Yahweh calls Zion from her sleep and excitedly orders her to get dressed (Isaiah 52:1). Like the call to “Awake! Awake!” the order to put on clothes is doubled:
Clothe yourself with strength, Zion.
Clothe yourself in garments of beauty, Jerusalem.
Two observations: First, the call to be clothed in strength is a call to be dressed as Yahweh Himself is dressed, for He “has clothed and girded Himself with strength” (Psalm 93:1). Zion puts on the armor of the Lord, which is to say, the armor that the Lord Himself wears (cf. Isaiah 59:17). But, second, this armor is a robe of beauty, like the garments of the priests: “garments of beauty” is bigdey tif’artek , just like the bigdey . . . lekavod ultif’aret of the high priest (Exodus 28:2, 40).
Strength and beauty go together (Psalm 96:6), and both are dimensions of priestly service, of liturgy.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…
