Holy Bible

Awake, awake. Isaiah 52:1-6 The essential elements of a Church's strength R. V. Foster, D.D. 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 man's life is the outcome of what he believes, or does not believe, precisely so is the Church's. 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. ) God's call to a sleeping Church C. Inwood. 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 (ver. 1). The uncircumcised and unclean in her midst.(2) Slavish subserviency to the world ( Isaiah 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" (ver. 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 God ( Isaiah 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 S. Martin. "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 Father's glory, and as the propitiation which God has set forth. The things we need to see are the wondrous things contained in God's 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 to say, "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 God's 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 Zion's 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 God's bidding. ( S. Martin. ) The Church asleep S. Martin. 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 S. Martin. 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 S. Martin. 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 W. M. Paxton, D. D. 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 giant's arm — this is the ministry. It is not an original power inherent in itself, but a delegated 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 Church's 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 GOD'S 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 F. B. Meyer, B.A. Let us take the central paragraph first ( Isaiah 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 God's 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 ( Isaiah 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 ( Isaiah 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 ( Ephesians 6 ; Colossians 3:1 ). 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 J. H. Hinton, M.A. 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 Church's duty towards the world J. Sherman. In verse 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 Church's "strength," which she is to put on! It consists in a large measure of Divine influences. The Church's "strength" consists in spiritual wisdom and spiritual courage. The "strength" of the Church consists in the cheerful assurance of God's 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 ( Isaiah 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 God's 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 (ver. 10). ( J. Sherman. ) The Church's strength J. C. Rust, M.A. 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 Christ's 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 ZION'S 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 Zion's 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 R. V. Foster, D.D. 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 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 R. V. Foster, D. D. 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. ) Zion's awakening R. V. Foster, D. D. 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 world's 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 Zion's strength S. Martin. 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 ( Matthew 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 God's 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 ( 1 Peter 2:9, 10 ; Isaiah 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 H

Benson Commentary Isaiah 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. Isaiah 52:1-3 . Awake, awake, put on strength — God orders his church to do that which she entreated him to do, Isaiah 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, Genesis 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 52:4-6 . My people went down into Egypt — Where they had protection and sustenance, and therefore owed subjection to the king of Egypt. And yet when he oppressed them I punished him severely, and delivered them out of his hands. And the Assyrian oppressed them — The king of Babylon, who is called the king of Assyria, ( 2 Kings 23:29 ,) as also the Persian emperor is called, ( Ezra 6:22 ,) because it was one and the same empire which was possessed, first by the Assyrians, then by the Babylonians, and afterward by the Persians. Without cause — Without any real ground or colour, by mere force invading their land, and carrying them away into captivity, Now therefore what have I here — Why (speaking after the manner of men) do I sit still here, and not go to Babylon to punish the Babylonians, and to deliver my people? Or, What honour have I by suffering this injury to be done to my people? That my people is taken away for naught — Were carried away captive by the Babylonians, without any provocation or pretence of right? They that rule over them make them to howl — By their tyrannical and unmerciful usage of them; and my name continually is blasphemed — The Babylonians blaspheme me, as if I wanted either power or goodwill to save my people out of their hands. Therefore my people shall know my name — They shall have sensible experience of my infinite power and goodness in fighting for them. They shall know in that day — When I shall redeem them; which work was begun by the return of the Jews from Babylon, and afterward carried on, and at last perfected, by the coming of the Messiah; that I am he that doth speak — That these promises are not the words of a weak, or fickle, or deceitful man, but of him who is omnipotent, unchangeable, and a covenant-keeping God. