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<title>Blue Letter Bible: Text Commentaries</title>
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Title = 'The Book of the Prophet Isaiah';
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<p id="Chapter52" align="center">Commentary by A. R. FAUSSET<br>CHAPTER 52
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<p id="Isa52_1"><a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,'1-15');">Isa 52:1-15</a>. FIRST THROUGH THIRTEEN VERSES CONNECTED WITH FIFTY-FIRST CHAPTER.
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<p>Zion long in bondage (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',51,'17-20');">Isa 51:17-20</a>) is called to put on beautiful garments appropriate to its future prosperity. <p><b>1. strength</b>—as thy adornment; answering to "beautiful garments" in the parallel clause. Arouse thyself from dejection and assume confidence.
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<br><br><b>the holy city</b>— (<a onclick="return mV('Neh',11,1);">Neh 11:1</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rev',21,2);">Rev 21:2</a>).
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<br><br><b>no more...unclean</b>— (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',35,8);">Isa 35:8</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',60,21);">60:21</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Joe',3,17);">Joe 3:17</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rev',21,27);">Rev 21:27</a>). A prophecy never yet fulfilled.
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<br><br><b>uncircumcised</b>—spiritually (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',44,9);">Eze 44:9</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Act',7,51);">Act 7:51</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_2"><b>2. from the dust</b>—the seat of mourners (<a onclick="return mV('Job',2,12,13);">Job 2:12-13</a>).
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<br><br><b>arise, and sit</b>—namely, in a more dignified place: on a divan or a throne [LOWTH], after having shaken off the dust gathered up by the flowing dress when seated on the ground; or simply, "Arise, and sit erect" [MAURER].
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<br><br><b>bands of...neck</b>—the yoke of thy captivity.
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<p id="Isa52_3"><b>3.</b> As you became your foes' servants, without their paying any price for you (<a onclick="return mV('Jer',15,13);">Jer 15:13</a>), so they shall release you without demanding any price or reward (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',45,13);">Isa 45:13</a>), (where Cyrus is represented as doing so: a type of their final restoration gratuitously in like manner). So the spiritual Israel, "sold under sin," gratuitously (<a onclick="return mV('Rom',7,14);">Rom 7:14</a>), shall be redeemed also gratuitously (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',55,1);">Isa 55:1</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_4"><b>4. My people</b>—Jacob and his sons.
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<br><br><b>went down</b>—Judea was an elevated country compared with Egypt.
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<br><br><b>sojourn</b>—They went there to stay only till the famine in Canaan should have ceased.
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<br><br><b>Assyrian</b>—Sennacherib. Remember how I delivered you from Egypt and the Assyrian; what, then, is to prevent Me from delivering you out of Babylon (and the mystical Babylon and the Antichrist in the last days)?
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<br><br><b>without cause</b>—answering to "for naught" in <a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,5);">Isa 52:5</a>; it was an act of <i>gratuitous</i> oppression in the present case, as in that case.
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<p id="Isa52_5"><b>5. what have I here</b>—that is, what am I called on to do? The fact "that My people is taken away (into captivity; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',49,24,25);">Isa 49:24-25</a>) for naught" (by <i>gratuitous</i> oppression, <a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,4);">Isa 52:4</a>; also <a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,3);">Isa 52:3</a>, and see on JFB for <a href="./Comm/jfb/Isa/Isa052.html#Isa52_3">Isa 52:3</a>) demands My interposition.
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<br><br><b>they that rule</b>—or "tyrannize," namely, Babylon, literal and mystical.
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<br><br><b>make...to howl</b>—or, raise a cry of exultation over them [MAURER].
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<br><br><b>blasphemed</b>—namely, in Babylon: God's reason for delivering His people, not their goodness, but for the sake of His holy name (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',20,9,14);">Eze 20:9, 14</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_6"><b>6. shall know in that day</b>—when Christ shall reveal Himself to Israel sensibly; the only means whereby their obstinate unbelief shall be overcome (<a onclick="return mV('Psa',102,16);">Psa 102:16</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Zec',12,10);">Zec 12:10</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Zec',14,5);">14:5</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_7"><b>7. beautiful...feet</b>—that is, The <i>advent</i> of such a herald seen on the distant "mountains" (see on JFB for <a href="./Comm/jfb/Isa/Isa040.html#Isa40_9">Isa 40:9</a>; JFB for <a href="./Comm/jfb/Isa/Isa041.html#Isa41_27">Isa 41:27</a>; JFB for <a href="./Comm/jfb/Isa/Isa025.html#Isa25_6">Isa 25:6</a>, <a href="./Comm/jfb/Isa/Isa025.html#Isa25_7">Isa 25:7</a>; JFB for <a href="./Comm/jfb/Sgs/Sgs002.html#So2_17">So 2:17</a>) <i>running in haste</i> with the long-expected good tidings, is most grateful to the desolated city (<a onclick="return mV('Nah',1,15);">Nah 1:15</a>).
