Isaiah 62: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The speaker vows not to stay silent about Zion until her rightness and rescue are as visible as a burning torch, and nations and kings see it. Jerusalem is promised new names in place of Forsaken and Desolate, and God's joy over her is compared to a bridegroom's joy over his bride. Watchmen are posted to keep calling on the LORD without rest, and the people are told they will keep and enjoy their own harvest instead of losing it to enemies. The chapter ends with a call to prepare the road and raise a banner, and an announcement to the ends of the earth that Zion's salvation is coming.

Claim by Claim

1. 62:1
   • For Zion's sake the speaker will not keep silent.
   • For Jerusalem's sake the speaker will not stay quiet.
   • The speaker will not be silent until Zion's righteousness goes forth like brightness.
   • The speaker will not be silent until Zion's salvation burns like a torch.
2. 62:2
   • Nations will see your righteousness.
   • All kings will see your glory.
   • You will be called by a new name.
   • The mouth of the LORD will designate that name.
3. 62:3
   • You will be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD.
   • You will be a royal turban in the palm of your God.
4. 62:4
   • You will no longer be called Forsaken.
   • Your land will no longer be called Desolate.
   • You will be called My Delight Is In Her.
   • Your land will be called Married.
   • The LORD delights in you.
   • Your land will be married.
5. 62:5
   • As a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you.
   • As a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so your God will rejoice over you.
6. 62:6
   • The speaker has appointed watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem.
   • The watchmen will never be silent, all day and all night.
   • Those who make mention of the LORD are commanded not to keep silent.
7. 62:7
   • Those who make mention of the LORD are commanded to give him no rest.
   • They are to give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem.
   • They are to give him no rest until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
8. 62:8
   • The LORD has sworn by his right hand.
   • The LORD has sworn by the arm of his strength.
   • The LORD swore he will no more give your grain as food to your enemies.
   • The LORD swore that foreigners will not drink your new wine.
   • You labored for that new wine.
9. 62:9
   • Those who gather the grain will eat it.
   • Those who gather the grain will praise the LORD.
   • Those who collect the grapes will drink the wine in the courts of the LORD's sanctuary.
10. 62:10
    • The hearers are commanded to go through the gates.
    • The hearers are commanded to prepare the way of the people.
    • The hearers are commanded to build up the highway.
    • The hearers are commanded to clear away the stones.
    • The hearers are commanded to lift up a standard over the peoples.
11. 62:11
    • The LORD has proclaimed to the end of the earth.
    • The hearers are told to say to the daughter of Zion that her salvation is coming.
    • His reward is with him.
    • His recompense is before him.
12. 62:12
    • They will call them The Holy People.
    • They will call them The Redeemed of the LORD.
    • You will be called Sought Out.
    • You will be called A City Not Forsaken.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

62:1

Zion was originally the fortified hill in Jerusalem captured by David; the name then widened to mean the temple hill, the whole city, and the people who lived there. Used this way it stands in parallel with "Jerusalem" in the same line. The word behind "righteousness" here (KJV) and "rightness" carries the sense of vindication, being publicly shown to have been in the right after a long time of looking defeated.

62:2

KJV "Gentiles" translates a word that simply means the nations, the peoples other than Israel. It is not a religious label in the Hebrew, just a geographical and political one. In this culture a name stated what a person or place actually was, and the right to give a name belonged to whoever had authority over the one named; so a new name given by God announces a changed condition, not just a changed label.

62:3

The picture is deliberately odd: a crown is normally worn, but this one is held up in an open hand. A crown displayed rather than worn is a trophy, something shown off to onlookers, the way a victor holds up a prize.

62:4

The four names are meant to be read as names, and each has a meaning. Forsaken and Desolate are the shaming names: "Desolate" is used both of land emptied of its people and of a woman left without husband or children. Hephzibah means "My delight is in her": it was a real woman's name in Judah (the mother of King Manasseh). Beulah means "Married" or "Owned"; the same Hebrew root means both to marry and to take possession of, so calling the land "married" also means it is claimed and occupied again rather than left empty.

62:5

"Your sons shall marry you" is strange in any language, and the strangeness is in the Hebrew too. Two things are going on. First, the verb translated "marry" also means "take possession of, live in as owner", so the line can mean the city's own children will take her back and settle in her. Second, the word for "your sons" (banayik) differs from "your builder" (bonayik) only in the vowels, which were not written in the oldest Hebrew manuscripts; ancient readers and translators split over which was meant. Translations that keep "sons" and translations that read "builder" are both defensible.

62:6

Watchmen were sentries posted on a city's walls to stay awake through the night and shout down what they saw coming, an enemy, a messenger, a dust cloud. KJV's "ye that make mention of the LORD" renders a Hebrew phrase that literally means "you who remind the LORD" or "who bring him to remembrance": the watchmen's shouting is aimed at God, not at the city. That is why the next verse tells them to give him no rest.

62:7

The image is of deliberately pestering God until he acts, which was a normal and accepted way to talk about persistent prayer in this literature and was not considered disrespectful.

62:8

Swearing "by his right hand and by the arm of his strength" points to the gesture that went with an oath: the swearer raised his hand. Swearing by one's own arm means staking one's own power on the promise. In KJV English "corn" means grain of any kind (wheat or barley here, not maize, which was unknown in Europe in 1611) and "meat" means food of any kind, not flesh. "Sons of the stranger" is Hebrew idiom for foreigners. Enemies eating a farmer's harvest in front of him was the standard picture of a conquered country; the promise reverses a well-known curse.

62:9

The "courts of my holiness" are the open courtyards of the temple. Israelite law directed that a portion of each year's grain and new wine be brought to the sanctuary and eaten there as a meal by the family that grew it. Eating your own harvest in that place was the ordinary sign that the year had gone well and the country was at peace.

62:10

"Cast up the highway" describes actual road-building: piling earth into a raised bed so the road stays above mud and floodwater, then clearing the loose stones out of it. This was the work done ahead of a king's journey, so his procession would not be slowed. A "standard" or banner was a pole, sometimes with a cloth or emblem, raised on a hilltop where it could be seen a long way off; it was the normal signal for summoning troops or scattered people to gather at one place.

62:11

"Daughter of Zion" is a fixed Hebrew idiom that speaks of a city and its inhabitants as a single woman; it does not mean a daughter belonging to Zion. KJV's "his work" translates a word meaning wages or repayment. "Reward" and "recompense" together are the pay a returning worker carries home or the spoil a victorious king brings back, the point of the image is that he arrives already carrying what he owes.

62:12

"Redeemed" translates a word from family law: buying a relative out of slavery or debt, or buying back land the family had been forced to sell. It assumes a price paid by someone with an obligation to the person bought back. "Sought Out" is the direct opposite of the earlier name Forsaken: it describes someone people ask after and come looking for, rather than someone nobody enquires about.