Biblion Bible Commentary
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You Will Be Called by a New Name
Isaiah 62:1-12
1 For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning lamp. · WEB
Watchmen are posted to give God no rest, and a city called Forsaken is renamed for someone's delight in it.
For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her righteousness shines out like the dawn Isaiah 62:1.
The speaker is not identified and the commitment is to keep talking. Whoever it is, silence is refused until something visible happens.
You will be called by a new name, which Yahweh's mouth will name Isaiah 62:2.
You will also be a crown of beauty in Yahweh's hand, and a royal diadem in your God's hand Isaiah 62:3.
The crown is in his hand rather than on his head, which is where a man holds something he is looking at.
You will not be called Forsaken any more, nor will your land be called Desolate any more; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for Yahweh delights in you Isaiah 62:4.
The two new names mean my delight is in her and married. The old ones were accurate — the city had been forsaken and the land had been desolate — and the renaming is not a denial of the history but a change in the fact.
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you Isaiah 62:5.
I have set watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem. They will never be silent day nor night. You who call on Yahweh, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes, and until he makes Jerusalem a praise on the earth Isaiah 62:6–7.
The most startling instruction about prayer in the book. Watchmen are posted whose duty is not to watch for enemies but to pray, continuously, and the phrase is give him no rest.
The boldness is licensed by the promises it is asking about. What the watchmen are pressing for is what God has just said he intends, and the persistence is a kind of agreement rather than an imposition — which is how the parable of the widow and the judge uses the same idea Luke 18:7.
Surely I will no more give your grain to be food for your enemies... but those who have harvested it will eat it Isaiah 62:8–9.
The reversal of the curse Deuteronomy 28:33, and it is the most concrete promise in the chapter: you will eat what you grew.
Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way of the people! Build up, build up the highway! Gather out the stones! Isaiah 62:10.
The highway of chapter forty, and the work has become specific. Somebody has to pick the stones out of the road, which is the least visionary task in the book.
You will be called "Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken" Isaiah 62:12.
settled What this mark means