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<br><br><b>good tidings</b>—only partially applying to the return from Babylon. Fully, and antitypically, the Gospel (<a onclick="return mV('Luk',2,10,11);">Luk 2:10-11</a>), "beginning at Jerusalem" (<a onclick="return mV('Luk',24,17);">Luk 24:17</a>), "the city of the great King" (<a onclick="return mV('Mat',5,35);">Mat 5:35</a>), where Messiah shall, at the final restoration of Israel, "reign" as peculiarly Zion's God ("<i>Thy</i> God reigneth"; compare <a onclick="return mV('Psa',2,6);">Psa 2:6</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_8"><b>8. watchmen</b>—set on towers separated by intervals to give the earliest notice of the approach of any messenger with tidings (compare <a onclick="return mV('Isa',21,'6-8');">Isa 21:6-8</a>). The <i>Hebrew</i> is more forcible than <i>English Version,</i> "The voice of thy watchmen" (exclamatory as in <a onclick="return mV('Sgs',2,8);">Sgs 2:8</a>). "They lift up their voice! together they sing."
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<br><br><b>eye to eye</b>—that is, close at hand, and so clearly [GESENIUS]; <a onclick="return mV('Num',14,14);">Num 14:14</a>, "face to face"; <a onclick="return mV('Num',12,8);">Num 12:8</a>, "mouth to mouth." Compare <a onclick="return mV('1Cr',13,12);">1Cr 13:12</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rev',22,4);">Rev 22:4</a>, of which Simeon's sight of the Saviour was a prefiguration (<a onclick="return mV('Luk',2,30);">Luk 2:30</a>). The watchmen, spiritually, are ministers and others who pray for the peace of Jerusalem (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',62,6, 7);">Isa 62:6-7</a>),
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<br><br><b>bring again</b>—that is, restore. Or else, "return to" [MAURER].
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<p id="Isa52_9"><b>9.</b> (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',14,7,8);">Isa 14:7-8</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',42,11);">42:11</a>).
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<br><br><b>redeemed</b>—spiritually and nationally (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',48,20);">Isa 48:20</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_10"><b>10. made bare...arm</b>—metaphor from warriors who bare their arm for battle (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,7);">Eze 4:7</a>).
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<br><br><b>all...earth...see...salvation of...God</b>—The deliverance wrought by God for Israel will cause all nations to acknowledge the Lord (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',66,'18-20');">Isa 66:18-20</a>). The partial fulfilment (<a onclick="return mV('Luk',3,6);">Luk 3:6</a>) is a forerunner of the future complete fulfilment.
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<p id="Isa52_11"><b>11.</b> (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',48,20);">Isa 48:20</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Zec',2,6,7);">Zec 2:6-7</a>). Long residence in Babylon made many loath to leave it: so as to mystical Babylon (<a onclick="return mV('Rev',18,4);">Rev 18:4</a>).
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<br><br><b>ye...that bear...vessels of the Lord</b>—the priests and Levites, whose office it was to carry the vessels of the temple (<a onclick="return mV('Jer',27,18);">Jer 27:18</a>). Nebuchadnezzar had carried them to Babylon (<a onclick="return mV('2Ch',36,18);">2Ch 36:18</a>). Cyrus restored them (<a onclick="return mV('Ezr',1,'7-11');">Ezr 1:7-11</a>).
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<br><br><b>be...clean</b>—by separating yourselves wholly from Babylonian idolaters, mystical and literal.
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<p id="Isa52_12"><b>12. not...with haste</b>—as when ye left Egypt (<a onclick="return mV('Exd',12,33,39);">Exd 12:33, 39</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Deu',16,3);">Deu 16:3</a>; compare <i>Note,</i> see on JFB for <a href="./Comm/jfb/Isa/Isa028.html#Isa28_16">Isa 28:16</a>). Ye shall have time to cleanse yourselves and make deliberate preparation for departure.
