Isaiah 51

Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the LORD’s hand the cup of his wrath. You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it. Wesley: Awake—Heb. Rouse up thyself: come out of that forlorn condition in which thou hast so long been. Stand up—Upon thy feet, O thou who hast been thrown to the ground. Drunk—Who hast been sorely afflicted. The cup—Which strikes him that drinks it with deadly horror. And wrung—Drunk every drop of it.

The wake is a serious summons, not a feint; Jerusalem has already drunk every drop of the cup. Judah first, then gospel: the same city that drank will be told the cup is taken (vv. 22–23). Compare 51:9: the arm asked to awake is now the city told to wake. The cup here is Jerusalem’s own staggering under judgment; the verse is a wake-up call to a people who have already drunk it, not a picture of the Servant’s suffering. Wesley does not go there.

Calvin: the Church, though afflicted and tossed in various ways, will nevertheless be set up again; by Awake he recalls her, as it were, from death and the grave. Who hast drunk from the hand of Jehovah the cup of his wrath: there are two senses of that cup—giddiness that deranges the intellect, or the sharp and heavy punishments by which the Lord severely chastises his people. This is evidently the meaning here, as appears from the pronoun His. Whenever it relates to the elect, this term cup serves to express the moderation of the divine judgment; that the Lord, though he punish his people severely, still observes a limit. Dregs denote complete and righteous punishment, to which the Lord has been pleased to assign a limit, not the cup by which the reprobate are choked. No one can rise up till he first acknowledge that he has fallen; there can be no room for consolations till they have been preceded by the doctrine of repentance.

Jerusalem's cup, then the Church's measured chastisement. Awake; the cup from his hand; dregs pressed out. Do not force Isa 53 onto this cup; Calvin treats it as the elect's limited potion, not as Christ drinking wrath. The hand that assigned the measure also limits it.

There is no one to guide her among all the sons to whom she has given birth; and there is no one who takes her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up. Wesley: None to guide—When thou wast drunk with this cup, and not able to go.

The sons cannot lead because the mother is still staggering—incapacity, not a later-age chart. Both agree: none to guide; none to take her hand; sons she bore and brought up. Recall 51:17: she has wrung the cup; that is why she cannot walk. Gospel still waits in vv. 22–23, when the cup is taken. The point is the drunk city with no guide. Do not force Isa 53 here; Wesley does not.

There is no one to guide her. Calvin: the sorest calamity of the Church is that she receives no sympathy or consolation from her own children. Although forsaken by those whom she nourished in her bosom, she shall receive assistance from God. His discourse pronounces those children who have rendered no assistance to their mother to be bastards and reprobates, that she may bear the loss of them more patiently; she ought to desire additional offspring. Many boast of being the children of the Church; but where is the man that cares about his mother's distresses? God shall drive them out, in order to make way for the increase of his Church by lawful and dutiful children.

Desertion first, then the Church not left to bastards. Agreed: none to guide; none to take the hand. Calvin's reprobate children are not a sneer at Wesley's drunk-and-unable; both leave the mother without human help so that God must raise her. No son took Jerusalem by the hand, yet the Church is not abandoned because her own children failed her; the LORD himself takes the cup away in v. 22.

These two things have happened to you— who will grieve with you?— desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword. How can I comfort you? Wesley: These things—Those which follow, which tho' expressed in four words, may fitly be reduced to two things, the desolation or devastation of the land, and the destruction of the people by famine and sword. So famine and sword are not named as new evils, but only as the particular ways of bringing the destruction. By whom—I cannot find any man who is able to comfort and relieve thee.

Four words, two blows—land laid waste, people destroyed—and no man to comfort. Both hear: two things; desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword. How can I comfort? Compare 51:3: the LORD comforts Zion when no man can. Those who stay uncomforted do not stay because no comfort was promised, but because they will not hear vv. 21–23.

These two things have happened to thee. Calvin: nearly the same thing was asserted concerning Babylon, but here Isaiah promises to the Church that there shall eventually be a different issue; the Lord will rescue her from the deepest abyss. Two very sore evils: from without she shall endure very heavy calamities, and from within shall obtain no aid or sympathy from her own children. Desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword: both by the devastations of war and by famine they will be brought to the verge of destruction and desolation, which he describes by these four classes; and another internal, because she is deprived of consolation. By putting the question, Who shall bewail her? He affirms that she shall have no consolation from men.

Babylon's two things kill; Zion's two things are not the last word. Both see: two things; four classes; no human comforter. Compare 51:12: I, I am he who comforts you. The point is the different issue God promises the Church.

Your sons have fainted. They lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the LORD’s wrath, the rebuke of your God. Wesley: Fainted—They are so far from being able to comfort thee, that they themselves faint away. They lie—Dead by famine or the sword. As a bull—Those of them who are not slain are struggling for life.

The sons who might have guided v. 18 are themselves down—dead or netted, full of the same fury. Undisputed: sons fainted; head of the streets; caught in a net; full of the LORD's wrath; rebuke of God. Recall v. 19: no man to comfort, because the comforters have fainted. The point is the cup still in her hand until v. 22.

