Commentary - Isaiah 51:9-11

Bird's-eye view

This passage is a passionate plea from the prophet, speaking for the beleaguered people of God, calling upon the Lord to act in their present distress as He has acted in the mighty deeds of the past. It is a prayer that appeals to God's character by recounting His historical, redemptive violence on behalf of His people. The logic is simple and profound: "Do it again, Lord." The prophet summons the memory of the Exodus, the foundational act of salvation for Israel, as the basis for his hope in a future, glorious restoration. He uses vivid, mythic language, referring to the defeat of "Rahab" and the "dragon," to describe the historical subjugation of Egypt. This remembrance of past deliverance is not a nostalgic exercise; it is the fuel for a confident expectation of a new Exodus, a final return to Zion characterized by everlasting joy and the complete abolition of sorrow. The prayer moves from invocation based on past redemption to a glorious prophecy of future redemption, all grounded in the unchanging strength of the "arm of Yahweh."

In essence, this is a model of biblical prayer. It is history-drenched, God-centered, and future-oriented. It reminds God of His own promises and His past resume, not because He is forgetful, but because we are. We stir ourselves up to faith by recounting the great deeds of the Lord. And as we do, our prayer for present help morphs into a confident declaration of what God will most certainly do. The ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy, of course, is found in the work of Christ, who crushed the ultimate dragon and is leading the redeemed to the heavenly Zion.

Outline

Context In Isaiah

This section of Isaiah (chapters 40-55) is often called the "Book of Consolation." The prophet is speaking to a people in exile, or on the cusp of it, and the dominant theme is God's promise of restoration and redemption. Chapter 51 comes after the magnificent Servant Songs, which describe the one who will accomplish this great salvation. The immediate context is a call for the righteous remnant, those who "follow after righteousness" and "seek Yahweh" (51:1), to remember their origins and God's faithfulness to Abraham and Sarah. God created a nation from two old people; He can certainly restore a nation from a remnant in exile. Our passage, then, is the people's response to this call to remember. Inspired by the thought of God's past faithfulness, they cry out for Him to act again, to reveal His strength as He did in the days of old. This prayer becomes the pivot point that leads directly into God's own response, where He identifies Himself as the Comforter and assures them that He has not forgotten them (51:12ff).

Key Issues

Remembering the Dragon Fight

Modern, demythologized Christians can get a bit squeamish when the Bible starts talking about chopping up sea monsters. We are tempted to either allegorize it into a bland abstraction about "overcoming challenges" or to relegate it to the "weird parts" of the Old Testament that we don't talk about much. But the biblical authors had no such hesitation. They understood that God created a world full of meaning, symbols, and what we might call "true myth."

When Isaiah talks about God chopping Rahab in pieces and piercing the dragon, he is not referring to a pre-cosmic battle against some rival deity, as the pagan myths did. The Bible is clear that God has no rivals. Rather, the prophet is using the potent, universally understood imagery of a great warrior-king defeating a chaos monster to describe what God did to a historical nation: Egypt. Egypt, with its river-based civilization and its arrogant pride, was a perfect real-world embodiment of the insolent sea dragon. By using this language, Isaiah is doing two things. First, he is elevating the Exodus, showing it was an event of cosmic significance. Second, he is robbing paganism of its power, co-opting its most potent symbols and declaring that Yahweh is the one who truly fulfills them. Our God is the ultimate dragon-slayer. He did it to Pharaoh, and the prophet is praying that He would do it again to Babylon.

Verse by Verse Commentary

9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Yahweh; Awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not You who chopped Rahab in pieces, Who pierced the dragon?