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<br><br><b>Lord</b>—Jehovah, as your Leader in front (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',40,3);">Isa 40:3</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Exd',23,20);">Exd 23:20</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Mic',2,13);">Mic 2:13</a>).
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<br><br><b>rereward</b>—literally, "gather up," that is, to bring up the rear of your host. The transition is frequent from the glory of Messiah in His advent to reign, to His humiliation in His advent to suffer. Indeed, so are both advents accounted one, that He is not said, in His second coming, to be about to <i>return,</i> but to <i>come.</i>
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<p id="Isa52_13"><b>13.</b> Here the fifty-third chapter ought to begin, and the fifty-second chapter end with <a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,12);">Isa 52:12</a>. This section, from here to end of the fifty-third chapter settles the controversy with the Jews, if Messiah be the person meant; and with infidels, if written by Isaiah, or at any time before Christ. The correspondence with the life and death of Jesus Christ is so minute, that it could not have resulted from conjecture or accident. An impostor could not have shaped <i>the course of events</i> so as to have made his character and life appear to be a fulfilment of it. The writing is, moreover, <i>declaredly prophetic.</i> The quotations of it in the New Testament show: (1) that it was, before the time of Jesus, a recognized part of the Old Testament; (2) that it refers to Messiah (<a onclick="return mV('Mat',8,17);">Mat 8:17</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Mar',15,28);">Mar 15:28</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Luk',22,37);">Luk 22:37</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Jhn',12,38);">Jhn 12:38</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Act',8,'28-35');">Act 8:28-35</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rom',10,16);">Rom 10:16</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Pe',2,'21-25');">1Pe 2:21-25</a>). The indirect allusions to it still more clearly prove the Messianic interpretation; so universal was that interpretation, that it is simply <i>referred to</i> in connection with the atoning virtue of His death, without being formally quoted (<a onclick="return mV('Mar',9,12);">Mar 9:12</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rom',4,25);">Rom 4:25</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Cr',15,3);">1Cr 15:3</a>; <a onclick="return mV('2Cr',5,21);">2Cr 5:21</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Pe',1,19);">1Pe 1:19</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Pe',2,'21-25');">2:21-25</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Jo',3,5);">1Jo 3:5</a>). The genuineness of the passage is certain; for the Jews <i>would</i> not have forged it, since it is opposed to <i>their</i> notion of Messiah, as a triumphant temporal prince. The Christians <i>could</i> not have forged it; for the Jews, the enemies of Christianity, are "our librarians" [PALEY]. The Jews try to evade its force by the figment of two Messiahs, one a suffering Messiah (Ben Joseph), the other a triumphant Messiah (Ben David). HILLEL maintained that Messiah has already come in the person of Hezekiah. BUXTORF states that many of the modern Rabbins believe that He has been come a good while, but will not manifest Himself because of the sins of the Jews. But the ancient Jews, as the Chaldee paraphrast, Jonathan, refer it to Messiah; so the <i>Medrasch Tauchuma</i> (a commentary on the Pentateuch); also Rabbi Moses Haddarschan (see HENGSTENBERG, <i>Christology of the Old Testament</i>). Some explain it of <i>the Jewish people,</i> either in the Babylonish exile, or in their present sufferings and dispersion. Others, the <i>pious</i> portion of the nation taken collectively, whose sufferings made a vicarious satisfaction for the ungodly. Others, Isaiah, or Jeremiah [GESENIUS], the <i>prophets collectively.</i> But an <i>individual</i> is plainly described: he suffers <i>voluntarily, innocently,</i> patiently, and as the efficient cause of the righteousness of His people, which holds good of none other but Messiah (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',53,'4-6',9,11);">Isa 53:4-6, 9, 11</a>; contrast <a onclick="return mV('Jer',20,7);">Jer 20:7</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Jer',15,'10-21');">15:10-21</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Psa',137,8,9);">Psa 137:8-9</a>). <a onclick="return mV('Isa',53,9);">Isa 53:9</a> can hold good of none other. The objection that the sufferings (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',53,'1-10');">Isa 53:1-10</a>) referred to are represented as <i>past,</i> the glorification alone as future (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,'13-15');">Isa 52:13-15</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,11,12);">53:11-12</a>) arises from not seeing that the prophet takes his stand <i>in the midst</i> of the scenes which he describes as future. The greater nearness of the first advent, and the interval between it and the second, are implied by the use of the <i>past tense</i> as to the first, the <i>future</i> as to the second.
