Is. 61:11-62:3

 

v.11 and 62:1, 2 vindication is OK, but usually this is righteousness/right relations. It should usually be paired with social arangments as well as personal piety/spirituality.

 

diadem= comes from a word for band, so I assume it is a golden crown/band, perhaps with jewels. So a royal splendor is lifted up after the destruction of Jerusalem and exile. think cinderella: from ashes to a crown.

 

The KJV took some of the words as titles. Most famously, it took beulah, the word for married and used it as a title, just like Israel. Forsaken=Azuba- Desolate=shemamah- my delight is in her=Hephzibah.
 

This seems to be a marriage scene for God and Dame Zion. One could extend this into the Incarnation for christmas. God's desire for covenant goes beyond marriage. So, God's very self/ Logos enters into the condiditon of the creature. As Luther said, at christmas god became small.

 

  

When do you feel as if you live in forsaken or desolate land? How does christmas pressure help push one into it? How does christmas help us out of those fearsome places? How do the days afte christmas feel like a letdown?