An Invitation to Sing: Once again a return to a focus on Ms Jerusalem follows the servant passage, as happened after 49:1–6 and 50:4–11. There were hints there that Ms Jerusalem’s restoration was the correlate of Ms Babylon’s humiliation in chapter 47. Chapter 54 is the systematic exposition of that theme. The prophet takes up five images of Ms Jerusalem which once again resume the themes of the people’s prayers (we are like a childless and abandoned woman, the victim of angry abuse—literally, we are a battered and insecure city) before coming to a striking conclusion.

54:1–3 First, the childless woman becomes a mother. How can you ask a woman who is unable to have children to sing with the joy of a mother (v. 1a)? Because the loss is about to be made abundantly good (v. 1b). Ms Jerusalem i…