Isaiah

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Chapter 52

1 Wake up! Wake up! Clothe yourself with strength, O Zion! Put on your beautiful clothes, O Jerusalem, holy city.⁠ For uncircumcised and unclean pagans will no longer invade you. 2 Shake off the dirt! Get up, captive Jerusalem.⁠ Take off the iron chains around your neck, O captive daughter Zion.⁠ 3 For this is what the Lord says: “You were sold for nothing, and you will not be redeemed for money.” 4 For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “In the beginning my people went to live temporarily in Egypt; Assyria oppressed them for no good reason. 5 And now, what do we have here?” says the Lord. “Indeed my people have been carried away for nothing, those who rule over them taunt,” says the Lord, “and my name is constantly slandered all day long. 6 For this reason my people will know my name; for this reason they will know at that time that I am the one who says, ‘Here I am.’” 7 How delightful it is to see approaching over the mountains the feet of a messenger who announces peace,⁠ a messenger who brings good news,⁠ who announces deliverance, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”⁠ 8 Listen, your watchmen shout; in unison they shout for joy, for they see with their very own eyes the Lord’s return to Zion. 9 In unison give a joyful shout, O ruins of Jerusalem! For the Lord consoles his people; he protects Jerusalem. 10 The Lord reveals his royal power in the sight of all the nations; the entire earth sees our God deliver. 11 Leave! Leave! Get out of there! Don’t touch anything unclean! Get out of it! Stay pure, you who carry the Lord’s holy items.⁠ 12 Yet do not depart quickly or leave in a panic.⁠ For the Lord goes before you; the God of Israel is your rear guard. 13 Look, my servant will act wisely!²⁰ He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted—⁠ 14 (just as many were horrified by the sight of you) he was so disfigured he no longer looked like a man; his form was so marred he no longer looked human— 15 so now he will startle many nations. Kings will be shocked by his exaltation, for they will witness something unannounced to them, and they will understand something they had not heard about.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 52:11 and Lamentations 4:15

Hebrew Bible

Summary

Lamentations portrays the priests and prophets as ritually polluted, driven out as unclean and rejected by the nations. Isaiah reuses this language but turns it around, telling the exiles to leave and not touch what is unclean.

Passages

Isaiah 52:11

Hebrew Bible

9 In unison give a joyful shout, O ruins of Jerusalem! For the Lord consoles his people; he protects Jerusalem. 10 The Lord reveals his royal power in the sight of all the nations; the entire earth sees our God deliver. 11 Leave! Leave! Get out of there! Don’t touch anything unclean! Get out of it! Stay pure, you who carry the Lord’s holy items. 12 Yet do not depart quickly or leave in a panic. For the Lord goes before you; the God of Israel is your rear guard. 13 Look, my servant will act wisely!²⁰ He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted—

740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Lamentations 4:15

Hebrew Bible

13 מ (Mem) But it happened due to the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who poured out in her midst the blood of the righteous. 14 נ (Nun) They wander blindly through the streets, defiled by the blood they shed, while no one dares to touch their garments. 15 ס (Samek) People cry to them, “Turn away! You are unclean! Turn away! Turn away! Don’t touch us!” So they have fled and wander about; but the nations say, “They may not stay here any longer.” 16 פ (Pe) The Lord himself has scattered them; he no longer watches over them. They did not honor the priests; they did not show favor to the elders. 17 ע (Ayin) Our eyes continually failed us as we looked in vain for help. From our watchtowers we watched for a nation that could not rescue us.

500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Lamentations

References

"... Willey uses a philological method to determine conclusively that Isaiah 52:11 is an allusion to Lamentations 4:13. She notes that the imperatives (depart!) and (do not touch!) are relatively rare in the Hebrew Bible and notes that the word (unclean) appears infrequently outside of the book of Leviticus. Isaiah 52:11 and Lamentations 4:13 are the only verses in which all three terms appear together. Consequently, it is unlikely that the correspondences between the two verses are coincidental ... Second Isaiah’s verse represents a sophisticated reversal of the Lamentations verse. In Lamentations, the exiles are figured as ritually unclean creatures who are forced to leave Jerusalem because of their impurity. In Second Isaiah, the exiles are now the ritually pure addressees who are commanded to leave the unclean city of their exile. The allusion asserts that the exile from Judea would be reversed by the exodus from Babylon. The exodus from Babylon also marks a return to normal conditions of purity and uncleanness ..."

Elsie Stern, From Rebuke to Consolation: Exegesis and Theology in the Liturgical Anthology of the Ninth Av Season (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2020), 17–77.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Isaiah66 chapters

Compare Isaiah 52:11 and Lamentations 4:15

Summary

Passages

Isaiah 52:11

Lamentations 4:15

References

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