Deeper Commentary
The statement that God will not "rest" for Zion's sake (Is. 62:1) must be understood in the context of the faithful at that time urging God not to "be still" [same Hebrew word translated "rest"] for His people (Ps. 83:1; Is. 64:12). This is an allusion to Boaz not being at rest until he had redeemed Ruth and Naomi; see on Is. 49:26. God is not at rest, He is not distant from us; and yet His people in Babylon felt that He was. It's no wonder that we are tempted to feel the same. Yet we must give Is. 62:1 it's full weight- God is answering the complaint of His people by stating that no, He will never rest for them. In this same context we read that He that keeps Israel will "neither slumber nor sleep" (Ps. 121:4).
We must give Is. 62:1 it's full weight- God is answering the complaint
of His people by stating that no, He will never rest for them. In this
same context we read that He that keeps Israel will "neither slumber nor
sleep" (Ps. 121:4). The fact that God will never 'hold His peace'
for His people's sake (Is. 62:1) means that we should likewise
not 'hold our peace' for them (the same Hebrew is used in Is. 62:6). In
our prayers for them, we are to give God no rest (Is. 62:7). And so the
connection between Is. 62:1 and 6 leaves us with an amazing challenge:
His restless activity and concern for His people should be ours. It
must be ours, if we are His children. Being bored from having
‘nothing to do’ just isn’t part of the believer’s life; His huge activity,
the endless surging of His Spirit, is to be replicated in us as we too
seek the good of others. If this connection is firmly established between
His activity and ours, His Spirit and ours… then quite naturally we will
seek to maximize our time for Him and be minimalists in the hours we spend
upon the things of this life. As He never slumbers nor sleeps in His
restless activity and thought for His people, so we shall likewise be in
the Kingdom age; and our desire to be there is not because we fancy an
eternal tropical holiday with palm trees blowing in the mind, but because
we wish to be more closely aligned with His activity, with His Spirit, and
not be held back by the limitations of our current natures.
Some prophecies are dependent on prayer for their fulfilment. This is
an example: “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s
sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as
brightness”. But this is dependent upon prayer: “I have set watchmen upon
thy walls, O Jerusalem…ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence,
and give him no rest
till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (:6,7). The
prophecy that “I will not rest” was dependent for fulfilment upon the
faithful continuing to pray and thereby not giving Him rest. Of course,
they pray from their own freewill; there is the possibility they won’t
pray, and thereby, surely, there’s the possibility the statement “I will
not rest” is purely conditional on our prayers…?
Isaiah 62:2 The nations shall see your righteousness, and all kings your
glory, and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of Yahweh
shall name-
Being given a new name meant a change of status and yet also of changed character. We think of Jedidiah-Solomon, Eliakim-Jehoiakim, and Mattaniah-Zedekiah. Time and again, these Isaianic prophecies make the point that the whole world will be converted to Him because of the outpouring of His grace upon His people. They who crucified His Son will be declared righteous, through the work of the Lord. And will be visibly glorified. This declaration of sinners as righteous will be so powerful that the world will be converted. The new name given to Israel will reflect how they are counted righteous and are now righteous; for Hebrew names reflect character. Sinners being now counted righteous need to have a new name. This will all work out for each of us personally when we have a new name written upon us at the Lord's return (Rev. 3:12 surely alludes here in the promise of "a new name"). But all these things also have a fulfilment in the way the Lord Jesus was lifted up on the cross, and thus would gather all men to Him (Jn. 12:28).
Isaiah 62:3 You shall also be a crown of beauty in the hand of Yahweh, and
a royal diadem in the hand of your God- It is God's people who are in
His hand (Dt. 33:3). The idea is that God is crowned with His people, they
are His glory, and He is theirs, just as Paul's converts were his joy and
crown. This is an amazing conception- that we who are so small and
morally weak, can ultimately be God's crown. It's all about glorifying
Him.
