HOLY BIBLE: Isaiah 52

1 ἐξεγείρου ἐξεγείρου Σιων ἔνδυσαι τὴν ἰσχύν σου Σιων καὶ ἔνδυσαι τὴν δόξαν σου Ιερουσαλημ πόλις ἡ ἁγία οὐκέτι προστεθήσεται διελθεῖν διὰ σοῦ ἀπερίτμητος καὶ ἀκάθαρτος 2 ἐκτίναξαι τὸν χοῦν καὶ ἀνάστηθι κάθισον Ιερουσαλημ ἔκδυσαι τὸν δεσμὸν τοῦ τραχήλου σου ἡ αἰχμάλωτος θυγάτηρ Σιων 3 ὅτι τάδε λέγει κύριος δωρεὰν ἐπράθητε καὶ οὐ μετὰ ἀργυρίου λυτρωθήσεσθε 4 οὕτως λέγει κύριος εἰς Αἴγυπτον κατέβη ὁ λαός μου τὸ πρότερον παροικῆσαι ἐκεῖ καὶ εἰς Ἀσσυρίους βίᾳ ἤχθησαν 5 καὶ νῦν τί ὧδέ ἐστε τάδε λέγει κύριος ὅτι ἐλήμφθη ὁ λαός μου δωρεάν θαυμάζετε καὶ ὀλολύζετε τάδε λέγει κύριος δ{I'} ὑμᾶς διὰ παντὸς τὸ ὄνομά μου βλασφημεῖται ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν 6 διὰ τοῦτο γνώσεται ὁ λαός μου τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι αὐτὸς ὁ λαλῶν πάρειμι 1 Up, up, array thyself, Sion, in all thy strength; clothe thyself as befits thy new glory, Jerusalem, city of the Holy One! The uncircumcised, the unclean, shall enter thee no more. 2 Shake the dust from thee, Jerusalem, rise up and take thy throne; rid thy neck of the chains that bound it, Sion, once captive queen! 3 This is the Lord’s promise, You were bartered away for nothing, and you shall be ransomed without cost.[1] 4 Time was, the Lord God says, long ago, when my people went down into Egypt and dwelt among strangers there; time was, since then, they were oppressed, beyond all reason, by the Assyrians; 5 what needs it,[2] the Lord says, then or now, my people should be carried off thus wantonly into exile? Their new masters sin defiantly, bring my name continually into reproach. 6 The day comes when my own people my own name will recognize, nor doubt that I, who promised to be with them, am with them now. 1

Consurge, consurge, induere fortitudine tua, Sion!
induere vestimentis gloriæ tuæ,
Jerusalem, civitas Sancti,
quia non adjiciet ultra ut pertranseat per te
incircumcisus et immundus.

2
Excutere de pulvere, consurge;
sede, Jerusalem!
solve vincula colli tui,
captiva filia Sion. 3
Quia hæc dicit Dominus:
Gratis venundati estis,
et sine argento redimemini. 4
Quia hæc dicit Dominus Deus:
In Ægyptum descendit populus meus in principio, ut colonus esset ibi,
et Assur absque ulla causa calumniatus est eum. 5
Et nunc quid mihi est hic, dicit Dominus,
quoniam ablatus est populus meus gratis?
Dominatores ejus inique agunt, dicit Dominus,
et jugiter tota die nomen meum blasphematur. 6
Propter hoc sciet populus meus nomen meum
in die illa:
quia ego ipse qui loquebar, ecce adsum.

7 ὡς ὥρα ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρέων ὡς πόδες εὐαγγελιζομένου ἀκοὴν εἰρήνης ὡς εὐαγγελιζόμενος ἀγαθά ὅτι ἀκουστὴν ποιήσω τὴν σωτηρίαν σου λέγων Σιων βασιλεύσει σου ὁ θεός 8 ὅτι φωνὴ τῶν φυλασσόντων σε ὑψώθη καὶ τῇ φωνῇ ἅμα εὐφρανθήσονται ὅτι ὀφθαλμοὶ πρὸς ὀφθαλμοὺς ὄψονται ἡνίκα ἂν ἐλεήσῃ κύριος τὴν Σιων 9 ῥηξάτω εὐφροσύνην ἅμα τὰ ἔρημα Ιερουσαλημ ὅτι ἠλέησεν κύριος αὐτὴν καὶ ἐρρύσατο Ιερουσαλημ 10 καὶ ἀποκαλύψει κύριος τὸν βραχίονα αὐτοῦ τὸν ἅγιον ἐνώπιον πάντων τῶν ἐθνῶν καὶ ὄψονται πάντα τὰ ἄκρα τῆς γῆς τὴν σωτηρίαν τὴν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ 11 ἀπόστητε ἀπόστητε ἐξέλθατε ἐκεῖθεν καὶ ἀκαθάρτου μὴ ἅπτεσθε ἐξέλθατε ἐκ μέσου αὐτῆς ἀφορίσθητε οἱ φέροντες τὰ σκεύη κυρίου 12 ὅτι οὐ μετὰ ταραχῆς ἐξελεύσεσθε οὐδὲ φυγῇ πορεύσεσθε πορεύσεται γὰρ πρότερος ὑμῶν κύριος καὶ ὁ ἐπισυνάγων ὑμᾶς κύριος ὁ θεὸς Ισραηλ 7 Welcome, welcome on the mountain heights the messenger that cries, All is well! Good news brings he, deliverance cries he, telling Sion, Thy God has claimed his throne! 8 A shout goes up from the watchmen; they are crying out all at once, all at once echoing their praise; their own eyes shall witness it, when the Lord brings Sion deliverance. 9 Rejoice, echo all at once with rejoicing, ruined homes of Jerusalem; comfort from the Lord for the Lord’s people, Jerusalem redeemed! 10 The Lord bares his holy arm for all the nations to see it; to the remotest corners of earth he, our God, makes known his saving power. 11 Return, return; no more of Babylon; touch nothing defiled as you come out from the heart of her, keep yourselves unsullied, you that have the vessels of the Lord’s worship in your charge. 12 No need for confusion at the time of your going; this shall be no hasty flight, with the Lord himself to march before you, the God of Israel to rally you. 7

