Isaiah 51:17-23·~1 min

God’s Fury Removed

Jerusalem is summoned to awake as one who has drunk from the LORD's hand the cup of His wrath until she reels. She has no son strong enough to guide or take her by the hand, while devastation and destruction, famine and sword, have fallen upon her so fully that her sons lie faint at the head of every street like hunted animals beneath the rebuke of God.

A¹⁷wake, awake! ¹⁸Among all the sons she bore, ¹⁹These pairs have befallen you: ²⁰Your sons have fainted;

The afflicted city is then told to hear the word of her Lord, who pleads the cause of His people and announces that the cup of staggering is being taken from her hand forever. That same cup will be placed into the hands of her tormentors, those who once demanded that she lie down so they could walk over her, reversing the humiliation and making the oppressor drink what Zion once endured.

²¹Therefore now hear this, you afflicted one, ²²Thus says your Lord, the LORD, ²³I will place it in the hands of your tormentors,

Section summaryThe closing movement calls Jerusalem to wake up and face the fact that she has drunk the cup of the LORD's wrath to the dregs, with devastation, famine, sword, and helpless sons stretched in the streets. Yet the afflicted city is then told that her Lord will take the cup of staggering from her hand and place it instead into the hands of the tormentors who once ordered her to bow down beneath them.

Role in the chapterThis section turns Jerusalem's experience of wrath into the prelude for reversal and vindication.