(22) Thy Lord the Lord . . .--Note the emphatic combination of Adonai (or rather, in this solitary instance, of the plural Adonim used like Elohim) with Jehovah. Man's necessity is once more God's opportunity. He will plead for His people when none else will plead. The cup of trembling shall be taken from the hand of the forlorn castaway, and given to her enemies. (Comp. Jeremiah 25:15.)

Verse 22. - The Lord... that pleadeth the cause of his people (comp. Jeremiah 50:34, which contains an allusion to this passage). As his people have a relentless adversary, who accuses them continually, and pleads against them (Revelation 12:10), so it is needful that they should have an untiring advocate. God himself is this Advocate. The dregs of the cup (see the comment on ver. 17, ad fin.).

51:17-23 God calls upon his people to mind the things that belong to their everlasting peace. Jerusalem had provoked God, and was made to taste the bitter fruits. Those who should have been her comforters, were their own tormentors. They have no patience by which to keep possesion of their own souls, nor any confidence in God's promise, by which to keep possession of its comfort. Thou art drunken, not as formerly, with the intoxicating cup of Babylon's idolatries, but with the cup of affliction. Know, then, the cause of God's people may for a time seem as lost, but God will protect it, by convincing the conscience, or confounding the projects, of those that strive against it. The oppressors required souls to be subjected to them, that every man should believe and worship as they would have them. But all they could gain by violence was, that people were brought to outward hypocritical conformity, for consciences cannot be forced.Thus saith the Lord, the Lord and thy God,.... He who is Lord of all, the eternal Jehovah, who can do all things, and who is the covenant God of his people, and will do all things he has purposed and promised, and which are for their good and his glory; of which they may be assured from the consideration of these names and titles of his, for which reason they seem to be used and mentioned:

that pleadeth the cause of his people, which is a righteous one, as he will make it appear to be, by delivering them out of their troubles, and by avenging their bodies.

Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling; which he himself had put there, Isaiah 51:17, and which none but himself could take out; not she herself, nor any of her sons, nor indeed could they give her any relief; but when the Lord's time is come to favour his people, he himself will remove it:

even the dregs of the cup of my fury; it shall all be clean taken away, nothing of it shall remain:

thou shalt no more drink it again; or "any longer" (c); after the slaying of the witnesses, and their rising again, there will be no more persecution of the church of God; see Isaiah 2:9.

(c) "non ultra", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus.