Not frivolity. “My soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation.” (Psalm 35:9)
The Word of the Lord. In this section the Lord rebukes his people for fearing man, whose glory is but that of the grass, which, as our Lord says, “today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven.” (Matt. 6:30), while forgetting the Almighty. “Awake, awake, O Jerusalem!” he says,—a call that is being heard throughout the world today. Jerusalem is awakening.
The Lord, further, reminds Jerusalem that she has none to guide her—no inspired prophets as of old, with divine authority to speak for him. Her sons, he says, have “fainted,” while desolation and destruction have clung to her as a “wild bull in a net.” (verse 20) Therefore, hear now, he says, the Lord. The Lord pleads her cause. The cup of trembling will be put into the hands of the oppressor (v. 23), while Zion will clothe herself in festive garments and rejoice in her new-born liberty. (vv. 24, 25)
The great lesson here is that the people of God must have that implicit faith in him, which is the fruit of obedience.