This is all similar language to Is. 54:1,5,6: "more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife... For your Maker is your husband... Yahweh has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off". However we look in vain for some description of Zion's change that has elicited this change in God's feelings for them. We might be more comfortable reading that to the effect that 'When Zion repents, then...' God will act like this. But it seems the initiative is all His. His core love for Zion leads Him to simply be passionate for them and remarry them. The initiative is all His. Quite possibly this is how finally it will have to be between God and Israel. He saves them because He cannot contain His love for them any more. The land was to be desolate because they had broken the old covenant (Lev. 26:33). It could be that the hint is that the end of that curse was because the old covenant had completely ended. God is loving His people and relating to them now on the basis of a new covenant. In the context of the exiles, the desolation of the land had been part of the Babylonian judgment (Jer. 4:27). But they are identified with that land, which shall be freed from curse and married to God. We see in this the literal, physical element in God's plan of redeeming His people; that redemption is to be eternally enjoyed in a land, in fact in an earth cleansed from the curse. As so many scriptures make clear.
God not only forgives, but He delights in doing so (as Mic. 7:18); the way He is spoken of as ‘delighting’ in spiritually weak Israel is part and parcel of Him lavishing grace as He does (Num. 14:8). It must be so awful to have such a wonderful spirit of lavishing grace and love, consciously giving out life and patient forgiveness to so many; and yet not be appreciated for it, to have puny humans shaking their fist at God because they die a brief moment of time sooner than they think they should, to have tiny people arrogantly questioning His love. Seeing that God is Almighty, and God could have made [and could re-make] His creation to ‘understand’ and respond in a robot-like way... and seeing God has real and deep emotional feelings... it all makes God almost a tragic figure.
Isaiah 62:5 For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons shall marry
you- See on Is. 49:14. LXX makes this more relevant to the exiles returning and living
in Zion: "And as a young man lives with a virgin, so shall thy sons dwell
in thee". But most of the sons of Zion didn't return there, preferring
Babylon; and of those who did, most wouldn't live in Jerusalem but
preferred living outside the city and developing their own farmsteads (see
on Neh. 11:1,2). "Sons" is banayich but this is
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will
rejoice over you- This suggests
Isaiah 62:6 I have set watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they shall never
hold their peace day nor night: you who call on Yahweh, take no rest-
Verse 7 will suggest these "watchmen" are those who pray for God not to rest until He has made Zion His wife. But He places them on the walls and orders them to give Him no rest. It's as if He overrules even prayer, in order to advance His purpose. He may have prayer as a precondition, but then He provokes and commands His people to pray... straining at the very limits of human freewill in order to achieve His saving purpose. He is not simply open to answering prayer. He places prayer on the hearts of people, so that they pray, so that He can respond. Surely we have all experienced having a specific situation placed upon our heart to pray for regarding another person, even though that situation is unknown to us- and we find that in fact they were in just that situation when we had been praying for them. My dear brother Spiro felt that "Duncan is in trouble by a bridge in Ukraine" during the war, and so I was. Unknown to him at the time. He prayed those words, and I was delivered. At the very time he prayed.
The broken down walls of Jerusalem (as described in Nehemiah) were as it were engraved on the palms of God Almighty so that "Your walls are continually before Me" (Is. 49:16). But in that imagination, God says that He had placed watchmen on those walls to give Him no rest until He had restored those walls. Daniel surely took this seriously, for he prayed three times / day toward Jerusalem for her restoration- and was willing to give his life in order to continue publically doing so. He was noted for thus serving his God "continually" (Dan. 6:20 "whom you serve continually"), without rest. And we see Daniel's recorded prayer of Dan. 9 as being focused upon the restoration of Jerusalem. But Daniel was as it were "set" by God to do this. So why then did the restoration not happen? Because God will not override human freewill, nor reduce man to a puppet. Despite the constant prayer of the likes of Daniel, and God's restless to restore Zion as seen throughout Isaiah... there was not a sufficient freewill desire for it from His people. And so it didn't happen. But His people are to pray for this blessed situation to come about, when Zion shall repent and be saved by grace, and the Gentiles marvel at it (see on :1). The same words are found in Ps. 83:1 "God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent and don’t be still"- until Israel are permanently saved from their enemies and established as God's Kingdom on earth.
