NOTES for Isa 62:1-12

Today's reading returns us once again to the image of Jerusalem triumphant. Once again, this is an image not so much of historical Jerusalem as of the new Jerusalem, a symbol of the messianic Kingdom. But the picture of the new Jerusalem presented in today's passage is supplemented by one more element: there appears a reference to a solemn marriage (vv. 4–5). What is especially remarkable is that the prophet speaks, on the one hand, of the marriage of the sons of Israel to the land of their fathers and, on the other, of the marriage covenant between God and Israel.

This double marriage becomes understandable in the broader biblical context of marriage imagery. Even in the pre-exilic period, God's relationship with His people was considered in the context and according to the pattern of family and marital relations. Among the pre-exilic prophets, Israel is often called God's bride or wife. To perceive the image fully, it is important to bear in mind that the word “Israel” is feminine in Hebrew. In using this comparison, the biblical authors evidently sought above all to describe the quality of the relationship binding God to His people, and likewise to individuals. It was a close and deeply personal relationship, founded not on calculation but on self-sacrifice and unconditional faithfulness. Now the prophet says that the time has come to renew this marriage covenant. Such a renewal of the relationship between God and His people itself implied the beginning of a new stage in the people's spiritual history.

But now the issue concerns not only God and the people, but also the land. At first glance, marriage to the land most resembles certain ancient agricultural magical rites unambiguously condemned by the Bible. In Isaiah, however, it clearly acquires a new, messianic meaning. In the fallen world, relationships with creation, even with one's native land, could under no circumstances be likened to a relationship with God: spiritual union with a creature automatically separated a person from the Creator and made that person a pagan.

The transformed world is different. Here, relationships with creation can in their own way be no less profound than a relationship with the Creator without hindering it, for in the transformed world there is no longer either evil or sin, which in the fallen state often caused the world to oppose God. Isaiah's prophetic vision reveals a world with no place for a rupture between spirit and nature, heaven and earth, the only world that could be called the Kingdom of God.