Chapters forty-one through sixty-six are all concerned with Christ as the Servant of Jehovah, and therefore they should be understood as a whole. In this message we will consider chapters fifty-one and fifty-two.
In 51:1—52:12 we see Christ as the Servant of Jehovah in relation to Jehovah's loving dealing with His beloved Israel.
Jehovah's calling of Israel is based upon His calling of their father Abraham; hence, it is firm. Concerning this calling, 51:1 and 2 say, "Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,/Who seek after Jehovah,/tLook to the rock from which you were hewn,/And to the excavation of the pit from which you were dug./Look to Abraham your father/ And to Sarah who travailed with you;/For I called him when he was one person,/And blessed him and multiplied him." Here the word rock refers not to God but to Abraham, who was the source of Israel.
Based upon His calling of Israel, Jehovah has visited Zion. "Jehovah has comforted Zion;/He has comforted all her waste places,/And made her wilderness like Eden,/And her desert like the garden of Jehovah./Gladness and joy will be found in her,/Thanksgiving and the voice of song" (v. 3).