Isaiah 52:10

These verses belong to the part of Isaiah often called the Book of Comfort, chapters 40 to 66, where after long chapters of judgment God speaks hope and restoration to his people. They speak into the Babylonian exile. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC, the temple lay in ruins, the monarchy was gone, and the people of Judah lived as captives in a foreign land until 538 BC. To many of them it looked as though their covenant with God had been broken and their God had been beaten.

Chapter 52 opens with God’s call, “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion” (Isaiah 52:1), and he tells Jerusalem to put on her beautiful garments and shake herself from the dust (Isaiah 52:1–2). Our four verses bring the news that makes that waking possible, and the whole of Isaiah 52 moves from captivity to deliverance. Right after them comes the fourth song of the Servant of the LORD (Isaiah 52:13–53:12), so the joy announced here leads directly into the account of how God’s salvation is won. The promise was first kept when the exiles came home, and its words reach on to the salvation God brings in Christ and to the day when he dwells with his people for ever.

The feet stand for the whole messenger, his journey and his mission, the part named for the whole. In a world where news travelled only as fast as a runner, the first sight of him coming over the mountains told a waiting people that word had come at last. The mountains speak of a hard road, and his arrival means the journey is done and the long wait is over. So the city greets the feet that carried the news with delight and gratitude.

The Hebrew word for “beautiful”, nâʼâh, properly means to be at home or to be pleasant, and from there to be suitable and so beautiful. The messenger is beautiful the way welcome news is beautiful: he is the right sight at the right time, and the goodness of his message shines on him.

The prophet Nahum uses almost the same words for news of deliverance given to Judah: “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off” (Nahum 1:15).

“Bringeth good tidings” translates bâsar, a root that means to be fresh or full and so to announce glad news, to preach, to publish. It is the Old Testament’s word for what the New Testament calls the gospel, euangelion. The news it carries changes the hearer’s whole situation and fills him with cheer and hope. Isaiah uses it twice in one verse, and he twice says the messenger “publisheth”, making his news public, because this message is meant to be heard far and wide.

The news has three parts. Peace is shâlôwm, wholeness, well-being and harmony, the flourishing God intends for his people. Good is ṭôwb, everything that is beneficial and desirable. Salvation is yᵉshûwʻâh, something saved, and so deliverance, rescue, aid and victory. Scripture can use that word for a rescue God works through a man, as when Jonathan “hath wrought this great salvation in Israel”, yet it traces every deliverance back to the LORD, and here the deliverance is his own work: freedom from exile, and beyond it rescue from sin through the Messiah.

The messenger’s last words carry the whole message. The verb mâlak means to reign, to take the throne, to be made king. In that world the king was the centre of every nation, and Babylon looked like the greatest power on earth. To captives in Babylon the messenger says that their God is king. He rules over empires and over history, he has kept his covenant, and he has triumphed over every power set against him. The peace, the good and the salvation of the verse all rest on this.

The Psalms send the same news out to the world: “Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously” (Psalm 96:10). God had already named Israel as his witnesses (Isaiah 43:10) and his Servant as “a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6), so this good news was always meant for every nation.

The watchmen of verse 8 are named with tsâphâh, a verb that means to lean forward and peer into the distance, and so to keep watch, look out and wait for. Watchmen stood on a city’s walls and towers to see what was coming from far off, and their cry warned the city of danger or told it a messenger was near. Here their cry becomes a song. The word for “voice”, qôwl, comes twice, and they sing yachad, “together”, one shout of triumph from every post on the wall. Psalm 137 gives the sound of the exile, harps hung on the willows by the rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137), and verse 8 gives the sound of its end.

They sing because they see “the LORD bring again Zion”. The name is Yᵉhôvâh, the self-existent and eternal One, Israel’s covenant name for God, and he alone is the one acting. The verb shûwb means to turn back or return. The KJV reads it as the LORD bringing Zion back from exile and desolation, and the same words describe the LORD himself returning to his city to live among his people again. Zion, Tsîyôwn, is Jerusalem, the city of God, and it stands for his people and the place where he dwells.