The watchmen may specifically refer to prophets, who earnestly pray and seek for the fulfilment of their words. But Judah's prophets at the time of the 'restoration' were false and lazy, as described in Is. 57,58. They were watchmen who were blind and sleepy.
Is. 62:6,7 speaks of watchmen [= the prophets, Ezekiel 3:17; Jer.
6:17; Hab. 2:1] set upon Jerusalem’s walls as watchmen, keeping no silence
[in their prophesying] until Jerusalem was established. For the link
between the prophets and standing on a watchtower, see Hab. 2:1. Is this
not a reference to Malachi, Haggai and Zechariah prophesying as the basis
upon which the newly built walls of Jerusalem would be preserved, and the
city develop into the Messianic Kingdom hoped for? Note that the rebuilt
Jerusalem of Ezra’s time and the latter day Jerusalem are the same thing
in Isaiah; the Kingdom could’ve come then. Watchmen upon the walls were
looking for something- for the approach of the Messianic messenger with
good tidings of Judah’s full return from captivity, of which Isaiah had
spoken in Isaiah 52:7,8. But most of Judah preferred to stay in Babylon,
took up a collection for the few who did return… and no Messiah could
appear with that news. God had promised this- but He asked to be put in
remembrance of His promises (Isaiah 43:26), i.e. He asked for those
watchmen to be His ‘rememberancers’, even though He cannot in that sense
forget them (Psalms 119:49; Jer. 14:21). In all this we see an exquisite
picture of how God works with men, how His promised faithfulness and
omnipotence all the same has built into it a requirement for human
prayerfulness and response. The reality was that the watchmen / prophets
of Israel were blind, ignorant and sleepy (Isaiah 56:10).
Compare the following passages:
“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never
hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not
silence, And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make
Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Is. 62:6,7)
with
“Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and
love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention
of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him” (Eph. 1:15-17).
Isaiah 62:7 And give Him no rest, until He establishes and until He makes
Jerusalem a praise in the earth- See on :6.
Our prayers are to give the Father no "rest" (Is. 62:7), no cessation
from violent warfare (Heb.). Isaiah had prophesied that God would not
rest until Zion be restored. Watchmen would be set upon Zion’s walls who
would give Him no rest until the walls be rebuilt (Is. 62:1,6,7). At this
time, Zion was felt by God to be the “apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). This
prophesy started to be fulfilled straight after the Babylonian invasion
when Jeremiah urged the desolated people to pray: “O wall of the daughter
of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no
rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease” (Lam. 2:18). The prayerful
remnant gave themselves
no rest; and thus was fulfilled the prophecy that God would
have no rest. Sincere prayer according to God’s will meant that there was
a strange mutuality between the Father and those who prayed to Him. Both
He and they considered Zion to be the apple of their eye; and thus the
prayers were ultimately answered and Zion was restored.
The failure of the restored exiles to fulfill these things led to their
reapplication and reinterpretation.
Paul in Rom. 1:9
["unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers"]
is surely alluding to Is. 62:6,7: “On your walls, O
Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall
never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and
give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in
the earth”. Paul saw the Gentile believers in Rome as spiritual Jerusalem.
It’s not that God forgets and needs reminding, but rather that by our
prayers for others we as it were focus His special attention upon them.
Paul several times states that he is day and night, continually in prayer
for others. He likely had the Isaiah passage in mind; his brethren in
Christ were now for him the Jerusalem upon whom his hopes were set, rather
than upon the physical city as had been the case in Judaism.
