Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the monster?
Parallel Translations
-
Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the monster?
-
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
-
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Art thou not it that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced the dragon?
Cross-references (29)
Passages linked to Isaiah 51:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 74:13-14 You divided the sea by your strength. You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces. You gave him as food to people and desert creatures.
- Psalms 89:10 You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
- Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.
- Isaiah 27:1 In that day, Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent; and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
- Isaiah 30:7 For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.
- Ezekiel 29:3 Speak and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’
- Job 26:12 He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.
- Psalms 44:1 We have heard with our ears, God; our fathers have told us what work you did in their days, in the days of old.
- Isaiah 51:17 Awake, awake! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from Yahweh’s hand the cup of his wrath. You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it.
- Psalms 7:6 Arise, Yahweh, in your anger. Lift up yourself against the rage of my adversaries. Awake for me. You have commanded judgment.
- Isaiah 59:16-17 He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle.
- 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 will not drink your new wine, for which you have labored,
- Nehemiah 9:7-15 You are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, gave him the name of Abraham, found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his offspring, and have performed your words; for you are righteous. “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea, and showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, and against all his servants, and against all the people of his land; for you knew that they dealt proudly against them, and made a name for yourself, as it is today. You divided the sea before them, so that they went through the middle of the sea on the dry land; and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters. Moreover, in a pillar of cloud you led them by day; and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light in the way in which they should go. “You also came down on Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and made known to them your holy Sabbath, and commanded them commandments, statutes, and a law, by Moses your servant, and gave them bread from the sky for their hunger, and brought water out of the rock for them for their thirst, and commanded them that they should go in to possess the land which you had sworn to give them.
- Psalms 44:23 Wake up! Why do you sleep, Lord? Arise! Don’t reject us forever.
- Psalms 87:4 I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me. Behold, Philistia, Tyre, and also Ethiopia: “This one was born there.”
- Psalms 93:1 Yahweh reigns! He is clothed with majesty! Yahweh is armed with strength. The world also is established. It can’t be moved.
- Isaiah 51:5 My righteousness is near. My salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples. The islands will wait for me, and they will trust my arm.
- Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message? To whom has Yahweh’s arm been revealed?
- Habakkuk 3:13 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot.
- Luke 1:51 He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
- Deuteronomy 4:34 Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
- Judges 6:13 Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”
- Psalms 21:13 Be exalted, Yahweh, in your strength, so we will sing and praise your power.
- Psalms 78:65 Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.
- Habakkuk 2:19 Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it.
- Revelation 11:17 saying: “We give you thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was; because you have taken your great power and reigned.
- Revelation 12:9 The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
- Psalms 59:4 I have done no wrong, yet they are ready to attack me. Rise up, behold, and help me!
- John 12:38 that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, “Lord, who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He putteth them in remembrance of his great benefit…
He putteth them in remembrance of his great benefit for their deliverance out of Egypt, that thereby they might learn to trust in him constantly.
Meaning, Egypt, Ps. 87:4.
Read full note →
To wit, Pharaoh, Ezek. 29:3.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 51:9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm…
Isa 51:9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. [Art] thou not it that hath cut Rahab, [and] wounded the dragon?
Ver. 9. Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord.] God had promised what his holy arm should do for his people, {Isa 51:5} now they beg of him to use it, and bestir himself for their relief and rescue; and this they do magno affectu atque animi impetu, heartily wishing the coming of Christ and the declaration of the gospel to their salvation.
Read full note →
Awake, as in the ancient days.] God seemeth sometimes to be asleep, and we must wake him; to delay, and we must quicken him; to have lost his compassions, which yet never fail, and we must find them for him.
Art not thou it that hath cut Rahab?] Or, Hewed Egypt with thy ten plagues successively, though she were a proud and potent state.
And wounded the dragon.] Or, Crocodile; that is, Pharaoh, {Psa 74:14} whom thou didst put to pain, even the "pains of a travailing woman" (as the word signifieth), when he sank "as a millstone in the mighty waters."
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Awake, awake, thou who hast carried thyself like one…
Awake, awake, thou who hast carried thyself like one asleep, and unconcerned for thy people, and unable to save them. The prophet having foretold what great things God would do for his church, and longing for the accomplishment of them, and knowing that prayer was one means by which God fulfils his promises, he poureth forth his prayer to God in his own name, and in the name of God’s people.
Put on strength; clothe and adorn thyself with mighty works; put forth thy strength.
Read full note →
That hath cut, Heb. hewed, with thy sword, Rahab; Egypt, so called here, and Psa 87:4; 89:10, either from its pride or strength, or from the shape and figure of that land. The dragon; Pharaoh, so called Psa 74:13; Eze 29:3; 32:2.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain In these verses we have,
In these verses we have,
I. A prayer that God would, in his providence, appear and act for the deliverance of his people and the mortification of his and their enemies. Awake, awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Isa 51:9. The arm of the Lord is Christ, or it is put for God himself, as Psa 44:23. Awake! why sleepest thou? He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps; but, when we pray that he would awake, we mean that he would make it to appear that he watches over his people and is always awake to do them good. The arm of the Lord is said to awake when the power of God exerts itself with more than ordinary vigour on his people's behalf. When a hand or arm is benumbed we say, It is asleep; when it is stretched forth for action, It awakes. God needs not to be reminded nor excited by us, but he gives us leave thus to be humbly earnest with him for such appearances of his power as will be for his own praise. "Put on strength," that is, "put forth strength: appear in thy strength, as we appear in the clothes we put on," Psa 21:13. The church sees her case bad, her enemies many and mighty, her friends few and feeble; and therefore she depends purely upon the strength of God's arm for her relief. "Awake, as in the ancient days," that is, "do for us now as thou didst for our fathers formerly, repeat the wonders they told us of," Jdg 6:13.
Read full note →
II. The pleas to enforce this prayer. 1. They plead precedents, the experiences of their ancestors, and the great things God had done for them. "Let the arm of the Lord be made bare on our behalf; for it has done great things formerly in defence of the same cause, and we are sure it is neither shortened nor weakened. It did wonders against the Egyptians, who enslaved and oppressed God's son, his first-born; it cut Rahab to pieces with one direful plague after another, and wounded Pharaoh, the dragon, the Leviathan (as he is called, Psa 74:13, Psa 74:14); it gave him his death's wound. It did wonders for Israel. It dried up the sea, even the waters of the great deep, as far as was requisite to open a way through the sea for the ransomed to pass over," Isa 51:10. God is never at a loss for a way to accomplish his purposes concerning his people, but will either find one or make one. Past experiences, as they are great supports to faith and hope, so they are good pleas in prayer. Thou hast; wilt thou not? Psa 85:1-6. 2. They plead promises (Isa 51:11): And the redeemed of the Lord shall return, that is (as it may be supplied), thou hast said, They shall, referring to Isa 35:10, where we find this promise, that the redeemed of the Lord, when they are released out of their captivity in Babylon, shall come with singing unto Zion. Sinners, when they are brought out of the slavery of sin into the glorious liberty of God's children, may come singing, as a bird got loose out of the cage. The souls of believers, when they are delivered out of the prison of the body, come to the heavenly Zion with singing. Then this promise will have its full accomplishment, and we may plead it in the mean time. He that designs such joy for us at last will he not work such deliverances for us in the mean time as our case requires? When the saints come to heaven they enter into the joy of their Lord; it crowns their heads with immortal honour; it fills their hearts with complete satisfaction. They shall obtain that joy and gladness which they could never obtain in this vale of tears. In this world of changes it is a short step from joy to sorrow, but in that world sorrow and mourning shall flee away, never to return or come in view again.
III. The answer immediately given to this prayer (Isa 51:12): I, even, I, am he that comforteth you. They prayed for the operations of his power; he answers them with the consolations of his grace, which may well be accepted as an equivalent. If God do not wound the dragon, and dry the sea, as formerly, yet, if he comfort us in soul under our afflictions, we have no reason to complain. If God do not answer immediately with the saving strength of his right hand, we must be thankful if he answer us, as an angel himself was answered (Zac 1:13), with good words and comfortable words. See how God resolves to comfort his people: I, even I, will do it. He had ordered his ministers to do it (Isa 40:1); but, because they cannot reach the heart, he takes the work into his own hands: I, even I, will do it. See how he glories in it; he takes it among the titles of his honour to be the God that comforts those that are cast down; he delights in being so. Those whom God comforts are comforted indeed; nay, his undertaking to comfort them is comfort enough to them.
1. He comforts those that were in fear; and fear has torment, which calls for comfort. The fear of man has a snare in it which we have need of comfort to preserve us from. He comforts the timorous by chiding them, and that is no improper way of comforting either others or ourselves: Why art thou cast down, and why disquieted? Isa 51:12, Isa 51:13. God, who comforts his people, would not have them disquiet themselves with amazing perplexing fears of the reproach of men (Isa 51:7), or of their growing threatening power and greatness, or of any mischief they may intend against us or our people. Observe,
(1.) The absurdity of those fears. It is a disparagement to us to give way to them: Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid? In the original, the pronoun is feminine, Who art thou, O woman! unworthy the name of a man? Such a weak and womanish thing it is to give way to perplexing fears. [1.] It is absurd to be in such dread of a dying man. What! afraid of a man that shall die, shall certainly and shortly die, of the son of man who shall be made as grass, shall wither and be trodden down or eaten up? The greatest men, and the most formidable, that are the terror of the mighty in the land of the living, are but men (Psa 9:20) and shall die like men (Psa 81:7), are but grass sprung out of the earth, cleaving to it, and retiring again into it. Note, We ought to look upon every man as a man that shall die. Those we admire, and love, and trust to, are men that shall die; let us not therefore delight too much in them nor depend too much upon them. Those we fear we must look upon as frail and mortal, and consider what a foolish thing it is for the servants of the living God to be afraid of dying men, that are here today and gone tomorrow. [2.] It is absurd to fear continually every day (Isa 51:13), to put ourselves upon a constant rack, so as never to be easy, nor to have any enjoyment of ourselves. Now and then a danger may be imminent and threatening, and it may be prudent to fear it; but to be always in a toss, jealous of dangers at every step, and to tremble at the shaking of every leaf, is to make ourselves all our lifetime subject to bondage (Heb 2:15), and to bring upon ourselves that sore judgment which is threatened, Deu 28:66, Deu 28:67. Thou shalt fear, day and night. [3.] It is absurd to fear beyond what there is cause: "Thou art afraid of the fury of the oppressor. It is true, there is an oppressor, and he is furious, and he designs, it may be, when he has an opportunity, to do thee a mischief, and it will be thy wisdom therefore to stand upon thy guard; but thou art afraid of him, as if he were ready to destroy, as if he were just now going to cut thy throat, and as if there were no possibility of preventing it." A timorous spirit is thus apt to make the worst of every thing, and to apprehend the danger greater and nearer than really it is. Sometimes God is pleased at once to show us the folly of so doing: "Where is the fury of the oppressor? It is gone in an instant, and the danger is over ere thou art aware." His heart is turned, or his hands are tied. Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise, and the king of Babylon no more. What has become of all the furious oppressors of God's Israel, that hectored them, and threatened them, and were a terror to them? they passed away, and, lo, they were not; and so shall these.