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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! Isaiah 52:7 . How beautiful — How exceeding precious and acceptable; upon the mountains — Of Judea, to which these glad tidings were brought; are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings — Tidings, first, Of the release of the Jews from captivity in Babylon; and, secondly, Of the redemption and salvation of mankind by the Messiah. Thus most commentators interpret the prophet’s words. They are “a poetical description,” says Lowth, “of the messenger who first brought the good news of Cyrus’s decree for the people to return home, whom the watchmen, mentioned Isaiah 52:8 , are supposed to descry afar off from the tops of the mountains, making all possible haste to publish this happy news: a signal instance of God’s overruling providence, of the peculiar care he hath for his church. But this text is very fitly applied by St. Paul to the first preachers of the gospel, ( Romans 10:15 ,) the very words importing good tidings of that peace and salvation whereby the kingdom of God was erected among men.” Indeed, true peace and salvation were procured for mankind, and are conferred upon them, only by Christ. And in his days, or from the time of his manifestation in the flesh, and entering upon his public ministry, God discovered and exercised his dominion over the world far more eminently than he ever had done from the beginning of the world until that time. Accordingly, we may observe, those Psalms wherein we find that expression, The Lord reigneth, are by the generality of interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, expounded of the times of the Messiah; the declaration being, in effect, the same that John the Baptist, the messenger of Christ, and that Christ himself published, when they testified, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Isaiah 52:8 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. Isaiah 52:8 . Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice — Partly to give notice to all people of these glad tidings, and partly by way of exultation, to sing forth the praises of God for this glorious season and exercise of mercy. If we consider this passage as referring to the deliverance from Babylon, by the watch-men here, we must understand those prophets who prophesied at or after the time of that deliverance, such as Haggai and Zechariah: but if the good tidings be interpreted of the publication of peace and salvation by the gospel, then by the watchmen its ministers are meant, and especially the apostles and evangelists, and other first messengers of Christ. For they shall see eye to eye — Those prophets that shall witness the release of the Jews from captivity shall see an exact agreement and correspondence between the prophecy and the event whereby it is accomplished, between the promise and the performance. It may still be affirmed with more propriety, that the preachers of the gospel saw eye to eye when the Messiah was manifested in the flesh, and they saw his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, John 1:14 ; when they saw with their eyes, looked upon, and their hands handled the word of life; when the life was manifested, and they saw it and bore witness, and could show unto others that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto men, 1 John 1:2 . And being eye and ear witnesses of the words and works of Christ, their testimony became more certain and more valuable. Add to this, that true gospel ministers in general, and even ordinary Christians, who receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, ( Ephesians 1:17 ,) have a more distinct and clear view of the grace of God in Christ than the Old Testament saints could have. When the Lord shall bring again Zion — When God shall complete the work of bringing his church out of captivity, which was begun at the return out of Babylon, and perfected by Christ’s coming into the world. Bishop Lowth, however, reads the clause, When Jehovah returneth to Zion; a translation which the Hebrew text will certainly bear. Thus the Chaldee: When he shall bring back his presence to Zion. “God is considered as having deserted his people during their captivity; and, at the restoration, as returning himself with them to Zion, his former habitation.” But in a much higher degree was God present in his church, when he was manifested in the flesh, and they could call him, Immanuel, God with us. Isaiah 52:9 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. Isaiah 52:9-10 . Break forth into joy — Break forth in joyful praises; ye waste places of Jerusalem — That is, all parts of Jerusalem, for it was all in ruins, and all parts of Judea, which lay desolate and waste during the captivity: an emblem of the desolate and barren state of the church when the Lord, for her sins, withdraws his presence from her. For the Lord hath comforted his people, &c. — They shall be restored to their former prosperity, and in the days of the Messiah to a far greater degree of holiness and happiness than the church of God ever before possessed. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm — Hath discovered and put forth his great power, which, for a long time, did not appear to be exerted in behalf of his people. And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God — All nations of the world shall, with astonishment, behold the wonderful work of God; first, in bringing his people out of Babylon; and afterward, in their redemption by Christ. Isaiah 52:10 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. Isaiah 52:11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing ; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD. Isaiah 52:11-12 . Depart ye, go ye out from thence — Out of Babylon into your own land, that there I may meet with you, and bless you, and perform those further and greater things for you which I have promised to do there. And this invitation was the more necessary, because God foresaw that a great number of the Jews would, upon worldly considerations, continue in those foreign countries in which they were settled, and would be very backward to return to the Holy Land. Touch no unclean thing — Carry not along with you any of their superstitions or idolatries. Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord — And especially you priests and Levites, who minister in holy things, and carry the holy vessels of the temple, keep yourselves from all pollution. Ye shall not go out by flight — But securely, and in triumph, being conducted by your great captain, the Lord of hosts. The God of Israel will be your rereward — So that none shall be able either to oppose you in your march, or to fall upon you in the rear. Isaiah 52:12 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 rereward. Isaiah 52:13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. Isaiah 52:13 . Behold, my servant, &c. — This is the beginning of a new prophecy, continued from hence to the end of the next chapter, which, as has been justly observed by many, both ancient and modern interpreters, should have begun here. “The subject of Isaiah’s prophecy, from the fortieth chapter inclusive, has hitherto been, in general, the deliverance of the people of God. This includes in it three distinct parts: the deliverance of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon, the deliverance of the Gentiles from their miserable state of ignorance and idolatry, and the deliverance of mankind from the captivity of sin and death. These three subjects are subordinate to one another, and the two latter are shadowed out under the image of the former. Cyrus is expressly named as the immediate agent of God in effecting the first deliverance. A greater person is spoken of as the agent who is to effect the two latter deliverances, called the Servant, the Elect, of God, in whom his soul delighteth. Now these three subjects have a very near relation to one another; for, as the agent who was to effect the two latter deliverances, that is, the Messiah, was to be born a Jew, with particular limitations of time, family, and other circumstances, the first deliverance was necessary in the order of providence, and, according to the determinate counsel of God, to the accomplishment of the two latter deliverances; and the second deliverance was necessary to the third, or, rather, was involved in it, and made an essential part of it. This being the case, Isaiah has not treated the three subjects as quite distinct and separate, in a methodical and orderly manner, like a philosopher or a logician, but has taken them in their connective view; he has handled them as a prophet and a poet; he has allegorized the former, and, under the image of it, has shadowed out the two latter; he has thrown them all together, has mixed one with another, has passed from this to that with rapid transitions, and has painted the whole with the strongest and boldest imagery. The restoration of the Jews from captivity, the call of the Gentiles, the redemption by Messiah, have hitherto been handled interchangeably and alternately. Babylon has hitherto been kept pretty much in sight, at the same time that strong intimations of something much greater have been frequently thrown in. But here Babylon is at once dropped, and hardly ever comes in sight again. The prophet’s views are almost wholly engrossed by the superior part of his subject. He introduces the Messiah as appearing at first in the lowest state of humiliation, which he had just touched upon before, ( Isaiah 50:5-6 ,) and obviates the offence which would be occasioned by it, by declaring the important and necessary cause of it, and foreshowing the glory which should follow it.” — Bishop Lowth. My servant — That it is Christ who is here spoken of, is so evident, that the Chaldee paraphrast, and other ancient, and some later Hebrew doctors, understand it directly of him, and that divers Jews have been convinced and converted to the Christian faith by the evidence of this prophecy. Shall deal prudently — Shall manage the affairs of his kingdom with admirable wisdom. Or, shall prosper, as it is in the margin; and as the word ?????? , here used, is frequently rendered: which also agrees best with the following clause. And this intimation concerning the future prosperity and advancement of the Messiah, is fitly put, in the first place, to prevent those scandals which otherwise might arise from the succeeding passages, which describe his state of humiliation and deep affliction. Shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high — Here are three words signifying the same thing, to express the height and glory of his exaltation. Isaiah 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: Isaiah 52:14-15 . As many were astonished at thee — At thee, O my servant: were struck with wonder at his glorious endowments, at the excellence and power of his doctrine, and his miraculous works, or rather, at his humiliation. His visage was so marred, &c. — Christ, in respect of his birth, breeding, manner of life, and outward condition in the world, was obscure and contemptible, and therefore said to be a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people, Psalm 22:6 , being exposed to all manner of affronts, indignities, and contumelies, from day to day. His countenance also was so marred with frequent watchings, fastings, and troubles, that he was thought to be nearly fifty years old when he was but thirty, John 8:57 , and was further disfigured when he was buffeted, smitten on the cheek, spit upon, and crowned with thorns, and met with other cruel and despiteful usages. So, &c. — His exaltation shall be answerable to his humiliation; shall he sprinkle many nations — 1st, With his blood, which is called the blood of sprinkling, Hebrews 12:24 , that is, he shall justify them by his blood, as it follows, Isaiah 53:11 , which act is frequently expressed by washing, as Psalm 51:2 ; Psalm 51:7 ; Ezekiel 16:9 ; Revelation 1:5 . Or, 2d, With his word or doctrine; which, being often compared to rain, or water, as chap. 55:10, 11; Psalm 72:6 , may be said to be sprinkled: as it is said to be dropped, Deuteronomy 32:2 ; Ezekiel 20:46 ; Ezekiel 21:2 . This sense seems to be favoured by the following words: or, 3d, With his Spirit, represented under the emblem of the sprinkling of water, Ezekiel 36:25-27 ; and frequently compared to water in the Scriptures, and, in the days of the Messiah, to be poured out on all flesh, Joel 2:28 ; and particularly promised to such as should thirst for it, and believe in Christ, John 7:37-38 ; Revelation 21:6 ; Revelation 22:17 . Kings shall shut their mouths at him — Shall be silent before him, out of profound humility, reverence, and admiration of his wisdom, and an eager desire to hear and receive counsels and oracles from his mouth; for that which had not been told them shall they see — They shall hear from his mouth many excellent doctrines, which will be new and strange to them. And particularly that comfortable doctrine of the salvation of the Gentiles, which was not only new to them, but strange and incredible to the Jews themselves. Isaiah 52:15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the 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. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 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. 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 nation’s restoration, and what he has now to do is but to fill in the details of this. We saw that the problem of Israel’s 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 Israel’s 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 Israel’s 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; { Isaiah 45:9 ff.} the pious were without either light or faith. { Isaiah 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 Isaiah 50:4 ff.: the Servant as an example to the people, chapter 50 ff.; and finally the Servant as a full expiation for the people’s sins in Isaiah 52:13-15 ; Isaiah 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". { Isaiah 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. { Isaiah 50:4 ; Isaiah 50:10 } It is the Servant finally who is to achieve the main problem of all and "make many righteous". { Isaiah 53:11 } The hope of restoration, the certainty of the people’s 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 Servant’s work in Isaiah 49:1 ., and Isaiah 52:13-15 ; Isaiah 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 Isaiah 49:9-13 , immediately upon the back of the Servant’s call to go forth in Isaiah 49:9 . We have then the assurance of Zion being rebuilt and thronged by her children in Isaiah 49:14-23 , and another affirmation of the certainty of redemption in Isaiah 49:24-26 . In Isaiah 50:1-3 this is repeated. In 51- Isaiah 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 { Isaiah 52:7 b} and a renewed call to leave Babylon ( Isaiah 52:11-12 ). We shall treat all these passages in our twenty-first chapter. And as they started naturally from the Servant’s work in Isaiah 49:1-9 a-and his example in Isaiah 50:4-11 , so upon his final and crowning work in chapter 53 there follow as naturally chapter 54 (the prospect of the seed Isaiah 53:10 promised he should see), and chapter 55 (a new call to come forth). These two, with the little pre-exilic prophecy, Isaiah 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 Isaiah 56:9 through Isaiah 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 Isaiah 63:1-6 the Divine Deliver is hailed. We shall take Isaiah 60:1-22 - Isaiah 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. CHAPTER XXI DOUBTS IN THE WAY Isaiah 49:1-26 - Isaiah 52:12 CHAPTERS 49-53 are, as we have seen, a series of more or less closely joined passages, in which the prophet, having already made the political redemption of Israel certain through Cyrus, and having dismissed Cyrus from his thoughts, addresses himself to various difficulties in the way of restoration, chiefly moral and spiritual, and rising from Israel’s own feelings and character; exhorts the people in face of them by Jehovah’s faithfulness and power; but finds the chief solution of them in the Servant and his prophetic and expiatory work. We have already studied such of these passages as present the Servant to us, and we now take up those others, which meet the doubts and difficulties in the way of restoration by means of general considerations drawn from God’s character and power. Let it be noticed that, with one exception, { Isaiah 50:11 } these passages are meant for earnest and pious minds in Israel, -for those Israelites, whose desires are towards Zion, but chill and heavy with doubts. The form and the terms of these passages are in harmony with their purpose. They are a series of short, high-pitched exhortations, apostrophes and lyrics. One, Isaiah 52:9-12 , calls upon the arm of Jehovah, but all the rest address Zion, -that is, the ideal people in the person of their mother, with whom they ever so fondly identified themselves; or "Zion’s children"; or "them that follow righteousness," or ye "that know righteousness"; or "my people, my nation"; or again Zion herself. This personification of the people under the name of their city, and under the aspect of a woman, whose children are the individual members of the people, will be before us till the end of our prophecy. It is, of course, a personification of Israel, which is complementary to Israel’s other personification under the name of the Servant. The Servant is Israel active, comforting, serving his own members and the nations; Zion, the Mother-City, is Israel passive, to be comforted, to be served by her own sons and by the kings of the peoples. We may divide the passages into two groups. First, the songs of return, which rise out of the picture of the Servant and his redemption