Thy sons have fainted. Calvin: a mother cannot be visited with any grief more bitter than to have her children slain before her eyes, and not one or two of them, but so great a number as to fill the roads with the slaughter. As a wild bull in a net: even the strongest of them have, as it were, been caught in snares. Full of the indignation of Jehovah: none of these events are accidental, lest they should suppose that any of them has happened by chance, or lest they should accuse the Lord of cruelty for having punished them severely; because his judgment is just and righteous. Believers ought not to throw away the hope of grace, though innumerable calamities prompt and urge them to despair.

“Streets”—just wrath, not chance; hope not thrown away. Sons down; netted; full of wrath. The sons lying faint at the street corners are still the people the Servant is given for. The indignation is his and just.

Therefore now hear this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine. Wesley: Not with wine—But with the cup of God's fury.

The therefore is an address to the afflicted—drunk with fury, not with wine, and now told to hear. No dispute here: hear; afflicted; drunk not with wine. Jerusalem still holding the cup, about to be told it is taken. Compare vv. 17–20: every drop, no guide, two things, sons netted. The gospel of vv. 22–23 is spoken to this drunk city. Those who will not hear do not fail to hear because no word was sent.

Calvin: he now shews more plainly why he spoke of the calamities of the Church: that believers might be fully persuaded that they would obtain consolation from God, though reduced to the extremity of distress. Why does he call the Church wretched, since nothing is more happy than to be God's people? She is apparently wretched; he helps the wretched and succors the destitute. Drunken, not with wine: believers never endure so patiently the chastisements inflicted on them as not to be sometimes stupified; but, although stupified, they ought to remember that the Lord punishes them justly, and ought to believe that the Lord will assist them. He does not speak to robust or healthy men, but to those who are feeble, wretched, prostrate; he preserves a limit, by which he restrains the violence even of the greatest afflictions, and restores her when ruined, as if he were raising from the dead a rotten corpse.

Apparently wretched, not finally; a limit even here. Hear; afflicted; drunk not with wine. Calvin's raising-from-the-dead is the same wake Wesley heard in v. 17, not a second gospel. Compare 51:9–11: the arm that cut Rahab still restores.

Thus says your Lord GOD, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more. Wesley: That pleadeth—Who, tho' he has fought against thee, is now reconciled to thee, and will maintain thy cause against all thine adversaries.

The God who fought her is now reconciled—the cup actually taken, not a feint; she shall drink it no more. Lord; LORD; pleads the cause of his people; cup taken; drink no more. Wesley reads the taking away of the cup as reconciliation after the quarrel: the God who pleads his people’s cause ends the wrath they had earned.

The LORD speaks. Calvin: not at random does he add three epithets—that he is the Lord or Defender of his Church, that he is God, and lastly that he is her Avenger. He addresses us in a familiar manner, having once chosen us to be his people by an everlasting covenant; the same argument applies to a new people, who have been taken under God's care not less than they. It is only by temporary stripes that the Lord chastises his Church. The wrath of the Lord will be appeased, so that he will restrain and bring to a close the chastisements which he had formerly inflicted. The cup of trembling: God calls it the cup of his indignation, though it had made the Church to tremble. By dregs he means the full measure of vengeance with which God is satisfied on account of his fatherly kindness.

Temporary stripes, fatherly dregs, wrath closed. He pleads; the cup taken; no more drinking. Recall 51:16: You are my people—the Avenger speaks to that Zion. Shared christology: both camps hear God for his people after the cup; neither commentator here sets Isa 53's atonement on this verse.

I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may walk over you; and you have laid your back as the ground, like a street to those who walk over. Wesley: Go over—That we may trample upon thee.

The same cup wrung by Jerusalem is put into the tormentors' hand—oppressors who trampled her, then gospel justice. Both affirm: cup put into their hand; bow down; pass over; back like the ground and the street. Compare vv. 17 and 22: she drank; now they drink. Compare 51:13: where is the wrath of the oppressor? Here it is answered. Do not force Isa 53 atonement onto this range; Wesley does not send the cup to Christ but to them that afflict thee. The point is the cup moved.

The cup passes into the hand of thy oppressors. Calvin: another part of the consolation: the Lord will not only deliver the Church from those heavy distresses, but will also lay upon her enemies the calamities with which she is afflicted. As Paul says, it is righteous with God to render tribulation to them that trouble you, and to you who are troubled rest, when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven. Thus the temporary punishments which God inflicts on them are the beginnings of that eternal punishment to which they shall be finally condemned. Who said to thy soul, Bow down: impiety is always accompanied by pride and cruelty; they who are ignorant of God please themselves and pour out unmeasured reproaches against God and those who truly worship him. David says the Church resembles a field cut and broken up by the plough.

The Church's cup becomes the oppressor's, and their temporal blows begin an eternal sentence. Where they meet: cup given to tormentors; bow down; pass over. The cup passes to the tormentors who said, “Bow down, that we may walk over you”; the people once trampled are the same people the Servant is sent to gather. Both hear the cup leave her hand.