Discovery BoxIsaiah 52:2 
ContextGet up, captive 2 Jerusalem!
Take off the iron chains around your neck,
O captive daughter Zion!
Isaiah 52:11-12
Context52:11 Leave! Leave! Get out of there!
Don’t touch anything unclean!
Get out of it!
Stay pure, you who carry the Lord’s holy items! 3
52:12 Yet do not depart quickly
or leave in a panic. 4
For the Lord goes before you;
the God of Israel is your rear guard.
1 tn Heb “Shake yourself free from the dirt.”
2 tc The Hebrew text has שְּׂבִי (shÿvi), which some understand as a feminine singular imperative from יָשַׁב (yashav, “sit”). The LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, and the Targum support the MT reading (the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa does indirectly). Some interpret this to mean “take your throne”: The Lord exhorts Jerusalem to get up from the dirt and sit, probably with the idea of sitting in a place of honor (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 2:361). However, the form is likely a corruption of שְׁבִיָּה (shÿviyyah, “captive”), which appears in the parallel line.
3 tn Heb “the vessels of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB).
4 tn Heb “or go in flight”; NAB “leave in headlong flight.”