of the people in Isaiah 49:9 b, with the long promise and exhortation to Zion and her children, that lasts till the second picture of the Servant in Isaiah 52:4 ; and second, the short pieces which lie between the second picture of the Servant and the third, or from the beginning of champ, 51 to Isaiah 52:12 . I. In Isaiah 49:9 b God’s promise of the return of the redeemed proceeds naturally from that of their ransom by the Servant. It is hailed by a song in Isaiah 49:13 , and the rest of the section is the answer to three doubts, which, like sobs, interrupt the music. But the prophecy, stooping, as it were, to kiss the trembling lips through which these doubts break, immediately resumes its high flight of comfort and promise. Two of these doubts are: Isaiah 49:14 , "But Zion hath said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me"; and Isaiah 49:24 , "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty or the captives of the terrible be delivered?" The third is implied in Isaiah 50:1 . The promise of return is as follows: "On roads shall they feed, and on all bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger nor thirst, nor shall the mirage nor the sun smite them: for He that yearneth over them shall lead them, even by springs of water shall He guide them. And I will set all My mountains for a way, and My high ways shall be exalted. Lo, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the North and from the West, and these from the land of Sinim. Sing forth, O heavens; and be glad, O earth; let the mountains break forth into singing: for Jehovah hath comforted His people, and over His afflicted He yearneth." Now, do not let us imagine that this is the promise of a merely material miracle. It is the greater glory of a purely spiritual one, as the prophet indicates in describing its cause in the words, "because He that yearneth over them shall lead them." The desert is not to abate its immemorial rigours; in itself the way shall still be as hard as when the discredited and heartbroken exiles were driven down it from home to servitude. But their hearts are now changed, and that shall change the road. The new faith, which has made the difference, is a very simple one, that God is Power. and that God is Love. Notice the possessive pronouns used by God, and mark what they put into His possession: two kinds of things, -powerful things, "I will make all My mountains a way"; and sorrowful things, "Jehovah hath comforted His people, and will have compassion on His afflicted." If we will steadfastly believe that everything in the world which is in pain, and everything which has power, is God’s, and shall be used by Him, the one for the sake of the other, this shall surely change the way to our feet, and all the world around to our eyes. 1. Only it is so impossible to believe it when one looks at real fact; and however far and swiftly faith and hope may carry us for a time, we always come to ground again and face to face with fact. The prophet’s imagination speeding along that green and lifted highway of the Lord lights suddenly upon the end of it, -the still dismantled and desolate city. Fifty years Zion’s altar fires have been cold and her walls in ruin. Fifty years she has been bereaved of her children and left alone. The prophet hears the winds blow mournfully through her fact’s chill answer to faith. "But Zion said, Forsaken me hath Jehovah, and my Lord hath forgotten me!" Now let us remember that our prophet has Zion before him in the figure of a mother, and we shall feel the force of God’s reply. It is to a mother’s heart God appeals. "Doth a woman forget her sucking child so as not to yearn over the son of her womb? yea, such may forget, but I will not forget thee," desolate mother that thou art! Thy life is not what thou art in outward show and feeling, but what thou art in My love and in My sight. "Lo, upon both palms have I graven thee; thy walls are before Me continually." The custom, which to some extent prevails in all nations, of puncturing or tattooing upon the skin a dear name one wishes to keep in mind, is followed in the East chiefly for religious purposes, and men engrave the name of God or some holy text upon the hand or arm for a memorial or as a mark of consecration. It is this fashion which God attributes to Himself. Having measured His love by the love of a mother, He gives this second human pledge for His memory and devotion. But again He exceeds the human habit; for it is not only the name of Zion which is engraved on His hands, but her picture. And it is not her picture, as she lies in her present ruin and solitariness, but: her restored and perfect state: "thy walls are continually before Me." For this is faith’s answer to all the ruin and haggard contradiction of outward fact. Reality is not what we see: reality is what God sees. What a thing is in His sight and to His purpose, that it really is, and that it shall ultimately appear to men’s eyes. To make us believe this is the greatest service the Divine can do for the human. It was the service Christ was always doing, and nothing showed His divinity more. He took us men and He called us, unworthy as we were, His brethren, the sons of God. He took such a one as Simon, shifting and unstable, a quicksand of a man, and He said, "On this rock I will build My Church." A man’s reality is not what he is in his own feelings, or what he is to the world’s eyes; but what he is to God’s love, to God’s yearning, and in God’s plan. If he believe that, so in the end shall he feel it, so in the end shall: he show it to the eyes of the world. 