Isaiah 62 Bible study: Called by a new name

The chapter opens with someone who will not stay quiet: "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" (62:1) (tap rest). In Hebrew hold my peace is chashah and rest is shaqat, and the Hebrew Bible has those two verbs in one verse only here. The verse doesn't name the one who says I. Then the words turn to her: "The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You will be called by a new name, which the LORD’s mouth will name" (62:2), and "You will also be a crown of beauty in the LORD’s hand, and a royal diadem in your God’s hand" (62:3) (tap crown). Here is what almost everyone misses: earlier the book said, "the LORD of Armies will become a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the residue of his people" (Isaiah 28:5). In Hebrew both verses have atarah for crown; in 28:5 the LORD is the crown, and in 62:3 she is the crown, in the LORD's hand.

Isaiah 62:5→leads toRevelation 19:7-8

In Isaiah 62 the one spoken to is named: "I have set watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem" (Isaiah 62:6). She is told, "the LORD delights in you, and your land will be married" (Isaiah 62:4), and "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:5). Revelation is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 1:1). In it John sees "a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6), and later he hears "something like the voice of a great multitude" (Revelation 19:6) say, "Let’s rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and let’s give the glory to him. For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7). Then Revelation says, "It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints" (Revelation 19:8). Revelation doesn't name Isaiah, and in Isaiah 62:5 it is God who rejoices, while in Revelation 19:7 the multitude calls for rejoicing, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some hear in the wedding of the Lamb the picture Isaiah 62:4-5 draws of God and his people. Others read Isaiah 62:4-5 in its own chapter, of the LORD, Jerusalem and her land, and read Revelation 19:7-8 on its own. The line is about the picture Isaiah 62:5 itself draws, of God rejoicing over Jerusalem; it applies nothing to any marriage today, and these notes pick neither reading.

דֳּמִיdomisay do-MEE

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "cessation, quiet, pause, rest". "You who call on the LORD, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes, and until he makes Jerusalem a praise on the earth" (62:6-7): both rests are this word, and the second is the rest they are not to give the LORD. The Hebrew Bible has it four times, and three are in Isaiah (38:10, 62:6, 62:7). The fourth is a psalm's cry to God, "God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God" (Psalm 83:1), where the first don’t keep silent is this word, and don’t be still is shaqat, the verb of 62:1's rest. The chapter on Psalm 83 sets that psalm beside these verses.