Isaiah 62:1-12

THE COMING OF THE DELIVERER AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ZION ( Isaiah 59:15 to Isaiah 62:12 ).

Isaiah wanted them to know that God sees their desperate condition and determines to act. He looks for a man, someone to stand in the gap, but there is none. So He Himself acts. He will step in on behalf of His people. He will bring them a Deliverer, a Redeemer, One Who is clothed in righteousness and salvation, and also One Who is clothed in vengeance and zealousness for God. He is concerned with redemption in righteousness, and judgment on unrighteousness. On the one hand He will deal with their enemies and on the other He will come as a Redeemer to Zion, to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, and put His Spirit on them and put His words in their mouths, in such a way that they will never again depart.

But note how in parallel with God rising to act, there will be those who are turning from transgression in Jacob (in sinful Israel). His action and His people’s repentance go together. There can be no deliverance that does not result in repentance. He will not deliver an unrepentant people.

In these chapters Isaiah rises to a new height in his conception of Zion. And we have to stop and consider what he means by Zion.

In Isaiah Zion is looked at from different aspects. On the one hand there is the mundane city of Jerusalem which is fallen and rejected, and symbolic of Israel as a whole, although enjoying a certain measure of protection ‘for David’s sake’. This will eventually be restored (Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 1:8; Isaiah 2:1; Isaiah 3:1; Isaiah 3:8; Isaiah 3:16; Isaiah 7:1; Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 10:24; Isaiah 10:32; Isaiah 14:32; Isaiah 16:1; Isaiah 22:10; Isaiah 31:4-5; Isaiah 31:9; Isaiah 33:14; Isaiah 36:2; Isaiah 36:7; Isaiah 36:20; Isaiah 37:10; Isaiah 37:22; Isaiah 37:32; Isaiah 40:9; Isaiah 41:27; Isaiah 49:14; Isaiah 52:7-9; Isaiah 64:10; Isaiah 66:8), as indeed it was. Then there is the Jerusalem/Zion which is almost synonymous with the people (‘we’ Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 4:4; Isaiah 5:3; Isaiah 8:14; Isaiah 10:10-12; Isaiah 22:21; Isaiah 28:14; Isaiah 30:19; Isaiah 52:2; Isaiah 65:18-19). Here it is not the city which is important but the people. (Compare how in Zechariah 2:6-7 ‘Zion’ represents the exiles). And finally there is the Jerusalem/Zion from which will go God’s message to the world (Isaiah 2:4; Isaiah 62:6-7), the Jerusalem/Zion which is the city of God, the ‘earthly’ dwellingplace of Yahweh in which dwells His glory, with its central mount rising up to heaven (Isaiah 2:2), in contrast with the world city (often seen as Babylon) which is the seat of all evil, which will be toppled from its high place (Isaiah 26:5-6; compare Isaiah 24:21-22; Isaiah 25:2). Here Zion is the future glorious Jerusalem, which has eternal connections and will be part of the everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 1:27; Isaiah 4:3-5; Isaiah 12:6; Isaiah 18:7; Isaiah 24:23; Isaiah 26:1-4; Isaiah 28:16; Isaiah 30:19; Isaiah 33:5; Isaiah 33:20; Isaiah 35:10; Isaiah 46:13; Isaiah 51:3; Isaiah 51:11; Isaiah 51:16; Isaiah 52:1; Isaiah 59:20; Isaiah 60:14; Isaiah 61:3; Isaiah 62:1; Isaiah 62:11; Isaiah 65:18-19; Isaiah 66:10; Isaiah 66:13; Isaiah 66:20). It is more than a city. It represents the whole future of the people of God, including their hopes of living in His presence, and takes in all God’s people. It is this last view of Zion which is prominent in Isaiah 62:12; Isaiah 62:12.