2. Upon those great thoughts, that God’s are all strong things and all weak things, and that the real and the certain in life are His will, the prophecy breaks into a vision of multitudes in motion. There are a great stirring and hastening, crowds gather up through the verses, the land is lifted and thronged. "Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all of them gather together, they come unto thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt surely clothe thyself with them all as with an ornament, and gird thyself with them, like a bride. For as for thy waste places and thy desolate ones and thy devastated land-yea, thou wilt now be too strait for the inhabitants, and far off shall be they that devour thee. Again shall they speak in thine ears, -the children of thy bereavement" (that is, those children who have been born away from Zion during her solitude), "Too strait for me is the place, make me room that I may dwell. And thou shalt say in thine heart, Who hath borne me these,"-not begotten, as our English version renders, because the question with Zion was not who was the father of the children, but who, in her own barrenness, could possibly be the mother, -"Who hath borne me these, seeing I was" first "bereft of my children, and" since then have been "barren, an exile and a castaway! And these, who hath brought them up! Lo, I was left by myself. These, -whence are they!" Our English version, which has blundered in the preceding verses, requires no correction in the following; and the first great Doubt in the Way being now answered, for "they that wait on the Lord shall not be ashamed," we pass to the second, in Isaiah 49:24 . 2. "Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of the tyrant be delivered?" Even though God be full of love and thought for Zion, will these tyrants give up her children? "Yea, thus saith Jehovah, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be delivered; and with him that quarreleth with thee will I quarrel, and thy children will I save. And I will make thine oppressors to eat their own flesh, and as with new wine with their blood shall they be drunken, that all flesh may know that I am Jehovah thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob." 3. But now a third Doubt in the Way seems to have risen. Unlike the two others, it is not directly stated, but we may gather its substance from the reply which Jehovah makes to it. { Isaiah 50:1 } "Thus saith Jehovah, What is this bill of divorce of your mother whom I have sent away, or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?" The form, in which this challenge is put, assumes that the Israelites themselves had been thinking of Jehovah’s dismissal of Israel as an irrevocable divorce and a bankrupt sale into slavery. "What now is this letter of divorce, -this that you are saying I have given your mother? You say that I have sold you as a bankrupt father sells his children, -to which then of my creditors is it that I have sold you?" The most characteristic effect of sin is that fit is always reminding men of law. Whether the moral habit of it be upon them or they are entangled in its material consequences, sin breeds in men the conscience of inexorable, irrevocable law. Its effect is not only practical, but intellectual. Sin not only robs a man of the freedom of his own will, but it takes from him the power to think of freedom in others, and it does not stop till it paralyses his belief in the freedom of God. He, who knows himself as the creature of unchangeable habits or as the victim of pitiless laws, cannot help imputing his own experience to what is beyond him, till all life seems strictly law bound, the idea of a free agent anywhere an impossibility, and God but a part of the necessity which rules the universe. Two kinds of generations of men have most tended to be necessitarian in their philosophy, the generations which have given themselves over to do evil, and the generations whose political experience or whose science has impressed them with the inevitable physical results of sin. If belief in a Divine Redeemer, able to deliver man’s nature from the guilt and the curse of sin, is growing weak among us to-day, this is largely due to the fact that our moral and our physical sciences have been proving to us what creatures of law we are, and disclosing, especially in the study of disease and insanity, how inevitably suffering follows sin. God Himself has been so much revealed to us as law, that as a generation we find it hard to believe that He ever acts in any fashion that resembles the reversal of a law, or ever works any swift, sudden deed of salvation. Now the generation of the Exile was a generation, to whom God had revealed Himself as law. They were a generation of convicts. They had owned the justice of the sentence which had banished and enslaved them; they had experienced how inexorably God’s processes of judgment sweep down the ages; for fifty years they had been feeling the inevitable consequences of sin. The conscience of Law, which this experience was bound to create in them, grew ever more strong, till at last it absorbed even the hope of redemption, and the God who enforced the Law Himself seemed to be forced by it. To express this sense of law these earnest Israelites-for though in error they were in earnest-went to the only kind of law with which they were familiar, and borrowed from it two of its forms, which were not only suggested to them by the relations in which the nation and the nation’s sons respectively stood to Jehovah, as wife and as children, but admirably illustrated the ideas they wished to express. There was, first, the form of divorce, so expressive of the ideas of absoluteness, deliberateness, and finality; -of absoluteness, for throughout the East power of divorce rests entirely with the husband; of deliberateness, for in order to prevent hasty divorce the Hebrew law insisted that the husband must make a bill or writing of divorce instead of only speaking dismissal; and of finality, for such a writing, in contrast to the spoken dismissal, set the divorce beyond recall. The other form, which the doubters-borrowed from their law, was one which, while it also illustrated the irrevocableness of the act, emphasised the helplessness of the agent, -the act of the father, who put his children away, not as the husband put his wife in his anger, but in his necessity, selling them to pay his debts and because he was bankrupt. On such doubts God turns with their own language. "I have indeed put your mother away, but ‘where is the bill’ that makes her divorce final, beyond recall? You indeed were sold, but was it because I was bankrupt? ‘To which,’ then, ‘of My creditors (not the scorn of the plural) was it that I sold you? Nay, by means of your iniquities did you sell yourselves, and by means of your transgressions were you put away.’ But I stand here ready as ever to save, I alone. If there is any difficulty about your restoration it lies in this, that I am alone, with no response or assistance from men. ‘Why when I came was there no man? when I called was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? or is there in it no power to deliver?"’ And so we come back to the truth, which this prophecy so often presents to us, that behind all things there is a personal initiative and urgency of infinite power, which moves freely of its own compassion and force, which is hindered by no laws from its own ends, and needs no man’s co-operation to effect its purposes. The rest of the Lord’s answer to His people’s fear, that He is bound by an inexorable law, is simply an appeal to His wealth of force. This omnipotence of God is our prophet’s constant solution for the problems which arise, and he expresses it here in his favourite figures of physical changes and convulsions of nature. "Lo, with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and sackcloth I set for their covering." The argument seems to be: if God can work those sudden revolutions in the physical world, those apparent interruptions of law in that sphere, surely you can believe Him capable of creating sudden revolutions also in the sphere of history, and reversing those laws and processes, which you feel to be unalterable. It is an argument from the physical to the moral world, in our prophet’s own analogical style, and like those we found in chapter 40. II. Isaiah 51:1-23 ; Isaiah 52:1-12 Passing over the passage on the Servant, Isaiah 50:4-11 , we reach a second series of exhortations in face of Doubts in the Way of the Return. The first of this new series is Isaiah 51:1-3 . Their doubts having been answered with regard to God’s mindfulness of them and His power to save them, the loyal Israelites fall back to doubt themselves. They see with dismay how few are ready to achieve the freedom that God has assured, and upon how small and insignificant a group of individuals the future of the nation depends. But their disappointment is not made by them an excuse to desert the purpose of Jehovah: their fewness makes them the more faithful, and the defection of their countrymen drives them the closer to their God. Therefore, God speaks to them kindly, and answers their last sad doubt. "Hearken unto Me, ye that follow righteousness, that seek Jehovah." "Righteousness" here might be taken in its inward sense of conformity to law, personal rightness of character; and so taken it would well fall in with the rest of the passage. Those addressed would then be such in Israel, as in face of hopeless prospects applied themselves to virtue and religion. But "righteousness" here is more probably used in the outward sense, which we have found prevalent in "Second Isaiah," of vindication and victory; the "coming right" of God’s people and God’s cause in the world, their justification and triumph in history. They who are addressed will then be they who, in spite of their fewness, believe in this triumph, "follow it," make-it their goal and their aim, and "seek Jehovah," knowing that He can bring it to pass. And because, in spite of their doubts, they are still earnest, and though faint are yet pursuing, God speaks to comfort them about their fewness. Their present state may be very small and unpromising, but let them look back upon the much more unpromising character of their origin: "look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye were digged." Today you may be a mere handful, ridiculous in the light of the destiny you were called to achieve, but remember you were once but one man: "look unto Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bare you: for as one I called him and blessed him, that I might make of him many." When we are weary and hopeless it is best to sit down and remember. Is the future dark: let us look back and see the gathering and impetus of the past! We can follow the luminous track, the unmistakable increase and progress, but the most inspiring sight of all is what God makes of the individual heart; how a man’s heart is always His beginning, the fountain of the future, the origin of nations. Lift up your hearts, ye few and feeble; your father was but one when I called him, and I made him many! Having thus assured His loyal remnant of the restoration of Zion, in spite of their fewness, Jehovah in the next few verses ( Isaiah 51:4-8 ) extends the prospect of His glory to the world: "Revelation shall go forth from Me, and I will make My law to light on the nations." Revelation and Law between them summarise His will. As He identified them both with the Servant’s work, { Isaiah 40:11 } so here He tells the loyal in Israel, who were in one aspect His Servant, that they shall surely come to pass; and in the next little oracle, Isaiah 51:7-8 , He exhorts them to do that in which the Servant has been set forth as an example: "fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be dismayed at their revilings. For like a garment the moth shall eat them up, and like wool shall the worm devour them." It is a response in almost the same words to the Servant’s profession of confidence in God in Isaiah 50:7-9 . By some it is used as an argument