Notes on Isaiah. Chapter 52

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Jerusalem becomes the holy city, secured from profanation, and He reasons with the insolence of her enemies as against Himself. All this hangs on allusion to their position in Babylon. This celebration of the deliverance of Zion, in connection with the Remnant become a people, demands a full explanation of what leads to it all, and Christ necessarily becomes the great subject. But this is introduced thus. In this account of the compassion of Jehovah for His people, and the glorifying of Jerusalem, He who had taken, and had alone title (from chapter 49: 4) to be called the Servant of Jehovah, necessarily would bear a great and conspicuous part. "Behold my Servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted," etc. But here another principle comes in. The humiliation of Christ served to distinguish, even to the end, the Remnant who listened to the voice of "His Servant." Here the exaltation of Christ is connected, through His humiliation and offering for sin, with the introduction of the Gentiles. "As many were astonished at thee" (for He becomes the Object of the Spirit's thoughts now) for "His visage so marred," "His form more than the sons of men," "So shall he sprinkle many nations," and "that which kings had not heard, shall they consider." This introduces the following chapter.
From verse 13, to the end of the following chapter it is the exalted Servant, with the results of His first manifestation, and the mystery of His first reception fully developed.
In this chapter the Remnant recognize much more the true substitutory character of the sufferings of the rejected Christ, so that they were healed by that by which their sin was consummated. The first verses show their rejection of Him, now confessed as sin; full grace to the nations, and to the people, and to Jerusalem, is the result of this, but not governmental details.