(17) Awake . . .--The words present a strange parallelism to Isaiah 51:9. There they were addressed to the arm of Jehovah, and were the prelude of a glorious promise. Here they are spoken to Jerusalem as a drunken and desperate castaway, and introduce a painfully vivid picture of her desolation. They seem, indeed, prefixed to that picture to make it bearable. They are a call to Zion to wake out of that drunken sleep, and therefore show that her ruin is not irretrievable.

The dregs of the cup.--Literally, the goblet cup, but with the sense, as in the Authorised version, of the cup being drained.

Verses 17-23. - AN ADDRESS OF THE PROPHET TO JERUSALEM. The comfort afforded to Israel generally is now concentrated on Jerusalem. Her condition during the long period of the Captivity is deplored, and her want of a champion to assert her cause and raise her out of the dust is lamented (vers. 17-20). After this, an assurance is given her that the miseries which she has suffered shall pass from her to her great enemy, by whom the dregs of the "cup of trembling" shall be drained, and the last drop wrung out (vers. 21-23). Verse 17. - Awake, awake (comp. ver. 9 and Isaiah 52:1). Isaiah marks the breaks in his prophecy, sometimes by a repetition of terminal clauses, which have the effect of a refrain (Isaiah 5:25; Isaiah 9:12, 17, 21; Isaiah 10:4; and Isaiah 48:22; 57:21); sometimes by a repetition of initial clauses of a striking character (Isaiah 5:8, 11, 20; Isaiah 13:1; Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 17:1; Isaiah 19:1; Isaiah 21:1, 11; Isaiah 22:1; Isaiah 23:1; Isaiah 28:1; Isaiah 29:1; Isaiah 30:1; Isaiah 31:1; Isaiah 33:1; Isaiah 48:1, 12, 16; Isaiah 50:4, 7, 9, etc.). Here we have thrice over "Awake, awake" - not, however, an exact repetition in the Hebrew, but a near approach to it each summons forming the commencement of a new paragraph or subsection. Which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury. The cup of God's fury was poured out on Jerusalem when the city was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, the temple, the royal palace, and the houses of the nobles burnt (2 Kings 25:9), the walls broken down (2 Kings 25:10), and the bulk of the inhabitants carried away captive to Babylon (2 Kings 25:11; comp. 2 Chronicles 34:25; Jeremiah 42:18; Jeremiah 44:6; Ezekiel 22:31, etc.). "The cup of God's fury" is an expression used by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:15). The dregs of the cup; rather, perhaps, the goblet-cup (Cheyne), or the out-swollen cup. It is the fulness of the measure of Jerusalem's punishment, not its character, which is pointed at.

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.Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem,.... As persons out of a sleep, or out of a stupor, or even out of the sleep of death; for this respects a more glorious state of the church, the Jerusalem, the mother of us all, after great afflictions; and especially if it respects the more glorious state of all on earth, signified by the New Jerusalem, that will be preceded by the resurrection of the dead, called the first resurrection, when the saints will awake out of the dust of the earth, and stand upon their feet; see Daniel 12:2, though the last glorious state of the church, in the spiritual reign of Christ, is also expressed by the rising of the witnesses slain, by their standing on their feet, and by their ascension to heaven, Revelation 11:11, before which will be a time of great affliction to the church, as here:

which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; it is no unusual thing in Scripture for the judgments of God, upon a nation and people, or on particular persons, to be signified by a cup, and especially on wicked men, as the effect of divine wrath, Psalm 11:6. Here it signifies that judgment that begins at the house and church of God, 1 Peter 4:17, which looks as if it arose from the wrath and fury of an incensed God: and though it may greatly intend the wrathful persecutions of men, yet since they are by the permission and will of God, and are bounded and limited by him, they are called "his cup", and said to come from his hand; and the people of God take them, or consider them as coming by his appointment:

thou hast drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out; alluding to excessive drinking, which brings a trembling of limbs, and sometimes paralytic disorders on men, and to the thick sediments in the bottom of the cup, which are fixed there, as the word (u) signifies, and are not easily got out, and yet every drop and every dreg are drunk up; signifying, that the whole portion of sufferings, allotted to the Lord's people, shall come upon them, even what are most disagreeable to them, and shall fill them with trembling and astonishment.

(u) "crassamentum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Vitringa.