(2.) The impiety of those fears: "Thou art afraid of a man that shall die, and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, who is also the Maker of all the world, who has stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and therefore has all the hosts and all the powers of both at his command and disposal." Note, Our inordinate fear of man is a tacit forgetfulness of God. When we disquiet ourselves with the fear of man we forget that there is a God above him, and that the greatest of men have no power but what is given them from above; we forget the providence of God, by which he orders and overrules all events according to the counsel of his own will; we forget the promises he has made to protect his people, and the experiences we have had of his care concerning us, and his seasonable interposition for our relief many a time, when we thought the oppressor ready to destroy; we forget our Jehovah-jirehs, monuments of mercy in the mount of the Lord. Did we remember to make God our fear and our dread, we should not be so much afraid as we are of the frowns of men, Isa 8:12, Isa 8:13. Happy is the man that fears God always, Pro 28:14; Luk 12:4, Luk 12:5.
2. He comforts those that were in bonds, Isa 51:14, Isa 51:15. See here, (1.) What they do for themselves: The captives exile hastens that he may be loosed and may return to his own country, from which he is banished; his care is that he may not die in the pit (not die a prisoner, through the inconveniences of his confinement), and that his bread should not fail, either the bread he should have to keep him alive in prison or that which should bear his charges home; his stock is low, and therefore he hastens to be loosed. Now some understand this as his fault. He is distrustfully impatient of delays, cannot wait God's time, but thinks he is undone and must die in the pit if he be not released immediately. Others take it to be his praise, that when the doors are thrown open he does not linger, but applies himself with all diligence to procure his discharge. And then it follows, But I am the Lord thy God, which intimates, (2.) What God will do for them, even that which they cannot do for themselves. God has all power in his hand to help the captive exiles; for he has divided the sea, when the roaring of its waves was more frightful than any of the impotent menaces of proud oppressors. He has stilled or quieted the sea, so some think it should be read, Psa 65:7; Psa 89:9. This is not only a proof of what God can do, but a resemblance of what he has done, and will do, for his people; he will find out a way to still the threatening storm, and bring them safely into the harbour. The Lord of hosts is his name, his name for ever, the name by which his people have long known him. And, as he is able to help them, so he is willing and engaged to do it; for he is thy God, O captive-exile! thine in covenant. This is a check to the desponding captives. Let them not conclude that they must either be loosed immediately or die in the pit; for he that is the Lord of hosts can relieve them when they are brought ever so low. It is also an encouragement to the diligent captives, who, when liberty is proclaimed, are willing to lose no time; let them know that the Lord is their God, and, while they thus strive to help themselves, they may be sure he will help them.
3. He comforts all his people who depended upon what the prophets said to them in the name of the Lord, and built their hopes upon it. When the deliverances which the prophets spoke of either did not come so soon as they looked for them or did not come up to the height of their expectation they began to be cast down in their own eyes; but, as to this, they are encouraged (Isa 51:16) by what God says to his prophet, not to this only, but to all his prophets, nor to this, or them, principally, but to Christ, the great prophet. It is a great satisfaction to those to whom the message is sent to hear the God of truth and power say to his messenger, as he does here, I have put my words in thy mouth, that by them I may plant the heavens. God undertook to comfort his people (Isa 51:12); but still he does it by his prophets, by his gospel; and, that he may do it by these, he here tells us, (1.) That his word in them is very true. He owns what they have said to be what he had directed and enjoined them to say: "I have put my words in thy mouth, and therefore he that receives thee and them receives me." This is a great stay to our faith, that Christ's doctrine was not his, but his that sent him, and that the words of the prophets and apostles were God's own words, which he put into their mouths. God's Spirit not only revealed to them the things themselves they spoke of, but dictated to them the words they should speak (Pe2 1:21; Co1 2:13); so that these are the true sayings of God, of a God that cannot lie. (2.) That it is very safe: I have covered thee in the shadow of my hand (as before, Isa 49:2), which speaks the special protection not only of the prophets, but of their prophecies, not only of Christ, but of Christianity, of the gospel of Christ; it is not only the faithful word of God which the prophets deliver to us, but it shall be carefully preserved till it have its accomplishment for the use of the church, notwithstanding the restless endeavours of the powers of darkness to extinguish this light. They shall prophesy again (Rev 10:11), though not in their persons, yet in their writings, which God has always covered in the shadow of his hand, preserved by a special providence, else they would have been lost ere this. (3.) That this word, when it comes to be accomplished, will be very great and will not fall short of the pomp and grandeur of the prophecy: "I have put my words in thy mouth, not that by the performance of them I may plant a nation, or found a city, but that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, may do that for my people which will be a new creation." This must look as far forward as to the great work done by the gospel of Christ and the setting up of his holy religion in the world. As God by Christ made the world at first (Heb 1:2), and by him formed the Old Testament church (Zac 6:12), so by him, and the words put into his mouth, he will set up, [1.] A new world, will again plant the heavens and found the earth. Sin having put the whole creation into disorder, Christ's taking away the sin of the world put all into order again. Old things have passed away, all things have become new; things in heaven and things on earth are reconciled, and so put into a new posture, Col 1:20. Through him, according to the promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth (Pe2 3:13), and to this the prophets bear witness. [2.] He will set up a new church, a New Testament church: He will say unto Zion, Thou art my people. The gospel church is called Zion (Heb 12:22) and Jerusalem (Gal 4:26); and, when the Gentiles are brought into it, it shall be said unto them, You are my people. When God works great deliverances for his church, and especially when he shall complete the salvation of it in the great day, he will thereby own that poor despised handful to be his people, whom he has chosen and loved.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the…
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,.... The Septuagint and Arabic versions take the words to be an address to Jerusalem; and the Syriac version to Zion, as in Isa 51:17, but wrongly: they are, as Jarchi says, a prayer of the prophet, or it may be rather of the church represented by him; and are addressed either to God the Father, who, when he does not immediately appear on the behalf of his people, is thought by them to be asleep, though he never slumbers nor sleeps, but always keeps a watchful eye over them; but this they not apprehending, call upon him to "awake"; which is repeated, to show their sense of danger, and of their need of him, and their vehement importunity; and that he would clothe himself with strength, and make it visible, exert his power, and make bare his arm on their behalf: or they are an address to Christ, who is the power of God, that he would appear in the greatness of strength, show himself strong in favour of his people, and take to himself his great power and reign:
awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old; which is mentioned not only as an argument to prevail with the Lord that he would do as he had formerly done; but as an argument to encourage the faith of the church, that as he had done, he could and would still do great things for them:
Read full note →
art thou not it that hath cut Rahab; that is, Egypt, so called either from the pride and haughtiness of its inhabitants; or from the large extent of the country; or from the form of it, being in the likeness of a pear, as some have thought; see Psa 87:4 and the sense is, art thou not that very arm, and still possessed of the same power, that cut or "hewed" to pieces, as the word (p) signifies, the Egyptians, by the ten plagues sent among them?
and wounded the dragon? that is, Pharaoh king of Egypt, so called from the river Nile in Egypt, where he reigned, and because of his fierceness and cruelty, see Eze 29:3. So the Targum interprets it of Pharaoh and his army, who were strong as a dragon. And that same mighty arm that destroyed Egypt, and its tyrannical king, can and will destroy that great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, and the beast that has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon, and to whom the dragon has given his seat, power, and authority; and the rather this may be believed, since the great red dragon has been cast out, or Rome Pagan has been destroyed by him, Rev 11:8.
(p) "quod excidit", Piscator; "excidens", Montanas.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Put on - Put forth thy strength. Rahab -…
Put on - Put forth thy strength. Rahab - Egypt, from its pride or strength. The dragon - Pharaoh so called, Psalm 7iv, 13.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 51:9-11. Awake, awake, &c. — The prophet, by…
Isa 51:9-11. Awake, awake, &c. — The prophet, by an elegant figure, addresses himself to God, to stir up and exert his power in behalf of his oppressed people, as he did in former times, when he delivered them out of the Egyptian bondage. Awake, as in the ancient days — That is, act for us now as thou didst for our fathers formerly: repeat the wonders they have told us of. Art thou not it that cut Rahab — Egypt, so called, here and elsewhere, for its pride or strength. And wounded the dragon — Pharaoh, the Leviathan, as he is called, Psa 74:13-14. Art thou not it that dried the sea — Art thou not the same God, and as potent now as thou wast then? That made the depths a way for the ransomed, &c. — For thy people, whom thou didst redeem and bring out of Egypt? Let thine arm be stretched out in our behalf; for it has done great things formerly in defence of the same cause, and we are sure it is neither shortened nor weakened. Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, &c. — These words express the persuasion of the prophet, that as the Lord did these great things formerly, so he would certainly do the like again. See note on Isa 35:10.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Awake, awake - This verse commences a new subject…
Awake, awake - This verse commences a new subject (see the analysis of the chapter). It is the solemn and impassioned entreaty of those who were in exile that God would interpose in their behalf, as he did in behalf of his people when they were suffering in cruel bondage in Egypt. The word ‘awake’ here, which is addressed to the arm of Jehovah, is a petition that it might be roused from its apparent stupor and inactivity, and its power exerted in their behalf.
O arm of the Lord - The arm is the instrument by which we execute any purpose. It is that by which the warrior engages in battle, and by which he wields the weapon to prostrate his foes. The arm of Yahweh had seemed to slumber; For seventy years the prophet sees the oppressed and suffering people in bondage, and God had not come forth to rescue them. He hears them now lifting the voice of earnest and tender entreaty, that he would interpose as he had in former times, and save them from the calamities which they were enduring.
Read full note →
Awake, as in the ancient days - That is, in the time when the Jews were delivered from their bondage in the land of Egypt.
Art thou not it - Art thou not the same arm? Was it not by this arm that the children of Israel were delivered from bondage, and may we not look to it for protection still?
That hath cut Rahab - That is, cut it in pieces, or destroyed it. It was that arm which wielded the sword of justice and of vengeance by which Rahab was cut in pieces. The word ‘Rahab’ here means Egypt. On the meaning of the word, see the notes at Isa 30:7; compare Psa 88:8; Psa 89:10.
