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 a more come into thee the
uncircumcised and the unclean.
(a) No wicked tyrant, who will subvert God's true religion
and oppress the conscience.
52:2 Shake thyself from the b dust; arise, [and] sit down, O
Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O
captive daughter of Zion.
(b) Put off the garments of sorrow and heaviness and put on
the apparel of joy and gladness.
52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for c
nothing; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
(c) The Babylonians paid nothing to me for you: therefore I
will take you again without ransom.
52:4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went d down in
times past into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian
e oppressed them without cause.
(d) When Jacob went there in times of famine.
(e) The Egyptians might pretend some reason to oppress my
people because they went there and remained among them,
but the Assyrians have no title to excuse their tyranny
by, and therefore I will punish them more than I did
the Egyptians.
52:5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my
people is taken away for nothing? they that rule over them
make them to wail, saith the LORD; and my name continually
every day [is] f blasphemed.
(f) That is, by the wicked, who think that I have no power
to deliver them.
52:7 How g beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings, that proclaimeth peace; that
bringeth good tidings of good, that proclaimeth salvation;
that saith to Zion, Thy God reigneth!
(g) Signifying that the joy and good tidings of their
deliverance would make their affliction in the mean
time more easy: but this is chiefly meant of the
spiritual joy, as in (Na 1:15, Ro 10:15).
52:8h 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.
(h) The prophets who are your watchmen will publish your
deliverance: this was begun under Zerubbabel, Ezra and
Nehemiah, but was accomplished under Christ.
52:10 The LORD hath made i 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.
(i) As ready to smite his enemies and to deliver his
people.
52:11k Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from there, touch no
unclean [thing]; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye
clean, that l bear the vessels of the LORD.
(k) He warns the faithful not to pollute themselves with
the superstitions of the Babylonians, as
(Isa 48:20, 2Co 6:17).
(l) For the time is at hand that the priests and Levites
chiefly (and so by them all the people, who will be as
the Levites in this office) will carry home vessels of
the temple which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away.
52:12 For ye shall not go out m with haste, nor go by flight:
for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel
[will be] your rear guard.
(m) As your fathers did out of Egypt.
52:13 Behold, my n servant shall deal prudently, he shall be
exalted and extolled, and be very high.
(n) Meaning Christ, by whom our spiritual deliverance
would be wrought of which this was a sign.
52:14 As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so o
marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons
of men:
(o) In the corrupt judgment of man, Christ in his person
was not valued.
52:15 So p shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall
shut their q mouths at him: for [that] which had not
been told them shall they see; and [that] which they had
not heard shall they r consider.
(p) He will spread his word through many nations.
(q) In sign of reverence, and as being astonished at his
excellency.
(r) By the preaching of the gospel.