Quam pulchri super montes pedes annuntiantis
et prædicantis pacem;
annuntiantis bonum,
prædicantis salutem,
dicentis Sion:
Regnabit Deus tuus!

8
Vox speculatorum tuorum: levaverunt vocem,
simul laudabunt,
quia oculo ad oculum videbunt
cum converterit Dominus Sion. 9
Gaudete, et laudate simul,
deserta Jerusalem,
quia consolatus est Dominus populum suum;
redemit Jerusalem. 10
Paravit Dominus brachium sanctum suum
in oculis omnium gentium;
et videbunt omnes fines terræ
salutare Dei nostri. 11
Recedite, recedite; exite inde,
pollutum nolite tangere;
exite de medio ejus; mundamini,
qui fertis vasa Domini. 12
Quoniam non in tumultu exibitis,
nec in fuga properabitis;
præcedet enim vos Dominus,
et congregabit vos Deus Israël.

13 ἰδοὺ συνήσει ὁ παῖς μου καὶ ὑψωθήσεται καὶ δοξασθήσεται σφόδρα 14 ὃν τρόπον ἐκστήσονται ἐπὶ σὲ πολλοί οὕτως ἀδοξήσει ἀπὸ ἀνθρώπων τὸ εἶδός σου καὶ ἡ δόξα σου ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων 15 οὕτως θαυμάσονται ἔθνη πολλὰ ἐ{P'} αὐτῷ καὶ συνέξουσιν βασιλεῖς τὸ στόμα αὐτῶν ὅτι οἷς οὐκ ἀνηγγέλη περὶ αὐτοῦ ὄψονται καὶ οἳ οὐκ ἀκηκόασιν συνήσουσιν 13 See, here is my servant, one who will be prudent in all his dealings. To what height he shall be raised, how exalted, how extolled! 14 So many there be that stand gazing in horror; was ever a human form so mishandled, human beauty ever so defaced? 15 Yet this is he that will purify a multitude of nations; kings shall stand dumb in his presence; seen, now, where men had no tidings of him, made known to such as never heard his name.[3] 13

Ecce intelliget servus meus,
exaltabitur et elevabitur, et sublimis erit valde.

14
Sicut obstupuerunt super te multi,
sic inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus,
et forma ejus inter filios hominum. 15
Iste asperget gentes multas;
super ipsum continebunt reges os suum:
quia quibus non est narratum de eo viderunt,
et qui non audierunt contemplati sunt.

[1] The sense is probably, ‘I gained nothing in return when I sent you into exile at Babylon’ (cf. 50.1 above, Ps. 43.13); ‘I did not engage the gratitude of the Chaldeans, who remain idolaters; I am free therefore, to remit your sentence of exile whenever I will’. The interpretation, ‘You were sent into exile for no fault of your own, and you shall be reprieved for no merits of your own’ is neither probable in itself nor suited to the context.

[2] ‘What needs it, then or now?’ Literally, ‘And now, what is to me here?’—though this is less accurate as a rendering of the Hebrew text. The idiomatic sense which this phrase commonly has (cf. 22.16 above, and many other passages) would be ‘And what business have I to interfere here?’ But this is evidently inappropriate, and it is best to take the words literally, as in Gen. 19.12. Cf. note on verse 3.

[3] ‘Purify’; literally ‘sprinkle’, but wherever this word occurs elsewhere, the thing, not the person, is its object (i.e. you sprinkle something on a person), and various attempts have been made to amend the Hebrew text, e.g. ‘startle’. The end of this verse, in the Hebrew text, will equally well yield the sense, ‘they shall see that of which they had no tidings, that which they had never heard shall be made known to them’. But the other sense, which is given by the Latin version, is clearly assumed by St Paul in Rom. 15.21.

Knox Translation Copyright © 2013 Westminster Diocese
Nihil Obstat. Father Anton Cowan, Censor.
Imprimatur. +Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. 8th January 2012.
Re-typeset and published in 2012 by Baronius Press Ltd