And wounded the dragon - The word rendered here “dragon” (תנין tannı̂yn) means properly any great fish or sea monster; a serpent, a dragon (see the notes at Isa 27:1), or a crocodile. Here it means, probably, the crocodile, as emblematic of Egypt, because the Nile abounded in crocodiles, and because a monster so unwieldy and formidable and unsightly, was no unapt representation of the proud and cruel king of Egypt. The king of Egypt is not unfrequently compared with the crocodile (see Psa 34:13-14; Eze 29:3; Eze 32:2). Here the sense is, that he had sorely wounded, that is, had greatly weakened the power of that cruel nation, which for strength was not unfitly represented by the crocodile, one of the most mighty of monsters, but which, like a pierced and wounded monster. was greatly enfeebled when God visited it with plagues, and destroyed its hosts in the sea.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Proud. Hebrew, "Rahab," Pharao, king of Egypt, Job xxvi.…
Proud. Hebrew, "Rahab," Pharao, king of Egypt, Job xxvi. 12., and Ezechiel xxix. 3. (Calmet) --- God drowned in the water, which had retired for Israel. He will thus destroy the devil. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Impassioned prayer of the exiled Jews.
Impassioned prayer of the exiled Jews.
ancient days-- (Psa 44:1).
Read full note →
Rahab--poetical name for Egypt (see on Isa 30:7).
dragon--Hebrew, tannin. The crocodile, an emblem of Egypt, as represented on coins struck after the conquest of Egypt by Augustus; or rather here, "its king," Pharaoh (see on Isa 27:1; Psa 74:13-14; Eze 32:2, Margin; Eze 29:3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 9-11. Awake, awake — The fervour of the message…
9-11. Awake, awake — The fervour of the message in the preceding verses passes here to fervour of prayer (abrupt and strophical) to Jehovah, as if a slight sense of danger from delay seizes the people in exile. They pray intensely for Jehovah to put on strength; that is, to exercise strength immediately in their behalf; to transfer them at once from exile to the promised restoration.
Arm — The symbol of strength, or, as Grotius has it, divinity, of Jehovah.
Read full note →
In the generations of old — God’s almighty arm in energetic exercise at the Red Sea is referred to, and the deliverance from Egypt.
Cut Rahab — Meaning Egypt, or the fierce one. See Psa_87:4; Psa_89:10.
The dragon — That is, crocodile, or Pharaoh. Psa_74:10; Psa_74:14; Eze_29:3; Eze_32:2. Isa_51:10 here directly relates to the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and it furnishes argument for deliverance from exile in this prayer; and, were not these verses expressed in poetic and strophical language, such a prayer would seem an indecent haste. Not so, however; for the answer to the prayer is opened in Isa_51:11 by the word therefore; that is, in case of this prayer there shall be no uncertainty. The remaining part of the verse is a copy of Isa_35:10.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. put on strength] Lit. “clothe thyself with strength,”…
9. put on strength] Lit. “clothe thyself with strength,” as Psa_93:1.
The arm of the Lord is apostrophised, as the symbol of His might, possibly with a reference back to Isa_51:5.
Read full note →
that hath cut Rahab &c.] R.V. that cut Rahab in pieces, that pierced the dragon. The verb “cut” is strictly “hewed” or “split.” Rahab is the sea-monster (ch. Isa_30:7); and the “dragon” (tannín) probably one of the “helpers of Rahab” (Job_9:13); both together represent the chaotic elements from whose dominion the habitable world had to be recovered; hence the line expresses poetically the same thought as the following “Art thou not it which dried up the sea” &c.? The original mythical emblem survives in one of the most beautiful personifications of O.T. poetry, the comparison of the sea to a restless, unruly creature, waging impotent war with heaven, and seeking to devour the land, but a creature whom Jehovah holds completely in His power, now stirring it to fury (see Isa_51:15) by His rebuke, and again stilling its commotions.
9, 10. These verses are addressed to Jehovah, either by the prophet himself, or by the community of true Israelites. It is difficult to decide between these two views, but the dramatic unity of the passage is best preserved if we adopt the latter, taking Isa_51:9-10 as a prayer called forth by the previous exhortation, and Isa_51:12 ff. as the Divine answer to this prayer.
The imagery of the verses is obviously mythological. It rests on the conception of a conflict in days long past between Jehovah and the monsters called Rahab and the Dragon. Now both these names came to be used as symbols of Egypt (see on ch. Isa_30:7, and Isa_27:1); and most commentators have thought that this is the case here, the historic reference being to the humiliation of Egypt, and the dividing of the Red Sea in the days of Moses. But it is doubtful if this interpretation exhausts the significance of the passage. The prophet seems to make direct use of current mythological representations, as is frequently done by the author of the Book of Job (see the notes on Isa_3:8, Isa_9:13, Isa_26:13 in Davidson’s Book of Job). And if this be so there cannot be much doubt as to the nature of the myth in question. It is most probably a Hebrew variation of the Babylonian creation-hymn, according to which the creation of the world was preceded by a conflict between the God of light and order and the monsters that symbolise the dark powers of Chaos (so Duhm; see also Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos, pp. 30 ff.). The fundamental idea of the verses would therefore seem to lie in the analogy between the original creation of the material world, and the restoration of the moral order of the universe, which has been disturbed by the reign of brute force in the Babylonian empire (cf. Isa_51:16). At the same time, the undoubted allusion to the Exodus in 10 b, shows that the historical application of the imagery was present to the mind of the prophet (see below).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9) Awake, awake.—Who is the speaker that thus bursts…
(9) Awake, awake.—Who is the speaker that thus bursts into this grand apostrophe? (1) The redeemed and ideal Israel, or (2) the Servant of the Lord, or (3) the prophet, or (4) Jehovah, as in self-communing, after the manner of men, like that of Deborah in Jdg_5:12. On the whole the first seems the preferable view; but the loftiness of poetry, perhaps, transcends all such distinctions. The appeal is, in any case, to the great deeds of God in the past, as the pledge and earnest of yet greater in the future. “Rahab,” as in Isa_30:7, Psa_89:10, is Egypt; and the “dragon,” like “leviathan” in Psa_74:13, stands for Pharaoh. (Comp. Eze_29:3.) Cheyne quotes from Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. vi., an invocation to the god Ra, from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, “Hail, thou who hast cut in pieces the scorner and strangled the Apophis (sc. the evil serpent),” as a striking parallel.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 9-11. AN APPEAL OF THE PROPHET TO GOD…
Vers. 9-11. AN APPEAL OF THE PROPHET TO GOD TO AROUSE HIMSELF, WITH A PROMISE OF ISRAEL"S RESTORATION. There has been much doubt as to the utterer of this "splendid apostrophe." Zion, the prophet, the angels, Jehovah, and God the Son pleading with God the Father, have been suggested. To us it seems simplest and best to assign the passage to the prophet.
Awake, awake. (comp. Psa_7:6 Psa_35:23 Psa_44:23 Psa_78:65) When God neglects the prayers and supplications of his people, he is spoken of as "asleep," and needing to be awoke by a loud cry. The anthropomorphism is obvious, and of course not to be taken literally. (see 1Ki_18:27, ad fin. ) Put on strength. Gird the strength to thee (Psa_93:1) which thou hadst laid aside while thou wept asleep. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab? rather, was it not thou that didst cleave Rahab in pieces? Here, as in Psa_87:4 and Psa_89:10, "Rahab" would seem to be a symbolical expression for Egypt. Rahab" is literally pride," or "the proud one." The event alluded to, both here and in Psa_89:10, is the destruction of Pharaoh"s host in the Red Sea (see ver. 10). And wounded the dragon. "The dragon" is another symbol of the Egyptian power. (comp. Eze_29:3, "Pharaoh, King of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers Originally designating God"s great enemy, Satan, (Gen_3:14 Rev_12:7-9 Rev_20:2) it is a term which comes to be applied to the adversaries of the Almighty generally.
Read full note →
Vers. 9-11. The arm of Jehovah.
Either the people call on Jehovah, or he is concerned as calling on himself to awake and rouse up his might for the defence of his people as in the days of old,
I THE ARM OF JEHOVAH AS SYMBOLIC OF HIS POWER. It is the symbol of spiritual power opposed to that of darkness, death, the underworld, He is said to have "smitten Rahab, and wounded the dragon." Commonly this has been understood of Egypt, but the reference seems to be more general. It was in ancient thought, generally, the property of a god to be the slayer of monsters, who all of them represent hellish influences. It is spiritual power opposed to worldly violence. He had dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, and made therein a way for the released to pass over. Egypt was the dark historic memory of the people. Its king might well be compared with the fiendish monster of darkness. (Eze_29:3 Eze_32:2 Psa_34:13, Psa_34:14) And so the passage of the Red Sea was the standing symbol of deliverance, of redemption (see Psalm 105). And in our own hymns and sacred allusions Egypt stands for the bondage of sin, the captivity of the mind to sense, to the devil. And the passing over the Red Sea may be fitly symbolic of salvation by grace, of regeneration or conversion. The argument is from the past to the future. The God who had overcome all obstacles in the way of their deliverance from Egypt was able to overcome all obstacles in the way of their deliverance from Babylon. He might be expected again to manifest his mercy, and save the nation from oppression. And so, in general, the argument holds good for the Church and for the individual: "Because thou hast been my Refuge, under the shadow of thy wings I will put my trust." The principle is ever applicable. All God"s past interpositions on behalf of his people constitute an argument that he will continue to regard them.
II THE FUTURE SEEN BY THE LIGHT OF THE PAST.
1. The ransomed of Jehovah shall return. The power that lies in the word "redeemed," "ransomed! All the notions of love, sacrifice, purchase, that are connected with it! The assurance that flows from the realization of such a state! God will not desert; he cannot lose those whom he has made by so many ties his own.
2. The joy of the return. "The custom of singing on a journey is still common in the East. It relieves the tediousness of a journey over extended plains, and stirs the camels to greater speed. So the long tedium of the way from Babylon shall be cheered by songs expressive of gladness and praise." "We are travelling home to God. " We are under the guidance of a good Pastor, who goes before, who knows his sheep; of a Leader of salvation who has released his people, and will crown his work el" redemption by glorification. "Then let our songs abound, And every tear be dry.
We are on the way to new releases and fresh redemptions from ill. J.
Vers. 9, 10. The force in reserve.
It has been said that the battle goes to him who has the best force in reserve. The general who brings all his regiments to the front may expect to be beaten; but he who holds a strong force in reserve may look for victory.]n the great spiritual struggle now proceeding, the people of God have in reserve that on which they can and will fall back with infinite advantage to their cause.
I OUR URGENT NEED OF EFFECTUAL SUCCOUR. The battle seems to go against us. We note:
1. The prevalence of evil of poverty, of misery, of vice, of crime, of unbelief, of superstition, of gross idolatry.
2. The comparative failure of the Church to subdue it. Looking at the entire field of activity, we are obliged to own that complete victory is a very long way off; that the millions of men and women whom the gospel has not reached, and those other millions whose spirit and whose life it has not succeeded in transforming, present a view which is very disappointing. Or looking at particular fields of Christian work, either at home or abroad, regarding the towns and villages of our own land, we do not find that the truth of God has the redeeming and elevating influence which answers to our hopes. We am not conquering the evil which surrounds and assails us; our heart sinks at the thought of the stupendous work before us, which seems to grow rather than to lessen, spite of all our struggle.
