shall be accomplished, we do not exactly know: but sure we are, that it shall not be by price or reward given to the various potentates who rule over them: no; it shall be in a way not less wonderful than their deliverance from Egypt or from Babylon; a way that shall leave no doubt, upon the minds of any, that the hand of the Lord hath done it [Note: ver. 6.]. To this the whole nation may look forward with confidence; for the mountains shall depart, saith God, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee; neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee.]
Such, too, is the lesson that must be learned by us
[We have sold ourselves for nought. I will appeal to every one amongst you; What have you ever gained by sin? What has the world ever done for you? What have you ever found in it, but vanity and vexation of spirit? Truly it may be said of you also, that you have never received any thing in return for your souls. To you also may it be said, that neither are ye called to give any thing for their redemption. The price has been already paid, even the precious blood of Gods only dear Son, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot [Note: 1Pe 1:18-19.]: and all that remains for you is, to receive freely what your God so freely bestows [Note: Rom 3:24.]. The proclamation has gone forth: it is already issued from the court of heaven: the jubilee-trumpet has announced it long: Shake yourselves from the dust: loose yourselves from the bands of your necks, ye captive daughters of Zion: return ye, every one, from your sore bondage, and take possession of your forfeited inheritance: receive all the blessings of salvation freely, without money, and without price [Note: Isa 55:1.]. Sit not, any of you, in a desponding frame, crying, Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord! but hear your God saying to you, Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and unclean. Complete deliverance is at hand, for all that truly desire it; for all that are willing to receive it. Do not imagine that it is any mark of humility to doubt: it is no virtue in you; but rather a grievous insult to your God. So God himself represents it: Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint [Note: Isa 40:27-31.]. As for seeking to justify your despondency. by any peculiarities in your state, it is all folly; it is all impiety; it is all a forgetfulness of God. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? Yes: thus saith the Lord; even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee; and I will save thy children [Note: Isa 49:24-25.]. Fear not, then, thou desponding soul; but commit thy cause to God: and know assuredly, that the more simple thine affiance is in him, and the more confident thine expectation of his effectual help, the more speedy and manifest shall be his interpositions in thy behalf. Only believe in him; and he will glorify himself in thy complete and everlasting deliverance.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
CONTENTS
The Lord Jesus, by his servant the Prophet, is still comforting his Church; calls upon her to live upon, and rest in the full enjoyment of his free salvation; holds forth many sweet promises, and points to the loveliness of his servants, by whom he sends his gospel of peace.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Was there ever a more gracious, a more encouraging invitation given for sinners to be made happy, than is here held forth, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ? Jehovah had before commanded his people to take hold of his strength, to make peace with him; and promised that they should do so: and here the Lord showeth what that strength is, and how it is to be received. For what is the strength of Zion, but the salvation of Jesus; and what is the beautiful garments of Jerusalem, but his robe of righteousness? And who can put it upon the believer, but God the Holy Ghost? Oh! how precious is it to see Jesus in everything! See Isa 27:5 ; and to the same amount, Job 23:3-6 ; Joh 16:13-14 . And when the Church of Jesus is thus clothed, thus adorned, as a bride for her husband, how perfectly free is she from all captivity, and all uncleanness; Joh 8:36 ; 1Co 6:11 ; Rev 21:2 ; Eph 5:25-27 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 52:7
Ruskin remarks on this verse: ‘How strange it seems that physical science should ever have been thought adverse to religion! The pride of physical science is indeed adverse, like every other pride, both to religion and truth; but sincerity of science, so far from being hostile, is the pathmaker among the mountains for the feet of them that publish peace.’
References. Lev 7 . W. J. McKittrick, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxvii. 1905, p. 29. Lev 10 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 185. R. E. Hutton, The Crown of Christ, vol. ii. p. 543. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. 1908, p. 296. Lev 11 . A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 75.Lev 11:12 . Ibid. p. 78. Lev 12 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 230; vol. xxx. No. 1793. S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norrwood, p. 233; see also Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 215. W. L. Watkinson, The Blind Spot, p. 227.
The Prudence of Christ
Isa 52:13
The word rendered prudent is a two-sided word, and, strangely enough, both the Authorized and Revised Versions only bring out one side of the significant word. Bishop Chadwick translates it ‘shall deal prudently, so that prosperity shall be the result’. Very often prudence fails, but the prudence of Christ is to succeed.
I. Christ dealt prudently in not prematurely surrendering His life. Till He knew His work was done He would not allow His life to be squandered. He came to earth to die, but He refused to die prematurely.
II. Christ’s prudence appears in His insight into character.
‘He needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.’ Still does He deal prudently. For this prophecy is an eternal prophecy. He knows us and acts towards us with unerring wisdom.
III. The adroitness of His replies is a great evidence of His prudence. When He was but twelve years old the people in the temple were ‘amazed at His answers’. And ever afterwards His answers amazed all men. He still deals prudently herein. We can take our present problems to the Divine man ascended. He may delay to answer. But the very delay is education.
IV. Christ’s prudence is seen in His concessions to the limitations of His hearers.
Many a public teacher is destroyed through lack of prudence. Christ was established by His prudence ‘He that is able to receive it, let him receive it,’ is His wise word. Christ will never put a cross upon the intellect that the intellect is unable to bear. Still, Christ only asks men to receive for the time being truths they are able to receive.
How prudently He dealt in graduating truth. He spake ‘as they were able to hear it’. He graduated truth not only in respect of its quality but its season. ‘I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.’
V. By His encouragement of good Christ dealt prudently. He told the scribe he was ‘not far from the kingdom of God’. He commended the religionists of the day in this: ‘Ye search the Scriptures’. He shed the light of hope on a penitent woman by saying, ‘Neither do I condemn thee’. This was His encomium upon a pardoned one, ‘She loved much’. Said He to His sorrowing disciples, ‘Already ye are clean’. Is it not always highest prudence to encourage all good, however incipient in all souls?
VI. Christ’s prudence was the larger prudence. His was not the prudence of many so-called prudent people, which is out the instinct of self-preservation acutely developed. Christ’s was the noble, the sacrificial prudence. Estimate prudence by the Eternal. Take long views of prudence.
VII. Christ dealt prudently in His procural of salvation.
The Son of God took pity on our flesh and blood. Through death He won us everlasting life. Most wonderful prevision marks that method of redemption. There is equal prudence in the condition of salvation. Salvation by faith, by trustfulness, by reliance! By such a method God reaches the many.
Dinsdale T. Young, The Crimson Book, p. 157.
Reference. LII. 13-15. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1231.
The Marvellous Marring
Isa 52:14
‘Many were astonished at Thee: His visage was so marred!’ Not His power, then, but His weakness; not the blazing glories of the full-orbed Sun of Righteousness, but its mysterious and dark eclipse is herein held up to us as matter of astonishment!
I. It is suffering that mars the visage. Suffering mars the countenance sometimes almost beyond the possibility of recognition. And if the visage of the Son of God was marred more than any man, it was because He suffered more than any man.
In those sufferings there were indeed natural elements, such as are found more or less in the experience of all men. He was, like all, from time to time hungry and weary. He, like others, had no home. Then also He suffered much from loneliness of spirit.
II. But there were other exceptional and peculiar causes of the marring of the Saviour’s visage. (1) That all the sorrow and the agony from the beginning to the end were steadily foreseen by Him. (2) To the depth of His sorrow and the intensity of His sufferings, in a certain way His very sinlessness must have contributed. And this the more because, unlike ourselves, again He saw men just as they were. ‘He knew what was in man.’ He saw through all disguise, and saw it constantly; saw the whole of that awful moral corruption around Him, and, because of His infinite purity, felt it as none of us could feel it even if we saw it (3) It is with us that we know the power of God’s grace. But herein was the last supreme woe that came upon the Saviour, that in His ultimate hour of anguish, when that conscious presence and felt love of the Eternal Father was most needed, then, of all times, in a manner unfathomably mysterious and incomprehensible, that presence and manifested love of the Father was withdrawn from the Man Christ Jesus. (4) But there is a still deeper mystery about the marring of the visage of the Son of God, that He who so suffered knew no sin. The wonder yet increases when we remember what this Sinless Man claimed for Himself to be. ‘I and the Father are One.’ Not only, then, is it perfect sinlessness, but the supremest dignity for which utter and peculiar anguish is reserved. (5) His ineffable sorrow is again yet the more marvellous, that it did not come upon Him as under any inevitable necessity, a resistless compulsion that He could by no means escape. ‘I lay down my life,’ He said.
III. There is one thing yet more a matter of astonishment than the marring of the visage of Jesus Christ, and that is, the reason of that marring. The same Prophet who tells us of the marvellous marring, tells us in never-to-be-forgotten words the reason of the marring also. ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him.’ He suffered for others. All this peculiar and ineffable suffering was not for Himself but for others. Here is the final supreme reason why we may well be astonished at the strange marring of the Saviour’s face, that it was marred for men! He suffered not for righteous men, for such there were none; He suffered for sinners.
S. H. Kellogg, The Past a Prophecy of the Future, p. 183.
References. Lev 14 . C. G. Clark-Hunt, The Refuge of the Sacred Wounds, p. 9. T. B. Dover, Some Quiet Lenten Thoughts, p. 142. LIII. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxix. No. 2290; vol. xliii. No. 2499; vol. xliii. No. 2534; vol. xlix. No. 2840; vol. xlix. No. 2827. Rutherford Waddell, Behold the Lamb of God, p. 81. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 88. LIII. 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1076. C. H. Wright, The Unrecognized Christ, p. 102. “Plain Sermons” by contributors to the Tracts for the Times, vol. v. p. 9. W. L. Watkinson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxiii. 1903, p. 225. F. E. Paget, Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Unbelief, p. 86. LIII. 2, 3. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXV1. p. 92.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Supreme Energy
Isa 52:1
Let us consider the words, “Put on thy strength.” Is it a thing we can “put on”? If we are strong, we are strong; if we are weak, we have no strength to “put on.” What is the meaning, then, of “Put on thy strength”? Sometimes we say, “Be a man!” The reply is obvious “How can I be more a man than I am? How can I be less, or other, than a man?” Sometimes we say, “Play the man!” What else can I play? How remarkably pointless is the exhortation or injunction, “Play the man; be a man; bear it like a man; answer it like a man; put on thy strength”! All these sentences seem to belong to the same level of commonplace speech, and seem, indeed, to be utterly useless and pointless, because nothing else could be done. Yet we all know the meaning of those expressions. There is a meaning within a meaning when we say, “Be your best self.” We comprehend the purpose of the exhortation; we are many selves; we are not always in our best mood and force. Men can rouse themselves; they can shake off sleep, or sloth, or reluctance, and can spring forward to a new point, and utter themselves in a more vital tone. You know it; it is a habit of your life. There is no magic in the doctrine: it is current in the thoroughfares of daily life; it only acquires a new accent and a new solemnity when uttered within the enclosure of the soul’s prayer. Work for a person whom you dislike, and how slowly the hours go by; how hard everything is to manage; what a weight cunningly, subtly insinuates itself into every burden that has to be borne; how cold in the morning, how hot in the noontide; how wearisome towards the time of the lengthening of the shadows! How is that best explained? By your relation to the person for whom you are working. You are only a hireling; you are waiting for wages-time; you will resort to any ruse by which you can cheat yourself out of the tedium which comes of reluctant labour. Work for a man whom you love, and the day is too short; there is no weight in the burden; if you climb a hill you say it is to get a breath of fresh air, and you are glad to ascend the steep. How is it? Because of your love; you “put on your strength;” you rise to the occasion; you enjoy the labour. You say “Nothing has been given whilst anything remains ungiven, and nothing has been done until the completing stroke has been delivered. You are the same man, and yet how different! The spirit is not the same. Where there is love what leaping up there is of new strength, what self-surprising revelations of power! And this is the rule, the holy sovereignty, which Christ acquires over every man that enters his service with an undistracted heart.
Am I too bold in saying that no temporal object is worth the expenditure of our whole strength? I will not come down upon you oppressively from any great spiritual height, the existence of which you may doubt; I will work from your own levels, and acquire a right to speak to you by the concessions of your own reason. You yourselves have a law of proportion in life, and you work according to it. But why have any law or proportion? Simply because all things do not stand on the same level. Do you admit that? Yes. That is all I want; with that as an admission I can do all the work that remains to be done. Just the same as I can in all my Christian ministry work from the admissions which outsiders themselves make. For example, Professor Tyndall says, “There is in the universe a Secret which we cannot make out.” That is all I want granted; I will not trouble him to concede anything more. And John Stuart Mill says, “Let rational criticism take from us what it may it cannot take from us the Christ.” That is all I want to have admitted. The whole spiritual universe is in the one concession, and the whole Christian redemption is in the other. So when a man of business says that he does not devote himself with equal strength to all the claims of life, I ask him his reason, and he says that all the claims of life do not stand upon the same line or level, and, therefore, he distributes his strength according to their respective values. I ask no further concession. The Christian thunder is there! The Christian lightning is there! The pathetic appeal of the Cross is there! Once grant a difference of value and level amongst things temporal and perishing, and the preacher has you within his grip, and you cannot unless faithless to your own logic escape the gracious oppression of his benevolent tyranny. Let us see whether this cannot be made out still more clearly. Suppose you, men of business, saw a man of acknowledged capacity and force of mind devoting himself to carving faces upon cherry-stones, what would you say? Suppose you saw a young man unaccustomed to the use of mechanical arrangements and forces attempting to draw a cork by a steam-engine, what would you say, as business men of the world? I will quote from your own book of proverbs: “The game is not worth the candle.” What do you mean? If Solomon had said that you would have called it “religious” and avoided it; but you yourselves write it, and I bind you to it. That is the advantage which the Christian teacher has over every other teacher. He can come down and seize all that is true in common thinking and common speech, and give it religious application. You simply mean that the man could be doing something better that what the man is doing is not worthy of his manhood. You do not wish him to be idle, you wish to call him to an occupation worthy of his capacity and of the signature of power which is written upon his forehead. You are right; the Christian teacher wants nothing more; you are a Christian teacher up to the measure of that wisdom. The Christian preacher has nothing more to say upon that side of the question. When you have rebuked the man for carving faces upon miniature stones, and for drawing corks by steam power, another man rebukes you for writing your name in water; for imagining that God is God; that fame is immortality, and that luxury is peace. It is a cumulative argument, you understood it at the elementary point, and became ardent in the pressure of your conviction, and I ask you to carry out the reasoning to its legitimate and proper issue. Hear me when I preach to myself and say, “O, soul of mine, bethink thee, is it worth while to scratch thy name in the mean dust, over which the beast passes every hour of the day? Is it worthy of thee to beat the air, to cry into vacancy for help that does not exist? Is it worthy of thee to take up empty vessels and try to drink the air they cannot part with? I will repent; I will say, I have been wrong; I will consider my latter end; I will take in the whole horizon of this great subject, and from this moment, before the Bridegroom may come, I will have a lamp and a vessel and oil; and I will wait and watch and labour and pray, and be as one who is conscious of a capacity which might one day despise the stars; I will ‘put on my strength’!” Should a man talk so he would not in my opinion be a rhapsodist, but a solid reasoner, and only mistaken for a fanatic because of the ardour of his earnestness.
