Isaiah
Isaiah 52
4For the Lord Yahweh says:
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4 commentators · 40 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry3
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Here, I. God's people are stirred up to appear vigorous for their own deliverance, Isa 52:1, Isa 52:2. They had desired that God would awake and put on his strength, Isa 51:9. Here he calls upon them to awake and put on their strength, to bestir themselves…
The removal of the Jews from Babylon to their own land again is here spoken of both as a mercy and as a duty; and the application of Isa 52:7 to the preaching of the gospel (by the apostle, Rom 10:15) plainly intimates that that deliverance was a type and…
Here, as in other places, for the confirming of the faith of God's people and the encouraging of their hope in the promises of temporal deliverances, the prophet passes from them to speak of the great salvation which should in the fulness of time be wrought…
John Gill15
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion,.... Aben Ezra says, all interpreters agree that this prophecy is yet to be fulfilled, and so it is: by Zion is meant the church in Gospel times, in the latter day glory, which is called upon to awake out of sleep…
Shake thyself from the dust,.... Or "the dust from thee" (g), in which she had sat, or rolled herself as a mourner; or where she had been trampled upon by her persecutors and oppressors; but now being delivered from them, as well as from all carnal professors…
For thus saith the Lord, ye have sold yourselves for nought,.... As Ahab did to work wickedness; as men do freely, and get nothing by it; for there is nothing got in the service of sin, Satan, and antichrist, or by being slaves and vassals to them; not…
Keil & Delitzsch8
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
The reason for the address is now given in a well-sustained promise. "For thus saith Jehovah, Ye have been sold for nothing, and ye shall not be redeemed with silver. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, My people went down to Egypt in the beginning to dwell…
The first two turns in the prophecy (Isa 52:1-2, Isa 52:3-6) close here. The third turn (Isa 52:7-10) exults at the salvation which is being carried into effect. The prophet sees in spirit, how the tidings of the redemption, to which the fall of Babylon…
How will the prophets rejoice, when they see bodily before them what they have already seen from afar! "Hark, thy watchers! They lift up the voice together; they rejoice: for they see eye to eye, how Jehovah bringeth Zion home." קול followed by a genitive…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown14
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
from the dust--the seat of mourners (Job 2:12-13). arise, and sit--namely, in a more dignified place: on a divan or a throne [LOWTH], after having shaken off the dust gathered up by the flowing dress when seated on the ground; or simply, "Arise, and sit…
As you became your foes' servants, without their paying any price for you (Jer 15:13), so they shall release you without demanding any price or reward (Isa 45:13), (where Cyrus is represented as doing so: a type of their final restoration gratuitously in like…
My people--Jacob and his sons. went down--Judea was an elevated country compared with Egypt. sojourn--They went there to stay only till the famine in Canaan should have ceased. Assyrian--Sennacherib. Remember how I delivered you from Egypt and the Assyrian…
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