II THE DIVINE FORCE IN RESERVE. Behind us is the arm of the Lord, and on this we lean.
1. It is a great thing that we are armed with a truth which is so fitted to do the renewing work on which we are engaged, a truth which so exquisitely meets the necessities of the human soul.
2. It is a great thing that this truth has triumphed gloriously in the case of individual men, families, tribes, and even nations.
3. But our last and best hope is in the presence and power of God. "The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our Refuge." There are two sustaining thoughts here. One is that Almighty God cannot be defeated. The "arm of the Lord" is the power of the Omnipotent; it is the overcoming energy of him who is the Source of all might and strength, and in whom reside all riches and all resources whatever. The other is that God has shown the exceeding greatness of his power many times before, and can work as glorious marvels in the future as in the past. He who smote Egypt could slay Assyria; he who made a passage across the sea could open a way from Babylon to Jerusalem. The God who has smitten the idolatries of Europe can slay the superstitions of Asia. He who has turned the sensuality and savagery of the islands of the sea into purity and peace can and will overcome the mightiest obstacles which remain. subdue the most hostile forces, and cause the "armies of Israel" to be crowned with victory.
(1) Strive with all strenuousness and self-sacrifice, as if everything depended on our fidelity.
(2) Look with confidence to the action of the arm of Omnipotence. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the…
Isa_51:9-10
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord
Read full note →
The awaking of Zion
(with Isa_52:1 (a)):--Both these verses are, I think, to be regarded as spoken by one voice, that of the Servant of the Lord.
In the one, as Priest and Intercessor, He lifts the prayers of earth to heaven in His own holy hands--and in the other, as Messenger and Word of God, He brings the answer and command of heaven to earth on His own authoritative lips--thus setting forth the deep mystery of His person and double office as mediator between man and God. But even if we set aside that thought the correspondence and relation of the two passages remain the same. In any case they are intentionally parallel in form and connected in substance. The latter is the answer to the former. The cry of Zion is responded to by the call of God. The awaking of the arm of the Lord is followed by the awaking of the Church. He puts on strength in clothing us with His might, which becomes ours.
I. We have here a common principle underlying both the clauses, namely, THE OCCURRENCE IN THE CHURCHS HISTORY OF SUCCESSIVE PERIODS OF ENERGY AND OF LANGUOR. It is freely admitted that such alternation is not the highest ideal of growth, either in the individual or in the community. Our Lords own parables set forth a more excellent way--the way of uninterrupted increase. So might our growth be, if the mysterious life in the seed met no checks. But, as a matter of fact, the Church has not thus grown. Rather, at the best, its emblem is to be looked for, not in corn but in the forest tree--the very rings in whose trunk tell of recurring seasons when the sap has risen at the call of spring, and sunk again before the frowns of winter. In our own hearts we have known such times. And we have seen a like palsy smite whole regions and ages of the Church of God. Where is the joyful buoyancy and expansive power with which the Gospel burst into the world? If, then, there be such recurring seasons of languor, they must either go on deepening till sleep becomes death, or they must be broken by a new outburst of vigorous life. And it is by such times that the Kingdom of Christ always has grown. Its history has been one of successive impulses gradually exhausted, as by friction and gravity, and mercifully repeated just at the moment when it was ceasing to advance and had begun to slide downwards.
II. THE TWOFOLD EXPLANATION OF THESE VARIATIONS. That bold metaphor of God sleeping and waking is often found in Scripture, and generally expresses the contrast between the long years of patient forbearance, during which evil things and evil men go on their rebellious road unchecked but by Love, and the dread moment when some throne of iniquity is smitten to the dust. Such is the original application of the expression here. But the contrast may fairly be widened beyond that specific form of it, and taken to express any apparent variations in the forth-putting of His power. We may, then, see here implied the cause of these alternations on its Divine side, and then, in the corresponding verse addressed to the Church, the cause on the human side.
1. As to the former. We have to distinguish between the power, and what Paul calls the might of the power. The one is final, constant, unchangeable. It does not necessarily follow that the other is. The rate of operation, so to speak, and the amount of energy actually brought into play may vary, though the force remains the same.
2. Our second text tells us that if Gods arm seems to slumber, and really does so, it is because Zion sleeps. He works through us; and we have the solemn and awful power of checking the might which would flow through us.
III. THE BEGINNING OF ALL AWAKING IS THE CHURCHS EARNEST CRY TO GOD. It is with us as with infants, the first sign of whose awaking is a cry. For every such stirring of quickened religious life must needs have in it bitter penitence and pain at the discovery flashed upon us of the wretched deadness of our past. Nor is Zion s cry to God only the beginning and sign of all true awaking; it is also the condition and indispensable precursor of all perfecting of recovery from spiritual languor. Look at the passionate earnestness of it--and see to it that our drowsy prayers be like it. Look at the grand confidence with which it founds itself on the past, recounting the mighty deeds of ancient days, and looking back, not for despair, but for joyful confidence on the generations of old; and let our faint-hearted faith be quickened by the example, to expect great things of God.
IV. THE ANSWERING CALL FROM GOD TO ZION. Our truest prayers are but the echo of Gods promises. Gods best answers are the echo of our prayers. As in two mirrors set opposite to each other, the same image is repeated over and over again, the reflection of a reflection, so here, within the prayer, gleams an earlier promise, within the answer is mirrored the prayer. And in that reverberation, and giving back to us of our petition transformed into a command, we are not to see a dismissal of it as if we had misapprehended our true want. The very opposite interpretation is the true one. The prayer of Zion is heard and answered. God awakes, and clothes Himself with might. Then, as some warrior king, himself roused from sleep and girded with flashing steel, bids the clarion sound through the grey twilight to summon the prostrate ranks that lie round his tent, so the sign of Gods awaking and the first act of His conquering might is this trumpet call--The night is far spent, the day is at hand--put off the works of darkness, the night gear that was fit for slumber--and put on the armour of light, the mail of purity that gleams and glitters even in the dim dawn. Nor is it to be forgotten that this, like all God s commands, carries in its heart a promise. But the main point which I would insist on is the practical discipline which this Divine summons requires from us.
1. The chief means of quickened life and strength is deepened communion with Christ.
2. This summons calls us to the faithful use of the power which, on condition of that communion, we have. So, let us confidently look for times of blessing, penitently acknowledge that our own faithlessness has hindered the arm of the Lord, earnestly beseech Him to come in His rejoicing strength, and, drawing ever fresh power from constant communion with our dear Lord, use it to its last drop for Him. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
The Church s cry and the Divine answer
(with Isa_52:1):--
I. THE CHURCHS CALL ON GOD. Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord.
1. The figure used here is simple enough. The arm is a natural symbol of power, for it is through it that we execute our purpose. If it is benumbed, insensitive, and motionless, we say that it is asleep; but when it is stretched out for action it is awake. And what the prophet pleads for is that some display of Divine power might be granted, such as had once been seen in Egypt, when Rahab (the fierce and boastful power of heathenism) had been broken in pieces and the dragon (or rather the crocodile, the recognized symbol of Egypt) had been sorely wounded. Now, the uses to which we put our arm may, any of them, suggest the actions to which we would summon our God in earnest prayer. The arm of the warrior bears the shield which protects his own body and those of weak and wounded friends lying at his feet; and we want such overshadowing protection against the fiery darts of the wicked. The arm is naturally outstretched to point the way to one who is ignorant and bewildered, and when we are perplexed as to doctrine or duty, we find it is not a vain thing to pray: Teach me Thy way, O Lord. What is needed now, as of old, is the realization and the manifestation of the presence of God in the Person of Christ, His Son; so that now there may come about a true revival of religion, a living, unshakable belief that God is amongst His people of a truth. If only He reveals Himself in and through His Church, sin will be conquered and the world redeemed.
2. The necessity for this prayer arises from the fact that the work which lies before us as Christian Churches cannot be done by human power.
II. GODS CALL UPON THE CHURCH. Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion, etc.. God never does for His people what they can do for themselves.
1. The Church is called upon to arouse from slumber--and whether it is the result of despondency, or of indolence, sleep must be shaken off.
2. The Church is also to endue herself with strength, to resume courage, and renew effort with a fresh sense of her responsibility.
3. But let us be thankful that there is room in Gods heart for quieter service. They who fail to put on strength, can at least put on the. beautiful garments of holiness; and although these should endue the most active worker, they can transform into a saintly witness the solitary sufferer.
4. The Church is summoned here to consecrate herself anew to God. She is represented as a female captive in degrading servitude, whose hour of deliverance has come, and who is to shake herself free from the bands which have held her, and rejoice in new found liberty. It is not only sin which holds the Church in bondage, but sometimes formalism and ceremonialism, and we must beware, lest, with our love for order, we become thereby crippled and hindered. Let us be ready to make any change of mode or organization, to cast off any prejudices, if they prevent successful whole-hearted service for our God, and let us regard this as a time for renewed consecration to Him, to whom we owe ourselves, our time, our all. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
The arm of the Lord invoked
I. EXPLAIN WHAT IT IS TO WHICH THE INVOCATION IS ADDRESSED. O arm of the Lord.
II. THE OBJECTS WHICH THIS INVOCATION INVOLVES. Awake, awake, etc. It is an earnest application on the part of the prophet, that God would come forth as He had done in former periods. We may refer to a number of great events, of which the people of old could scarcely form an idea. We remember what God did in the fulness of time when He sent His Son into the world to restore mankind. We remember what He did on the hill of Calvary. We remember what He did when He raised Him up from the dead, and set Him on His own right hand, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church. We remember what He did on the Pentecostal day, when He sent down His Holy Spirit. After allusion has thus been made to the former displays of the Divine power, there is an evident contrast as to what was the state of things in the prophets day. There seemed to be a suspension of this energy; the heritage of God was wasted, His truth was insulted, His worship was slighted, His requirements were contemned. And what is it we want? We want His power to accompany the preaching of the Word. It must be remembered that there is no manifestation of the Divine power so glorious as that which is seen in the extension of the Gospel, and its power on the souls of men.
III. THE ENCOURAGEMENTS WE HAVE TO BELIEVE THE INVOCATION SHALL BE FULFILLED.
1. Consider the care of God over the Church in past ages of the world.
2. From the character of God as the hearer and answerer of prayer.
3. From the nature of the promises recorded in the sacred pages. (J. Parsons.)
Prayer for national prosperity, and for the revival of religion, inseparably connected
I. THE IMPORT OF THIS PRAYER. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! In general such a petition as this suggests to us that our prayers for Divine interposition and deliverance from public calamities should be supremely directed to the glory of God. A just regard to the glory of God in our prayers implies the two following things:
1. That we expect deliverance from God alone, desire that it may be attended with such circumstances as His hand and power may be seen in it, and are willing to acknowledge Him as the supreme and only Author of it.
2. We ought also to pray for a dispensation of His grace and mercy that a revival of religion may accompany temporal relief.