I may, perhaps, be bolder when I say that spiritual objects alone are worthy of the whole strength of man. Say you, “Other things are to be touched.” Certainly. Say you, “Daily duty must be done in the humblest sphere.” Without any question; but I am speaking of the focalisation of human powers of the highest nature, and of the consecration of those powers. I am speaking of the application of the supreme energy of the human mind, and, so speaking, I cannot but re-affirm that spiritual objects alone are worthy of all the fire that burns in the bush of the body and enshrines a present and living Divinity. When dealing with spiritual objects and considerations one feels that there is something in them akin to our best nature. There is a mystery of friendship about them; there is a masonry that is round about the majesty of eternity; we feel that we are in Fatherland; the subjects accost us with noble cordiality; great doors are set wide open before our approach in token of gracious, unlimited hospitality; portals pillared on solid gold have written above them “Welcome.” Let the mind once become interested in divine studies, entranced and enthralled by spiritual occupation, then to try to withdraw the soul from that absorption would be like seeking to drag from the altar one who is lost in prayer!
Spiritual subjects acquire this mysterious dominion over the soul because they touch every point of life. They do not touch the outside only, or a limited area as our little lights do. Surely one might say without irreverence that few things can have occasioned more amusement, shall I say? in upper places than our attempts to make lights, God said, “I will light the day for you, but there shall be periods of time, Adams and Eves, when you shall make lights for yourselves.” His great light we seem to understand as we understand great comforts and great satisfactions. “Now,” saith the Lord, “the sun is going down, make yourselves lights.” What lights we have made! And how we have advertised them, and made exhibitions of them; and sometimes our lights go out in a moment without giving any notice! If you would know what the sun is, try to make one; try to displace one. So with” great spiritual subjects; earthly subjects, or temporal subjects are candle-lights, gas jets, electric experiments; but the spiritual revelation of God’s heart is a firmament filled with the gracious light which shines with impartiality upon the pinnacles of a palace and the poor man’s one-paned humble dwelling-place. Christian subjects or spiritual subjects as we have called them touch every point of life, and touch every point of life without any sense of burdensomeness. Who cannot carry the sunlight? Yet no man can handle the sun. He who wants to see abstract truth wants to see abstract light, and it is impossible. The philosopher will say that it is impossible to see what may be called abstract light, you must see it through atmospheric conditions; but when the Christian man talks about the impossibility of seeing metaphysical, essential, abstract truth, he is mocked and nicknamed and avoided. Our Christian consolation is this: that in spiritual subjects every point of our nature receives the illumination of its capacity and enjoys the rest which belongs to its particular faculty. What a range the Christian thinker has! His library the universe! his companions the angels! his destiny heaven! What a range the Christian preacher has! but he dare not avail himself of it. He could undertake, in the Spirit and grace of God, to outrun every rival if the Church would allow the use of all its resources. It is humbling from one aspect to think how every other institution can in some respects excel the attractiveness of the Church. Do not judge the measure or the influence of spiritual subjects by the space within which the Christian Church has contracted itself. In the Christian Church should be eloquence that makes the theatre an object of utter contempt. In the Church should be prayer which turns the mimic agony of actors into an offence and a blasphemy. In the Church should be music that leaves all other music behind it, panting in weakness and waving acknowledgment of defeat.
Spiritual subjects admit of a treatment which would put down the things that men now so much long for not wholly, and not, perhaps, immediately. This thing is not to be done in the twinkling of an eye. This is a question of measurement, calculation, unanimous prayer and hearty deliberation and counsel; but I do contend that he who has in his hand unsearchable riches can outdistance those who have nothing to give but the dust on which the feet tread. Let us have decisive action. I will tell you why time is short. Let us have decisive action. I tell you why the enemy is on the alert. He has no holidays, he uses ours; he takes no rest, in his roar there is no break which means weakness. “He seeketh whom he may devour.” Let us have decisive action. I tell you why the Master is worthy; his name is Jesus Christ; his name is all names of beauty in one sacred, gleaming appellation. He died for us. The love of Christ should constrain us. What say you? Let us be more devoted. The daily duties of life will not be undone but better done. You will change your money more profitably after prayer not after mimicking prayer than before. You will write your letters, teach your children, help your friends, give counsel to the embarrassed better, with fuller wisdom and gentler grace, after a mountain walk with Christ than if you had never left the valley. You will not neglect home by attending church; you will bring your home to the church, and take the church to your home; and he would be a man of microscopic eye who could find the line which separates church from home. If we carried out our text we should have a whole manhood for Christ. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all “: the rest weakens the sentence.
Better put the period after “all.” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all “: then let imagination fill up what is left behind in the enumeration of detail. Then will come “heart, soul, strength.” With such an oblation offered to heaven there can be nothing left for the service of rival powers.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXVII
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH
The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.
Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.
In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.
In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.
In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.
The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.
In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.
In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.
In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.
In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).
The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7
In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:
1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.
2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.
3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:
According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .
In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.
In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.
In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”
The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.
The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.
In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”
In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”
Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .
The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”
So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?
In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”
The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”
The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23
QUESTIONS
1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?
2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?
3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?
4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?
5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?
6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?
7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?
8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?
9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?
10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?
11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?
12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?
13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?
14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?
15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?
16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?
17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?
18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?
19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?
20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?
21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?
22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?
23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?
24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?
25. Where is the great invitation and promise?
26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?
27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?
28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?
29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?
30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?
31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XXI
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 13
Isa 49:1-52:12
The general theme of Isaiah 49-57, is the servant of Jehovah as an individual and his offices, or salvation through the servant of Jehovah. In this section the collective sense of the Servant of Jehovah falls into the background. It is the individual Servant, the Servant in the highest, or most restricted sense, with whom we have to do in these chapters. His individuality is indicated by his already having been given a name and having been called from birth.
This section divides itself into three parte, as follows: (1) Isa 49:1-52:12 , his prophetic office; (2) Isa 52:13-54:17 , his priestly office; (3) Isa 55:1-57:21 , his kingly office. More fully the theme of Isa 49:1-52:12 is the prophetic office of the Servant and his awakening calls. The Servant, as an individual represents what Israel ought to have been collectively in the theocracy, executing the offices of prophet, priest, and king, through the Holy Spirit.
This section opens with a call to the isles and peoples from far, the significance of which is that the mission of the Servant of Jehovah is worldwide in its application.
The Servant tells us here (Isa 49:1-4 ) that he was called and named before he was born; that his mouth was prepared by Jehovah, as a sharp sword; that he was hid in his hand and that he had been made a polished shaft. Nevertheless, the Servant felt depressed. His labor seemed all in vain. Yet his confidence in his God was unshaken and well founded.
The Servant’s worldwide mission is again emphasized in Isa 49:5-6 . Jehovah here says that raising up and restoring Israel would be too light a thing for his Servant and so removes the depression of his heart by promising that he should be a light to the Gentiles and his salvation unto the ends of the earth.
There are three peculiarities in Isa 49:7 which indicate how deeply the Servant was affected by the difficulties to be met, but Jehovah encourages his Servant in them. These peculiarities are: (1) He would be despised by man; (2) abhorred by the nation; (3) a servant of rulers. These all find fulfilment in Christ. “He was despised and rejected of men”; he was abhorred by the Jewish nation and rejected; he was truly the servant of kings and rulers. “He came not to be ministered unto but to minister.” The encouragement here offered in view of these characteristics is that kings and princes shall honor him. This has been fulfilled in many instances and is being fulfilled now. Every king who has been converted since the days of Christ’s earthly ministry has done him honor. Many a king has seen and stood up in wonder, just as the prophet here indicates.
Our Lord is here (Isa 49:8-13 ) presented in special relation to the covenant. But before he could occupy such relation, as the basis of the covenant with Jehovah’s people, he had to suffer, which is here intimated in Isa 49:8 , which also should be taken in connection with Psa 22:21 , where he is said to cry out for deliverance from the lion’s mouth and the answer came. This was fulfilled in the suffering of our Lord on the cross. So through suffering he became the basis of the covenant whose blessings are here enumerated. These blessings are the raising up of the land, the inheritance of the desolate places, the liberation of the captives, a supply of food and drink, protection from the sun, and a highway for their journeys all of which has fulfilment in the supply of spiritual blessings to Jehovah’s people through the Lord Jesus Christ. “Whosoever believeth on me shall never hunger; he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” The blessings of the everlasting covenant are sufficient for every need of his covenant people. Not only are they described as ample but they are for all people. They shall come from far; from the north, from the west, and from Sinim which is China. The sight of all this causes the prophet to call for the outburst of joy in heaven and on earth which reminds us of our Saviour’s parables setting forth the joy of heaven when the sinner returns to God.
Zion here (Isa 49:14-23 ) complained that Jehovah had forsaken her; that he had forgotten her to which Jehovah gives the matchless reply found in that passage which has become a classic: “Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” Then the prophet goes on to show how Zion shall possess the world, and in complete astonishment at her success and enlargement, she then will reverse her questions and say, “Who hath begotten me all these children?” Jehovah responds again that he is the author of her success and that all who wait for him shall not be put to shame. This is a glorious outlook for Zion and removes all just cause for complaint.
The passage (Isa 49:24-26 ) alludes to a series of mighty transactions, involving vast and eternal interests. It reveals the most astounding tyranny, the most appalling captivity, the most signal deliverance and by the most eventful tragedy known to the universe. The persons of the great drama, their several parts and their destiny, claim our chief attention. But who is the mighty one of this passage and how did he bring these captives into this captivity? In many places in the Scriptures he is declared to be the “prince of this world.” He is that one who obtained possession of this world by conquest, guile, and conquest. He obtained possession of it in the garden of Eden, through enticement to sin. He captured the first pair, the man and the woman, from whom all of the people of this world are descended; and by that one man’s disobedience, in that first great crisis of this world, there came upon all men death. We died then. All the posterity of Adam and Eve born hitherto or yet to be born died in that great battle by which Satan, the prince of demons conquered this world.
His captives are those beings whose creation was the culmination of the work of God. While incidentally his domain obtained by the Eden-conquest stretches over the material world and the mere animal world, directly and mainly it extends over the intelligent, moral, accountable agents into whose hands God had given this dominion over the earth. When God made man he gave him dominion over the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea and the animals of the forest and he commanded man to multiply and fill the earth with inhabitants, and to subdue all the forces of nature, making them tributary to him and to the glory of God. This delegation of dominion to man was wrested by guile and violence from his feeble hands, and passed by right of conquest into the hands of Satan; so that the captives, the prey of the terrible one, are the people of this earth, and all of them, without any exception of race, or nation, or family, or individual; without any regard to the artificial distinctions of class and wealth and society; without any reference to the distinctions in intellect and culture. The whole of them, even the millionaire and the pauper whom he grinds, the king and the subject whom he oppresses, the gifted orator, the genius of art, the far-seeing statesman, the beautiful woman, the prattling infant, the vigorous youth, all of them are under the dominion of Satan, and his government extends over them by that original conquest.
They are lawful captives and there is a difficulty suggested by the inquiry, “Shall the lawful captives be delivered?” This difficulty can be apprehended in a moment. If one be held in bondage unlawfully it is easy enough to anticipate that there shall be deliverance from that unjust captivity, provided that the law has power to vindicate itself; but if the captive is lawfully a captive mean to say that if it is the law itself that forges his fetters then indeed does it become an inquiry of moment, “Shall the lawful captive be delivered?” It is true that the sting of death is sin, but it is also true that the strength of sin is the law, and a lawful captive is one whose bonds are just as strong as the sanctions of the law which he is violating. And how strong is that law? We have the testimony of inspiration that not a jot or a tittle of it shall fail, even though the heavens fall. And what is the scope of this law? “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy strength and all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself.”
That law is an expression, a transcript of the divine mind, in its intent when man was made; and by so much as it is strong, and by so much as it is broad, by that much will it hold the transgressor. Satan knew that it was out of his power to go into that garden of delights and seize by violence alone these moral agents into whose hands had been entrusted the dominion of this world. That would have made them unlawful captives. So he addressed himself to stratagem and guile. It became necessary that though he was the tempter they should consent and by their own act of disobedience should array against themselves the awful law of God. And while sin is the sting of death, the law of God should be the strength of sin. But who shall deliver these lawful captives? This passage is messianic and the Jehovah of this passage we find in Isa 49:26 to be the Saviour, Redeemer, and Mighty One of Jacob which could refer only to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is revealed as the destroyer of the works of the devil.
Then how is he to deliver them? The answer to this also is very explicit. The Scriptures show that he is in some way to deliver these lawful captives by his own death. “When thou shalt pour out thy soul unto death I will divide thee a portion of the great.” “Thou shalt despoil the strong.” And the passage in Hebrews is pertinent: “That forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that has the power of death, even the devil.” Through his death he is to bruise the head of Satan. Hence, just before he died he said to his disciples in the language of the Scriptures, “The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in me. Now is the crisis of this world, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” Not a man can be saved except this one be lifted up on the cross.
Not a man can be delivered from the bondage of Satan, not one groaning captive who is the prey of the terrible one, shall be plucked out of his hand, except by the death of this substitute. Then he shall see his seed. Then he shall see of the travail of his soul. Then deliverance shall come because that death takes away Satan’s armor, in which he trusted. What armor? That armor of the law. But that death paid the law’s penalty. That death extinguished the fire of the law. That death blunted the edge of the sword of justice. That death exhausted the penal claims of God against the man for whom he died. It is by death that he is to deliver us, sacrificial, substitutionary, vicarious death, “He being made sin who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.”
Moreover by that death is secured regeneration, which defeats depravity, and sanctification, which breaks the power of evil habits by perseverance in holiness. And that is why a preacher of this good news declares that he knows nothing but the cross; no philosophy for me; no weapon could have been forged strong enough to smite Satan; no leverage mighty enough to roll off of crushed humanity the ponderous incubus which bondage to Satan had placed upon them. No, I preach Christ and him crucified. “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” And hence how infinitesimal does that preacher become, how contemptible in the sight of God and man, who goes out where sin and sorrow and death reigns through the power of the devil, who goes out where men are in bondage, where they are captives, where they are under the power of Satan and in darkness, and would try to charm their captivity by singing his earth songs, by talking of geology and of evolution, or of any fine-spun metaphysical disquisition. Away with it all, and present only the death of Christ; for it is by the death of Christ that this deliverance is to come.
