1For Zion’s sake I will not be still,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet,
till her triumph emerges like radiance
and her deliverance burns like a torch,
2and nations see your triumph
and all kings, your glory.
And you shall be called a new name
that the mouth of the LORD shall fix.
3And you shall become a crown of splendor in the hand of the LORD
and a regal diadem in the palm of your God.
4No more shall be said of you “Forsaken”
and of your land no more be said “Desolation.”
For you shall be called “My Delight Is in Her”
and your land, “The One Bedded.”
For the LORD delights in you
and your land shall be bedded.
5As a young man beds a virgin,
and a bridegroom’s rejoicing over the bride
shall your God rejoice over you.
6On your walls, O Jerusalem,
Through the day and through the night,
they are never still.
You invokers of the LORD,
do not fall silent,
7and do not let Him fall silent
till He sets Jerusalem firm, praise in the earth.
8The LORD has vowed by His right hand
and by His powerful arm:
I will no more give your grain
to your enemies as food,
and foreigners shall not drink your new wine
over which you toiled.
9But those who garner it shall eat it,
and they shall praise the LORD,
and those who gather it shall drink it
in My holy courts.
10Pass through, pass through the gates,
clear the people’s way.
Build up, build up the highway,
clear away the stones,
raise a banner over peoples.
11Look, the LORD has made it heard
to the end of the earth:
look, your rescue comes.
Look, His recompense is with Him,
and His wages are before Him.
12And they shall call them “Holy People,”
“The Redeemed Ones of the LORD.”
And you shall be called “The One Sought Out,”
“The City Unforsaken.”
CHAPTER 62 NOTES
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2. And you shall be called a new name. In the biblical world, as in many other cultures, the name was conceived as incorporating the essence of the person or object. The most striking illustration of this notion is Jacob’s wrestling with the mysterious stranger in Genesis 32. He is given a new name, Israel, instead of his old one (“Jacob” is etymologically associated with crookedness or deception), while the stranger refuses to reveal his own name, saying it is a mystery. The prophet of these chapters is particularly preoccupied with changing names: Israel’s disastrous destiny is about to be transformed into triumph, and the poetry marks this transformation by assigning a cluster of new names.
4. My Delight Is in Her. A transliterated version of the Hebrew for this name, Hephzibah, at one time had some currency among Bible-reading speakers of English.
The One Bedded. Again, the transliteration, Beulah, became an English name. Most translations render it as “espoused,” but that is too formal and too decorous. This passive form of the verb baʿal does indicate a woman who has a husband (the noun baʿal), but it has a sexual connotation: Zion, the woman who has been forsaken, will now enjoy consummation again. The sexual implication of the term is clearly suggested in verse 5: “and a bridegroom’s rejoicing over the bride / shall your God rejoice over you.”
5. your sons shall bed you. This sounds inadvertently like incest (in the next line of poetry, it is rather God’s relationship with Israel that is analogous to the bridegroom’s relationship with the bride), but the intended idea is that the desolate land, personified as a woman, will be plowed and cultivated by its sons, as a young man is intimate with a virgin and makes her fruitful.
6. watchmen. Some take this to be a figure for the prophet and his disciples, but they may well be literal watchmen.
9. those who gather it shall drink it / in My holy courts. The point of this verse and the preceding one is not only that the people will no longer have the fruit of their agricultural labors stripped from them by invaders, but also that they will bring their grain and wine to celebrate God in His Temple. This is a sentiment very much in keeping with many of the Psalms.
10. Build up, build up the highway. This, like several other lines in the poetry of this prophet, is a pointed variation on the language of Second Isaiah (especially 40:3–4).
11. Say to Zion’s Daughter. These are the words grandly confirming the restoration of Zion that God is about to proclaim throughout the earth.
His recompense . . . / His wages. That is to say, God carries with Him the recompense He will now give to Israel.
12. And they shall call them “Holy People.” In the fervor of this vision, all the nations of the earth are caught up in this movement of assigning new names to the people of Israel because they see and attest to its splendid transformation.