Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 62

For Zion’s sake ... — Opinions again differ as to the speaker. Is he the prophet, the Servant of Jehovah, or Jehovah Himself? On the whole, the second view seems most in harmony with what follows. The true Servant will carry on what, in the language of later theology, may be called his mediatorial intercessory work, so that there may be no delay in the fulfillment of the glorious promises that have just been uttered.

As brightness. — Better, as the brightness of morning, as the word is used this way in Isaiah 60:3 and Proverbs 4:18.

As a lamp ... — Better, as a burning torch.

You shall be called by a new name ... —So in Jeremiah 33:16, the name of the restored city is to be Jehovah our Righteousness. The root-thought is that the altered state is to be embodied, as in the case of Abraham and Israel, in a new name. Here, however, the effect of the promise is heightened, as in Revelation 2:17; Revelation 3:12, by the absence of the new name, as something which is to transcend all experience.

A crown of glory ... —The “crown” as distinctively kingly; the “diadem” implies a “tiara,” like the mitre of the High Priest (Exodus 28:4; Zechariah 3:5).

The two “hands” are expressed by different words in the Hebrew, the second having the sense of the open palm of the hand.

The “new crown,” i.e., the new glory accruing to Jehovah from the restoration of Jerusalem, is not worn on the head (thought of, we may believe, as already crowned from eternity), but held forth in the hand for the gaze of the adoring nations.

You shall no more be termed Forsaken ... —The change of name is here partially indicated, and probably finds its starting point in the marriage of Hezekiah with Hephzi-bah (2 Kings 21:1), which, on the assumption of Isaiah’s authorship of these chapters, would be fresh in the prophet’s memory. It would be entirely characteristic of him to see in the bride’s name, as in those of his own sons, an omen of the future. The fact that the Hebrew word for Forsaken (Azubah) had been borne by a previous queen, the mother of Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:42), confirms the view here taken. “Hephzi-bah” means “my delight is in her;” and “Beulah,” “married.”

So shall thy sons marry thee ... —The image of the bride is presented under another aspect. The people of a country are, in their collective unity, as the bridegroom, and the country is as the bride. They are bound, as the husband is to the wife, to cherish and protect it, to be ready to live and die for it.