He will return to Jerusalem
52
📚Awake! Awake!Put on your strength,
O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments 📖,
O Jerusalem, the holy city!
For from now on the uncircumcised
and the unclean 📖 will no longer
come into you.
2 📚Shake yourself from the dust.
Arise, and sit down,
O Jerusalem.
Loose yourself from the shackles
on your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion.
3 📚For thus says the LORD:
“You have sold yourselves for nothing,
and you will be redeemed
without money”.
52:3 The Lord received nothing by bringing enemies to capture His city – nothing but grief and pain. It would cost Him no money to free the people and bring them back to Jerusalem. But what it cost God to free His people from sin and bring them back to Himself is seen in the next chapter. See also 1 Pet 1:18-19.⚜
4 📚For thus says the Lord God: “My people went down at first into Egypt 📖 to live there. Afterwards the Assyrian 📖 oppressed them without cause. 5 📚Now 📖 therefore, what have I here”, says the LORD, “that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them make them wail”, says the LORD, “and my name continually every day is blasphemed 📖.
6 📚Therefore my people will know my name 📖; therefore in that day they will know that I am the one who speaks. See, it is I”.
7 📚How beautiful on the mountains are
the feet of the one who brings
good tidings,
who proclaims peace,
who brings good tidings 📖 of good things,
who proclaims salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
8 📚Your watchmen will raise their
voices;
with their voices they will sing
together,
for when the LORD restores Zion
they will see it with their own eyes.
9 📚Break forth into joy, sing together,
you waste places of Jerusalem!
For the LORD has comforted
his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 📚The LORD has bared his holy arm 📖
in the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth 📖 will see
the salvation of our God.
11 📚Depart! Depart!
Go out from there!
Do not touch any unclean thing!
Go out of the midst of her! Be clean,
you who carry the vessels of the LORD.
12 📚For you will not go out with haste,
or leave like fugitives,
for the LORD will go in front of you,
and the God of Israel will be your
rear guard.
52:12 Verse 2.⚜
52:11-12 Meaning for Israel in captivity in Babylon – leave Babylon, bearing the vessels for the temple (Ezra 1:7-11), and taking nothing from that accursed city, such as idols, that would be unclean. There is also a meaning in this for those who are in the figurative “Babylon” at the end of this age (Rev 18:4), and always a spiritual application to the Church of the New Testament (2 Cor 6:14-18).⚜
The suffering and victory of the LORD’s Servant
13 📚“See, my servant will act wisely 📖.
He will be exalted and lifted up
and be very high.
14 📚Just as many were astonished at you,
so his appearance was disfigured
more than any man,
and his form more than the sons of men.
15 📚So he will sprinkle 📖 many nations.
Kings will shut their mouths 📖 at him,
for they will see what they had
not been told,
and consider what they had not heard”.
52:13-15 The Servant of God, the Lord Jesus, is brought into view again (see Isa 42:1-4; 49:5-7; 50:4-9). It is through Him alone that the glorious events of this chapter have their fulfillment. Verse 14 describes what would happen to Him at the hands of men (compare Isa 50:6; Ps 22:6-18). Verse 13 describes His behavior and how God exalted Him (see Acts 2:32-33; 3:13; Eph 1:20-23; Phil 2:9-11). Verse 15 states what He would do after God exalted Him.⚜