17 Awake! awake! up! O Jerusalem, you who have taken from the Lord's hand the cup of his wrath; tasting in full measure the wine which overcomes. 18 She has no one among all her children to be her guide; not one of the sons she has taken care of takes her by the hand. 19 These two things have come on you; who will be weeping for you? wasting and destruction; death from need of food, and from the sword; how may you be comforted? 20 Your sons are overcome, like a roe in a net; they are full of the wrath of the Lord, the punishment of your God. 21 So now give ear to this, you who are troubled and overcome, but not with wine: 22 This is the word of the Lord your master, even your God who takes up the cause of his people: See, I have taken out of your hand the cup which overcomes, even the cup of my wrath; it will not again be given to you:
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 51:17-22
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.