The presence and repetition of the call to awake (51:9, 17; 52:1) identifies this unit of prophetic material as one. The Israelites were to wake up to the power of God that had not changed (51:9-16) and to the purpose of God, namely, His plan for their life (51:17-23). They should also wake up to the peace of God since He would not abandon them (52:1-12).549The section begins with the question of whether God can and will save His people from their enemies (51:9-16). The answer is that He will cause Israel's enemies to suffer (51:17-23) and that He will deliver Israel from her enemies (52:1-12).
The Israelites cried out for God to act for them. He had done so in their past history, but they needed His help now. Probably the believing remnant was requesting help.
51:9 Israel's call for God to awake assumes that He had not been active in helping His people recently. Isaiah, speaking for the Israelites, described the Lord's delivering power in action for His people as His arm (cf. v. 5; 53:1). His arm had defeated the Egyptians and Pharaoh in the Exodus in the past, here described respectively as Rahab (cf. 30:7; Ps. 87:4) and the dragon (cf. Ezek. 29:3). Rahab and the dragon were also part of the mythological lore of the ancient Near East. By using these names, Isaiah was undoubtedly stressing Yahweh's ability to overcome all the pagan gods and every other power opposing their salvation.
51:10 The pagans credited their gods with drying up a sea of material chaos and creating the world in prehistory. Isaiah pointed to God drying up the Red Sea in the historical Exodus as evidence that He could redeem His people again.
". . . the Old Testament insists on setting the rock of history (actual event, actual testimony) under its theology."550
Isaiah frequently used the image of God making a way, pathway, or highway for His people so they could enter into the blessings that He had planned for them (cf. 9:1; 11:16; 19:23; 30:11, 21; 35:8; 40:3; 42:16; 43:16, 19; 48:17; 49:11; 57:14; 62:10). I wonder if this is the origin of the early Christian use of "the way"as a title for Christianity.
51:11 The consequence of the Lord's arm again providing redemption for His people was that the exiles would return to Zion from Babylon with great joy (cf. 35:10). The joy at this return was only a foretaste of the joy His people would experience as a result of His redemption through the Servant and their return to the Promised Land in the Millennium (cf. 55:12).
Verses 12-16 record the Lord's response to the cry just recorded.
51:12 The Lord described Himself again as the only true, self-existent God. Such an one as He would indeed comfort His people (cf. 40:1). The Israelites did not need to fear the Babylonians or any other human enemy because they were only mortals. The immortal God would defend them.
51:13 The Israelites had forgotten the type of person Yahweh their Maker, the Creator, was or they would not have been afraid.
". . . to live in fear of humans is to have effectively forgotten God. . . . It is easy to say certain theologically correct things, such as that he is both the world's and our maker, that he is the one who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth, while giving the lie to those fine words by our continually living as though he can do nothing to prevent humans from doing ultimate harm to us [cf. Rom. 8:39]. . . . Yes, oppressors may hurt us, even kill us, but they do not have the power to make us fear them or hate them."551
51:14 God promised to free the exiles soon and to supply their needs.552While this was true of the Babylonian exiles, the promises of salvation in this section of the book anticipate a larger spiritual redemption as well, as I have noted.553
51:15 The Israelites would not perish because of who their God was. He is Yahweh Almighty, who causes movements among nations just as surely as He causes the waves of the sea to move.
51:16 Though God spoke this verse to Israel, it is clear that only the ideal Israel, the Servant, could be the ultimate fulfillment of what He said. He had put His words in the mouth of the Israelites but would also do so uniquely for His Servant (cf. 49:2). He had provided compassionate care for the nation but would do so in a special way for His Servant (cf. 49:2). He would use the Israelites to create new heavens and a new earth in the spiritual sense of being His instruments of transformation in the Millennium. However, He would use His Servant to create new heavens and a new earth literally at the end of the Millennium (cf. v. 6: Rev. 21:1-22:5). And He would use the Servant to reaffirm His commitment to Israel in the future. How God would use the Servant to do all this becomes clearer in 52:13-53:12, the final Servant Song. This was a fitting culminating assurance to the Israelites.