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<br><br><b>Behold</b>—awakening attention to the striking picture of Messiah that follows (compare <a onclick="return mV('Jhn',19,5,14);">Jhn 19:5, 14</a>).
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<br><br><b>my servant</b>—Messiah (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',42,1);">Isa 42:1</a>).
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<br><br><b>deal prudently</b>—rather, "prosper" [GESENIUS] as the parallel clause favors (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',53,10);">Isa 53:10</a>). Or, uniting both meanings, "shall reign well" [HENGSTENBERG]. This verse sets forth in the beginning the ultimate issue of His sufferings, the description of which follows: the conclusion (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',53,12);">Isa 53:12</a>) corresponds; the section (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,13);">Isa 52:13</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,12);">53:12</a>) begins as it ends with His final glory.
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<br><br><b>extolled</b>—elevated (<a onclick="return mV('Mar',16,19);">Mar 16:19</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Eph',1,'20-22');">Eph 1:20-22</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Pe',3,22);">1Pe 3:22</a>).
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<p id="Isa52_14"><b>14, 15.</b> Summary of Messiah's history, which is set forth more in detail in the fifty-third chapter. "Just as many were astonished (accompanied with <i>aversion,</i> <a onclick="return mV('Jer',18,16);">Jer 18:16</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Jer',19,8);">19:8</a>), etc.; his visage, etc.; so shall He sprinkle," etc.; Israel in this answers to its antitype Messiah, now "an <i>astonishment</i> and byword" (<a onclick="return mV('Deu',28,37);">Deu 28:37</a>), hereafter about to be a blessing and means of salvation to many nations (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',2,2,3);">Isa 2:2-3</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Mic',5,7);">Mic 5:7</a>).
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<br><br><b>thee; his</b>—Such changes of persons are common in <i>Hebrew</i> poetry.
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<br><br><b>marred</b>—<i>Hebrew,</i> "disfigurement"; abstract for concrete; not only disfigured, but <i>disfigurement itself.</i>
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<br><br><b>more than man</b>—CASTALIO translates, "so that it was no longer that of a man" (compare <a onclick="return mV('Psa',22,6);">Psa 22:6</a>). The more perfect we may suppose the "body prepared" (<a onclick="return mV('Hbr',10,5);">Hbr 10:5</a>) for Him by God, the sadder by contrast was the "marring" of His visage and form.
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<p id="Isa52_15"><b>15. sprinkle many</b>—GESENIUS, for the antithesis to "be astonished," translates, "shall cause...to exult." But the word universally in the Old Testament means either <i>to sprinkle with blood,</i> as the high priest makes an expiation (<a onclick="return mV('Lev',4,6);">Lev 4:6</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Lev',16,18,19);">16:18-19</a>); or <i>with water,</i> to purify (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',36,25);">Eze 36:25</a>; compare as to the Spirit, <a onclick="return mV('Act',2,33);">Act 2:33</a>), both appropriate to Messiah (<a onclick="return mV('Jhn',13,8);">Jhn 13:8</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Hbr',9,13,14);">Hbr 9:13-14</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Hbr',10,22);">10:22</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Hbr',12,24);">12:24</a>; <a onclick="return mV('1Pe',1,2);">1Pe 1:2</a>). The antithesis is sufficient without any forced rendering. <i>Many</i> were astonished; so <i>many</i> (not merely men, but) <i>nations</i> shall be sprinkled. They were amazed at such an <i>abject person claiming to be Messiah;</i> yet it is He who shall <i>justify and purify.</i> Men were <i>dumb with the amazement of scorn</i> at one marred more than the lowest of men, yet the <i>highest:</i> even <i>kings</i> (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',49,7,23);">Isa 49:7, 23</a>) shall be <i>dumb with awe and veneration</i> ("shut...mouths"; <a onclick="return mV('Job',29,9,10);">Job 29:9,10</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Mic',7,16);">Mic 7:16</a>).
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<br><br><b>that...not...told them</b>—the reason why kings shall so venerate them; the wonders of redemption, which had not been before told them, shall then be announced to them, wonders such as they had never heard or seen parallelled (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',55,1);">Isa 55:1</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rom',15,21);">Rom 15:21</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Rom',16,25,26);">16:25-26</a>).
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