The import of Isa 50:1-3 is that Israel had suffered through her own sin, yet she was to be delivered by almighty grace. It is introduced by a series of questions referring to Israel’s relation to Jehovah under the figure of a marriage. Israel was challenged to show a writing of divorcement, but none could be found, or to find one of Jehovah’s creditors to whom he had sold her, but no creditor could be found, because Jehovah owed no one anything. Since this was true and Israel could produce no writing of divorcement showing that Jehovah had put her away, therefore she was desolate and separate because of her own sins, and Jehovah could redeem her by his mighty arm as he delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt.
In Isa 50:4-9 we find that the Servant was subjected to a painful training for his great work. This consisted in giving him the tongue of a disciple, an ear to hear, his back to the smiters, his cheek to those who pluck off the hair and his face to shame and spitting. All this was for the training of the prophet whose mission it was to speak, to hear, to suffer, and to sympathize. These are all to be found in much evidence in the life of our Lord. But he goes on to speak of his confidence of victory in it all because God would help and justify him, turning the wickedness of his persecutors upon their own heads.
In Isa 50:10-11 we have a twofold application of these principles, an encouragement to the faithful and a warning to the self-sufficient. The former were promised guidance through the darkness if they would trust in Jehovah, while the latter trying to make their own light, were endangering themselves and their neighbors and coming to sorrow in the end.
The passage (Isa 51:1-52:1 ) consists of a series of prophetic calls. The prophetic character of the Servant having been made sufficiently prominent in the preceding paragraphs, this section gives a series of prophetic calls introduced by such words as “Hearken,” “Awake,” “Attend.”
The first call is a call to the followers of righteousness and the seekers of Jehovah. They are exhorted to take a backward look at their origin and to God’s dealings with them from Abraham to the present. Then he encourages them to look forward to the future when all the waste places and the wilderness shall be like Eden, the garden of Jehovah. This ideal state will not be realized until the millennium.
The second call is a call to the nation to consider the law, the law of the gospel, which was to go forth to bless the nations, the consummation of which is the winding up of the affairs of the earth and the establishment of everlasting righteousness. The third call is a call to them that know righteousness, the ones who know God’s law in their hearts, to fear not the reproaches of men. Many of the very best people do fear the reproaches of men and therefore our Lord gives a like encouragement in the beatitudes to those who are reproached for righteousness’ sake. The reason assigned is that they shall die and be eaten by moths and worms yet the righteousness of Jehovah is forever and his salvation unto all generations. Men may come and men may go But the righteousness of Jehovah goes on forever.
The fourth call is a call to Jehovah to put on strength, as in the days of old, and prepare the way for his people to return with everlasting joy upon their heads. The reply comes to upbraid the people for fearing man who is only transient and forgetting Jehovah their maker who had exhibited his power, not only in their past history, but in all times since the creation. From this they might take courage, for he who did all this would liberate the captives and bring salvation to his people. The Saviour of the people is Jehovah, whom the waves of the sea obey. This finds its happiest fulfilment in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The fifth call is obviously the counterpart to the call in the preceding paragraph. This was a call to the arm of Jehovah, this is a call to Jerusalem; that, to put on strength, this to awaken from the effects of the drunkenness from the cup of his wrath, in which condition her sons were like an antelope in the net. But Jerusalem is now bidden to look for favors from Jehovah since his wrath has been transferred from her to those who afflicted her.
The sixth call is to Zion to put on her strength, and beautiful garments. She is assured that her captivity was ended. While this is cast in the mold of the Jewish conception, yet the language looks to a fulfilment which is found only in conditions of the new covenant.
The personal knowledge referred to in Isa 51:6 is the experimental knowledge of the new covenant. It was our Lord Jesus Christ who fulfilled the last clause, “It is I,” or as the margin has it “Here I am.” He said on one occasion, “Before Abraham was, I am,” on another, “Be not afraid; it is I,” and again, “Lo, I am with you all the way.” He alone makes possible the personal, experimental knowledge and abiding presence of Jehovah.
The seventh call, in view of what has gone before, is very significant. There can be no doubt that this applies to the evangels of the cross. Paul quotes it and so applies it in Rom 10 . They are here called watchmen and may refer to the prophets of the Old Testament as well as the preachers and missionaries of the New Testament. But the prophet sees a day far beyond his, when the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God. The joy of the new day for Zion is pictured in glowing colors. They shall sing; they shall see eye to eye; they shall exalt the holy one of Israel as the God of their salvation.
The exhortation in Isa 52:11-12 is primarily an exhortation to depart from Babylon in which the Jews are now represented as being held in captivity, and the description of their going out without haste, etc., fits minutely the exodus from Babylon, cast in the mold of the deliverance from Egypt. But as remarked before, the deliverance from Babylon and Egypt are typical of a greater deliverance of God’s chosen. The deliverance from sin and the Babylon of this world is a far greater deliverance than either of these. This is all in view of the work of the Servant in his prophetic office, which has for the basis of all his success his vicarious suffering, at which this section barely hints.
QUESTIONS
1. What the general theme of Isaiah 49-57?
2. What the threefold division of this section (Isaiah 49-57), and what the special theme of each division?
3. What, more fully, is the theme of Isa 49:1-52:12 ?
4. How does this section open and what its significance?
5. How is this servant of Jehovah equipped for his success and what the state of mind toward the outcome of it all (Isa 49:1-4 )?
6. How is the Servant’s worldwide mission again emphasized (Isa 49:5-6 ) ?
7. What three peculiarities in Isa 49:7 which indicate how deeply the Servant was affected by the difficulties to be met and how does Jehovah encourage his Servant in them?
8. In what special relation is our Lord here (Isa 49:8-13 ) presented and what the blessings of that relation as pictured by the prophet?
9. What Zion’s complaint and what Jehovah’s response to it (Isa 49:14-23 )?
10. What the importance of the passage, Isa 49:24-26 ?
11. Who is the mighty one of this passage and how did he bring these captives into this captivity?
12. Who are his captives, i.e., his prey?
13. Why are they lawful captives and what the difficulty suggested by the inquiry, “Shall the lawful captives be delivered?”
14. Who shall deliver these lawful captives?
15. How is he to deliver them?
16. What the import of Isa 50:1-3 ?
17. What is the painful training of the Servant of Jehovah which assured him of success?
18. What are the twofold application of these principles?
19. Of what does Isa 51:1-52:12 consist and how are the parts introduced?
20. To whom the first call, and what was involved in it?
21. To whom the second call and what the import of it?
22. To whom is the third call and what the import?
23. To whom the fourth call and what the response?
24. To whom the fifth call and what its import?
25. To whom the sixth call and what the import?
26. What is the seventh call, who calls and what the import of this call?
27. What is the exhortation in Isa 52:11-12 ?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Isa 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Ver. 1. Awake, awake. ] Pluck up thy best heart, as we say, and rouse up thyself to receive the sweet promises; for as man’s laws, so God’s promises favour not them that are asleep, but awake and watchful.
O Jerusalem, the holy city.
There shall no more come into thee.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah Chapter 52
Isa 52:1-12
Thirdly, Zion is now called on. “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit thee down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith Jehovah, Ye were sold for naught; and ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there: and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what have I here, saith Jehovah, that my people is taken away for naught? their rulers make them howl, saith Jehovah, and my name continually all the day [is] blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore [they shall know] in that day that I [and He that saith, Beholds [it is] I” (vv. 1-6). The days of Egypt and of Assyria should never return: no more the oppressor should be known. Jehovah’s people shall know His name, Himself as revealed in it, as unchangeable in His mercy to them as in His own being.
Beautiful then in their eyes, as in His, are the feet of him that brings good tidings and publishes peace. Before (Isa 40:9 ) the cities of Judah were told, “Behold your God.” Now Zion hears, “Thy God reigneth!” The watchmen lift up their voice, singing, not warning; the very wastes of Jerusalem, so long forsaken, sing together in their irrepressible joy. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! The voice of thy watchmen! they lift up the voice, together do they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when Jehovah bringeth again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for Jehovah hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. Jehovah hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (vv. 7-10).
Lastly, the strain closes with the peremptory call to act consistently with the holiness of Jehovah and of His sanctuary. “Depart, depart, go out from thence, touch no unclean [thing]; go out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of Jehovah” (v. 11). Babylon is pointedly dropped: a larger sphere is meant. It should not be, as of old, in haste or in anxiety, however they were guided and delivered then. The greatest triumphs of their fathers fade in the glorious intervention of Jehovah which the children now know. “For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for Jehovah will go before you, and the God of Israel [will be] your rearward” (v. 12). It is in truth and in its fullest display the day of Jehovah, when Israel for ever leave the unclean Gentiles, henceforth to be a richer blessing to them than their evils had been a snare and ruin to Israel.
Now that Zion is thus summoned to awake out of ruin and suffering and degradation through her sins, and is by grace bidden to rise and stand forth in the righteousness and beauty Jehovah puts on her, the end of the chapter introduces once more and more fully than ever Him through Whom so blessed a change could come to pass. But it also, to make it adequate, demands that His vicissitudes should be set out distinctly; and this was the more needful, because it seemed unaccountable that One, so infinitely worthy and glorious, should have passed through them, when one thought either of Jehovah on the one hand, or of the Jewish people on the other. This demand gives rise, therefore, to the opening out of the great hidden necessity for Messiah’s atoning sufferings, if the divine nature were to be vindicated respecting sin and Israel (or any others) were to be purged and blessed. As we of the church behold Christ glorified on high in answer to His cross, so will Israel see Him set on the summit of earth’s universal glory for the same reason.
Isa 52:13-15
The section, of which this passage is the preface, assumes the truth already before us in chap. 1, pursues it farther and more profoundly, and thus completes the foundation of all that follows. It embraces all the nest chapter which forms part of it and is of the profoundest interest and importance.
The elder Jewish interpreters did not contest the application to the Messiah. Thus Jonathan Ben Uzziel expressly speaks to this effect in the Chaldee paraphrase (given in the Antwerp, Paris, and London Polyglotts). So the Talmud Babyl. (in Tr. Sanhedrim, cap. helek, fol. 98) applies to the Messiah, Isa 53:4 . Again, the book of Zohar confirms this in the comment on Exodus (fol. 95 Col 3 ), and the Mechilta (according to the Jalkut Shimoni, part 2. fol. 90, Col 1 ) is no less distinct, as even Aben Ezra, Abarbanel, and other distinguished men among their later authors confess. I am indebted to another (who has supplied some of these references) for the striking fact that even now, in the prayers of the synagogue used universally, there is the clearest witness to the same truth. For instance, at the Passover they pray in these terms: “Hasten and cause the shadows to flee away. Let him be exalted and extolled and be high, who is now despised. Let him deal prudently and reprove and sprinkle many nations.” Again, in the prayers for the day of Atonement, there is as plain an allusion to the righteous Anointed bearing the yoke of iniquities and transgression, wounded because of it, and men (or Israel at least) healed by His wound. The translator (D. Levi) tries to turn part of the prayer aside to Josiah, as do some of the Rabbis; but the prayer expressly alludes to the Messiah in one of these references to Isa 53 just cited, even according to the same person.
The more modern writers, who dread the ancient application of the prophecy to the Messiah by their fathers, have invented a double means of escape, either by applying it to some distinguished man like Josiah or Jeremiah, or to the Jewish people elsewhere styled “My servant” in the prophecy. But in vain. This section is so punctually and exclusively applicable to our Lord that these efforts only prove the will of unbelief and its failure. In the beginning of chap. 49. we have already seen Christ, the Servant substituted for Israel who had been altogether wanting. We have seen in chap. 1. that the godly Jews are exhorted to obey the voice of this Servant of Jehovah, humbled though He has been among men, but vindicated of God, and indeed He Himself is God.
The three closing verses of 52 open the new and full view of Messiah suffering and exalted in connection with Israel; for this last qualification needs to be borne in mind, lest man should look for that which it is no part of the Spirit’s work here to reveal. The union of Jew and Gentile in one body, as well as Christ Head over all things to it, His church, is, as the apostle tells us, a mystery, that is, a secret not revealed in Old Testament times (Eph 1:22 , Eph 1:23 ; Eph 3:1-11 ). Many points true of the church and the Christian are revealed in this prophecy as in others; but nowhere is heavenly union mentioned until after Christ’s rejection and ascension, and is not fully made known till the apostle Paul was entrusted with the administration of it.
The exalted Messiah of Israel is then before us, who erst was covered with shame and bent to such humiliation as was never before nor since the portion for any son of man. Hence many were dumb through astonishment, or rather perhaps abhorrence – “shocked” at Him: they had looked for Messiah far otherwise. His lowly mien and surroundings of life and labours first disappointed; His meek acceptance of insult and suffering next drew out all their malice and aversion.
“So shall He sprinkle many nations.” The Septuagint translates, “So shall many nations regard him with admiration” that is, it would seem, in contrast with Jewish vexation and hatred; but this supposes a different verb in their Hebrew copies, though differing only very slightly in form. Some of the ablest Jewish critics take it as meaning that the Messiah will drop the word in that manner and so teach if not refresh many Gentiles. Certainly what is said of kings implies a reverent and subject silence before Him. Thus ver. 15 may be considered to stand in antithesis to ver. 14: the one presenting the bitter unbelieving disappointment of the chosen; the other the beneficent dealing with the Gentiles, so that their kings are mute with awe in His presence. This accordingly cannot, save generally, apply at this time, but joins on the effects of His advent in glory in contrast with the days of His flesh (ver. 14), and in unison with the opening words of ver. 13. The apostle only uses the principle of the last words (ver. 15) for his own going out with the gospel where no other had preceded, and no sound of Christ might have yet reached (Rom 15:21 ); but he in no way treats this as the fulfilment of that oracle.
“Behold,” says God now through His prophet, “my servant will deal prudently [or rather, prosper], he shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. As many were astonished at thee (his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men), so shall he sprinkle* many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider” (vv. 13-15). What can be less congruous with this prophecy than the facts of Josiah, Jeremiah, or the Jewish people? Neither the king nor the prophet had any such destiny as could be fairly brought into this remarkable contrast of, first, deep shame, then wide and lofty glory before subject nations and kings. And though it is true, as we have often noticed in this prophet, that “my servant” sometimes applies to Israel, there are always definite contextual marks which render the decision by no means difficult or doubtful. This is made evident and certain from chapter 53, where there is the most obvious distinction between the Individual in question and the people who esteemed Him not. For He bore their griefs and carried their sorrows, yea, was wounded for their transgressions, and brought healing to them by His stripes when bruised for their iniquities. To identify this suffering One with the people from whom and for whom He thus suffered, and to whom He afterwards brings such signal blessing, is the grossest confusion on the face of the matter. But let us turn to the wondrous words of our God from these unbelieving and biased vagaries of men.