(1) We have no warrant to ask the last of these without the first.
(2) We have no reason to expect that it will be separately bestowed.
(3) If it should, in any degree, it would not he a blessing but a curse.
II. THE ENCOURAGEMENT TO PRAYER. Awake as in the ancient days, as in the generations of old, etc. The prophet animates his faith, and encourages his own dependence, and that of others, upon the promises of God, by celebrating the greatness of His power, as manifested in former memorable deliverances granted to His chosen people. Consider the effect of such a view upon the mind, and its influence in prayer.
1. It satisfies us of the power of God, and His ability to save.
2. The same view serves to ascertain us of the mercy of God, and His readiness to help us in distress.
III. APPLY THE TRUTHS on this subject to our own present situation as to public affairs. Let us remember that we serve an unchangeable God. (J. Witherspoon, D.D.)
Christ the arm of God
Christ is here called the arm of the Lord. The arm of the Lord means God in action. The grand purposes of redemption, conceived in eternity, were dead thought, if lawful so to speak, in the mind of God, until they were revealed in Christ, the executor of the thoughts of the Godhead. Christ was ever called the Logos, the expression of Divinity. When the hand is spoken of in the Bible, it means the exact working of God in nature, providence and grace. The arm is that which sends the hand into action. The outstretched arm is the far-reaching power of God. By the right hand or arm of God we are to understand a more special and dazzling display of Gods power. In all instances the hand or arm of God means Christ. The prophet appeals to the past, Awake, as in the ancient days, etc. In the context he looks to the future and catches glimpses of the glory of the Advent, and he cries, It is the arm of God! The text is an invocation for Christ to come in the Advent. This arm of God is the revelation--
I. OF GODS GLORY.
II. OF HIS SAVING POWER. It is an arm that can reach everywhere. There is no height so high or depth so deep as to be beyond its reach to save.
III. A UNIVERSAL REVELATION OF GOD. It means the revealing of God in creation, in providence, in redemption, in the family in the closet, in the soul, in death, at the judgment, in eternity, where it will secure the eternal triumph of those whose faith will then merge into sight. Conclusion:
1. What are your relations to this arm of God? Has it been to you only an object of wonder as the bow in the clouds, or has it been an arm bared to the shoulder, entwined about you, filled with a vitality which it imparted to you as it defended and lifted you?
2. Have you thought what this arm hath wrought for you? How it suffered itself to De shorn of its strength that you might be strong!
3. Have you not thought of the final triumph of that arm? (N. Schenck, D.D.)
Thy strength! my strength
(with Isa_52:1):--
1. Everything seemed to have gone against the exile. Life had no longer for him a programme, but only a retrospect; no longer a radiant hope, but only a fading reminiscence; no longer an alluring vision, but only a distinguished history. Here he lay in captivity; the songs of Zion had fled from his lips, and his mouth was filled with wailing and complaint. The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Where is He that brought us up out of the sea with the Shepherd of His flock? Where is He that put His Holy Spirit within us? And now and again the exile half-turned himself in angry, hopeless cry, Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou,, wouldst come down! And again he relapsed into the low and cheerlees moan: My Lord hath forgotten me. And yet again he pierced the heaven with his searching supplication: Awake, awake, put on Thy strength, O arm of the Lord, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.
2. What will be the Lords reply to the cry of the exile? Here it is: Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion! The Divine response is a sharp retort. It is not thy God who sleepeth! It is thou thyself who art wrapt about in a sluggish and consuming indolence! Thou art crying out for more strength; but what of the strength thou hast? Thy trumpet is silent, and thine armour is rusting upon the walls! Thou art like a vagrant asking for help, when thou hast a full purse hidden between the covers of an idle bed! Thou art pleading for reinforcements, and thy soldiers are on the couch! Thy prayer is the supplication of a man who is not doing his best! Clothe thyself in thy present powers, consecrate thine all to the purpose of thy prayer, and stand forth in battle array. I need not say that there is nothing in the Lord s response which disparages the ministry of prayer. It does, however, tend to put prayer in its right place, and to give a true apprehension of its purpose and ministry. Prayer is not a talisman, to be used as an easy substitute for our activity and vigilance. Prayer is a ministry in which our own powers can be quickened into more vigorous and healthy service. God has given us certain endowments. Certain talents are part of our original equipment. We are possessed of powers of judgment, of initiative, of sympathy; and the primary implication of all successful prayer is that these powers are willingly placed upon the altar of sacrifice. Any prayer is idle when these powers are indolent. We too frequently pray to be carried like logs, and it is the Lords will that we should contend like men! The principle is this--our strength must back our supplications. Is the backing always present?
(1) Take the matter of our personal salvation. Every one is conscious how immature he is in the Divine life we know how dim is our spiritual discernment. We know how few and infrequent are our brilliant conquests, and how many and common are our shameful defeats. And again and again we supplicate the Almighty: Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Is it possible that the response of the Lord, may be the retort of the olden days: Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion? We are so prone to divide the old psalmists counsel, and to pay heed to one part and to ignore the other. Bring unto the Lord glory! And so we do! We bring our glorias, our doxologies, our hymns, and our anthems, and we do well, but it is a maimed and lifeless offering if, with the glory, we do not bring our strength. Bring unto the Lord glory and strength! It is in this lacking of strength in our personal religion that we are so woefully deficient. We need to bring to our religion more strength of common-sense--more inventiveness, more fertility of ideas, more purpose, more steady and methodical persistence. And we need to bring a more commanding strength of will. So many of us would like to be saints without becoming soldiers, and the desire can never be attained. Let me tell you a story. Two little girls in the same class, one at the top and, the other at the bottom. The one at the bottom consults the one at the top. How is it that you are always at the top of the class? Oh, I ask Jesus to help me! Then I will do the same, said the undistinguished member, and she forthwith put the counsel into practice. Next day their relative positions were unaltered, one at the top, and the other at the bottom. The consultation is renewed. I thought you said that Jesus would help me, and here I am at the bottom again! Well, so He will, but how long did you work? Oh, I never opened a book!
(2) Take the matter of the salvation of the home. We have interceded for our little ones at the throne of grace. Are we putting our strength into the salvation of the home? I do not know a better pattern of a home than Charles Kingsleys, but he brought his strength to its creation. It was a home whose moral atmosphere was like the air on Alpine heights, home in which, in all perplexities, the only referendum was the Lord Himself, a home all of whose ministries were clothed in grace and beauty. I shall never forget hearing a long conversation between two men, one of whom had inquired of the other the size of his family. I have ten, he said. What a responsibility! replied the other. To which there came at once the glad response: And what a privilege, for they are all workers on the side of God.
(3) There is the matter of social redemption. How often have we prayed for the city: Awake, awake, lint on strength, O arm of the Lord! And still, I think, there comes the Divine retort, Put on thy strength, O Zion! We abuse the privilege of prayer when we make it a minister of personal evasion and neglect. That is my message. There is no true prayer without a full consecration. (J. H. Jowett, M.A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_51:7-8. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, &c.
A CALL TO MORAL HEROISM
Isa_51:7-8. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, &c.
Read full note →
A beautiful description of God’s people. They know righteousness. His law is in their hand.
I. The people of God must expect to be assailed by reproaches and revilings. There is a perpetual antagonism between the Church and the world. Their spirit and aims are diametrically opposed. Light is not more opposed to darkness, truth to falsehood, love to hatred, the bitterness of gall to the sweetness of the honeycomb, than the spirit of the world is to the spirit engendered by real religion. Hence the violent hatred and opposition that have been maintained towards the righteous from age to age. You see it in individual cases. Cain hated Abel, and slew him. Haman hated Mordecai, and sought his destruction, &c. Thus it has been with communities. The heathen nations—Egypt, Philistia, Assyria, Babylon—persecuted the Jewish Church, and hated it in proportion as it was holy. The degenerate Jews abhorred the Christian Church. Not content with putting its Founder to death, they sought to destroy His servants. Live Christians are still objects of aversion to the world. For several reasons they are exposed to reproach and revilings:—
1. Because of the doctrines they believe. These embrace all that is peculiar and fundamental in the Gospel. Infidels mock at those who hold them as the victims of a miserable deception.
2. Because of the profession they make as Christ’s followers. Their obedience to His command to confess them before men is reviled as pride and vain glory; their exclusive adherence to the truths He has taught them, as bigotry; their earnestness in propagating them, as fanaticism.
3. The influence they exert. It renders the men of the world uncomfortable; and so they rail at the Christian’s separation from the world as austerity; his attachment to Christian ordinances as superstition.
II. Of the reproaches and revilings by which God’s people are assailed they are not to be afraid. By our text they are summoned to the exercise of moral courage. They are to show that courage is an essential element of Christian character (H. E. I. 1042–1045).
1. “Fear ye not,” for yours is a just cause.
2. “Fear ye not,” for God will strengthen you. Whatever the nature or amount of opposition you are called to endure, God will uphold you (H. E. I. 3667, 3668).
3. “Fear ye not,” for in meeting undeserved reproach you will have an inward approbation of conscience.
4. “Fear ye not,” for the endurance of such reproach will assimilate you to the tried and good. Think of the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs. Think, above all, of your Saviour.
5. “Fear ye not,” for such endurance will be rewarded in the final day. Then it will be seen that the power of the revilers, like the revilers themselves, was evanescent, while the salvation, of which those who have the courage to endure reproach are made partakers, shall endure for ever.—George Smith, D.D.
A PRAYER FOR THE FORTH-PUTTING OF DIVINE POWER
Isa_51:9. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.
The simplest exercise in which man can engage is also the sublimist. It is the exercise of prayer. Human helplessness may cast itself on Divine Omnipotence. Nothing is too insignificant to interest the Heavenly Father (H. E. I. 3756). There is ample instruction in His Word as to things respecting which petitions may be addressed to Him. Whatever He has there promised to His Church, may be included in her prayers. This idea animates the text. The prophecy proclaims the deliverance of the captive people, and then the triumphs of the Gospel in the latter days. Under the influence of these cheering announcements, God’s people are represented as breaking forth in the earnest entreaty of the text. It is the Church’s continual cry. We ask that the power of God’s Spirit may be exerted for the accomplishment of the great things He has taught us to expect. And such prayer is justified by several considerations.
I. BY THE FACT THAT THE EXERCISE OF THE POWER OF GOD’S SPIRIT IS NECESSARY.
As the deliverance from Babylon could only be effected by Divine power, so can only the spiritual deliverance of the world from the dominion of sin. It requires the removal of impediments, the opening of fields of labour, and the provision of suitable instruments for the work. In the case of the individual, it requires a change of heart, because of the depravity that characterises all mankind. When you remember the resisting power of the human will, and that its natural inclinations are adverse to the Divine supremacy, you will not deem the metaphors of Scripture, such as the new birth and the quickening of the dead, too strong to represent the change that must occur within the heart. It is a change to which nothing less than Divine power is equal (H. E. I. 4106–4113).