God now turned the tables on His people and called on them to awake (cf. v. 1). They needed to wake up to the fact that He would comfort them and punish their oppressors (cf. 40:2; Lam. 1-2). The fact that the Babylonian captivity continues to lie unmentioned specifically in the text strengthens the impression that God had more than that historic deliverance in view in what He promised. A greater future redemption is also in view, namely, the one that the Servant would affect.
51:17 Jerusalem had drunk a powerful liquid at the hand of her God. He had given her punishment to drink for her sins (cf. Mark 10:38). She now lay in a state of stupor but needed to arise because the Lord had a future for her.
51:18 She was unable to stand up and walk on her own so devastating had been the effects of the Lord's judgment of her. Moreover, she had no children (inhabitants) to help her go home.
51:19 Widowhood and childlessness had befallen Israel (cf. 47:9), and there were none to mourn for her. Furthermore, devastation, destruction, famine, and the sword had overtaken her. Since she deserved her punishment, the Lord could not comfort her as He could have if she had been an innocent victim.
51:20 The children were just as helpless as the mother.554They lay at major intersections of the city as exhausted as an antelope (oryx) caught in a net by its hunters. They too had suffered the wrath and rebuke of their God (cf. vv. 2, 17).
51:21 "Therefore"marks the transition from peril to promise. Isaiah appealed to afflicted Israel to listen to God's message. The Israelites had suffered the effects of intoxication, not from drinking real wine but the wrath of God (v. 20).
"Unlike Babylon, who sees herself as voluptuous (47:8), Zion knows herself as afflicted. But the same God speaks to both, telling Babylon to go down into the dust, and telling Zion to arise from the dust (52:2). Babylon thought herself independent and self-existent (47:10), but Zion believes the very opposite about herself: she is a helpless victim who can do nothing about her situation (40:27; 49:14). All this could be changed; if she would only listen to the voice of God (through the Servant, 50:10), she could stand in quiet confidence."555
51:22 The God offering Israel a comforting promise was her master, Yahweh, the God of the covenant, the God who had taken her to Himself, who consistently defends His people. He promised that the Israelites would never again experience the outpouring of His wrath as they had. Obviously the Jews have experienced worse persecution in recent history than they did during the Babylonian exile: the German holocaust, the Russian pogroms, etc. And they will undergo the worst trials of their history in the Tribulation (cf. Jer. 30:4-7). I take it that God meant that He would not punish them as He had because He would provide the Servant to drink the cup of His wrath for His people. They would not have to suffer in the future as they had in the past because God would provide a Savior who would suffer in their place. That the Jews have suffered terribly and will yet do so is because they have rejected the Savior that God provided.
51:23 Instead, God would give Israel's enemies His cup of wrath to drink. They had walked all over Israel, but that would end. The figure of walking on the backs of enemies stresses the victor's desire to humiliate the captives, not to slay them (cf. Josh. 10:24).
To summarize God's plans for Israel as revealed in Isaiah, unless she repented she would experience His judgment. God would use surrounding nations to punish His people. After this punishment, God would restore Israel and punish her oppressors.
God next called 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.
52:1 God called 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 (51:9). He was ready to save them, but were they ready to trust Him for their salvation (cf. 40:27-31; 42:23-25; 43:22-24; 45:9-13, 15, 18-19; 46:8-13; 48:1-22; 49:14-50:3)? The Lord called the people of Zion to put on the beautiful garments of salvation that God would provide for them.556God saw His people as composing a holy city, and they needed to view themselves that way too, as holy people (cf. 4:2-6; 1 Cor. 1:2). 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 (Ex. 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)."557
52:2 Israel could not deliver herself, but she needed to rise up from her humiliated and bound condition and respond to the Lord's deliverance of her (cf. 47:1). Salvation is not by works of righteousness, but it does require faith. Humans cannot break the chains that bind us, but we must remove them, with His help, when God has promised that He will break them.
52:3 Yahweh announced that since no one forced God to sell Israel into slavery (cf. 45:13; 50:1), neither would anyone force Him to redeem her. He would free her of His own free will as He had sent her into captivity of His own free will (cf. 2 Cor. 5:19). There was, therefore, no impediment to His redeeming her.