*This phrase has tormented the critics. The fathers in general apply it to the spiritual work of Christianity; the ancient Jews for the most part to the judicial effect of Messiah’s kingdom in dispersing or casting away the Gentiles. Some of the old versions took the word as expressive of amazement. Gesenius (in his Thes) comes pretty much to the same thing considering the word to mean the effect in starting from their seats those who suddenly see some great personage when it was least expected. But “sprinkling” Is the literal meaning however we may apply it. Some think it simpler to take it that He, Jehovah, will sprinkle many nations on Him the Messiah. But it is hard to see the superior propriety of such a sense to the common view that the very humiliation for the gracious work of redemption then achieved answers the surprise of many of old at the cleansing of many nations by-and-by.
The humiliation of the Messiah ran so counter to every preconceived thought and wish of the Jew that one can readily understand the advantage which Satan found in urging on the people, leaders and all, to their fatal unbelief and rejection of Him. But there was a deeper ground of aversion in the heart than disappointment in their national ambition, and this charge of dislike to His Person takes in man universally, and not Israel only: “For he was despised and left alone of men.” They shrank from One Who sounded and laid bare man’s iniquities and enmity to God, Himself the perfection of obeying God and loving man. Hence, notwithstanding the attractiveness of moral beauty and lowly grace, with power that proved itself superior to all the sickness and misery of man, there arose the hatred that grew more intense and deadly as He brought in God to deal with their conscience. To interpret what is predicted of Him as being the state of “that wicked generation” is beyond measure absurd.
It is not here the remnant of the Jews distinguished from the mass by hearkening to the voice of Jehovah’s Servant, as in Isa 50:10 , but many nations and kings in astonishment at His exaltation Who was once so humbled. The inspired word puts every thing and every one in the just place.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Isaiah
THE AWAKENING OF ZION
Isa 51:9
Both these verses are, I think, to be regarded as spoken by one voice, that of the Servant of the Lord. His majestic figure, wrapped in a light veil of obscurity, fills the eye in all these later prophecies of Isaiah. It is sometimes clothed with divine power, sometimes girded with the towel of human weakness, sometimes appearing like the collective Israel, sometimes plainly a single person.
We have no difficulty in solving the riddle of the prophecy by the light of history. Our faith knows One who unites these diverse characteristics, being God and man, being the Saviour of the body, which is part of Himself and instinct with His life. If we may suppose that He speaks in both verses of the text, then, in the one, as priest and intercessor, He lifts the prayers of earth to heaven in His own holy hands-and in the other, as messenger and Word of God, He brings the answer and command of heaven to earth on His own authoritative lips-thus setting forth the deep mystery of His person and double office as mediator between man and God. But even if we put aside that thought, the correspondence and relation of the two passages remain the same. In any case they are intentionally parallel in form and connected in substance. The latter is the answer to the former. The cry of Zion is responded to by the call of God. The awaking of the arm of the Lord is followed by the awaking of the Church. He puts on strength in clothing us with His might, which becomes ours.
The mere juxtaposition of these verses suggests the point of view from which I wish to treat them on this occasion. I hope that the thoughts to which they lead may help to further that quickened earnestness and expectancy of blessing, without which Christian work is a toil and a failure.
We have here a common principle underlying both the clauses of our text, to which I must first briefly ask attention, namely-
I. The occurrence in the Church’s history of successive periods of energy and of languor.
We all know it only too well. In our own hearts we have known such times, when some cold clinging mist wrapped us round and hid all the heaven of God’s love and the starry lights of His truth; when the visible was the only real, and He seemed far away and shadowy; when there was neither confidence in our belief, nor heat in our love, nor enthusiasm in our service; when the shackles of conventionalism bound our souls, and the fetters of the frost imprisoned all their springs. And we have seen a like palsy smite whole regions and ages of the Church of God, so that even the sensation of impotence was dead like all the rest, and the very tradition of spiritual power had faded away. I need not point to the signal historical examples of such times in the past. Remember England a hundred years ago-but what need to travel so far? May I venture to draw my example from nearer home, and ask, have we not been living in such an epoch? I beseech you, think whether the power which the Gospel preached by us wields on ourselves, on our churches, on the world, is what Christ meant it and fitted to exercise. Why, if we hold our own in respect to the material growth of our population, it is as much as we do. Where is the joyful buoyancy and expansive power with which the Gospel burst into the world? It looks like some stream that leaps from the hills, and at first hurries from cliff to cliff full of light and music, but flows slower and more sluggish as it advances, and at last almost stagnates in its flat marshes. Here we are with all our machinery, our culture, money, organisations-and the net result of it all at the year’s end is but a poor handful of ears. ‘Ye sow much and bring home little.’ Well may we take up the wail of the old Psalm, ‘We see not our signs. There is no more any prophet; neither is there any among us that knoweth how long-arise, O Lord, plead Thine own cause.’
If, then, there are such recurring seasons of languor, they must either go on deepening till sleep becomes death, or they must be broken by a new outburst of vigorous life. It would be better if we did not need the latter. The uninterrupted growth would be best; but if that has not been attained, then the ending of winter by spring, and the suppling of the dry branches, and the resumption of the arrested growth, is the next best, and the only alternative to rotting away.
And it is by such times that the Kingdom of Christ always has grown. Its history has been one of successive impulses gradually exhausted, as by friction and gravity, and mercifully repeated just at the moment when it was ceasing to advance and had begun to slide backwards. And in such a manner of progress, the Church’s history has been in full analogy with that of all other forms of human association and activity. It is not in religion alone that there are ‘revivals,’ to use the word of which some people have such a dread. You see analogous phenomena in the field of literature, arts, social and political life. In them all, there come times of awakened interest in long-neglected principles. Truths which for many years had been left to burn unheeded, save by a faithful few watchers of the beacon, flame up all at once as the guiding pillars of a nation’s march, and a whole people strike their tents and follow where they lead. A mysterious quickening thrills through society. A contagion of enthusiasm spreads like fire, fusing all hearts in one. The air is electric with change. Some great advance is secured at a stride; and before and after that supreme effort are years of comparative quiescence; those before being times of preparation, those after being times of fruition and exhaustion-but slow and languid compared with the joyous energy of that moment. One day may be as a thousand years in the history of a people, and a nation may be born in a day.
So also is the history of the Church. And thank God it is so, for if it had not been for the dawning of these times of refreshing, the steady operation of the Church’s worldliness would have killed it long ago.
Surely, dear brethren, we ought to desire such a merciful interruption of the sad continuity of our languor and decay. The surest sign of its coming would be a widespread desire and expectation of its coming, joined with a penitent consciousness of our heavy and sinful slumber. For we believe in a God who never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them, and in whose merciful providence every desire is a prophecy of its own fruition. This attitude of quickened anticipation, diffusing itself silently through many hearts, is like the light air that springs up before sunrise, or like the solemn hush that holds all nature listening before the voice of the Lord in the thunder.
And another sign of its approach is the extremity of the need. ‘If winter come, can spring be far behind?’ For He who is always with Zion strikes in with His help when the want is at its sorest. His ‘right early’ is often the latest moment before destruction. And though we are all apt to exaggerate the urgency of the hour and the severity of our conflict, it certainly does seem that, whether we regard the languor of the Church or the strength of our adversaries, succour delayed a little longer would be succour too late. ‘The tumult of those that rise up against Thee increaseth continually. It is time for Thee to work.’
The juxtaposition of these passages suggests for us-
II. The twofold explanation of these variations.
We may, then, see here implied the cause of these alternations, of which we have been speaking, on its divine side, and then, in the corresponding verse addressed to the Church, the cause on the human side.
As to the former, it is true that God’s arm sometimes slumbers, and is not clothed with power. There are, as a fact, apparent variations in the energy with which He works in the Church and in the world. And they are real variations, not merely apparent. But we have to distinguish between the power, and what Paul calls ‘the might of the power.’ The one is final, constant, unchangeable. It does not necessarily follow that the other is. The rate of operation, so to speak, and the amount of energy actually brought into play may vary, though the force remains the same.
It is clear from experience that there are these variations; and the only question with which we are concerned is, are they mere arbitrary jets and spurts of a divine power, sometimes gushing out in full flood, sometimes trickling in painful drops, at the unknown will of the unseen hand which controls the flow? Is the ‘law of the Spirit of life’ at all revealed to us; or are the reasons occult, if there be any reasons at all other than a mere will that it shall be so? Surely, whilst we never can know all the depths of His counsels and all the solemn concourse of reasons which, to speak in man’s language, determine the energy of His manifested power, He has left us in no doubt that this is the weightiest part of the law which it follows-the might with which God works on the world through His Church varies according to the Church’s receptiveness and faithfulness.
Our second text tells us that if God’s arm seems to slumber and really does so, it is because Zion sleeps. In itself that immortal energy knows no variableness. ‘He fainteth not, neither is weary.’ ‘The Lord’s arm is not shortened that He cannot save.’ ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’ But He works through us; and we have the solemn and awful power of checking the might which would flow through us; of restraining and limiting the Holy One of Israel. It avails nothing that the ocean stretches shoreless to the horizon; a jar can hold only a jarful. The receiver’s capacity determines the amount received, and the receiver’s desire determines his capacity. The law has ever been, ‘according to your faith be it unto you.’ God gives as much as we will, as much as we can hold, as much as we use, and far more than we deserve. As long as we will bring our vessels the golden oil will flow, and after the last is filled, there yet remains more that we might have had, if we could have held it, and might have held if we would. ‘Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in yourselves.’
So, dear brethren, if we have to lament times of torpor and small success, let us be honest with ourselves, and recognise that all the blame lies with us. If God’s arm seems to slumber, it is because we are asleep. His power is invariable, and the Gospel which is committed to our trust has lost none of its ancient power, whatsoever men may say. If there be variations, they cannot be traced to the divine element in the Church, which in itself is constant, but altogether to the human, which shifts and fluctuates, as we only too sadly know. The light in the beacon-tower is steady, and the same; but the beam it throws across the waters sometimes fades to a speck, and sometimes flames out clear and far across the heaving waves, according to the position of the glasses and shades around it. The sun pours out heat as profusely and as long at midwinter as on midsummer-day, and all the difference between the frost and darkness and glowing brightness and flowering life, is simply owing to the earth’s place in its orbit and the angle at which the unalterable rays fall upon it. The changes are in the terrestrial sphere; the heavenly is fixed for ever the same.
May I not venture to point an earnest and solemn appeal with these truths? Has there not been poured over us the spirit of slumber? Does it not seem as if an opium sky had been raining soporifics on our heads? We have had but little experience of the might of God amongst us of late years, and we need not wonder at it. There is no occasion to look far for the reason. We have only to regard the low ebb to which religious life has been reduced amongst us to have it all and more than all accounted for. I fully admit that there has been plenty of activity, perhaps more than the amount of real life warrants, not a little liberality, and many virtues. But how languid and torpid the true Christian life has been! how little enthusiasm! how little depth of communion with God! how little unworldly elevation of soul! how little glow of love! An improvement in social position and circumstances, a freer blending with the national life, a full share of civic and political honours, a higher culture in our pulpits, fine chapels, and applauding congregations-are but poor substitutes for what many of us have lost in racing after them. We have the departed prophets’ mantle, the outward resemblance to the fathers who have gone, but their fiery zeal has passed to heaven with them; and softer, weaker men, we stand timidly on the river’s brink, invoking the Lord God of Elijah, and too often the flood that obeyed them has no ear for our feebler voice.
I speak to many who are in some sort representatives of the churches throughout the land, and they can tell whether my words are on the whole true or overstrained. We who labour in our great cities, what say we? If one of the number may speak for the rest, we have to acknowledge that commercial prosperity and business cares, the eagerness after pleasure and the exigencies of political strife, diffused doubt and widespread artistic and literary culture, are eating the very life out of thousands in our churches, and lowering their fervour till, like molten iron cooling in the air, what was once all glowing with ruddy heat is crusted over with foul black scoriae ever encroaching on the tiny central warmth. You from rural churches, what say you? Have you not to speak of deepening torpor settling down on quiet corners, of the passing away of grey heads which leave no successors, of growing difficulties and lessened power to meet them, that make you sometimes all but despair?
I am not flinging indiscriminate censures. I know that there are lights as well as shades in the picture. I am not flinging censures at all. But I am giving voice to the confessions of many hearts, that our consciousness of our blame may be deepened, and we may hasten back to that dear Lord whom we have left to serve alone, as His first disciples left Him once to agonise alone under the gnarled olives in Gethsemane, while they lay sleeping in the moonlight. Listen to His gentle rebuke, full of pain and surprised love, ‘What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?’ Listen to His warning call, loving as the kiss with which a mother wakes her child, ‘Arise, let us be going’-and let us shake the spirit of slumber from our limbs, and serve Him as those unsleeping spirits do, who rest not day nor night from vision and work and praise.
III. The beginning of all awaking is the Church’s earnest cry to God.
For every such stirring of quickened religious life must needs have in it bitter penitence and pain at the discovery flashed upon us of the wretched deadness of our past-and, as we gaze like some wakened sleepwalker into the abyss where another step might have smashed us to atoms, a shuddering terror seizes us that must cry, ‘Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.’ And every such stirring of quickened life will have in it, too, desire for more of His grace, and confidence in His sure bestowal of it, which cannot but breathe itself in prayer.
Nor is Zion’s cry to God only the beginning and sign of all true awaking: it is also the condition and indispensable precursor of all perfecting of recovery from spiritual languor.
I have already pointed out the relation between the waking of God and the waking of His Church, from which that necessarily follows. God’s power flows into our weakness in the measure and on condition of our desires. We are sometimes told that we err in praying for the outpouring of His Holy Spirit, because ever since Pentecost His Church has had the gift. The objection alleges an unquestioned fact, but the conclusion drawn from it rests on an altogether false conception of the manner of that abiding gift. The Spirit of God, and the power which comes from Him, are not given as a purse of money might be put into a man’s hand once and for all, but they are given in a continuous impartation and communication and are received and retained moment by moment, according to the energy of our desires and the faithfulness of our use. As well might we say, Why should I ask for natural life, I received it half a century ago? Yes, and at every moment of that half-century I have continued to live, not because of a past gift, but because at each moment God is breathing into my nostrils the breath of life. So is it with the life which comes from His Spirit. It is maintained by constant efflux from the fountain of Life, by constant impartation of His quickening breath. And as He must continually impart, so must we continually receive, else we perish. Therefore, brethren, the first step towards awaking, and the condition of all true revival in our own souls and in our churches, is this earnest cry, ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord.
