17 Stir thyself, stir thyself, rise, Jerusalem, Who hast drunk from the hand of Jehovah The cup of His fury, The goblet, the cup of trembling, thou hast drunk, Thou hast wrung out. 18 There is not a leader to her Out of all the sons she hath borne, And there is none laying hold on her hand Out of all the sons she hath nourished. 19 These two are meeting thee, who is moved for thee? Spoiling and destruction—Famine and sword, who—I comfort thee? 20 Thy sons have been wrapt up, they have lain down, At the head of all out places, as a wild ox 'in' a net, They are full of the fury of Jehovah, The rebuke of Thy God. 21 Therefore, hear, I pray thee, this, O afflicted and drunken one, and not with wine, 22 Thus said thy Lord Jehovah, and thy God, He pleadeth 'for' his people: 'Lo, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, The goblet, the cup of My fury, Thou dost not add to drink it any more. 23 And I have put it into the hand of those afflicting thee, Who have said to thy soul, Bow down, and we pass over, And thou makest as the earth thy body, And as the street to those passing by!'
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 51:17-23
Commentary on Isaiah 51:17-23
(Read Isaiah 51:17-23)
God calls upon his people to mind the things that belong to their everlasting peace. Jerusalem had provoked God, and was made to taste the bitter fruits. Those who should have been her comforters, were their own tormentors. They have no patience by which to keep possesion of their own souls, nor any confidence in God's promise, by which to keep possession of its comfort. Thou art drunken, not as formerly, with the intoxicating cup of Babylon's idolatries, but with the cup of affliction. Know, then, the cause of God's people may for a time seem as lost, but God will protect it, by convincing the conscience, or confounding the projects, of those that strive against it. The oppressors required souls to be subjected to them, that every man should believe and worship as they would have them. But all they could gain by violence was, that people were brought to outward hypocritical conformity, for consciences cannot be forced.