rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem.
Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
    Daughter Zion, now a captive.

God let’s His people know that ‘the times they are a changin’. It is time for them to seize hold of their new destiny. As we have seen in recent days, there are things for them to do.

God’s people were still ‘captives’. But it was now time to walk free (11,12).

How many still live as prisoners even though Jesus has opened our jailhouse doors.? We are free to walk through. Like Peter, in Acts 12, we need to wake up to the reality of our deliverance.

‘This is a message for Christians today: we have been freed through Christ, yet too many of us live as if we were still in bondage to weakness, fear and sin. We need to ”rise up” and claim our freedom to live as free men and women (John 8:31-32, 36; Romans 8:2; Galatians 5:1).’ Tom Hale: Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1053.