Thank God for the outpouring of a long unwonted spirit of prayer in many places. It is like the melting of the snows in the high Alps, at once the sign of spring and the cause of filling the stony river beds with flashing waters, that bring verdure and growth wherever they come. The winter has been long and hard. We have all to confess that we have been restraining prayer before God. Our work has been done with but little sense of our need of His blessing, with but little ardour of desire for His power. We have prayed lazily, scarcely believing that answers would come; we have not watched for the reply, but have been like some heartless marksman who draws his bow and does not care to look whether his arrow strikes the target. These mechanical words, these conventional petitions, these syllables winged by no real desire, inspired by no faith, these expressions of devotion, far too wide for their real contents, which rattle in them like a dried kernel in a nut, are these prayers? Is there any wonder that they have been dispersed in empty air, and that we have been put to shame before our enemies? Brethren in the ministry, do we need to be surprised at our fruitless work, when we think of our prayerless studies and of our faithless prayers? Let us remember that solemn word, ‘The pastors have become brutish, and have not sought the Lord, therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.’ And let us all, brethren, betake ourselves, with penitence and lowly consciousness of our sore need, to prayer, earnest and importunate, believing and persistent, like this heaven-piercing cry which captive Israel sent up from her weary bondage.
Look at the passionate earnestness of it-expressed in the short, sharp cry, thrice repeated, as from one in mortal need; and see to it that our drowsy prayers be like it. Look at the grand confidence with which it founds itself on the past, recounting the mighty deeds of ancient days, and looking back, not for despair but for joyful confidence, to the generations of old; and let our faint-hearted faith be quickened by the example, to expect great things of God. The age of miracles is not gone. The mightiest manifestations of God’s power in the spread of the Gospel in the past remain as patterns for His future. We have not to look back as from low-lying plains to the blue peaks on the horizon, across which the Church’s path once lay, and sigh over the changed conditions of the journey. The highest watermark that the river in flood has ever reached will be reached and overpassed again, though to-day the waters may seem to have hopelessly subsided. Greater triumphs and deliverances shall crown the future than have signalised the past. Let our faithful prayer base itself on the prophecies of history and on the unchangeableness of God.
Think, brethren, of the prayers of Christ. Even He, whose spirit needed not to be purged from stains or calmed from excitement, who was ever in His Father’s house whilst He was about His Father’s business, blending in one, action and contemplation, had need to pray. The moments of His life thus marked are very significant. When He began His ministry, the close of the first day of toil and wonders saw Him, far from gratitude and from want, in a desert place in prayer. When He would send forth His apostles, that great step in advance, in which lay the germ of so much, was preceded by solitary prayer. When the fickle crowd desired to make Him the centre of political revolution, He passed from their hands and beat back that earliest attempt to secularise His work, by prayer. When the seventy brought the first tidings of mighty works done in His name, He showed us how to repel the dangers of success, in that He thanked the Lord of heaven and earth who had revealed these things to babes. When He stood by the grave of Lazarus, the voice that waked the dead was preceded by the voice of prayer, as it ever must be. When He had said all that He could say to His disciples, He crowned all with His wonderful prayer for Himself, for them, and for us all. When the horror of great darkness fell upon His soul, the growing agony is marked by His more fervent prayer, so wondrously compact of shrinking fear and filial submission. When the cross was hid in the darkness of eclipse, the only words from the gloom were words of prayer. When, Godlike, He dismissed His spirit, manlike He commended it to His Father, and sent the prayer from His dying lips before Him to herald His coming into the unseen world. One instance remains, even more to our present purpose than all these-’It came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him.’ Mighty mystery! In Him, too, the Son’s desire is connected with the Father’s gift, and the unmeasured possession of the Spirit was an answer to His prayer.
Then, brethren, let us lift our voices and our hearts. That which ascends as prayer descends as blessing, like the vapour that is drawn up by the kiss of the sun to fall in freshening rain. ‘Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and hidden things which thou knowest not.’
IV. The answering call from God to Zion.
And in that reverberation, and giving back to us our petition transformed into a command, we are not to see a dismissal of it as if we had misapprehended our true want. It is not tantamount to, Do not ask me to put on my strength, but array yourselves in your own. The very opposite interpretation is the true one. The prayer of Zion is heard and answered. God awakes, and clothes Himself with might. Then, as some warrior king, himself roused from sleep and girded with flashing steel, bids the clarion sound through the grey twilight to summon the prostrate ranks that lie round his tent, so the sign of God’s awaking and the first act of His conquering might is this trumpet call-’The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us put off the works of darkness,’-the night gear that was fit for slumber-’and put on the armour of light,’ the mail of purity that gleams and glitters even in the dim dawn. God’s awaking is our awaking. He puts on strength by making us strong; for His arm works through us, clothing itself, as it were, with our arm of flesh, and perfecting itself even in our weakness.
Nor is it to be forgotten that this, like all God’s commands, carries in its heart a promise. That earliest word of God’s is the type of all His latter behests: ‘Let there be light,’ and the mighty syllables were creative and self-fulfilling. So ever, with Him, to enjoin and to bestow are one and the same, and His command is His conveyance of power. He rouses us by His summons, He clothes us with power in the very act of bidding us put it on. So He answers the Church’s cry by stimulating us to quickened zeal, and making us more conscious of, and confident in, the strength which, in answer to our cry, He pours into our limbs.
But the main point which I would insist on in what remains of this sermon, is the practical discipline which this divine summons requires from us.
And first, let us remember that the chief means of quickened life and strength is deepened communion with Christ.
As we have been saying, our strength is ours by continual derivation from Him. It has no independent existence, any more than a sunbeam could have, severed from the sun. It is ours only in the sense that it flows through us, as a river through the land which it enriches. It is His whilst it is ours, it is ours when we know it to be His. Then, clearly, the first thing to do must be to keep the channels free by which it flows into our souls, and to maintain the connection with the great Fountainhead unimpaired. Put a dam across the stream, and the effect will be like the drying up of Jordan before Israel: ‘the waters that were above rose up upon an heap, and the waters that were beneath failed and were cut off,’ and the foul oozy bed was disclosed to the light of day. It is only by constant contact with Christ that we have any strength to put on.
That communion with Him is no mere idle or passive attitude, but the active employment of our whole nature with His truth, and with Him whom the truth reveals. The understanding must be brought into contact with the principles of His word, the heart must touch and beat against His heart, the will meekly lay its hand in His, the conscience draw at once its anodyne and its stimulus from His sacrifice, the passions know His finger on the reins, and follow, led in the silken leash of love. Then, if I may so say, Elisha’s miracle will be repeated in nobler form, and from Himself, the Life thus touching all our being, life will flow into our deadness. ‘He put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.’ So, dear brethren, all our practical duty is summed up in that one word, the measure of our obedience to which is the measure of all our strength-’Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.’
Again, this summons calls us to the faithful use of the power which, on condition of that communion, we have.
There is no doubt a temptation, in all times like the present, to look for some new and extraordinary forms of blessing, and to substitute such expectation for present work with our present strength. There is nothing new to look for. There is no need to wait for anything more than we possess. Remember the homely old proverb, ‘You never know what you can do till you try,’ and though we are conscious of much unfitness, and would sometimes gladly wait till our limbs are stronger, let us brace ourselves for the work, assured that in it strength will be given to us that equals our desire. There is a wonderful power in honest work to develop latent energies and reveal a man to himself. I suppose, in most cases, no one is half so much surprised at a great man’s greatest deeds as he is himself. They say that there is dormant electric energy enough in a few raindrops to make a thunderstorm, and there is dormant spiritual force enough in the weakest of us to flash into beneficent light, and peal notes of awaking into many a deaf ear. The effort to serve your Lord will reveal to you strength that you know not. And it will increase the strength which it brings into play, as the used muscles grow like whipcord, and the practised fingers become deft at their task, and every faculty employed is increased, and every gift wrapped in a napkin melts like ice folded in a cloth, according to that solemn law, ‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’
Then be sure that to its last particle you are using the strength you have, ere you complain of not having enough for your tasks. Take heed of the vagrant expectations that wait for they know not what, and the apparent prayers that are really substitutes for possible service. ‘Why liest thou on thy face? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.’
The Church’s resources are sufficient for the Church’s work, if the resources are used. We are tempted to doubt it, by reason of our experience of failure and our consciousness of weakness. We are more than ever tempted to doubt it to-day, when so many wise men are telling us that our Christ is a phantom, our God a stream of tendency, our Gospel a decaying error, our hope for the world a dream, and our work in the world done. We stand before our Master with doubtful hearts, and, as we look along the ranks sitting there on the green grass, and then at the poor provisions which make all our store, we are sometimes tempted almost to think that He errs when He says with that strange calmness of His, ‘They need not depart, give ye them to eat.’ But go out among the crowds and give confidently what you have, and you will find that you have enough and to spare. If ever our stores seem inadequate, it is because they are reckoned up by sense, which takes cognizance of the visible, instead of by faith which beholds the real. Certainly five loaves and two small fishes are not enough, but are not five loaves and two small fishes and a miracle-working hand behind them, enough? It is poor calculation that leaves out Christ from the estimate of our forces. The weakest man and Jesus to back him are more than all antagonism, more than sufficient for all duty. Be not seduced into doubt of your power, or of your success, by others’ sneers, or by your own faint-heartedness. The confidence of ability is ability. ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place,’ and you will not fail-and see to it that you use the resources you have, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. ‘Put on thy strength, O Zion.’
So, dear brethren, to gather all up in a sentence, let us confidently look for times of blessing, penitently acknowledge that our own faithlessness has hindered the arm of the Lord, earnestly beseech Him to come in His rejoicing strength, and, drawing ever fresh power from constant communion with our dear Lord, use it to its last drop for Him. Then, like the mortal leader of Israel, as he pondered doubtingly with sunken eyes on the hard task before his untrained host, we shall look up and be aware of the presence of the sworded angel, the immortal Captain of the host of the Lord, standing ready to save, ‘putting on righteousness as a breastplate, an helmet of salvation on His head, and clad with zeal as a cloak.’ From His lips, which give what they command, comes the call, ‘Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.’ Hearkening to His voice, the city of the strong ones shall be made an heap before our wondering ranks, and the land shall lie open to our conquering march.
Wheresoever we lift up the cry, ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,’ there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, ‘Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!’ Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful chorus, as in this context, ‘Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; the Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 52:1-2
1Awake, awake,
Clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion;
Clothe yourself in your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city;
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Will no longer come into you.
2Shake yourself from the dust, rise up,
O captive Jerusalem;
Loose yourself from the chains around your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion.
Isa 52:1-2 Awake. . .clothe. . .shake. . .loose This is a series of IMPERATIVES (see Contextual Insights, B), like Isa 51:9; Isa 51:17. Many compare this with the opposite condition of the city of Babylon in Isa 47:1 ff.
Isa 52:1 e For the uncircumcised and the unclean
Will no longer come into you This cannot refer to the exclusion of the Gentiles from redemption, but that no heathen nation would again invade the Promised Land. This may be the source of John’s imagery in Rev 21:27.
Isa 52:2
NASB, NRSV,
NJB, NETcaptive
NKJVsit down
LXX, Vulgate,
TEV, JPSOAsit [on your throne]
The MT has sit (BDB 442, KB 444, Qal IMPERATIVE, , but later in the verse (BDB 985), is translated captive). The UBS Text Project gives sit a B rating (some doubt). Israel is to rise up and sit on her throne.
Loose This is a place where the MT has a MASCULINE PLURAL form of the Hithpael IMPERATIVE, but the Masoretic scholars suggested (qere) a FEMININE SINGULAR form.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Awake. Same form as in Isa 51:9; not the same as in Isa 51:17. Figure of speech Epizeuxis. App-6.
the holy city. Hebrew “the city of the Sanctuary”. See note on Exo 3:5.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 52
Now again God cries for them.
Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem ( Isa 52:1 ),
There’s a day coming of just, “Put on your glorious garments and get ready for the big celebration, O Jerusalem.”
the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean ( Isa 52:1 ).
Jerusalem’s going to be cleaned out of the filth that is presently a part of that whole city there. It is, to me, an extremely sad and tragic thing to see the city of Jerusalem today-though there is always sort of an awe and a wonder about it-yet there is so much prostitution there in the old city, such a ready availability of drugs. You go by the shops and these guys all have the little hashish pipes or the hoses from the thing and you get the smell and you think, “Oh God, this is the holy city! The city that You have chosen above all the cities of the earth to place Your name.” And oh, the stuff that goes on there today. The cursing, the anger, the bitterness, the strife, the evil; and you long for that day when Jerusalem shall again be the city of God, the city of righteousness, the light to the whole world. And so God says the time is coming.
Now, “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.” This is the day when the Lord has returned and establishes His kingdom.
Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nothing; but you will be redeemed without money ( Isa 52:2-3 ).
“We have been redeemed,” Peter said, “not with silver and gold. Not with money, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ” ( 1Pe 1:18-19 ). You sold yourselves for nothing. And how true that is of people today. They’re selling themselves for nothing. Jesus said, “What should it profit a man, if he gained the whole world, and lost his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” ( Mar 8:36-37 ) Interesting question.
What would you give in exchange for your soul? If Satan should come to you and say, “Hey, buddy, name your price. I want to buy your soul. How much will you charge?” What would you charge Satan for your soul? What kind of a price would you put on it? Would you take a million bucks for your soul? How about five million? What would a man give in exchange for his soul? When you look at it that way, you say, “Hey man, there’s nothing I would take for my soul. That’s eternity. I don’t want eternity in the kingdom of darkness. There’s nothing I would take for it. It’s priceless.” That’s the way God looks at it. He looks at your soul as priceless. But the unfortunate thing, though the person may say, “Man, I wouldn’t sell for a million, or I wouldn’t sell for five,” they’re selling it for nothing. You’re absolutely getting nothing from Satan but a bunch of dirt. Selling out their soul for nothing. And how foolish it is that man would sell his soul for nothing. And God said, “That’s what happened. Hey, you sold yourself for nothing. But I’m going to redeem you, but not with money.” And so as we get into chapters 52 and 53, we find the price of redemption that God was willing to give in order to redeem man unto Himself.
For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there ( Isa 52:4 );
That is the time of Jacob.
and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nothing? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name is continually blasphemed every day. Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I ( Isa 52:4-6 ).
