How very beautiful and gracious is this! It seems as if the Lord would answer his people in their own words. The church had called upon him to awake; and now the Lord bids Jerusalem to rouse up herself, in his strength. The Lord puts her in remembrance how she had been exercised, and had tasted of the gall and the wormwood; but now, in redemption by Christ, she shall drink of it no more. And as a poor fretful sinner, until relieved by the redemption of Jesus, is entangled and unable to get free, like a bull in a net; so when the Son hath made the sinner free, he then is free indeed! Oh! the misery of sin! Oh! the rich salvation of Jesus! God be praised for his unspeakable gift! John 8:36; 2 Corinthians 9:15.
Isaiah 51:17-23
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
19 These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
22 Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.