Isaiah 52:1

"The first twelve verses of this chapter are a continuation of the previous chapter; and there is no special reason for a break at this point."[1]; Isaiah 52:13-15 form an ideal introduction to Isaiah 53; which, taken together with the last three verses here, constitute the so-called Fourth Song of the Servant.

The first six verses here are a glorious address to Jerusalem, contrasting her with the state of Babylon, after the fall of that wicked city, and also a contrast with the closing verses of Isaiah 51, where Jerusalem appeared as a wretched woman in a state of drunkenness, staggering about in a hopeless condition with none, not even her sons, to help her.

Isaiah 52:1-2

"Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion."

"Jewish writers, supporting their obstinate and hopeless rejection of Christ as the Messiah, state that the uncircumcised here are the Christians, and that the unclean are the Turks!"[2] This shows the length to which unbelievers will go to support their infidelity. First, all Christians are indeed circumcised (Romans 2:29; Colossians 2:11). Above and beyond that truth is the fact that literal Jerusalem is certainly not "the holy city" of Isaiah 52:1. There has never been a single moment in all of human history when literal Jerusalem was actually "holy." Jesus indeed once referred to it as the "Holy City"; but the language was merely accommodative in recognition of the fact that the devout Jews so considered it.

Look at the facts: After Jerusalem was delivered from captivity in Babylon, it was a generation before the walls and the temple were restored; and after the quartering of Alexander the Great's empire, Jerusalem became a kind of buffer-state kicked about between Syria and Egypt. Antiochus Epiphanes took the temple, sacrificed a sow on the holy altar, forbade the reading of the Torah, and in other ways polluted and desecrated the literal Jerusalem; and eventually, another horde of "uncircumcised" people under Vespasian and Titus stormed and destroyed literal Jerusalem, deported 30,000 of its citizens to Egypt, put to death over a million of them and crucified 30,000 young men upon the walls of the city. Thus, it is clear enough that to make Jerusalem in this passage a place that the "uncircumcised" would never enter any more is to force the prophecy to prophesy a lie.

No! The Jerusalem here is that ultimate spiritual Jerusalem which the apostle John saw, "Coming down from God out of heaven" (Revelation 21:2).

This encouragement for Jerusalem was evidently, "Designed to contrast with Isaiah 47:1-3,"[3] where Babylon is commanded to sit in the dust, without a throne, with all of her fine clothing removed, and doing the work of a slave; but here Zion is commanded to awake and put on beautiful garments, and sit on a throne.