II. BY THE FACT THAT THAT POWER HAS BEEN EXERCISED.
“As in the ancient days, in the generations of old” (Isa_51:9-10). The wonders of Egypt and the Red Sea, which the Jews never wearied of reciting, could be pleaded when seeking new interpositions of the Divine hand. We can plead the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, when asking for an enlarged manifestation of the Spirit’s work; because that which occurred then was not a transaction complete in itself, but rather the beginning of a work. The resources of the Gospel under the ministry of Paul and others can be pleaded, when it came to the people “in power and the Holy Ghost.” There are instances in the history of modern missions equally significant. Times of revival of religion may be pleaded similarly. Perhaps our own experience as Christian labourers supplies us with ground of encouragement to intercede for a repetition and continuance of the usefulness with which we have been favoured.
III. BY THE FACT THAT IT IS PROMISED.
1. Let us establish the fact. The prophecy connected with the text, which emboldened its petition, involves the exertion of whatever power is necessary to its fulfilment. In this light all prophecies may be read. Therefore the prophecies which foretell the glory of the Church, when the Gentiles and the Jews shall be converted, imply such exertion of Divine power, as well as the full provision of all other means and influences tributory to the results predicted. How long shall the spectacle of moral desolation presented by the present state of the world continue? The answer is given in chap. Isa_32:15. Who is to accomplish that great work within the soul which is represented by an operation within the body which no surgery can ever perform? Answer: Eze_36:26. Jesus promised to baptize His Church with the Holy Ghost and fire. The dispensation of the Gospel is the ministration of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is in the Church and with the Church, and under the requisite conditions may be so to a much larger extent than has hitherto been experienced. The first fruits have been gathered. They are the promise of the harvest.
2. Let us see how the fact bears on the offering of prayer for the Spirit. If every promise is a warrant and directory of prayer, then, even were there nothing directly on the subject in the Bible, this would fall under that principle; it would become the duty of the Church to pray for it. But there is a constant reiteration of the truth that the power of God’s Spirit must be sought in prayer (Isa_62:6-7, &c.) After the great promise of the Spirit in Ezekiel, you have this statement: “I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.” “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The parable of the friend at midnight. The argument from the readiness of parents to give good things to their children. During the ten days of waiting for the power of the Holy Ghost, the disciples met daily for prayer. And then the Spirit came. Is not the history of the Church filled with illustrations of the truth that religion has flourished and extended largely as the Church has valued and sought the power of the Spirit?
Pray for the Spirit, therefore, to come on yourselves, on the Church, on the world. What will be the effect? More good accomplished. Personal influence deepened. Your own soul quickened.—J. Rawlinson.
This language is both natural and figurative. What more natural than that the Church, in times of trial, suffering, and yet expectation, should look upwards, and seek deliverance from Him who is “mighty to save?” The way in which the petition is urged is in no sense artificial, the “arm” of the Lord is invoked as the symbol of a powerful interposition.
I. A FACT: The Lord has a mighty arm. The Scriptures lend no countenance to the childish notion that the Creator is indifferent to His own handiwork, that He withdraws from all interference with the creation, with His intelligent subjects. Often mentioning the “right arm” of Jehovah, they presume that He is not only almighty, but accustomed to assert His authority and exercise His power.
II. A MEMORY: The Lord has been wont to interpose on behalf of His people. It was characteristic of the religion of the Hebrews that it was indissolubly connected with their national history. Their songs of praise recorded the signal interventions of Omnipotence on behalf of their forefathers; their prayers pleaded memorable instances of compassionate and effective interferences for their safety. They based their pious hopes, not only upon their convictions as to God’s attributes, but upon their recollections, and their national records of God’s doings. “We have heard with our ears … what great things Thou didst,” &c. It is well thus to recall the proofs of God’s power and pity which have in the past abounded towards mankind, and especially to base all our hopes and petitions upon His memorable redemption of mankind effected by Jesus Christ.
III. A PRAYER: Awake, awake! This does not suppose that God is indifferent to His people’s need and sore distress. But it presumes that the exercise of Divine mercy, and helpfulness, and protection, is, by His wisdom, made contingent upon our readiness to receive what the Lord is ever ready to bestow. He will be inquired of by His people. He is not like Baal, of whom the prophet Elijah tauntingly said, “Peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.” The sleepless eye of God is ever upon His people’s circumstances; the sleepless heart of God is ever conscious and sensitive with regard to His people’s needs. But He will answer those who honour Him. Call upon Him in the day of trouble and He will deliver. It is not faithlessness, but faith, that cries, “Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord, put on strength!”—The Homilectical Library, vol. ii. p. 69.
I. The arm of God is almighty. II. Prayer can move it. III. It is our privilege in every emergency to cry, “Awake,” &c. IV. There have been given to us great encouragements to believe that this appeal will not be made in vain: God’s care of His Church in past times; His unchangeableness; the promises recorded.—J. Lyth, D.D.: Homiletical Treasury, Part I. p. 70.
THE CRY OF THE CHURCH, AND ITS LORD’S RESPONSE
Isa_51:9. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Isa 51:9. - Isa 52:1.
Isaiah
THE AWAKENING OF ZION
Read full note →
Isa 51:9. - Isa 52:1.
Both these verses are, I think, to be regarded as spoken by one voice, that of the Servant of the Lord. His majestic figure, wrapped in a light veil of obscurity, fills the eye in all these later prophecies of Isaiah. It is sometimes clothed with divine power, sometimes girded with the towel of human weakness, sometimes appearing like the collective Israel, sometimes plainly a single person.
We have no difficulty in solving the riddle of the prophecy by the light of history. Our faith knows One who unites these diverse characteristics, being God and man, being the Saviour of the body, which is part of Himself and instinct with His life. If we may suppose that He speaks in both verses of the text, then, in the one, as priest and intercessor, He lifts the prayers of earth to heaven in His own holy hands-and in the other, as messenger and Word of God, He brings the answer and command of heaven to earth on His own authoritative lips-thus setting forth the deep mystery of His person and double office as mediator between man and God. But even if we put aside that thought, the correspondence and relation of the two passages remain the same. In any case they are intentionally parallel in form and connected in substance. The latter is the answer to the former. The cry of Zion is responded to by the call of God. The awaking of the arm of the Lord is followed by the awaking of the Church. He puts on strength in clothing us with His might, which becomes ours.
The mere juxtaposition of these verses suggests the point of view from which I wish to treat them on this occasion. I hope that the thoughts to which they lead may help to further that quickened earnestness and expectancy of blessing, without which Christian work is a toil and a failure.
We have here a common principle underlying both the clauses of our text, to which I must first briefly ask attention, namely-
I. The occurrence in the Church’s history of successive periods of energy and of languor.
It is freely admitted that such alternation is not the highest ideal of growth, either in the individual or in the community. Our Lord’s own parables set forth a more excellent way-the way of uninterrupted increase, whereof the type is the springing corn, which puts forth ‘first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear,’ and passes through all the stages from the tender green spikelets that gleam over the fields in the spring-tide to the yellow abundance of autumn, in one unbroken season of genial months. So would our growth be best, healthiest, happiest. So might our growth be, if the mysterious life in the seed met no checks. But, as a matter of fact, the Church has not thus grown. Rather at the best, its emblem is to be looked for, not in corn, but in the forest tree-the very rings in whose trunk tell of recurring seasons when the sap has risen at the call of spring, and sunk again before the frowns of winter. I have not to do now with the causes of this. These will fall to be considered presently. Nor am I saying that such a manner of growth is inevitable. I am only pointing out a fact, capable of easy verification and familiar to us all. Our years have had summer and winter. The evening and the morning have completed all the days since the first.
We all know it only too well. In our own hearts we have known such times, when some cold clinging mist wrapped us round and hid all the heaven of God’s love and the starry lights of His truth; when the visible was the only real, and He seemed far away and shadowy; when there was neither confidence in our belief, nor heat in our love, nor enthusiasm in our service; when the shackles of conventionalism bound our souls, and the fetters of the frost imprisoned all their springs. And we have seen a like palsy smite whole regions and ages of the Church of God, so that even the sensation of impotence was dead like all the rest, and the very tradition of spiritual power had faded away. I need not point to the signal historical examples of such times in the past. Remember England a hundred years ago-but what need to travel so far? May I venture to draw my example from nearer home, and ask, have we not been living in such an epoch? I beseech you, think whether the power which the Gospel preached by us wields on ourselves, on our churches, on the world, is what Christ meant it and fitted to exercise. Why, if we hold our own in respect to the material growth of our population, it is as much as we do. Where is the joyful buoyancy and expansive power with which the Gospel burst into the world? It looks like some stream that leaps from the hills, and at first hurries from cliff to cliff full of light and music, but flows slower and more sluggish as it advances, and at last almost stagnates in its flat marshes. Here we are with all our machinery, our culture, money, organisations-and the net result of it all at the year’s end is but a poor handful of ears. ‘Ye sow much and bring home little.’ Well may we take up the wail of the old Psalm, ‘We see not our signs. There is no more any prophet; neither is there any among us that knoweth how long-arise, O Lord, plead Thine own cause.’
If, then, there are such recurring seasons of languor, they must either go on deepening till sleep becomes death, or they must be broken by a new outburst of vigorous life. It would be better if we did not need the latter. The uninterrupted growth would be best; but if that has not been attained, then the ending of winter by spring, and the suppling of the dry branches, and the resumption of the arrested growth, is the next best, and the only alternative to rotting away.
And it is by such times that the Kingdom of Christ always has grown. Its history has been one of successive impulses gradually exhausted, as by friction and gravity, and mercifully repeated just at the moment when it was ceasing to advance and had begun to slide backwards. And in such a manner of progress, the Church’s history has been in full analogy with that of all other forms of human association and activity. It is not in religion alone that there are ‘revivals,’ to use the word of which some people have such a dread. You see analogous phenomena in the field of literature, arts, social and political life. In them all, there come times of awakened interest in long-neglected principles. Truths which for many years had been left to burn unheeded, save by a faithful few watchers of the beacon, flame up all at once as the guiding pillars of a nation’s march, and a whole people strike their tents and follow where they lead. A mysterious quickening thrills through society. A contagion of enthusiasm spreads like fire, fusing all hearts in one. The air is electric with change. Some great advance is secured at a stride; and before and after that supreme effort are years of comparative quiescence; those before being times of preparation, those after being times of fruition and exhaustion-but slow and languid compared with the joyous energy of that moment. One day may be as a thousand years in the history of a people, and a nation may be born in a day.
So also is the history of the Church. And thank God it is so, for if it had not been for the dawning of these times of refreshing, the steady operation of the Church’s worldliness would have killed it long ago.
Surely, dear brethren, we ought to desire such a merciful interruption of the sad continuity of our languor and decay. The surest sign of its coming would be a widespread desire and expectation of its coming, joined with a penitent consciousness of our heavy and sinful slumber. For we believe in a God who never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them, and in whose merciful providence every desire is a prophecy of its own fruition. This attitude of quickened anticipation, diffusing itself silently through many hearts, is like the light air that springs up before sunrise, or like the solemn hush that holds all nature listening before the voice of the Lord in the thunder.
