As in the Exodus, so now under Babylonian domination, God’s people have been “sold” (3), and “gone down to Egypt” (4). But now God comforts His people, telling them that they will be free (1-3).
How will this happen? The Lord will “bare his holy harm before all the nations” (10a). And after this, all the nations of the earth will hear of His salvation (10b). The Lord has departed Jerusalem and its temple, but there will come a time when the Lord will return to His city, and his watchmen rejoice at his arrival (8).
Considering all of this, and then considering where v. 13 leads us - into the great prophecy of the suffering Servant - the restoration that Isaiah envisions goes beyond just the city of Jerusalem. It’s for all the nations. And Jerusalem will be destroyed in 70 A.D.
Isaiah is like a messenger of “good news” (7) who proclaims that the Servant of the Lord is coming, leading His people on a new Exodus, the Exodus. In this Exodus, God’s people are not to go out with haste, nor by taking with them the goods of the Egyptians (12). They are to go out without anything from their old lives, instead purifying themselves (11). This Exodus puts God’s people on a new pilgrimage through the wilderness, and it ends in a New Jerusalem. Therefore the lifestyle of these pilgrims is constant repentance (2 Cor. 6:17).