Jesus came to His own; His own received Him not. They did not recognize Him. But the day will come when they will.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings ( Isa 52:7 ),
And the word good tidings is the word gospel.
that publisheth peace; that bringeth the gospel of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Your God reigns! ( Isa 52:7 )
Oh, how beautiful on the mountain the feet of those that bear good tidings, the gospel of Jesus Christ, that publish forth the good news of peace that man can have with God. “That saith to Zion, Your God reigns!”
Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion ( Isa 52:8 ).
When God brings again the captivity of Zion, we were as those who were in a dream, it said. Then they will see eye to eye.
Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, depart ye, go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go you out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD ( Isa 52:9-11 ).
Jesus in the New Testament, or the Spirit urges us through the writings of Paul, “Come ye apart from her, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, touch not the unclean thing. And I will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters” ( 2Co 6:17-18 ). And here again, the call of separation from God. The separation of ourselves from the world and from the policies of the world. “Be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” ( Rom 12:2 ). “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For he that hath the love of the world in his heart hath not the love of the Father” ( 1Jn 2:15 ). And so God’s call to His people to come out of the world. “Depart, depart from the world, touch no unclean thing; go out of the midst of her; be clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel will be behind you ( Isa 52:12 ).
God will be in front of you, behind you. So God’s glorious leading and protection from the rear. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Isa 52:1-2
Isa 52:1-2
“The first twelve verses of this chapter are a continuation of the previous chapter; and there is no special reason for a break at this point.”; Isa 52:13-15 form an ideal introduction to Isaiah 53; which, taken together with the last three verses here, constitute the so-called Fourth Song of the Servant.
The first six verses here are a glorious address to Jerusalem, contrasting her with the state of Babylon, after the fall of that wicked city, and also a contrast with the closing verses of Isaiah 51, where Jerusalem appeared as a wretched woman in a state of drunkenness, staggering about in a hopeless condition with none, not even her sons, to help her.
Isa 52:1-2
“Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”
“Jewish writers, supporting their obstinate and hopeless rejection of Christ as the Messiah, state that the uncircumcised here are the Christians, and that the unclean are the Turks!” This shows the length to which unbelievers will go to support their infidelity. First, all Christians are indeed circumcised (Rom 2:29; Col 2:11). Above and beyond that truth is the fact that literal Jerusalem is certainly not “the holy city” of Isa 52:1. There has never been a single moment in all of human history when literal Jerusalem was actually “holy.” Jesus indeed once referred to it as the “Holy City”; but the language was merely accommodative in recognition of the fact that the devout Jews so considered it.
Look at the facts: After Jerusalem was delivered from captivity in Babylon, it was a generation before the walls and the temple were restored; and after the quartering of Alexander the Great’s empire, Jerusalem became a kind of buffer-state kicked about between Syria and Egypt. Antiochus Epiphanes took the temple, sacrificed a sow on the holy altar, forbade the reading of the Torah, and in other ways polluted and desecrated the literal Jerusalem; and eventually, another horde of “uncircumcised” people under Vespasian and Titus stormed and destroyed literal Jerusalem, deported 30,000 of its citizens to Egypt, put to death over a million of them and crucified 30,000 young men upon the walls of the city. Thus, it is clear enough that to make Jerusalem in this passage a place that the “uncircumcised” would never enter any more is to force the prophecy to prophesy a lie.
No! The Jerusalem here is that ultimate spiritual Jerusalem which the apostle John saw, “Coming down from God out of heaven” (Rev 21:2).
This encouragement for Jerusalem was evidently, “Designed to contrast with Isa 47:1-3,” where Babylon is commanded to sit in the dust, without a throne, with all of her fine clothing removed, and doing the work of a slave; but here Zion is commanded to awake and put on beautiful garments, and sit on a throne.
Isa 52:1-2 DISSOCIATION FROM PAGANISM: AS before, the prophet is speaking of the future Babylonian exile in the present tense. He is directing the exhortation to his small band of disciples (the remnant which shall form the nucleus of Zion). This remnant must prepare itself for imminent exile into pagan Babylon. It must strengthen itself by believing what Isaiah is predicting about its Messiah and its messianic role. Zion must commit itself to an adornment of holiness so that when it is taken captive it will be able to keep itself separated from the filth and enslavement of heathenism with which it will be so alluringly surrounded. Zion must not allow the fleeting pleasures of Babylonian ungodliness lure her from her throne (her royal messianic queenship).
The aim of this passage is spiritual Jerusalem. That is evident from the prediction that the uncircumcised and the unclean would no more come into her. It cannot be literally or physically intended. Jerusalem has suffered literal invasion and occupation by one uncircumcised culture after another. First the Babylonians, then the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Mohammedans, Crusaders, Arabs, and even today there are Gentile citizens of Jerusalem. What this passage refers to ultimately is the Israel of God over which the Messiah rules, the church of Christ. Those not in covenant relationship to God through obedience to Christs gospel (the uncircumcised) and those not purified from sin by the atoning blood of the Suffering Servant (the unclean) will not come into the ultimate Zion, no matter what their genetic ancestry may be-Jew or Gentile. It is interesting to note that Joel predicts, in his messianic conclusion, that strangers shall never again pass through Jerusalem (Joe 3:17); and on the other hand Ezekiel, in his portrayal of the glorious messianic era to come, predicts that aliens will be given an inheritance and be as native born sons (Eze 47:21-23). It is apparent, therefore, that when the messianic kingdom was to come, people were to become citizens of that kingdom, not as a result of being born a Jew and circumcised in the flesh, but by being reconciled to the Messiah of God through faith. All who are not thus reconciled are strangers and uncircumcised and unclean and cannot enter spiritual Jerusalem. That is precisely what the New Testament teaches (cf. Rom 2:28-29; Rom 4:9-25; 1Co 6:9-11; Gal 3:1 to Gal 5:25; Gal 6:12-16; Eph 2:11-22; Php 3:2-11; Heb 12:18-29).
God promises to physically deliver Zion from her captors. But Zion herself must make the choices and do the deeds of holiness that separates her from Babylonian wickedness. Verses one and two are saturated with imperatives (commands): Awake; put on; Shake; arise; sit; loose are all commands for Zion to act. This is what distinguishes spiritual Zion from genetic Israel-holiness by choice.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The second message (verses Isa 52:1-6) calls on Zion to awake and put on her strength and her beautiful garments, because she is to be cleansed of all internal defilement. Though she had been sold into slavery for naught, her redemption is determined on, and she is to know Jehovah as the name of Him who is able to accomplish His purpose.
The third (verses Isa 52:7-12) describes the return of Jehovah to His people. It is announced by runners and watchmen, and results in an outburst of song. In view of the certainty of this return the prophet calls on the people to cleanse themselves; and finally announces that Jehovah will go before, and the God of Israel will be the rearward.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Thy God Reigneth!
Isa 52:1-15
It is not God that has become lethargic; but we that have slept and need to awake. Being awakened, we discover that two sets of attire are waiting for us: First, His strength, so that we may not be afraid of ten thousands of people who set themselves round about; and secondly, the beautiful garments of our Lords character. See Col 3:9-17.
At last the climax of the long prophetic stairway is reached and the summons for the exodus from Babylon rings out, Isa 52:11. It was Gods return to the desolate city, Isa 52:2; Isa 52:8. The stately procession moves slowly and fearlessly. It is not the escape of a band of fugitive slaves, dreading pursuit and recapture, Isa 52:12. Before it speed the heralds, appearing on the sky line as they ascend the mountains which surround the Holy City, publishing peace and salvation, Isa 52:7. The central body is composed of white robed priests, bearing with reverent care the holy vessels, Isa 52:11, of which Nebuchadnezzar despoiled the Temple, but which Cyrus restored. See Ezr 1:7-11. Thus, also, the Church marches through the world.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
EXPOSITORY NOTES ON
THE PROPHET ISAIAH
By
Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.
Copyright @ 1952
edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago
ISAIAH CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
THE GOOD TIDINGS TO ALL
THEN comes another call in the next chapter:
“Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money” (verses 1-3).
These three consecutive calls to awake are very clear and definite. First, it is the call of the people in their sorrow and in their trouble. “Awake, awake . . . O arm of the Lord.” Remembering how the arm of the Lord had been manifested on their behalf in ancient times, they cry out from the depths of their heart, “O God, come in and undertake for us! Awake, O arm of the Lord!”
As will soon be shown in chapter fifty-three, the arm of the Lord is a Person. It is the Lord JESUS CHRIST Himself. So it is really He who is being addressed, though the people do not know it. “Arm of the Lord, awake, awake!” They call on Him to rise for their deliverance, and, thank GOD, in due time He will. This is one of the first things that will take place. There will be a moving on the part of a remnant of Israel, a recognition of their past failure and sin, and they turn back to the Lord. Here the words apply: “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near . . . Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
In response to that cry, “Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord,” GOD addresses Israel in her present broken condition, and says, “Awake, awake, O Jerusalem; arise from the dust; clothe yourself in your beautiful garments; turn from your iniquity, acknowledge your sin, confess your transgressions.” And when they do, then deliverance will come. He goes on to show them that the Lord in His own time will bring them back to Zion, the ransomed of the Lord shall return with everlasting joy upon their heads.
Here GOD is addressing the restored people when at last the work of repentance has been wrought in their souls, and now that they have turned back to Him, the day of their blessing has come. He says, “Awake, awake, O Zion,” calls upon them to sing with gladness as they come forth from the lands of the Gentiles, to enter again into their own land and into happy reconciliation with GOD and joyful subjection to the Saviour whom He has provided.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” (verse 7).
The remnant company of the last days go out over the mountains, out to the world to proclaim the Gospel of peace, the Gospel of the kingdom, but it is not a different Gospel from that which we preach today. There is only one Gospel. The Apostle Paul says, “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” And he emphasizes this: “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8, 9). There is only one Gospel, the Gospel of GOD concerning His Son! But that Gospel takes on different aspects at different times, according to GOD’s dispensational dealings.
John the Baptist proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom of GOD, but that doesn’t mean that he did not tell sinners how to be saved. It was he who said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” But the emphasis of his message was the responsibility of Israel to receive the King, and so enter into the kingdom.
When the Lord JESUS began to preach, He went from city to city proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom, and sent His disciples out to all Israel to preach it, but when the kingdom was rejected, a new thing came in, and now we preach the glorious Gospel of the grace of GOD. The light of the knowledge of it shines in the face of JESUS CHRIST (2Co 4:6), for grace and truth came by Him. But does that mean that we have to be silent in regard to the King and His kingdom? Surely not, because during the forty days that He appeared on earth after His resurrection we are told that the Lord JESUS spoke to His disciples “of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” Many years after, Paul abode two years in his own hired house, still preaching the kingdom of GOD (Act 1:3; 28:23, 31). We too preach the Gospel of the kingdom, but now the emphasis is on the Gospel of the grace of GOD, GOD’s grace to a lost, ruined world.
When this age has come to an end, and the Church has been taken home, and GOD calls out a little company called in Dan 12:3, 10, the Maskilim, the wise – “the wise shall understand!” – they will be those with beautiful feet to go forth proclaiming the glad tidings that the time has drawn near when the PRINCE of Peace will return, and there will be blessing for all the world through Him. How fitting it is that these words should come here immediately before Isaiah presents the greatest and most complete Messianic prophecy in all the Old Testament, in which we come to the very Holy of Holies.
~ end of chapter 52 ~
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Isa 52:1
I. Consider God’s command to His people, “Awake, awake.” (1) Certain objects of vision are important to the Church of God, and that these may be kept in view, God saith, “Awake, awake.” The objects which I would name are ever-existent and ever-present spiritual objects-God, our one Father; the Son of God, our only Saviour; and the Comforter, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son. (2) Certain sources of supply and fountains of pleasure and means of help are important to the Church of God, and that these may be possessed and enjoyed and used, God saith, “Awake, awake.” (3) There is good and godly work to be done by Zion; therefore God saith, “Awake, awake.” There are two objects in the sphere of our present thought, towards which the Church of God requires to be faithful, and therefore wakeful. (a) Her own endowments, and (b) her opportunities. (4) There are battles which Zion is called to fight, and victories to be won which Zion alone can win; therefore God bids Zion awake.
II. Having interpreted the voice, let us note some of its features and characteristics. (1) The voice that would awaken us is divine. (2) The voice that would awaken us is powerful and full of majesty-a voice, therefore, that stirs and that strengthens, while it stirs him who listens to it. (3) The voice that would awaken us has in it a tone of reproach. The cry, “Awake, awake,” corrects and rebukes, while it stimulates and exhorts. (4) This voice is a gracious voice. It is the voice of Him who has called His people to be His people, and who will not cast off His people; it is a voice that woos and wins, while it stimulates and arouses. (5) The voice that cries “Awake, awake,” is the voice of Zion’s God. He who calls Zion His own, and possesses her as a bridegroom his bride, calls, “Awake, awake.”
S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 85.
Isa 52:1
I. The word “strength” represents those properties and qualities which are developed in endurance and in action, also a very high degree of active force and enduring power. The strength of any community is primarily in the individuals who constitute it; so that the strength of the Church of God is not entirely, but first of all, in the separate members of that body. (1) The strength of Zion is the strength of human nature. (2) The strength of Zion is also the power of every religious principle. (3) There is strength in all life, and Zion lives with the rich and full and eternal life of God within her. (4) The strength of Zion is the power of certain agencies and influences. The Church has power in her testimony to truth, in her intercession before God, and in her character as the leaven of society and the salt of the nations.
II. God saith, “Put on thy strength, O Zion.” If a man puts out his strength, he puts on strength; he appears clothed with strength, as with a garment. The text assumes that Zion’s strength is not put out. The terms in which she is addressed prove this. “Awake, awake, O Zion.” In sleep all the members of the body put on weakness. Now God is not satisfied with this, and He cries, “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion.”
III. Notice some reasons why God should thus speak to His Church. (1) God bids Zion put on her strength for self-manifestation. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Strong winds make themselves heard. Strong sunshine makes itself felt. Strong life shows itself, whether in the animal or vegetable kingdom. And the Church, to be heard and seen and felt and known, must be strong. (2) God bids Zion put on her strength that He may be glorified. A redeemed man is a new creation and a Divine workmanship. On the principle involved in the words, “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise,” Zion is required to put on her strength. (3) God requires Zion to put out her strength for the sake of her own well-being. If the powers of the Church be inactive, they will decline. Unmanifested religious life, whether in the person or the community, soon subsides. (4) Zion is required to put on her strength in order to meet the claims of a sinful and suffering world. Zion’s mission demands Zion’s strength. (5) God directs Zion to put on her strength, because strength has been given her to put on. Whatever God makes us be, He would have us appear to be. Whatever God endows us with, He would have us use and employ. (6) Is not this putting on of strength as essential to Zion’s peace and joy as to her outward prosperity? The Church of the living God can only have rest and be joyful as she does put on strength. Sleep is not always sweet. There is a kind of sleep that is most uneasy, and the misery of idleness and inactivity is proverbial.