And another sign of its approach is the extremity of the need. ‘If winter come, can spring be far behind?’ For He who is always with Zion strikes in with His help when the want is at its sorest. His ‘right early’ is often the latest moment before destruction. And though we are all apt to exaggerate the urgency of the hour and the severity of our conflict, it certainly does seem that, whether we regard the languor of the Church or the strength of our adversaries, succour delayed a little longer would be succour too late. ‘The tumult of those that rise up against Thee increaseth continually. It is time for Thee to work.’
The juxtaposition of these passages suggests for us-
II. The twofold explanation of these variations.
That bold metaphor of God’s sleeping and waking is often found in Scripture, and generally expresses the contrast between the long years of patient forbearance, during which evil things and evil men go on their rebellious road unchecked but by Love, and the dread moment when some throne of iniquity, some Babylon cemented by blood, is smitten to the dust. Such is the original application of the expression here. But the contrast may fairly be widened beyond that specific form of it, and taken to express any apparent variations in the forth-putting of His power. The prophet carefully avoids seeming to suggest that there are changes in God Himself. It is not He but His arm, that is to say. His active energy, that is invoked to awake. The captive Church prays that the dormant might which could so easily shiver her prison-house would flame forth into action.
We may, then, see here implied the cause of these alternations, of which we have been speaking, on its divine side, and then, in the corresponding verse addressed to the Church, the cause on the human side.
As to the former, it is true that God’s arm sometimes slumbers, and is not clothed with power. There are, as a fact, apparent variations in the energy with which He works in the Church and in the world. And they are real variations, not merely apparent. But we have to distinguish between the power, and what Paul calls ‘the might of the power.’ The one is final, constant, unchangeable. It does not necessarily follow that the other is. The rate of operation, so to speak, and the amount of energy actually brought into play may vary, though the force remains the same.
It is clear from experience that there are these variations; and the only question with which we are concerned is, are they mere arbitrary jets and spurts of a divine power, sometimes gushing out in full flood, sometimes trickling in painful drops, at the unknown will of the unseen hand which controls the flow? Is the ‘law of the Spirit of life’ at all revealed to us; or are the reasons occult, if there be any reasons at all other than a mere will that it shall be so? Surely, whilst we never can know all the depths of His counsels and all the solemn concourse of reasons which, to speak in man’s language, determine the energy of His manifested power, He has left us in no doubt that this is the weightiest part of the law which it follows-the might with which God works on the world through His Church varies according to the Church’s receptiveness and faithfulness.
Our second text tells us that if God’s arm seems to slumber and really does so, it is because Zion sleeps. In itself that immortal energy knows no variableness. ‘He fainteth not, neither is weary.’ ‘The Lord’s arm is not shortened that He cannot save.’ ‘He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.’ But He works through us; and we have the solemn and awful power of checking the might which would flow through us; of restraining and limiting the Holy One of Israel. It avails nothing that the ocean stretches shoreless to the horizon; a jar can hold only a jarful. The receiver’s capacity determines the amount received, and the receiver’s desire determines his capacity. The law has ever been, ‘according to your faith be it unto you.’ God gives as much as we will, as much as we can hold, as much as we use, and far more than we deserve. As long as we will bring our vessels the golden oil will flow, and after the last is filled, there yet remains more that we might have had, if we could have held it, and might have held if we would. ‘Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in yourselves.’
So, dear brethren, if we have to lament times of torpor and small success, let us be honest with ourselves, and recognise that all the blame lies with us. If God’s arm seems to slumber, it is because we are asleep. His power is invariable, and the Gospel which is committed to our trust has lost none of its ancient power, whatsoever men may say. If there be variations, they cannot be traced to the divine element in the Church, which in itself is constant, but altogether to the human, which shifts and fluctuates, as we only too sadly know. The light in the beacon-tower is steady, and the same; but the beam it throws across the waters sometimes fades to a speck, and sometimes flames out clear and far across the heaving waves, according to the position of the glasses and shades around it. The sun pours out heat as profusely and as long at midwinter as on midsummer-day, and all the difference between the frost and darkness and glowing brightness and flowering life, is simply owing to the earth’s place in its orbit and the angle at which the unalterable rays fall upon it. The changes are in the terrestrial sphere; the heavenly is fixed for ever the same.
May I not venture to point an earnest and solemn appeal with these truths? Has there not been poured over us the spirit of slumber? Does it not seem as if an opium sky had been raining soporifics on our heads? We have had but little experience of the might of God amongst us of late years, and we need not wonder at it. There is no occasion to look far for the reason. We have only to regard the low ebb to which religious life has been reduced amongst us to have it all and more than all accounted for. I fully admit that there has been plenty of activity, perhaps more than the amount of real life warrants, not a little liberality, and many virtues. But how languid and torpid the true Christian life has been! how little enthusiasm! how little depth of communion with God! how little unworldly elevation of soul! how little glow of love! An improvement in social position and circumstances, a freer blending with the national life, a full share of civic and political honours, a higher culture in our pulpits, fine chapels, and applauding congregations-are but poor substitutes for what many of us have lost in racing after them. We have the departed prophets’ mantle, the outward resemblance to the fathers who have gone, but their fiery zeal has passed to heaven with them; and softer, weaker men, we stand timidly on the river’s brink, invoking the Lord God of Elijah, and too often the flood that obeyed them has no ear for our feebler voice.
I speak to many who are in some sort representatives of the churches throughout the land, and they can tell whether my words are on the whole true or overstrained. We who labour in our great cities, what say we? If one of the number may speak for the rest, we have to acknowledge that commercial prosperity and business cares, the eagerness after pleasure and the exigencies of political strife, diffused doubt and widespread artistic and literary culture, are eating the very life out of thousands in our churches, and lowering their fervour till, like molten iron cooling in the air, what was once all glowing with ruddy heat is crusted over with foul black scoriae ever encroaching on the tiny central warmth. You from rural churches, what say you? Have you not to speak of deepening torpor settling down on quiet corners, of the passing away of grey heads which leave no successors, of growing difficulties and lessened power to meet them, that make you sometimes all but despair?
I am not flinging indiscriminate censures. I know that there are lights as well as shades in the picture. I am not flinging censures at all. But I am giving voice to the confessions of many hearts, that our consciousness of our blame may be deepened, and we may hasten back to that dear Lord whom we have left to serve alone, as His first disciples left Him once to agonise alone under the gnarled olives in Gethsemane, while they lay sleeping in the moonlight. Listen to His gentle rebuke, full of pain and surprised love, ‘What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?’ Listen to His warning call, loving as the kiss with which a mother wakes her child, ‘Arise, let us be going’-and let us shake the spirit of slumber from our limbs, and serve Him as those unsleeping spirits do, who rest not day nor night from vision and work and praise.
III. The beginning of all awaking is the Church’s earnest cry to God.
It is with us as with infants, the first sign of whose awaking is a cry. The mother’s quick ear hears it through all the household noises, and the poor little troubled life that woke to a scared consciousness of loneliness and darkness, is taken up into tender arms, and comforted and calmed. So, when we dimly perceive how torpid we have been, and start to find that we have lost our Father’s hand, the first instinct of that waking, which must needs be partly painful, is to call to Him, whose ear hears our feeble cry amid the sound of praise like the voice of many waters, that billows round His throne, and whose folding arms keep us ‘as one whom his mother comforteth.’ The beginning of all true awaking must needs be prayer.
For every such stirring of quickened religious life must needs have in it bitter penitence and pain at the discovery flashed upon us of the wretched deadness of our past-and, as we gaze like some wakened sleepwalker into the abyss where another step might have smashed us to atoms, a shuddering terror seizes us that must cry, ‘Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.’ And every such stirring of quickened life will have in it, too, desire for more of His grace, and confidence in His sure bestowal of it, which cannot but breathe itself in prayer.
Nor is Zion’s cry to God only the beginning and sign of all true awaking: it is also the condition and indispensable precursor of all perfecting of recovery from spiritual languor.
I have already pointed out the relation between the waking of God and the waking of His Church, from which that necessarily follows. God’s power flows into our weakness in the measure and on condition of our desires. We are sometimes told that we err in praying for the outpouring of His Holy Spirit, because ever since Pentecost His Church has had the gift. The objection alleges an unquestioned fact, but the conclusion drawn from it rests on an altogether false conception of the manner of that abiding gift. The Spirit of God, and the power which comes from Him, are not given as a purse of money might be put into a man’s hand once and for all, but they are given in a continuous impartation and communication and are received and retained moment by moment, according to the energy of our desires and the faithfulness of our use. As well might we say, Why should I ask for natural life, I received it half a century ago? Yes, and at every moment of that half-century I have continued to live, not because of a past gift, but because at each moment God is breathing into my nostrils the breath of life. So is it with the life which comes from His Spirit. It is maintained by constant efflux from the fountain of Life, by constant impartation of His quickening breath. And as He must continually impart, so must we continually receive, else we perish. Therefore, brethren, the first step towards awaking, and the condition of all true revival in our own souls and in our churches, is this earnest cry, ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord.
Thank God for the outpouring of a long unwonted spirit of prayer in many places. It is like the melting of the snows in the high Alps, at once the sign of spring and the cause of filling the stony river beds with flashing waters, that bring verdure and growth wherever they come. The winter has been long and hard. We have all to confess that we have been restraining prayer before God. Our work has been done with but little sense of our need of His blessing, with but little ardour of desire for His power. We have prayed lazily, scarcely believing that answers would come; we have not watched for the reply, but have been like some heartless marksman who draws his bow and does not care to look whether his arrow strikes the target. These mechanical words, these conventional petitions, these syllables winged by no real desire, inspired by no faith, these expressions of devotion, far too wide for their real contents, which rattle in them like a dried kernel in a nut, are these prayers? Is there any wonder that they have been dispersed in empty air, and that we have been put to shame before our enemies? Brethren in the ministry, do we need to be surprised at our fruitless work, when we think of our prayerless studies and of our faithless prayers? Let us remember that solemn word, ‘The pastors have become brutish, and have not sought the Lord, therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.’ And let us all, brethren, betake ourselves, with penitence and lowly consciousness of our sore need, to prayer, earnest and importunate, believing and persistent, like this heaven-piercing cry which captive Israel sent up from her weary bondage.
Look at the passionate earnestness of it-expressed in the short, sharp cry, thrice repeated, as from one in mortal need; and see to it that our drowsy prayers be like it. Look at the grand confidence with which it founds itself on the past, recounting the mighty deeds of ancient days, and looking back, not for despair but for joyful confidence, to the generations of old; and let our faint-hearted faith be quickened by the example, to expect great things of God. The age of miracles is not gone. The mightiest manifestations of God’s power in the spread of the Gospel in the past remain as patterns for His future. We have not to look back as from low-lying plains to the blue peaks on the horizon, across which the Church’s path once lay, and sigh over the changed conditions of the journey. The highest watermark that the river in flood has ever reached will be reached and overpassed again, though to-day the waters may seem to have hopelessly subsided. Greater triumphs and deliverances shall crown the future than have signalised the past. Let our faithful prayer base itself on the prophecies of history and on the unchangeableness of God.
