Isaiah · chapter 51 of 66
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Isaiah 51 calls those who seek the Lord to look to the rock from which they were cut, Abraham and Sarah, and promises that the Lord will comfort Zion and turn her desert into an Eden. The chapter urges them not to fear human reproach, calls on the arm of the Lord to awake as in the exodus, and announces that he will take the cup of his wrath from Jerusalem.
Isaiah 51 belongs to the section of comfort that prepares for the fourth Servant song. After chapter 50 showed the obedient Servant, the Lord speaks to those who pursue righteousness and calls his people to wake up and trust in the salvation that is coming.
The Lord first speaks to those who pursue righteousness and seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; he was but one when the Lord called him, and he blessed him and made him many. In the same way the Lord will comfort Zion, make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord, and there will be joy and the voice of thanksgiving.
Then he addresses his people: listen to me, for from me will go out the law and my justice will be a light to the peoples. My righteousness is near, my salvation has gone out, and my arm will judge the nations. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, which will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment; but my salvation will be forever and my righteousness will never be ended. Do not fear the reproach of man or be dismayed by his taunts, for the moth will eat them, but my righteousness will remain.
The people plead: awake, arm of the Lord, as in days of old, when you cut Rahab in pieces and dried up the sea. The ransomed of the Lord will return and enter Zion with singing. The Lord answers that he is the one who comforts them, and asks why they fear a man who is like grass, and why they forget their Maker. He has put his words in their mouth and covered them in the shadow of his hand.
The chapter ends with a call to Jerusalem: wake yourself, stand up, you who have drunk from the cup of his wrath, who have drained the cup of staggering. There is none to guide her among all the children she has borne. But her Lord, her God, who pleads the cause of his people, takes from her hand the cup of staggering and puts it into the hand of those who tormented her.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The people are to look to Abraham and Sarah, from whom the nation came. God called Abraham when he was one and blessed and multiplied him; the memory of that humble beginning gives hope to a diminished people.
The Lord will comfort Zion and make her wilderness like Eden, with joy and singing. Restoration is described as a return to the fullness of the original garden.
The heavens will vanish like smoke and the earth will wear out, but the Lord's salvation will be forever. What seems most stable is passing compared with God's salvation.
The ransomed of the Lord will return and enter Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. Sorrow and sighing will flee away, a picture that anticipates the final hope of God's people.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Abraham their father and Sarah who bore them. — Isaiah 51:1-2
Answer: Like Eden, like the garden of the Lord. — Isaiah 51:3
Answer: The heavens will vanish like smoke and the earth will wear out like a garment, but the Lord's salvation will be forever. — Isaiah 51:6
Answer: When the Lord cut Rahab in pieces and dried up the sea so the redeemed could pass. — Isaiah 51:9-10
Answer: Because he is like grass, and the people must not forget the Lord their Maker. — Isaiah 51:12-13
Answer: He takes it from Jerusalem's hand and puts it into the hand of those who tormented her. — Isaiah 51:22-23
Isaiah 51 invites us to look back in order to see ahead. When a church, a family or a person feels small, the text reminds us that God began with one man and a childless woman. A class can talk about moments in its history when God worked from something small, and how that strengthens trust today.
The chapter also speaks to the fear of what others think. Those who follow God sometimes face reproach and mockery, and the text does not minimize that, but it places it next to what lasts: the Lord's righteousness and salvation. And for someone who feels they carry a cup of suffering that will not end, the promise that the Lord takes it from their hand offers hope.
Isaiah 51 calls the people to remember Abraham, to trust in an everlasting salvation and to wake from the cup of wrath. Chapter 52 takes the next step: the messenger who announces that the Lord reigns and the opening of the fourth Servant song.
She is not the woman of Jericho. Here Rahab is a poetic name for a sea monster of chaos, used in other Old Testament texts as an image of Egypt (as in Psalm 87:4 and Isaiah 30:7). By speaking of cutting Rahab and drying up the sea, the text recalls the exodus, when the Lord defeated Egypt and opened the sea for his people.
It is a biblical image of God's judgment: to drink the cup is to suffer the consequences of his judgment to the dregs. In this chapter Jerusalem has drunk that cup through the exile, and the Lord promises to take it from her hand. Christians often see in this image an echo of the cup Jesus drank in Gethsemane and on the cross, though this passage does not mention it.