Chapter Fifty-one
IN CHAPTER fifty-one God stresses the disobedience of Israel and their suffering because of it, and also emphasizes the coming day when Messiah will be recognized and granted the fullness of blessing.
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody (verses 1-3).
God will fulfill every promise He has made. He says, “Look unto Abraham.” God had said to Abraham, “in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Israel failed in that blessing. But still the promise abides, and the day is coming when they themselves will enter into fullness of blessing through the Son of Abraham and when they will be made a blessing to the whole earth, because they have become like a nation of priests in the coming day and will be used of God to bless all the Gentile nations. The nations that once persecuted them will have to suffer, but after God has destroyed the enemies — those who are taken in red-handed opposition to His Word — the nations that have never been guilty of these things will find the Lord as their Saviour and enter into blessing in the millennial day.
In the rest of this chapter and the first part of chapter fifty-two, we have three calls to awake. First is a call addressed to the arm of the Lord, “Awake, awake.” Then we have a call addressed to Jerusalem as she now is with her suffering and sorrow, calling her to arise. And then there is a call to Zion and to Jerusalem, as she will be in the coming day, when the Lord leads her into blessing.
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?... Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out (verses 9, 17).
In verse 9 Rahab the dragon refers to Egypt; it is the term here used for that land.