His redemption
51
📚“Listen to me,you who follow righteousness,
you who seek the LORD.
Look to the rock from which
you are cut,
and to the quarry where
you were dug out.
2 📚Look to Abraham your father,
and to Sarah who bore you.
For I called him alone,
and blessed him and increased him”.
3 📚For the LORD will comfort Zion.
He will comfort all her
waste places,
and he will make her wilderness
like Eden,
and her desert like the garden
of the LORD.
Joy and gladness will be
found in it,
thanksgiving and the sound
of melody.
51:1-3 This passage looks forward to the time of the Babylonian captivity. God addresses those who would seek God (v 1) and return to Jerusalem (compare Jer 29:10-14). They would be few in number but God tells them to think of the father of their nation. When God called him he had no children at all, but later Israel became a great people (Gen 22:17; Ex 1:7). God promises to make Zion a paradise where, presumably, a great many will have cause for rejoicing.⚜
4 📚“Listen to me,
my people,
and give ear to me,
O my nation.
For a law will proceed from me,
and I will make my justice rest
as a light for the people.
5 📚My righteousness is near.
My salvation has gone forth,
and my arms 📖 will judge
the peoples;
the islands 📖 will wait for me,
and they will trust in my arm.
6 📚Lift up your eyes
to the heavens,
and look on the earth below;
for the heavens will vanish away
like smoke,
and the earth will become old like
a garment,
and those who dwell in it will die
in like manner.
But my salvation will be forever 📖,
and my righteousness will not be
abolished.
7 📚Listen to me,
you who know righteousness 📖,
the people in whose heart 📖 is
my law.
Do not fear the reproach 📖 of men,
or be afraid of their insults.
8 📚For the moth will eat them up like
a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool.
But my righteousness will be forever,
and my salvation from generation
to generation”.
9 📚Awake! Awake!
Put on strength,
O arm of the LORD!
Awake, as in days long ago,
in the generations of old.
Are you not the arm
which cut Rahab 📖,
and pierced the serpent?
10 📚Are you not the arm
which dried the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
that made the depths of the sea
a way for the ransomed
to cross over?
51:9-10 Isaiah inspired by God’s Spirit now speaks for the righteous. God has promised great things. He prays for their fulfillment. Let God act again for His people as He did at the Red Sea (Ex 14:21-31).⚜
11 📚Therefore the redeemed
of the LORD will return,
and come to Zion with singing;
and everlasting joy will be
on their heads.
They will obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and mourning will
flee away.
12 📚“I, I myself,
am the one who comforts 📖 you.
Who are you,
that you should be afraid of a man
who will die 📖,
and of the son of a man who will be
made like grass 📖?
51:12 Again God begins to speak.⚜
13 📚And you forget the LORD
your maker,
who has stretched out the heavens,
and laid the foundations
of the earth,
and you have been afraid continually
every day because of the fury
of the oppressor,
when he seemed ready
to destroy.
And where is the fury
of the oppressor?
51:13 Fear of men can make even God’s people forget His comfort and power.⚜
14 📚The captive exile will soon be
set free,
and will not die in the dungeon,
nor will his food fail.
15 📚For I am the LORD your
God who divided the sea 📖,
whose waves roared.
The LORD of hosts is his name.
16 📚And I have put my words
in your mouth 📖,
and I have covered you with the shadow
of my hand 📖,
that I may establish the heavens,
and lay the foundations of the earth,
and say to Zion:
You are my people 📖”.
The cup of God’s wrath
17 📚Awake! Awake!
Stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk at the hand
of the LORD the cup of his fury.
You have drunk the dregs
of the cup of trembling,
and drained it.
18 📚There is no one 📖 to guide her
among all the sons whom she has
brought forth.
Nor among all the sons she has brought up
is there any who take her
by the hand.
19 📚These two disasters have come
to you;
who will mourn for you?
Desolation and destruction,
and famine and sword;
by whom will I comfort you?
20 📚Your sons have fainted.
They lie at the head of every street,
like an antelope in a net.
They are full of the fury of the LORD,
the rebuke of your God.
21 📚Therefore, now listen to this,
you afflicted 📖, and drunk,
but not with wine:
22 📚Thus says your Lord,
the LORD and your God who
pleads the cause of his people 📖:
“See, I have taken out of your hand
the cup of trembling,
the dregs of the cup of my fury.
You will not drink it again 📖.
23 📚But I will put it into the hands
of those who afflict you,
who have said to your soul,
‘Lie down, so that we may walk over you.’
And you made your backs like
the ground,
and like the street,
to those who walked over you”.
51:17-23 These verses look beyond Isaiah’s own day. Jerusalem had to drink the cup of God’s wrath because of its wickedness. This cup meant “desolation, destruction, famine, sword” (v 19). The enemy armies would be the cause of these. When God determined that Jerusalem had been punished enough He would comfort her and make her enemies drink the cup of punishment. On “cup” see Jer 25:15-29; Ezek 23:32-34; Zech 12:2; John 18:11; Rev 14:10.⚜