to show that the Servant and the godly remnant are to our prophet still virtually one and the same; but we have already seen ( Isaiah 50:10 ) the god-fearing addressed as distinct from the Servant, and can only understand here that they are once more exhorted to take him as their example. But if the likeness of the passage on the Servant to this passage on the suffering Remnant does not prove that Remnant and Servant are the same, it is certainly an indication that both passages, so far from being pieced together out of different poems, are most probably due to the same author and were produced originally in the same current of thought. When all Doubts in the Way have now been removed, what can remain but a great impatience to achieve’ at once the near salvation? To this impatience the loosened hearts give voice in Isaiah 51:9-11 : "Awake, awake, put on strength, Arm of Jehovah; awake as in the days of old, ages far past!" Not in vain have Israel been called to look back to the rock whence they were hewn and the hole of the pit whence they were digged. Looking back, they see the ancient deliverance manifest: "Art thou not it that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced the Dragon! Art thou not it that dried up the sea, waters of the great flood; that did set the hollows of the sea a way for the passage of the redeemed." Then there breaks forth the march of the Return, which we heard already in the end of chapter 35, ( Isaiah 1:1-31 ; Isaiah 2:1-22 ; Isaiah 3:1-26 ; Isaiah 4:1-6 ; Isaiah 5:1-30 ; Isaiah 6:1-13 ; Isaiah 7:1-25 ; Isaiah 8:1-22 ; Isaiah 9:1-21 ; Isaiah 10:1-34 ; Isaiah 11:1-16 ; Isaiah 12:1-6 ; Isaiah 13:1-22 ; Isaiah 14:1-32 ; Isaiah 15:1-9 ; Isaiah 16:1-14 ; Isaiah 17:1-14 ; Isaiah 18:1-7 ; Isaiah 19:1-25 ; Isaiah 20:1-6 ; Isaiah 21:1-17 ; Isaiah 22:1-25 ; Isaiah 23:1-18 ; Isaiah 24:1-23 ; Isaiah 25:1-12 ; Isaiah 26:1-21 ; Isaiah 27:1-13 ; Isaiah 28:1-29 ; Isaiah 29:1-24 ; Isaiah 30:1-33 ; Isaiah 31:1-9 ; Isaiah 32:1-20 ; Isaiah 33:1-24 ; Isaiah 34:1-17 ; Isaiah 35:1-10 ; Isaiah 36:1-22 ; Isaiah 37:1-38 ; Isaiah 38:1-22 ; Isaiah 39:1-8 ) and to His people’s impatience Jehovah responds in Isaiah 51:9-16 in strains similar to those of chapter 40. The last verse of this reply is notable for the enormous extension which it gives to the purpose of Jehovah in endowing Israel as His prophet, -an extension to no less than the renewal of the universe, -"in order to plant the heavens and found the earth"; though the reply emphatically concludes with the restoration of Israel, as if this were the cardinal moment in the universal regeneration, -"and to say to Zion, My people art thou." The close conjunction; into which this verse brings words already applied to Israel as the Servant and words which describe Israel as Zion, is another of the many proofs we are discovering of the impossibility of breaking up "Second Isaiah" into poems, the respective subjects of which are one or other of these two personifications of the nation. But the desire of the prophet speeds on before the returning exiles to the still prostrate and desolate city. He sees her as she fell, the day the Lord made her drunken with the cup of His wrath. With urgent passion he bids her awake, seeking to rouse her now by the horrid tale of her ruin, and now by his exultation in the vengeance the Lord is preparing for His enemies. { Isaiah 51:17-23 } In a second strophe he addresses her in conscious contrast to his taunt-song against Babel. Babel was to sit throneless and stripped of her splendour in the dust; but Zion is to shake off the dust, rise, sit on her throne and assume her majesty. For God hath redeemed His people. He could not tolerate longer "the exulting of their tyrants, the blasphemy of His name". { Isaiah 52:6 } All through these two strophes the strength of the passion, the intolerance of further captivity, the fierceness of the exultation of vengeance, are very remarkable. But from the ruin of his city, which has so stirred and made turbulent his passion, the prophet lifts his hot eyes to the dear hills that encircle her; and peace takes the music from vengeance. Often has Jerusalem seen rising across that high margin the spears and banners of her destroyers. But now the lofty skyline is the lighting place of hope. Fit threshold for so Divine an arrival, it lifts against heaven, dilated and beautiful, the herald of the Lord’s peace, the publisher of salvation. "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! Hark thy watchmen! they lift up the voice, together they break into singing; yea, eye to eye do they see when Jehovah returneth to Zion." The last verse is a picture of the thronging of the city of the prophets by the prophets again-so close that they shall look each other in the face. For this is the sense of the Hebrew "to see eye to eye," and not that meaning of reconciliation and agreement which the phrase has come to have in colloquial English. The Exile had scattered the prophets arm driven them into hiding. They had been only voices to one another, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel with the desert between the two of than, or like our own prophet, anonymous and unseen. But upon the old gathering-ground, the narrow but the free and open platform of Jerusalem’s public life, they should see each other face to face, they should again be named and known. "Break out, sing together, ye wastes of Jerusalem: for Jehovah has comforted His people, has redeemed Jerusalem. Bared has Jehovah His holy arm to the eyes of all the nations, and see shall all ends of the earth the salvation of our God." Thus the prophet, after finishing his long argument and dispelling the doubts that still lingered at its close, returns to the first high notes and the first dear subject with which he opened in chapter 40. In face of so open a way, so unclouded a prospect, nothing remains but to repeat, and this time with greater s