In verse 9 the prophet speaks to the “waste places of Jerusalem”, the chorbâh, a word formed from chôrev, drought, and meaning a desolate, decayed or destroyed place. After 586 BC the walls were broken down, the temple was destroyed and the people were gone. Those ruins are now told to “break forth into joy” and “sing together”, as though the rubble itself had a voice. Pâtsach means to break out in joyful sound, a loud and uncontainable burst of gladness after a long silence of mourning. “Sing” is rânan, a ringing shout of joy, and yachad appears again, so the whole city sings as one. In Israel this kind of singing greeted a victory, the crowning of a king, or the LORD coming to his temple.

Other prophets and psalms ring with the same joy. Zephaniah calls, “Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel” (Zephaniah 3:14–17), God promises through Jeremiah, “I will turn their mourning into joy” (Jeremiah 31:12–13), and the psalmist says, “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth” (Psalm 98:4–6).

Verse 10 pictures God as a warrior. Before battle a fighting man rolled back or stripped off his sleeve, leaving his arm free for the full use of its strength. The verb is châsaph, to strip off, to make bare, used of laying something bare either for hard work or in disgrace. Jeremiah uses it for Esau being made bare in judgment (Jeremiah 49:10), and here the LORD lays bare his own arm to act. The arm, zᵉrôwaʻ, is the arm stretched out, and by a common figure it means force and power. So the LORD’s bare arm is his strength openly at work, with nothing held back.

Scripture uses human language like this so that we can grasp what God does. His arm is “holy”, set apart and righteous, so his power always serves his holy purposes. He bares it “in the eyes of all the nations”, and ʻayin returns from verse 8. The nations, the goyim, were the Gentile peoples around Israel, many of them hostile to the LORD or ignorant of him, and they will all see his saving work done in plain view.

The arm of the LORD reappears a few verses later in the Servant’s song, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1–12), where the Servant who is exalted (Isaiah 52:13–15) suffers to bring the salvation verse 10 announces.

The last line reaches the farthest edges of the world: “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” The salvation is “of our God”, Israel’s own God, and everyone everywhere will see it clearly. God saves his people in such a way that his glory is shown to the whole world. A psalm sings the same: “The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen” (Psalm 98:2).

The New Testament takes up these words as the gospel goes out. John the Baptist prepares the way of the Lord so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:4–6). Paul and Barnabas turn to the Gentiles because the Lord commanded, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47). The risen Jesus sends his disciples to be his witnesses “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8) and tells them, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Every time the gospel reaches a new people, this verse is being fulfilled, and it will be fulfilled until every nation has seen the saving grace of our God.

These verses find their fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. He began his ministry with good news, reading from Isaiah that he was anointed “to preach the gospel to the poor” and “to preach deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:18–19, quoting Isaiah 61:1–2). He is the one who truly publishes peace, for he “is our peace” and reconciles us to God through the cross (Ephesians 2:14–16). His death and resurrection are the salvation of the verse, rescue from sin and death, for “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). And in him the cry “Thy God reigneth!” is answered: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18), and “of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33).

He is also the Kinsman-Redeemer of verse 9. As the Lamb of God (John 1:29) he bought his people back with his own life, and “we have redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1:7). The waste places of human hearts, ruined by sin and despair, are given cause to break into joy as the Spirit applies his finished work, and the comfort of verse 9 comes to us in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter Christ sent (John 14:26).

The holy arm made bare is the Son himself, through whom God’s saving power is shown to the world. When Simeon took the infant Jesus in his arms, he said, “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:30–32). The Hebrew name behind “Jesus”, Yeshua, comes from the same root as yᵉshûwʻâh and means “the LORD saves”.

The watchmen’s song looks ahead to the worship of the redeemed, who praise the Lamb, and the full bringing again of Zion comes when Christ returns and the New Jerusalem comes down from God (Revelation 21). Then “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3), God wipes away every tear (Revelation 21:2–4), and his people will see their Lord eye to eye.

The message of these verses is still the best news there is. When the world is anxious and divided and the ruins look as if they have the last word, it is still true that our God reigns. Our part is humble, the work of feet, yet Paul says that the feet of everyone who carries the gospel of peace are beautiful, and God uses our words and lives to bring that news to others.

The ruins of Jerusalem were told to sing before the rebuilding was finished, because the LORD had already comforted and redeemed his people. We can sing in the same way, with our eyes on the Redeemer, trusting the God who has acted decisively and will complete his work. And since the LORD has bared his arm before all the nations, we can pray and give and go with the whole world in view, so that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God.