The prayer begins with a startlingly bold imperative. The prophet calls on the "arm of Yahweh" to wake up. This is not to suggest that God is literally asleep, like Baal on Mount Carmel. This is the language of petition, of holy desperation. The "arm of Yahweh" is a common biblical metaphor for God's active power in the world, His ability to intervene and save. The people feel abandoned in exile; it is as if God's strength is dormant. So they cry out for Him to flex His muscles, to put on His strength like a warrior putting on armor for battle. The basis for their appeal is historical precedent. "Do what you did before." They call to mind the "days of old," specifically the foundational act of redemption. And what was that act? It was a violent, decisive victory over a monstrous enemy. Rahab here is not the harlot of Jericho; it is a poetic name for Egypt, meaning something like "arrogance" or "insolence." God "chopped" this entity to pieces. He "pierced the dragon," another symbol for Pharaoh and his armies. This is not the language of a gentle negotiation. This is the language of holy war, of a divine king crushing the heads of His enemies.

10 Was it not You who dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep, Who made the depths of the sea a pathway For the redeemed to cross over?

The prophet continues to recount the Exodus story, moving from the poetic imagery of the dragon to the specific historical event of the Red Sea crossing. The rhetorical question, "Was it not You," demands the answer, "Yes, it was You and no other!" This is the heart of Israel's confession of faith. He is the God who dried up the sea. He took the "great deep," that biblical symbol of chaos and death, and turned it into a highway of salvation. He made a road where there was no road. And who walked on this road? The redeemed. This is a crucial word. It means to be bought back, to be ransomed from slavery. Israel was enslaved to Pharaoh, and God paid the price, not with gold or silver, but with the blood of the Egyptian firstborn and the destruction of their army. He purchased His people, and then led them out on the path He had miraculously carved for them. Every element of this story is foundational for the gospel that is to come.

11 So the ransomed of Yahweh will return And come with joyful shouting to Zion, And everlasting gladness will be on their heads. They will obtain joy and gladness, And sorrow and sighing will flee away.

The prayer, having been grounded in the solid bedrock of past redemption, now soars into a glorious prophecy of future redemption. The logic is indicated by the word "So" or "Therefore." Because God is the one who did that (the first Exodus), He will certainly do this (the new Exodus). The ransomed of Yahweh, a clear echo of the "redeemed" in the previous verse, will return. But this is not just a return from Babylon to Jerusalem. This is a return to Zion, the city of God, the place of His heavenly rule. They will come with "joyful shouting." This is the sound of victory and celebration. The result of this return is a permanent state of being: "everlasting gladness." It will be upon their heads like a crown. The language is emphatic and redundant to drive the point home: they will obtain joy and gladness. And the negative is just as absolute: "sorrow and sighing will flee away." This is a description of a perfected world, a new creation. While this had a partial, physical fulfillment in the return from exile, its ultimate fulfillment is in the salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ. He is the one who leads the true ransomed of the Lord to the heavenly Zion, and in His presence, all sorrow and sighing will one day flee away forever.

Application

We are often in the same position as the exiles in Isaiah's day. We look at the state of our own lives, the state of the church, the state of our nation, and it can appear that the arm of the Lord is asleep. The dragon of secularism, of godless ideologies, of our own besetting sins, seems to be winning the day. The waters of the great deep threaten to overwhelm us. In such times, this passage is our manual for prayer.

We must do what the prophet did. We must look back in order to look forward with any confidence. Our "days of old" are not just the Exodus, but the cross and the empty tomb. Was it not our God who chopped the ultimate Rahab, the serpent Satan, to pieces at Calvary? Was it not our God who pierced the dragon of death itself when Christ walked out of the grave? Was it not our God who parted the waters of judgment, allowing us, the redeemed, to pass over from death to life? Yes, it was He.

And because He did that, we can say with absolute certainty, "So the ransomed of Yahweh will return." We are on a journey to the heavenly Zion. There are many troubles along the way, but the final destination is secure. Our task is to remind ourselves, and to remind God in our prayers, of the victory He has already won. We do not fight for victory; we fight from victory. The dragon has been pierced. The sea has been parted. The way is open. Therefore, we press on, with what should be an ever-increasing joyful shouting, until we arrive at that place where everlasting gladness is our crown, and all our sorrows have finally and forever fled away.