Isaiah 51:17-23

c.

TORMENTORS JUDGED

TEXT: Isaiah 51:17-23

17

Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that hast drunk at the hand of Jehovah the cup of his wrath; thou hast drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it.

18

There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand among all the sons that she hath brought up.

19

These two things are befallen thee; who shall bemoan thee? desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; how shall I comfort thee?

20

Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God.

21

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:

22

thus saith thy Lord Jehovah, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath; thou shalt no more drink it again:

23

and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee, that have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid thy back as the ground, and as the street, to them that go over.

QUERIES

a.

When did Jerusalem drink the cup of Jehovah's wrath?

b.

Why was there none to guide her among her sons?

c.

Who made her bown down and where did they go over?

PARAPHRASE

Attention! Be alert, Zion! You will soon drink of the cup of Jehovah's punishment. You will have drained every drop; you will have been made to reel under your punishment. You must now decide what course you shall take. You cannot depend on any of this generation of Israelites to take spiritual leadership of Zion. None of them are capable of stopping the desolation and destruction that is coming upon you. Starvation and war and captivity is coming and how will I, Jehovah, save you? Your young men, in whom you hope for leadership, have collapsed everywhere from spiritual and moral weakness. They are as helpless as deer caught in a hunter's net. They shall feel the full force of the Lord's wrath. On account of this, you suffering people of Zion, you shall reel under the Lord's punishment but the Lord your God will defend you. You can believe this: I will take the cup of staggering punishment out of your hand. You will not drink from My wrath-filled cup again when I comfort you through My Servant. I will put that cup of judgment in the hand of your tormentors. Those who have forced Zion to surrender to the chains of captivity and those who have oppressed and trampled her, body and soul, into the dustthey shall stagger under My judgment.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 51:17-20 STAGGERED: Again, this is Servant-centered. And again, we have the prophet predicting the captivity of Zion, her release, and out of that the ultimate comforting of Jehovah in the coming Servant. Jerusalem (Zion) is roused to wakefulness to prepare herself for the coming cup of God's wrath (cf. Jeremiah 25:15-29; Ezekiel 23:31-35); Zion will drink the whole cup Jehovah has for herexile into a pagan land. Her walls and her temple will be leveled to the ground by a pagan people. The sacred vessels will be desecrated and carried away. Her people will be marched away in chains like slaves. They will be utterly cut off from Jehovah without a temple or a priesthood, unable to offer sacrifices or be ritually cleansed. This would be staggering to a Jew. The religious-psychological-moral shock would be more staggering than the physical suffering. People can endure great physical privation when they know they are not suffering the disfavor of God.

Zion is to learn something from this cup of staggering. She is to alert herself to the fact that only Jehovah can deliver her from the fix she has gotten herself into. None of Jerusalem's wise old men could rescue her from the consequences of her sins. None of Jerusalem's bright young men had the capability to step forward and deliver her from the coming ruin. In fact, those who were capable of leadership had become so self-centered and cynical they did not even want to become involved with civic mindedness (cf. Isaiah 3:6-12; Isaiah 4:1, etc.). Jerusalem is headed for desolation, destruction, starvation and slaughter; who will rescue the remnant of Zion? Jehovah asks the rhetorical question, How shall I comfort thee? If there are no sons of Jerusalem through whom Jehovah may work, what shall be the instrument of His salvation? All the sons of Jerusalem are as helpless as the antelope caught in the hunter's net. The Hebrew word toa is translated oryx (Gr.) in the LXX and wild bull in the KJV. It is probably the dorcas gazelle, common to Syria, Palestine and Arabia, or the oryx beatrix (Arabian oryx). The Hebrew root word, tha-'ah, means literally, to outrun, thus signifying the antelope-gazelle animal which is extremely fast but physically weak. The men Jerusalem expected to be leaders and deliverers will become victims like everyone else. They too have drunk the cup of the Lord's wrath dry. They have imbibed of the same heady wine of rebellion and moral corruption in which the populace has indulged. Now they will all stagger and reel. How shall Zion be delivered?

Isaiah 51:21-23 SAVED: The word therefore is meant to be understood, on account of this. On account of Zion's inability to save herself, Jehovah will plead her case. (the Hebrew word riyv is a term of the court; cf. Isaiah 45:9; Isaiah 49:25; Isaiah 50:8). When the proper time comes, Jehovah the judge will discontinue Zion's punishment and give the cup she was drinking into the hand of her enemies. Undoubtedly this refers initially to the deliverance from Babylonian exile. This great event is predicted over and over by Isaiah (and other prophets). It will begin in the days of Cyrus, ruler of the Persian empire. But almost always, wherever the return from the captivity is predicted, it is pointed to as the initial step in a glorious program of redemption which shall culminate in the messianic age. Jehovah certainly did not literally take away Jerusalem's cup of staggering with the return from exile. Jerusalem suffered severe physical warfare under the Seleucids and the Romans (predicted in Daniel). There are two possible interpretations of the phrase thou shalt no more drink it again: (a) The removal of the cup was to be conditional. Jerusalem would never stagger again after the captivity as long as she remained true to Jehovah. She did not remain true as evidenced by Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and as evidenced by her murdering of the Messiah, so Jerusalem was given the cup of staggering again; or (b) the promise is to Zion, the true Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that is above (pre-eminent, cf. Galatians 4:26), the messianic kingdom, the church. The true people of God, the born-again kingdom, shall never suffer being cut off from the presence of God as were the Jews of the exile. The N.T. church will always have its one and only sacrifice (the Lamb of God). It shall always have its sanctuary in the heavens and its Eternal High Priest. Of course it may suffer trial and tribulation in the physical sense here on earth; but it shall always enjoy the favor of God. The cup of staggering is taken from the hand of God's true Israel by the atoning death of the Servant. He became a curse for us (cf. Galatians 3:10-14), and delivered all who submitted to the rule of God in Christ from the wrath of God that is to come upon the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:1-22). The cup of staggering is put into the hand of Babylon (humanity opposed to God) and it shall reel and fall under the wrath of God (Revelation 16:19; Revelation 17:6; Revelation 18:4-8). God will accomplish all this through the Suffering Servant and for the new Zion (the N.T. church and the O.T. saints who believed which form the one great Mt. Zion pictured in Hebrews 11:22-29). And thus we approach the climactic chapter of Isaiah's entire workchapter 53the Suffering Servant. But first the transition-chapter, chapter 52. Actually, Isaiah 52:1-12 serves as the transition from generalities concerning the Servant to particulars, and Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12 detail the specifics concerning the Servant.

The Babylonians afflicted the souls as well as the bodies of the Jewish exiles. They humiliated them, taunting them about the whereabouts of their God, Jehovah; they took their sacred vessels and priests and desecrated them in their pagan country; they forced many of them to perform pagan, idolatrous rituals. They were tortured psychologically as well as being punished physically. We should probably understand the commanded bow down as figurative. However, certain Assyrian monuments show vanquished prisoners literally bowing down or lying down on the ground while the conquerors walked on their bodies.

QUIZ

1.

How does the cup of staggering relate to the coming messianic age?

2.

What would stagger Zion the most?

3.

What is Zion to learn from this?

4.

What does the word therefore in Isaiah 51:21 indicate?

5.

Give the two possible interpretations of thou shalt no more drink it again.

6.

Were the people of Jerusalem literally walked on?