1 Awake, awake!
Put on your strength, O Zion;
put on your glorious garments, O Je ru salem, holy city.
For never will the uncircumcised
or the unclean enter you again.
2 Shake the dust off yourself
and rise up, O Jerusalem.
Loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive Daughter of Zion.
3 For thus says Yahweh:
You were sold for no amount,
you will be redeemed without money.
4 Thus says the Lord God:
In the beginning
my people lived as aliens in Egypt;
then Assyria oppressed them without reason.
5 But now, what am I doing here? says Yahweh. My people have been carried off for no money and their masters make a boast of it; all day long my name is scorned.
6 Therefore my people will know my name;
therefore they will know on that day
that it is I who say: “Here I am!”
7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those
who bring good news,
who herald peace and happiness,
who proclaim salvation
and announce to Zion: “Your God is king!”
8 Together your watchmen
raise their voices in praise and song;
they see Yahweh face to face returning to Zion.
9 Break into shouts of joy,
O ruins of Jerusalem,
for Yahweh consoles his people
and redeems Jerusalem.
10 Yahweh has bared his holy arm
in the eyes of the nations;
all the ends of the earth, in alarm,
will witness God’s salvation.
11 Depart, depart from that nation, come out!
Touch nothing unclean.
Purify yourselves, you who bear
all Yahweh’s holy vessels.
12 Yet not in escape, or in fright, will you come out,
you will not leave in headlong flight;
for ahead is Yahweh, your vanguard,
and behind, the God of Israel, your rearguard.
Through his punishment, we are made whole
13 It is now when my servant will succeed;
he will be exalted and highly praised.
14 Just as many have been horrified
at his disfigured appearance:
“Is this a man? He does not look like one,”
15 so will nations be astounded,
kings will stand speechless,
for they will see something never told,
they will witness something never heard of.
------------------------------------------------------------
Comments Isaiah, Chapter 52
• 52.7 The prophets, messengers of a victorious God: that is the meaning of the good news. See Rom 1:1; 2 Cor 2:14.
• 13. It is the fourth and last song of the Servant of Yahweh; it is here that the prophet, known as the “second Isaiah,” proclaims his whole message, and it is perhaps the last word of the Old Testament referring to Redemption. The prophet delivers to Israel the meaning of trials and shows what will be its mission. Israel has been placed at the center of the world history. It will have no rest until the other nations have discovered through its sufferings the only true God. The only title of Israel is to be God’s servant, and it will not reach glory nor be saved before its mission has brought death.
Israel then, would necessarily be the victim, and, if God was to send a Savior, he too would be a victim.
For thousands of years people used to sacrifice animals – and at times human beings – thinking they could unload their sins on them, and be rid of them. These sacrifices or getting rid of those who were considered to be responsible for God’s anger, never interrupted the cycle of violence. Here, however, we see God’s response to our sins: he saves us through the suffering of the innocents and even more, through the willing sacrifice of the one who takes the sin of the world upon himself.
In writing this, the prophet had in mind the small group of faithful Jews exiled in Babylon: they were nothing more than despised people. Yet, they had not deserved such humiliation because of their own sins, rather they were carrying the sorrows of the violent, sinful world in which they lived. These believers were punished for the crimes of their people, Israel; but God would transform them into the seed of a holy people: he will have a long life and see his descendants. This wonder of God would surpass all the others and, in seeing it, kings would stand speechless.
This song is for our own wonder as well. The prophet, writing five centuries before Christ, was apparently referring to the humiliation of God’s people who, then as now, are the instrument of salvation; but his poem outlined beforehand the image of God become human, who humbled him self even to death on the cross. When we read the Passion of Christ in the Gospel, we realize that the evangelists themselves were struck by the similarity between Jesus’ trial and death and what was announced by the prophet. Many times, in presenting Jesus, the apostles would refer to this text. See Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 2:24.
Who could believe what we have heard? How would the hearers of Peter, Paul or John accept their proclamation of Jesus, the crucified savior? See John 12:38; 1 Corinthians 1:22; Romans 10:16. In our own day, perhaps many Christians do not understand why so many innocent people die as victims of injustice and Christians are especially persecuted.
He makes himself an offering for sin. In several passages of the Bible we are invited to adopt this same attitude when we suffer unjustly (1 P 1:20; 4:13). Christ alone has perfectly fulfilled this redemptive mission from the beginning to the end of his life (Heb 10; Jn 2:29; Rom 5:6).
My just servant will justify the multitude: that is to say, he will make them just and holy. The Hebrew text reads “the many”, which means the multitude. Jesus refers to this text at the Last Supper: “my blood poured out for many,” or for everyone (Mk 14:24). There Jesus clearly says that his death is the free and perfect sacrifice foretold in this song.