S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 98.
Isa 52:1
Men can rouse themselves to action. There is more power in man than he may be aware of, and he should inquire what objects and pursuits are worthy of his enthusiastic devotion.
I. No object which bears upon this world only is worthy of the supreme energy of man.
II. Spiritual objects are alone worthy of the supreme energy of man. (1) They are akin to his own nature. (2) They touch every point of his being. (3) They prepare him for the solemnity and service of the future.
III. The fact that spiritual objects alone are worthy of the supreme energy of man should impel to decisive action. (1) “Put on thy strength”-for the time is short. (2) “Put on thy strength”-for the enemy is on the alert. (3) “Put on thy strength”-for the Master is worthy.
Parker, City Temple, vol. ii., p. 67 (see also Pulpit Notes, p. 81).
References: Isa 52:1.-J. C. Harrison, Penny Pulpit, No. 526; A. F. Barfield, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 319; W. Burrows, Ibid., vol. xi., p. 172; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 33, vol. x., p. 181.
Isa 52:7
I. In their first sense these words form a part of that great series of encouragement and consolation in which the prophet promises to Israel redemption from captivity and return from exile, and assures the chosen people of God that, though for a time deserted and forsaken, they shall yet be restored to the land given to their fathers, and the worship of God once more established on the heights of Mount Zion. But the prophet, while thus describing in thrilling language the deliverance of his countrymen from bondage, rises to the contemplation of promises which far transcend the greatness of the most glorious earthly kingdom, and passes from the thought of Israel after the flesh to the eternal spiritual Israel, “whose people shall be all righteous, and inherit the land for ever”-the Church of God.
II. The Apostle Paul appropriates and intensifies the aspirations of the prophet; he shows how the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Assyria typified and prefigured the deliverance of all men-whether belonging to the earthly Israel or not, whether born in the east or the west, in the north or the south-from the yet more bitter slavery of sin; and that if a blessing from God followed the feet of the herald who proclaimed the temporal restoration of Zion and the glad tidings of political peace and liberty, far deeper and truer would be the blessing which would attend the footsteps of those who preached the good tidings of spiritual liberty and the peace of God which passeth all understanding.
G. E. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 21.
Reference: Isa 52:10.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 185.
I. The news of the Gospel is news of a victory over sin-news of a victory over death-news of a reconciliation with our God and Father, against whom we had been lured by our enemy, Sin, to be guilty of treachery and rebellion. Jesus has not put an end to the war as yet; but He has put it on quite a new footing. Sin is still abiding in the world, notwithstanding the victories of Jesus, just as a remnant of the Canaanites was left on the borders of the promised land, notwithstanding the victories of Joshua. Those Canaanites, the Bible tells us, were left to try the children of Israel, and to teach them war (Jdg 3:1-2); and it is perhaps for a like reason that sin is still left on earth, in order that we may be put to the test to prove whether we choose to obey God or no, and that we may be trained to our duties as Christ’s soldiers by a course of hard service against God’s enemies.
II. Before Christ’s coming, for the great bulk of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, the battle against sin was quite hopeless. Sin was waxing every day stronger and spreading wider; goodness, on the other hand, was growing rarer and rarer. Man felt himself to be overmatched by sin; indeed, he could scarcely lift up his hand against it. But all this is now changed, and most blessedly, for the better. We are no longer the weaker side. Christ has provided armour of proof for us, has sent His Spirit to strengthen us while we are standing, and has given us His cross to catch hold of when we are falling. He has proclaimed that we are at peace with God, that we may fight with a better heart. He has promised and assured us of a glorious triumph for every one who will fight his best. Such is the news which Jesus has brought us. Whereas before men could not cope with sin, we may now be sure of overcoming it. Whereas men before shuddered at the thought of death as the dark and dismal end of all things, we have now been taught to look upon it as the gate of a more glorious life. Whereas men before felt that they were at enmity with God, and therefore could not love Him or take pleasure in Him, they now know that He is ready to receive them into favour, and will treat them as sons, if they will only behave to Him as such.
A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 135;
Isa 52:12
I. Consider the essentially symbolic character of the captivities and deliverances of the Jewish people. The history of Israel is the Divine key to the history of man. In that history there were two great captivities and two great deliverances. The people were born in the one captivity-it was the dark accident of nature; the other they earned by sin. These represent our natural bondage, and the self-earned serfdom of the soul. There is one Deliverer and one deliverance from both. The method of His deliverance was the same out of both captivities-a glorious manifestation of the might of the redeeming arm of God.
II. We have the image here of the great deliverance which is freely offered in the Gospel. It furnishes (1) the key to our protracted discipline. God will not have us “go out with haste, nor go forth by flight.” These long wanderings, this patient waiting, is a store of power and wisdom, whose worth you will never estimate till your footsteps press the borders of your Canaan. (2) “The Lord will go before you.” He has gone before us (a) in bearing to the uttermost the penalty of sin; (b) in breaking the power of evil; (c) in the way of the wilderness, through life’s protracted discipline, to glory.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 419.
References: Isa 52:12.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 230, vol. xxx., No. 1793; S. A. Tipple, Old Testament Outlines, p. 215. Isa 52:13-15.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1231; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xxii., p. 211. Isa 52:14.-T. B. Dover, A Lent Manual, p. 142. Isa 53:1.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 55; R. Milman, The Love of the Atonement, pp.8, 17. Isa 53:1-12.-C. Clemance, To the Light through the Cross, p. 3.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 52
Zion Awakening and the Coming of the Lord
(It is unfortunate that Isa 52:1-12 is detached from chapter 51 and that the last 3 verses of chapter 52 are detached from the chapter which follows. The correct division is Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:12, Isa 52:13-15; Isa 53:1-12.)
1. Zion called to awake (Isa 52:1-5) 2. In that day Behold it is I (Isa 52:6) 3. The results of the return of Jehovah (Isa 52:7-12) 4. The Servants suffering and glory (Isa 52:13-15)The last paragraph of chapter 51 gives the divine declaration that the suffering and affliction of Israel is to end. Behold I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again (Isa 51:22). Now Zion assured of the end of suffering is called upon to awaken and put on beautiful garments. She is to arise from the dust. Such is the glorious future of Jerusalem. Isa 52:7-12 reveal the blessed results of the Coming of the Lord. Then it shall be said, Thy God reigneth. Then and not before all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God (Isa 52:10).
Isa 52:13-15 connect with Isa 53:1-12. Chapters 51-52:12 are parenthetical.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Reciprocal: Jdg 5:12 – Deborah Neh 11:1 – the holy Psa 57:8 – Awake Psa 125:1 – be as mount Isa 4:3 – shall be Isa 26:19 – Awake Isa 33:5 – he hath Isa 35:3 – General Isa 35:8 – the unclean Isa 48:2 – they call Isa 51:9 – put Isa 51:17 – awake Isa 54:11 – thou afflicted Isa 54:14 – righteousness Isa 60:1 – Arise Isa 60:9 – because Isa 61:10 – for Jer 8:19 – the Lord Jer 43:12 – putteth Jer 50:8 – out of the midst Lam 4:22 – he will no Joe 3:17 – there Zec 9:8 – no Zec 10:8 – for Mat 4:5 – the holy Mat 22:11 – which Mat 22:13 – Bind Act 3:19 – when 1Co 7:14 – else Eph 4:24 – put Eph 5:14 – Awake Col 3:10 – put 1Pe 3:3 – that Rev 3:4 – which Rev 11:2 – and the Rev 19:7 – and his Rev 21:2 – the holy Rev 21:27 – there
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 52:1-3. Awake, awake, put on strength God orders his church to do that which she entreated him to do, Isa 51:9. And because his word is with power, and what he commands he in certain cases effects, this is a prediction and promise what he should do, that she should awake or arise out of her low estate, and be strong and courageous. Put on thy beautiful garments Thy sorrows shall be ended, and thou shalt be advanced in a glorious condition. O Zion O my church, very frequently called by the name of Zion or Jerusalem. There shall no more come unto thee To molest, or associate themselves with, and thereby to defile and corrupt thee; the uncircumcised and unclean Heathen and infidels, nor any others who are unholy. Whereby he intimates, that there should be a greater reformation and more purity in the church than formerly there had been, which was eminently accomplished in the church and kingdom of Christ. Shake thyself from the dust In which thou hast lain as a prisoner, or sat as a mourner. Arise, and sit down Upon thy throne. Or sit up, as the word is rendered, Gen 27:19. Loose thyself, &c. The yoke of thy captivity shall be taken off from thee. Ye have sold yourselves By your sins, into the hands of your enemies; for naught Without any price or valuable consideration paid by them, either to you or to your lord and owner. And ye shall be redeemed without money Without paying any ransom.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 52:1. There shall no more come to thee the uncircumcised. The temple being often profaned after the captivity, this prophecy must have an ultimate reference to the glory of the church in the latter day. Isaiah 60. Micah 4. Against the true church the gates of hell shall not prevail.
Isa 52:4. My people went down aforetime into Egyptand the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Egypt is called Assyria, as in Eze 31:3, because the Assyrian cruelties were now become proverbial.
Isa 52:7. How beautiful upon the mountains were the feet of the messengers who brought tidings of the fall of Babylon, and of the liberation of the people from their long captivity.
Isa 52:12. Ye shall not go out [of Babylon] with haste, as your fathers did out of Egypt, but with gifts, with riches and protection. The literal accomplishment of this promise is very impressive. The Persian court liberated the captives with counsel, and restored all the vessels of gold and silver which the Chaldeans had brought away from the temple. The Messiah speaks here of future things without a veil, for the consolation of his people. The chapter should end here, that the grand scenery of character which follows might not be disturbed.
THE SUFFERINGS AND GLORY OF CHRIST.
(From Isa 52:13 to the end of chap. 53.)
The subject which now opens to us, presents a character of the highest interest. His wisdom surpassing all science, his doctrine veiling with obscuration the philosophy of this world; the dignity of his descent, the contempt of his nation, the tragic circumstances of his death, the glory and triumph of his resurrection from the dead, the ultimate conversion of the world by his doctrine, prepare the mind for the question of the noble Eunuch, I pray thee, of whom spake the prophet this; of himself, or of some other man?
As this prophecy converted thousands of Jews to the faith of Christ, and as it is still a grand pillar of truth in the church, it claims the calmest study of the mind. The Massora or convocation of learned Jews also, knowing its force, have set themselves to divert its meaning. They apply it to king Josiah, who did not die patiently like a sheep, as the Saviour is said to have done: on the contrary, he died in armour, being killed with an arrow, fighting with Pharaoh Necho in the fields of Megiddo. But as Josiah was not humbly born, as he did not live again, but on the contrary, both his family and kingdom faded away; others apply the prophecy to the sorrows and sufferings of Jeremiah; an argument equally fatal to the infidel cause, for Jeremiah did not die in the dungeon. Jeremiah received special care and attention from the Chaldeans. Jeremiah died in Egypt, and we know of no gentile nations converted by his doctrine. What clearer proofs can we have of a lost cause than defences so preposterous, and arguments so futile?
Against these allegations let us hear Isaiah, speaking for his God. His transition from the liberation of the people from Babylon to that of our redemption by Christ, is a climax natural, easy, and sublime.
Isa 52:13. Behold my Servant. The minister of all my pleasure, in whom my soul delighteth. He shall uphold mine elect, he shall bring forth judgment to the gentiles, he shall publish peace to the heathen; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. Thus to accomplish the Fathers pleasure, he humbled himself to assume the form of a servant, and go a victim to the altar, thinking it no robbery to be equal with God.
My servant shall deal prudently. He appeared as a humble prophet, preaching righteousness, calling himself the Son of man; which indeed was also his title as the second Adam, the Son of God. He blew no trumpet, but silently laid the foundation of his holy temple with fair colours, and her stones with sapphires and costly gems. He called Andrew, Peter, James, and John, and others in the course of his work, to build his church without consulting the princes of this world; and gave them plenary powers to subjugate the world to the empire of their Lord. Had he said, I am the Messiah, it would have excited war and revolt against the Romans, it being the common faith of the Hebrews, that the Messiah must reign in Jerusalem on the throne of David, and subdue the world to his sceptre. I find a note here. Behold my servant, . This is the king Messiah, who shall be extolled and exalted. He shall be elevated above Abraham, and shall be more eminent than Moses, and shall be far above ministering angels.Yalhut Simeoni, p. 2. fol. 53.
Isa 52:14. Many were astonished at him, that he who surpassed all men in sublimity of wisdom, in the glory of his works, should be despised and rejected of men. That the Hope of Israel, the Light of the gentiles, should be marred in visage more than any man; that he should give his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. That he who had done so many good deeds should be mocked, crucified, and slain! The extreme of glory and of opprobrium seemed to unite in his person.
Isa 52:15. He shall sprinkle many nations. Rain, in figurative language, denotes doctrine, knowledge, instruction. He shall come down as rain on the mown grass, and as the showers that water the earthGive ear, oh ye heavens, and I will speak: hear, oh earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass. Deu 32:1-2. Psa 72:6.
But sprinkling, in the Hebrew law, was illustrative of evangelical glory. The priest sprinkled the blood of the red heifer seven times before the tabernacle, to make atonement for the nation, and take away sin. He sprinkled the waters of purification, made from the ashes of this victim. Numbers 19. These were figurative of the sanctifying graces promised to the church in the new covenant. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your defilement, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give unto you, and a new spirit will I put within you. Eze 36:25-26. In the cleansing of the leper, the sprinkling of oil followed the sprinkling of blood, and in the same manner seven times before the Lord. Lev 14:16. All these offices the Saviour sustains for men. He cleanses us with his blood, he sanctifies us by his Spirit, he anoints us to be kings and priests by the unction from above. Thus there are from the beginning, three that bare record on earth, the Spirit or unction, the water, and the blood. And three that bare record from heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. 1Jn 5:7-8.