52:4 Sovereign Yahweh further declared that the Israelites had gone down to Egypt of their own volition in the days of Jacob. Later the Assyrians had taken them captive against their will. These earliest and most recent oppressions represented all of them that Israel had undergone. The implication is that since God can freely liberate (v. 3), He could redeem His people from enemy-imposed captivity as easily as He could redeem them from self-imposed captivity.
52:5 Yahweh reflected on the present situation: What have we here? Israel was in captivity but not because God had to give her over to a superior person. Furthermore, Israel's leaders wailed because of the shame of their defeat. Finally, the victors held Yahweh's name in contempt because they concluded He was weaker than stronger gods.
52:6 The Lord's conclusion to the situation was twofold. First, He would so deliver His people that there would be no question in their minds that He was the only true God (cf. Ezek. 36:21-32). Second, Yahweh would prove that He is whom He claimed to be by fulfilling what He had predicted He would do. "In that day"anticipates a time yet future in which God would act decisively for His people to vindicate His name.
A hymn of praise ends this promise of redemption (cf. 42:10-12; 44:23; 49:13; 54).
52:7 Isaiah exulted in the good news that the Lord had just revealed. The news had reached His people through a messenger whom the prophet pictured as running across mountains with his message (cf. 40:9; 41:27; Nah. 1:15). The messenger's feet were beautiful because they carried him and his message of peace, happiness, and salvation (cf. Matt. 10:1-7; Rom. 10:15). His message is that Yahweh is the only true God, that He reigns as the sovereign over the universe and all supposed gods.
"What does God's rule entail? It entails a condition where all things are in their proper relation to each other, with nothing left hanging, incomplete, or unfulfilled (peace, shalom); it entails a condition where creation purposes are realized (good, tob; cf. Gen. 1:4, 10, etc.); it entails a condition of freedom from every bondage, but particularly the bondage resultant from sin (salvation, yeshu'a). Where God reigns, these follow. Of course, this is exactly congruent with what the Christian faith considers its good news (euangelion) to be."558
52:8 Watchmen along the walls of Jerusalem saw the messenger coming, and they joined in the rejoicing as they realized that he brought a message of Yahweh's approaching victory for Zion.
52:9 Now all the people of Jerusalem, even the downtrodden, joined the chorus and praised God for coming to comfort and redeem His people.
"To give thanks in advance is the highest form of faith. The person praising God for what he or she does not yet possess is the person who truly believes the promises of God."559
52:10 God would display His power (roll up His sleeves) before all the nations by redeeming His people (cf. 18:3). His power is holy in that it is perfect and transcendent, and it is also for a holy purpose, namely, the salvation of His people (cf. Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34). His salvation would become visible to the whole world.
52:11 In view of this salvation, the redeemed should depart from the unclean place where they had been and purify themselves. The Babylonian exiles, who would be set free, should return to Jerusalem to reestablish their holy lives in a holy city in a holy land.560The recipients of spiritual salvation, which these Babylonian exiles represent, should also respond to redemption by living lives separated from sin unto God (cf. Lam. 4:15; 2 Cor. 6:17). The vessels in view are those things needed to worship God as He prescribed (cf. Ezra 1:7).
52:12 The redeemed would not need to run away from their former captor as fast as they could or to depart as fugitives, as they had left Egypt in the Exodus. They were completely free. Yahweh would go before to lead them and behind to protect them as they journeyed to their Promised Land (cf. Exod. 13:21-22; 14:19-20).
In this section the dual implications of the prophet's promises are very clear. Babylonian captivity lay behind what he said, but he had the larger issue of slavery to sin in mind primarily. Release to return to the land was in view, but even more the opportunity to return to the Lord through spiritual redemption was his point. God would deal with the result in Israel's case, captivity, but He would also and more importantly deal with the cause, sin.
"Both the Exodus and wilderness, and in a lesser sense the Egyptian slavery, have become not only pivotal historical episodes but the photographic negatives from which the prophets, by the inspiration of their God, developed the beautiful eschatological pictures of the future."561
