Isaiah 52:1-12 Awake, awake; put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city… 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 soul - a 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. Joel 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 dust - from 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. Therefore - for all these reasons - the 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 own - that 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 come - bounding 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. Ezekiel 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 (Nahum 1:15), such as Nineveh! How still more welcome he who comes to bear tidings from the spiritual world to the spirits of men (Romans 10:15; Ephesians 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 government - the 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 near - is for me." Bondage is in ourselves; redemption and comfort are when we realize again that there is another - a "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 (1 Kings 14:28). And so must he, to whom the shields of the whole earth belong (Psalm 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 (2 Corinthians 6:17, 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 Revelation 18:4 Babylon stands for the evil course of the present world - the 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 (Numbers 1:50; Numbers 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 Ezra 1:7, 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. Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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