Isaiah 62:8 Yahweh has sworn by His right hand and by the arm of His
strength, Surely I will no more give your grain to be food for your
enemies; and foreigners shall not drink your new wine, for which you have
laboured-
Oaths were made by lifting up the hand toward Heaven and appealing to God. As God could swear by no greater (Heb. 6:13), He is represented as swearing by himself. "No more" suggests this speaks of an eternal state, in the Kingdom. And God vows eternity for us on His own eternity. The idea of God no more giving their grain and wine to their enemies alludes to the curses for breaking the old covenant in Dt. 28:30,31. The idea is that the curse for disobedience will be permanently ended, "no more" to be experienced. This will only be true in God's Kingdom.
Isaiah 62:9 But those who have garnered it shall eat it, and praise
Yahweh; and those who have gathered it shall drink it in the courts of My
sanctuary- The "it" refers to the new wine made from grapes they had
themselves gathered (:8). The allusion is to the commands to bring their
tithes and offerings to the sanctuary and eat them there, rather than in
their homes (Lev. 19:23-25; Dt. 12:17,18). This at best would be fulfilled
in essence rather than to the letter in the final fulfilment of the last
days. The new covenant offered to the exiles was not the same as the
Mosaic law, which was the old covenant which they had broken. But the
flavour of this idea of bringing tithes and eating them in the sanctuary
suggests that this was intended to have happened at the time of the
restoration. So much potential was wasted. "In the courts" shows
that clearly the primary scenario envisaged was of the temple being
restored and the exiles bringing their produce there. The allusion is to
the keeping of the feasts, when the first-fruits were eaten with rejoicing
before Yahweh (Dt. 12:17). The "gathering" refers to the ingathering feast
of Dt. 20:6; 28:30. The new covenant offered to the exiles promised this
kind of thing in Jer. 31:5: "Again you shall plant vineyards on the
mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy its
fruit". There could have been a temple system restored, had they followed
the commandments for this in Ez. 40-48.
Isaiah 62:10 Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way of the
people! Cast up, cast up the highway! Gather out the stones!-
The gates could be those famous gates of Babylon, as if this again is a call to leave Babylon. But GNB may be right: "People of Jerusalem, go out of the city and build a road for your returning people! Prepare a highway; clear it of stones!". Zion would then refer to the repentant remnant in Zion, who were to go out of their gates and remove any stumbling blocks which were preventing the exiles in Babylon from returning. This didn't happen at the time. But the true Zion likewise appeals to the Jews to leave spiritual Babylon and accept God's wonderful plan for them. We note that our message to the world also involves removing and not placing stumbling blocks for them. Putting verses 10 and 11 together, the idea may be that "Zion" goes out of her gates to prepare the way for the nations to come to her. Her message is that she is proclaiming to the end of the earth that she has been redeemed, and that in fact Yah's salvation ['Jesus'] is coming for them. And because of the stellar, supremely parade example of His grace to Israel, the nations come. And "they shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of Yahweh: and you shall be called Sought out, A city not forsaken". The Gentiles will marvel at God's grace to Zion, and themselves seek a similar salvation.
Isaiah 62:11 Behold, Yahweh has proclaimed to the end of the earth-
The ends of the eretz were Babylon and Persia, where the exiles
were. They were being asked to repent and quit exile because their
salvation was coming. But they stayed put.
Isaiah 62:12 They shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of Yahweh:
and you shall be called Sought out, A city not forsaken-
Zion is now interpreted as God's people, seeing that God's offer to re-create literal Zion as His dwelling place had been spurned by the Jewish exiles and those few who had returned to the land. Literal Zion was the place God had chosen to dwell in (2 Sam. 7:10,11; Ps 132:13; 68:16; 87:2,3). But now His "chosen" place for dwelling was the hearts of His people. Zion was His people. Is. 60:21; 62:11,12 is clear: "Your [Zion's] people shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever... Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes...'. They shall call them The holy people, The redeemed of Yahweh: and you shall be called Sought out, A city not [any longer] forsaken". The parallel between Zion and His people had always been there: "He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved" (Ps. 78:68).
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