Isaiah 62King James Version

For Zion's sake God will not be silent until her righteousness goes forth as brightness. She will be called by a new name. No longer called Forsaken or Desolate but Hephzibah, my delight is in her, and Beulah, married. God has sworn he will not give the city's grain to enemies. Watchmen on the walls are told to give him no rest until Jerusalem is a praise in the earth.

Persistent intercession for a city is not presumptuous; it is commanded. The watchmen's job is not to observe passively but to remind God of his own promises.

verse: "Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah", the renaming is not cosmetic. To be called by a new name in the ancient world was to be given a new identity in the community's understanding.

Jerusalem's walls at night, watchmen standing posts manned for decades. The city's status as desolate is visible from the walls. The commission is to persist in calling on God over what has not yet changed. The names Hephzibah and Beulah are spoken into that persistence as future-present realities.

God, committed to Jerusalem's vindication. Zion, addressed as the one who will be renamed. The watchmen on the walls, commissioned to pray without ceasing. The sons who will marry Zion in a reversal of her abandonment. The people called the holy ones, the redeemed.

The new names, Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and Beulah (married), reverse the names of forsaking and desolation and establish the remarriage metaphor that runs through chapters 54 and 62. The watchmen commanded to give God no rest connects to New Testament teaching on persistent prayer. The holy-people and redeemed-of-the-LORD designations are taken up in 1 Peter 2:9.

For when you feel you are waiting on something that should have happened by now and wonder if it is appropriate to keep pressing God. The watchmen are told explicitly: give him no rest until he does it.