Think, brethren, of the prayers of Christ. Even He, whose spirit needed not to be purged from stains or calmed from excitement, who was ever in His Father’s house whilst He was about His Father’s business, blending in one, action and contemplation, had need to pray. The moments of His life thus marked are very significant. When He began His ministry, the close of the first day of toil and wonders saw Him, far from gratitude and from want, in a desert place in prayer. When He would send forth His apostles, that great step in advance, in which lay the germ of so much, was preceded by solitary prayer. When the fickle crowd desired to make Him the centre of political revolution, He passed from their hands and beat back that earliest attempt to secularise His work, by prayer. When the seventy brought the first tidings of mighty works done in His name, He showed us how to repel the dangers of success, in that He thanked the Lord of heaven and earth who had revealed these things to babes. When He stood by the grave of Lazarus, the voice that waked the dead was preceded by the voice of prayer, as it ever must be. When He had said all that He could say to His disciples, He crowned all with His wonderful prayer for Himself, for them, and for us all. When the horror of great darkness fell upon His soul, the growing agony is marked by His more fervent prayer, so wondrously compact of shrinking fear and filial submission. When the cross was hid in the darkness of eclipse, the only words from the gloom were words of prayer. When, Godlike, He dismissed His spirit, manlike He commended it to His Father, and sent the prayer from His dying lips before Him to herald His coming into the unseen world. One instance remains, even more to our present purpose than all these-’It came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him.’ Mighty mystery! In Him, too, the Son’s desire is connected with the Father’s gift, and the unmeasured possession of the Spirit was an answer to His prayer.
Then, brethren, let us lift our voices and our hearts. That which ascends as prayer descends as blessing, like the vapour that is drawn up by the kiss of the sun to fall in freshening rain. ‘Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and hidden things which thou knowest not.’
IV. The answering call from God to Zion.
Our truest prayers are but the echo of God’s promises. God’s best answers are the echo of our prayers. As in two mirrors set opposite to each other, the same image is repeated over and over again, the reflection of a reflection, so here, within the prayer, gleams an earlier promise, within the answer is mirrored the prayer.
And in that reverberation, and giving back to us our petition transformed into a command, we are not to see a dismissal of it as if we had misapprehended our true want. It is not tantamount to, Do not ask me to put on my strength, but array yourselves in your own. The very opposite interpretation is the true one. The prayer of Zion is heard and answered. God awakes, and clothes Himself with might. Then, as some warrior king, himself roused from sleep and girded with flashing steel, bids the clarion sound through the grey twilight to summon the prostrate ranks that lie round his tent, so the sign of God’s awaking and the first act of His conquering might is this trumpet call-’The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us put off the works of darkness,’-the night gear that was fit for slumber-’and put on the armour of light,’ the mail of purity that gleams and glitters even in the dim dawn. God’s awaking is our awaking. He puts on strength by making us strong; for His arm works through us, clothing itself, as it were, with our arm of flesh, and perfecting itself even in our weakness.
Nor is it to be forgotten that this, like all God’s commands, carries in its heart a promise. That earliest word of God’s is the type of all His latter behests: ‘Let there be light,’ and the mighty syllables were creative and self-fulfilling. So ever, with Him, to enjoin and to bestow are one and the same, and His command is His conveyance of power. He rouses us by His summons, He clothes us with power in the very act of bidding us put it on. So He answers the Church’s cry by stimulating us to quickened zeal, and making us more conscious of, and confident in, the strength which, in answer to our cry, He pours into our limbs.
But the main point which I would insist on in what remains of this sermon, is the practical discipline which this divine summons requires from us.
And first, let us remember that the chief means of quickened life and strength is deepened communion with Christ.
As we have been saying, our strength is ours by continual derivation from Him. It has no independent existence, any more than a sunbeam could have, severed from the sun. It is ours only in the sense that it flows through us, as a river through the land which it enriches. It is His whilst it is ours, it is ours when we know it to be His. Then, clearly, the first thing to do must be to keep the channels free by which it flows into our souls, and to maintain the connection with the great Fountainhead unimpaired. Put a dam across the stream, and the effect will be like the drying up of Jordan before Israel: ‘the waters that were above rose up upon an heap, and the waters that were beneath failed and were cut off,’ and the foul oozy bed was disclosed to the light of day. It is only by constant contact with Christ that we have any strength to put on.
That communion with Him is no mere idle or passive attitude, but the active employment of our whole nature with His truth, and with Him whom the truth reveals. The understanding must be brought into contact with the principles of His word, the heart must touch and beat against His heart, the will meekly lay its hand in His, the conscience draw at once its anodyne and its stimulus from His sacrifice, the passions know His finger on the reins, and follow, led in the silken leash of love. Then, if I may so say, Elisha’s miracle will be repeated in nobler form, and from Himself, the Life thus touching all our being, life will flow into our deadness. ‘He put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.’ So, dear brethren, all our practical duty is summed up in that one word, the measure of our obedience to which is the measure of all our strength-’Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.’
Again, this summons calls us to the faithful use of the power which, on condition of that communion, we have.
There is no doubt a temptation, in all times like the present, to look for some new and extraordinary forms of blessing, and to substitute such expectation for present work with our present strength. There is nothing new to look for. There is no need to wait for anything more than we possess. Remember the homely old proverb, ‘You never know what you can do till you try,’ and though we are conscious of much unfitness, and would sometimes gladly wait till our limbs are stronger, let us brace ourselves for the work, assured that in it strength will be given to us that equals our desire. There is a wonderful power in honest work to develop latent energies and reveal a man to himself. I suppose, in most cases, no one is half so much surprised at a great man’s greatest deeds as he is himself. They say that there is dormant electric energy enough in a few raindrops to make a thunderstorm, and there is dormant spiritual force enough in the weakest of us to flash into beneficent light, and peal notes of awaking into many a deaf ear. The effort to serve your Lord will reveal to you strength that you know not. And it will increase the strength which it brings into play, as the used muscles grow like whipcord, and the practised fingers become deft at their task, and every faculty employed is increased, and every gift wrapped in a napkin melts like ice folded in a cloth, according to that solemn law, ‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’
Then be sure that to its last particle you are using the strength you have, ere you complain of not having enough for your tasks. Take heed of the vagrant expectations that wait for they know not what, and the apparent prayers that are really substitutes for possible service. ‘Why liest thou on thy face? Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.’
The Church’s resources are sufficient for the Church’s work, if the resources are used. We are tempted to doubt it, by reason of our experience of failure and our consciousness of weakness. We are more than ever tempted to doubt it to-day, when so many wise men are telling us that our Christ is a phantom, our God a stream of tendency, our Gospel a decaying error, our hope for the world a dream, and our work in the world done. We stand before our Master with doubtful hearts, and, as we look along the ranks sitting there on the green grass, and then at the poor provisions which make all our store, we are sometimes tempted almost to think that He errs when He says with that strange calmness of His, ‘They need not depart, give ye them to eat.’ But go out among the crowds and give confidently what you have, and you will find that you have enough and to spare. If ever our stores seem inadequate, it is because they are reckoned up by sense, which takes cognizance of the visible, instead of by faith which beholds the real. Certainly five loaves and two small fishes are not enough, but are not five loaves and two small fishes and a miracle-working hand behind them, enough? It is poor calculation that leaves out Christ from the estimate of our forces. The weakest man and Jesus to back him are more than all antagonism, more than sufficient for all duty. Be not seduced into doubt of your power, or of your success, by others’ sneers, or by your own faint-heartedness. The confidence of ability is ability. ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place,’ and you will not fail-and see to it that you use the resources you have, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. ‘Put on thy strength, O Zion.’
So, dear brethren, to gather all up in a sentence, let us confidently look for times of blessing, penitently acknowledge that our own faithlessness has hindered the arm of the Lord, earnestly beseech Him to come in His rejoicing strength, and, drawing ever fresh power from constant communion with our dear Lord, use it to its last drop for Him. Then, like the mortal leader of Israel, as he pondered doubtingly with sunken eyes on the hard task before his untrained host, we shall look up and be aware of the presence of the sworded angel, the immortal Captain of the host of the Lord, standing ready to save, ‘putting on righteousness as a breastplate, an helmet of salvation on His head, and clad with zeal as a cloak.’ From His lips, which give what they command, comes the call, ‘Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.’ Hearkening to His voice, the city of the strong ones shall be made an heap before our wondering ranks, and the land shall lie open to our conquering march.
Wheresoever we lift up the cry, ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord,’ there follows, swift as the thunderclap on the lightning flash, the rousing summons, ‘Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem!’ Wheresoever it is obeyed there will follow in due time the joyful chorus, as in this context, ‘Sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; the Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Art thou not
Art thou not
The ref. is to Egypt Isa 30:7 at the Exodus:
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, arm of Yahweh
Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, arm of Yahweh
People urgently ask Yahweh's arm to help them as if his arm were a person. If it would be odd to speak to the arm, this can be addressed directly to Yahweh instead. AT: "Awake, awake, Yahweh, and clothe your arm with strength" (See: Personification)
Read full note →
Awake, awake ... arm of Yahweh
People speak as if Yahweh's arm were asleep because it has not been helping them. Here the "arm of Yahweh" represents Yahweh, specifically him helping people. The word "Awake" is repeated to show that they need God's help urgently. (See: Synecdoche and Personification)
clothe yourself with strength
Strength is spoken of as if it were some kind of clothing that people would wear to strengthen themselves in battle. AT: "make yourself strong" (See: Metaphor)
Is it not you who crushed Rahab, you who pierced the monster?
The speaker uses a question to emphasize Yahweh's power to do mighty things. AT: "It is you who crushed Rahab, you who pierced the monster." (See: Rhetorical Question)
Rahab ... the monster
Rahab was the name of this mythological serpent in the sea. Rahab can symbolize either the nation of Egypt or evil and chaos. (See: Parallelism)
Did you not dry up the sea ... for the redeemed to pass through?
Again, the speaker uses questions to emphasize Yahweh's power to do mighty things. This refers to Yahweh opening the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross and escape the army of Egypt. AT: "You dried up the sea ... for the redeemed to pass through." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
Yahweh
generation
water
redeem
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 51:9-10 Wake up, wake up: God does not sleep;…
51:9-10 Wake up, wake up: God does not sleep; this prayer is for God to act immediately to save his people (see 52:1; see especially God’s military garb in 59:17). • in the days of old: The exodus from Egypt was an act of redemption that displayed God’s power as he made a path of escape (51:10) for his people (see also 11:15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.