NOTES for Isa 52:1-15

Today's reading is devoted entirely to the coming revival of Jerusalem. Of course, the prophecy given here also had a very concrete historical meaning: after Cyrus's decree and the return of the repatriates from Babylon to Judea, the city and the Temple were indeed rebuilt. Rising again from the ruins, Jerusalem subsequently became a major economic, political, and cultural centre of the ancient Near East. Yet Isaiah is evidently speaking not only about history. At the centre of his preaching is not the return of the people, but the return of God to the place from which He had once been driven out (v. 8). Ezekiel once saw God leave the Temple, where no room remained for Him (Ezek 11:22–23); now it was revealed to Isaiah that He would return to the place where His house had once stood and would be rebuilt.

But this would not mean a return to the past. Now He returns as King (v. 7), which means that the time has come for the triumph of the Kingdom of which the pre-exilic prophets had already spoken. The new Jerusalem becomes the centre of this Kingdom. The Jerusalem of Isaiah of Babylon is the messianic Jerusalem. Yet it does not cease to be a completely real, earthly city whose walls and towers can be touched and whose streets can be walked.

Moreover, this is not only about a new city, but also about a new people (vv. 14–15). The community of exiles becomes the remnant of which Isaiah of Jerusalem had already spoken. And when God returns to His house and restores His people to the land of their fathers, the remnant, transformed, becomes the nucleus of the new, messianic Israel—whose appearance, of course, none of those who had once driven the Jews from that land expected, convinced as they were that the rebellious city had been dealt with forever. Only when all this is accomplished will the Messiah promised by God appear to the world.