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Christmas · Christmas Dawn · Year A

Isaiah 62:10-12

Say to the Daughter of Zion

December 25, 2025

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, Benjamin Robert Haydon
Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1814–1820Athenaeum of Ohio – Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West, Cincinnati
An enormous canvas Haydon exhibited for money and never sold at a profit. He put Wordsworth, Keats, Hazlitt and Voltaire into the crowd as spectators.Say to daughter Zion, See, your salvation comes. They shall be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord.Benjamin Robert HaydonAn English history painter of enormous ambition and no commercial sense, who exhibited his own vast canvases, went to prison for debt repeatedly, and died by his own hand.Athenaeum of Ohio – Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West, CincinnatiA Catholic seminary in Cincinnati which acquired Haydon's enormous canvas in the nineteenth century and still has it.Athenaeum of Ohio – Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West, Cincinnati
LSB Three-Year Lectionary
GospelLuke 2:(1-14) 15-20Lk 2:(1-14) 15-20
EpistleTitus 3:4-7Ti 3:4-7
Old TestamentIsa. 62:10-12Is 62:10-12
PsalterPs. 98Ps 98

Overview & Insights

“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes.’” (Isaiah 62:11)

The doubled imperatives that open this passage, pass through and build up, belong to the highway motif that runs from Isaiah 40:3 through 57:14, but here the road is pointed inward, toward the gates of a restored and still modest Jerusalem rather than out across the desert. The announcement itself is addressed to “the daughter of Zion,” a phrase Matthew takes from this verse when he introduces the entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:5), joining it to Zechariah 9:9. Its second clause, that his reward is with him and his recompense before him, recurs at Isaiah 40:10 and is picked up again in the last chapter of Revelation (22:12). The reading ends in new names: holy people, redeemed of the LORD, sought out, a city not forsaken, each of them a reversal of the desolation named at 62:4. Read at Christmas Dawn, the summons to go out through the gates is the shepherds’ road, and the light it assumes is the daylight the liturgy has reached.

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Commentary

Working Preacher: Isaiah 62:6-12Working Preacher: Is 62:6-12 Working Preacher

Luther Seminary exegesis on the festal highway and the renaming of Jerusalem.

Enduring Word: Isaiah 62Enduring Word: Is 62 Enduring Word · David Guzik

Verse by verse evangelical notes on the promised glory of Zion.

StudyLight: Isaiah 62StudyLight: Is 62 StudyLight

Combined commentary set on the chapter's promise of restoration.

BibleHub: Isaiah 62:10 CommentariesBibleHub: Is 62:10 Commentaries BibleHub

Aggregated classic commentaries on preparing the way and the coming salvation.

Background & Word Study

BibleHub Interlinear: Isaiah 62:10BibleHub Interlinear: Is 62:10 BibleHub

Hebrew text with parsing for the command to prepare a highway for the people.

BibleProject: Isaiah 40-66 OverviewBibleProject: Is 40-66 Overview BibleProject

Animated overview of the second half of Isaiah and its message of comfort.

Sefaria: Isaiah 62:10-12Sefaria: Is 62:10-12 Sefaria

Hebrew text of the passage alongside an English translation.

The Church Fathers

Catena: Isaiah 62Catena: Is 62 Catena

Patristic comment chain reading the coming salvation as the advent of Christ.

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