Kings shall shut their mouths, when he speaks; doctors and sages shall be silent. The sublime, the hidden mysteries of our redemption shall they then consider. The schools have done nothing for the world. Their mythology, though retaining faint rays of patriarchal revelation, is full of abominations. Their moral codes are stained with impurity, their hopes of the future are all involved in clouds. But in Christ, when the mediatorial plan was revealed; the glory of his person, the dignity of his sacrifice, the efficacy of his grace in the regeneration and the glory of his kingdom; the judgment of man was gained by truth, and the heart was vanquished by grace. Here all is perfection, all is worthy of a God. Here hoary idolatry shrinks from the contrast; she hides her face, and retires to the groves; she is chased with her bloody rituals to the shades of gentile darkness.Kings in primitive society were numerous, till swallowed up in empires. Men who excelled in science are called princes, as Homer, Pythagoras, and Plato. Tres viri omnis doctrin et ingenii principes. ASCHAMUS.
REFLECTIONS.
The subject, to Isa 52:12, is here continued from the preseding chapter, which should be read in connection. Zion is a second time exhorted to awake, to arise and shine, for the Lord whose perfections have just been mentioned, was come to build her waste places, and to dwell and walk in her for ever, so that the profane heathen, unclean and uncircumcised, should no more put their unhallowed feet in the courts of the house of the Lord. To this Zion, the evangelical Zion, the believing Hebrews did come on the day of pentecost; and they are called the general assembly, and church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. After the gentile world shall in great measure be converted, the Jews, under this long and portentous dispersion of the Romans, shall be brought in: and then how beautiful will be the feet of the messengers who bring glad tidings to Zion, of holiness, never to be polluted by the heathen. Critics in general interpret this passage of the messengers from Babylon, bringing Cyruss proclamation for the rebuilding of the city and temple of Jerusalem; but there was at that time no Jerusalem, no watchman to see them coming, and no cities of Judah to participate in Zions joy. All were in ruins, all was waste, that the land might enjoy her sabbaths; and therefore for the sake of accommodation only can this text be understood of Babylon. In the apostles and heralds of the gospel, we see its true completion. They showed the arm of the Lord made bare in the destruction of his enemies, the unbelieving Jews, and Roman princes; they published his salvation to the ends of the earth, by emancipating believers from sin and darkness, and by filling the church with glory and joy.
From Isa 52:13 to the end of chap. 53., a new personage is introduced, and his characters are highly tragic, deeply pathetic, and unspeakably glorious. The grand question then will be, who is he? Here the modern rabbins look embarrassed, like the four atheists in the frontispiece of Dr. Cudworths intellectual system, when confounded with the superior arguments of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and Pythagoras. They seem neither to like themselves, nor one another. The illustrious prince who was to deal prudently, to be marred in his visage, to be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and to divide the spoil with the mighty, was, says one, Jeremiah the prophet! Another, finding that the characters do not agree, says it was Josiah. Other rabbins vainly try to apply these tragic predictions to good men in general. Some to the nation of the Jews, others to Zerubbabel, to Ezra, or even to Abraham, as also the hundred and tenth Psalm. One grand cause of their confusion is, that both the Chaldee and the Talmud have applied the fourth verse of the fifty third chapter expressly to the Messiah. Similar testimonies of ancient Rabbins may be seen in Pooles Synopsis; consequently, the new testament writers have broad ground to do the same, and to do it with a wisdom which none of the learned Jews can gainsay or resist. Hence, the personage here introduced, is no other than the Lord Christ. He is called the Lords servant by way of eminence, because he was the cheering theme of prophecy from the beginning: he was the expectation of his country, and the hope of all the earth. Cyrus is mentioned by one name; but the names and perfections of the Messiah are without number. He is not only called the Lords servant, but his elect, in whom his soul delighteth, which titles highly accord with the voice from the excellent glory, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. He is introduced with admiration: Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. In the fortieth chapter the evangelical messengers say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God. The angel said to the shepherds, Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy. And John the baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God.
We may here observe that it is said of the Lords servant, he shall deal prudently; and he did so in his doctrine, in his private conduct, and in his administration. But critics mostly read, He shall deal prosperously, which best agrees with his being very highly exalted; and Jesus was indeed exalted far above all the persons to whom the unbelieving rabbins would refer the prophecy.
The multitude were astonished at his doctrine, at his miracles, and at his resurrection. But most of all, that a man crucified should be magnified as Lord of the universe, and the Saviour of the world. He sprinkled many nations by his word, his Spirit, and his grace, when the gospel was first propagated: Isa 59:20-21. The blood of the covenant was sprinkled on the conscience, and the laver of baptism was approached for the removal of sin. Kings also, forgetful of poets and philosophers, shut their mouths, that they might listen to the sublimer gospel of Christ, and be edified by the wisdom from above; a wisdom which is pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated; full of mercy and good fruits, and making the simple in heart wise unto eternal life.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 51:17 to Isa 52:12. The Sorrow of Jerusalem, which shall Give Place to Joy.
Isa 51:17-20. The prophet, obviously familiar with the vision of Jer 25:15, pictures Jerusalem as staggering under the stupefaction caused by the draught which Yahweh in His anger has compelled her to drink. Two pairs of evils (expressed in Heb. by word-plays) have befallen her, and who is there to comfort her (read who shall for how shall I with VSS). Under the fury of Yahweh her sons are like an antelope exhausted by its vain struggles in the net.
Isa 51:18. Apparently a quotation added by a scribe.
Isa 51:21-23. But Jerusalem shall no more drink of the stupefying draught; the oppressor who, like an eastern conqueror striding over the prostrate bodies of his captive foes, has arrogantly afflicted her shall be compelled to drink it instead.
Isa 51:23. thy soul: render, thee; soul in Heb. often means self.
Isa 52:1 f. With evidently designed contrast to Isaiah 47, where Babylon is bidden sit in the dust and remove her fair apparel, Zion is exhorted to awake and put on garments of beauty. She shall no longer be the slave of the uncircumcised (Chaldan): let her rise from the dust and free herself from her bonds.
Isa 52:2. sit thee down: i.e. on a throne (cf. Isa 47:1). But read, arise, O captive Jerusalem. The continuation of Isa 52:2 has disappeared and been replaced by Isa 52:3-6.
Isa 52:3-6, which breaks the exhortation to Zion, resumed in Isa 52:7, is marked by a view of Israels history different from that of 2 Is., contains late phrases, and is, unlike its context, in prose; it is therefore a late addition. Yahweh assures His people that they were delivered to their oppressors for no fault, and not for money shall they be ransomed. To Egypt they went originally as guests (Gen 45:9-20); nor had Assyria just cause for oppressing them. Now, what do I find hereMy people unjustly taken away, My Temple overthrown, My name constantly spurned! In the day of reckoning My people shall know the meaning of that name, and that it is I who am now speaking to them.
Isa 52:3. sold: in the sense of Jdg 11:14.
Isa 52:5. they . . . howl: difficult in form and meaning, not supported by LXX. Of several emendations my temple is cast down is accepted above.
Isa 52:6. behold it is I: these words belong to the beginning of Isa 52:7, but read simply behold.
Isa 52:7-9. Behold, he who brings glad news of deliverance is speeding over the mountains. All the watchers from the city shout for joy because, so near that they can look in His face (eye to eye), they behold Yahweh approaching to reign in Zion. Let the ruined city break forth into exultant song!
Isa 52:7. Read, Behold, hastening upon the mountains.reigneth: i.e. is about to assume his position as king.
Isa 52:8. Read simply, All thy watchmen lift up, etc.shall see . . . when: render, see . . . how (mg.).
Isa 52:9. waste places: ruins.
Isa 52:10-12. Yahweh has thrown back the clinging garment that might hamper His arm, and all the world shall see the deliverance He will work. . . . Let the exiles depart from Babylon, the people and the priests, who bear the sacred vessels, alike having made themselves ceremonially pure. Nor shall their departure be a hurried flight like the Exodus from Egypt, for Yahweh will be both vanguard and rearguard.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no {a} more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
(a) No wicked tyrant, who will subvert God’s true religion and oppress the conscience.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Released Zion 52:1-12
God next called on His people to prepare to receive the salvation that He would provide for them. They would have to lay hold of it by faith for it to benefit them.
"The third ’wake-up call’ (Isa 52:1-6) is also addressed to Jerusalem and is a command not only to wake up but to dress up! It is not enough for her to put off her stupor (Isa 51:17-23); she must also put on her glorious garments." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 57.]
The first "wake-up call" is in Isa 51:9-16.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
God called on Israel to awake and to be strong (in the strength that God provides). The Israelites did not need to call on Him to awake and to be strong, as they had done (Isa 51:9). He was ready to save them. But were they ready to trust Him for their salvation (cf. Isa 40:27-31; Isa 42:23-25; Isa 43:22-24; Isa 45:9-13; Isa 45:15; Isa 45:18-19; Isa 46:8-13; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:14 to Isa 50:3)? The Lord instructed the people of Zion to put on the beautiful garments of salvation that God would provide for them. How He would provide salvation for them is the subject of the next Servant Song (Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12). God saw His people as comprising a holy city, and they needed to view themselves that way too, as holy people (cf. Isa 4:2-6; 1Co 1:2). References to Jerusalem as "the holy city" appear in Neh 11:1; Neh 11:18; Isa 48:2; Isa 52:1; Dan 9:24; Mat 4:5; Mat 27:53; and Rev 11:2. The Lord would forbid any uncommitted and unclean people from having a part in His future for them.
"Notwithstanding the priestly house of Aaron and the royal house of David, the ideal of a royal, priestly people (Exo 19:4-6) had never been realized, but while Zion slept (1a) a marvel occurred so that on waking she finds new garments laid out (1bc), expressive of a new status of holiness (1d)." [Note: Motyer, p. 416. Cf. Zechariah 3.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
BOOK 4
THE RESTORATION
WE have now reached the summit of our prophecy. It has been a long, steep ascent, and we have had very much to seek out on the way, and to extricate and solve and load ourselves with. But although a long extent of the prophecy, if we measure it by chapters, still lies before us, the end is in sight; every difficulty has been surmounted which kept us from seeing how we were to get to it, and the rest of the way may be said to be downhill.
To drop the figure-the Servant, his vicarious suffering and atonement for the sins of the people, form for our prophet the solution of the spiritual problem of the nations restoration, and what he has now to do is but to fill in the details of this.
We saw that the problem of Israels deliverance from Exile, their Return, and their Restoration to their position in their own land as the Chief Servant of God to humanity, was really a double problem-political and spiritual. The solution of the political side of it was Cyrus. As soon as the prophet had been able to make it certain that Cyrus was moving down upon Babylon, with a commission from God to take the city, and irresistible in the power with which Jehovah had invested him, the political difficulties in the way of Israels Return were as good as removed; and so the prophet gave, in the end of chapter 48, his great call to his countrymen to depart. But all through chapters 40-48, while addressing himself to the solution of the political problems of Israels deliverance, the prophet had given hints that there were moral and spiritual difficulties as well. In spite of their punishment for more than half a century, the mass of the people were not worthy of a return. Many were idolaters; many were worldly; the orthodox had their own wrong views of how salvation should come; {Isa 45:9 ff.} the pious were without either light or faith. {Isa 50:10} The nation, in short, had not that inward “righteousness,” which could alone justify God in vindicating them before the. world, in establishing their outward righteousness, their salvation and reinstatement in their lofty place and calling as His people. These moral difficulties come upon the prophet with greater force after he has, with the close of chapter 48, finished his solution of the political ones. To these moral difficulties he addresses himself in 49-53, and the Servant and his Service are his solution of them:-the Servant as a Prophet and a Covenant of the People in chapter 49 and in Isa 50:4 ff.: the Servant as an example to the people, chapter 50 ff.; and finally the Servant as a full expiation for the peoples sins in Isa 52:13-15; Isa 53:1-12. It is the Servant who is to “raise up the land, and to bring back the heirs to the desolate heritages,” and rouse the Israel who are not willing to leave Babylon,” saying to the bound, Go forth; and to them that sit in darkness, Show yourselves”. {Isa 49:8-9} It is he who is “to sustain the weary” and to comfort the pious in Israel, who, though pious, have no light as they walk on their way back. {Isa 50:4; Isa 50:10} It is the Servant finally who is to achieve the main problem of all and “make many righteous”. {Isa 53:11} The hope of restoration, the certainty of the peoples redemption, the certainty of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the certainty of the growth of the people to a great multitude, are, therefore, all woven by the prophet through and through with his studies of the Servants work in Isa 49:1., and Isa 52:13-15; Isa 53:1-12, -woven so closely and so naturally that, as we have already seen, we cannot take any part of chapters 49-53 and say that it is of different authorship from the rest. Thus in chapter 49 we have the road to Jerusalem pictured in Isa 49:9-13, immediately upon the back of the Servants call to go forth in Isa 49:9. We have then the assurance of Zion being rebuilt and thronged by her children in Isa 49:14-23, and another affirmation of the certainty of redemption in Isa 49:24-26. In Isa 50:1-3 this is repeated. In 51- Isa 52:1-12 the petty people is assured that it shall grow innumerable again; new affirmations are made of its ransom and return, ending with the beautiful prospect of the feet of the heralds of deliverance on the mountains of Judah {Isa 52:7 b} and a renewed call to leave Babylon (Isa 52:11-12). We shall treat all these passages in our twenty-first chapter.
And as they started naturally from the Servants work in Isa 49:1-9 a-and his example in Isa 50:4-11, so upon his final and crowning work in chapter 53 there follow as naturally chapter 54 (the prospect of the seed Isa 53:10 promised he should see), and chapter 55 (a new call to come forth). These two, with the little pre-exilic prophecy, Isa 56:1-8, we shall treat in our twenty-second chapter.
Then come the series of difficult small prophecies with pre-exilic traces in them, from Isa 56:9 through Isa 59:1-21. They will occupy our twenty-third chapter. In chapter 60 Zion is at last not only in sight, but radiant in the rising of her new day of glory. In chapters 61 and 62 the prophet, having reached Zion, “looks back,” as Dillmann well remarks, “upon what has become his task, and in connection with that makes clear once more the high goal of all his working and striving.” In Isa 63:1-6 the Divine Deliver is hailed. We shall take Isa 60:1-22 – Isa 63:6 together in our twenty-fourth chapter.
Chapter 63:7-64 is an Intercessory Prayer for the restoration of all Israel. It is answered in chapter 65, and the lesson of this answer, that Israel must be judged, and that all cannot be saved, is enforced in chapter 66. Chaps. 63:7-66 will therefore form our twenty-fifth and closing chapter.
Thus our course is clear, and we can overtake it rapidly. It is, to a large extent, a series of spectacles, interrupted by exhortations upon duty; things, in fact, to see and to hear, not to argue about. There are few great doctrinal questions, except what we have already sufficiently discussed; our study, for instance, of the term righteousness, we shall find has covered for us a large part of the ground in advance. And the only difficult literary question is that of the pre-exilic and post-exilic pieces, which are alleged to form so large a part of chapters 56-59 and 63-66.