Line upon Line

Zion and Her Husband

Zion as a woman in Isaiah: forsaken, captive and barren, then married and rejoiced over.

Isaiah speaks of Zion as a woman: a faithful city turned harlot, a mother who thinks herself forsaken, a captive, a barren woman told to sing, and at last one over whom her God rejoices. Her complaint, “The LORD hath forsaken me” (Isa. 49:14), is answered at the end: “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken” (Isa. 62:4). Her husband and Redeemer is read as Jesus Christ. Isaiah 49 and 54 use the “imagery of Christ as the Bridegroom and His covenant people as His bride,”1 and “thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” is “the great Redeemer of mankind,” who “paid the price for the sins of mankind.”2

Step Passage The words
Harlot Isa. 1:21 “How is the faithful city become an harlot!”
Forsaken Isa. 49:14 “The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me”
Not forgotten Isa. 49:15–16 “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands”
Put away Isa. 50:1 “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away?”
Captive Isa. 52:2 “loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion”
Barren Isa. 54:1 “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear”
Husband Isa. 54:5 “thy Maker is thine husband… and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel”
Rejoiced over Isa. 62:4–5 “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken… so shall thy God rejoice over thee”

Forsaken, not forgotten

“How is the faithful city become an harlot!” (Isa. 1:21). Later Zion herself speaks: “The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me” (Isa. 49:14). The answer: “Can a woman forget her sucking child… yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee” (Isa. 49:15), and “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” (Isa. 49:16). “His covenant people are so much a part of Him that it is as if their name has been carved on His hands…”1 In Nephi’s text the promise is addressed “O house of Israel” (1 Ne. 21:15).

Then children are given her, and she asks, “Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive?” (Isa. 49:21). The Isaiah 49 page has the detail.

Put away, and told to rise

“Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away?… for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away” (Isa. 50:1). The Lord “had no creditors; neither had He divorced His ‘wife,’ Israel. Instead, Israel had separated herself from the Lord by her sins…”1

Five chapters earlier Babylon was told, “Come down, and sit in the dust” (Isa. 47:1). Zion is told the reverse: “Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion” (Isa. 52:2); “ye shall be redeemed without money” (Isa. 52:3). “The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her, or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition among the Gentiles” (D&C 113:10). The call to awake is traced in The Arm of the Lord, and the Isaiah 52 page goes verse by verse.

Thy Maker is thine husband

“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear… for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife” (Isa. 54:1). “For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 54:5). She is “a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit” (Isa. 54:6), yet: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee” (Isa. 54:7).

Faithful readers differ on whether this barren wife is the woman who was put away for her sins. On one reading she is barren through “her inability or unwillingness to produce spiritual offspring for the Lord”;1 on another, “We should not equate the faithful barren wife with the adulterous wife.”3

The risen Savior quotes the whole chapter to the Nephites (3 Ne. 22).4 The Isaiah 54 page goes verse by verse.

No more Forsaken

“Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married” (Isa. 62:4). “Beulah” means “Married.”5 “As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee” (Isa. 62:5). “Once again Zion shall be married to the Lord.”6

The woman is named in several ways: Jerusalem and, by extension, the house of Israel;7 “those whom God should call in the last days” (D&C 113:8, on Isaiah 52:1); for the Zion of the last days, “the Church and kingdom of God”;6 and, for Beulah, the land.5

Later scripture carries the marriage on: “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready” (Rev. 19:7; compare Isa. 54:5);4 “Awake and arise and go forth to meet the Bridegroom” (D&C 133:10).1

Sources

  1. Chapter 17: The Gathering of Israel and the Coming of the Messiah (Isaiah 48–54), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
  2. “Redeemer”, Guide to the Scriptures. ↩
  3. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS and Deseret Book, 1998, p. 320. ↩
  4. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ↩ ↩
  5. “Beulah”, Bible Dictionary. ↩ ↩
  6. Chapter 18: The Last Days and the Millennium (Isaiah 55–66), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). ↩ ↩
  7. Scripture Central, “Why Does Isaiah Prophesy of the Daughter of Zion?”, KnoWhy #550. ↩