The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those who are bound,
to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he may be glorified.
They will rebuild the old ruins. They will raise up the former devastated places. They will repair the ruined cities that have been devastated for many generations.
Strangers will stand and feed your flocks. Foreigners will work your fields and your vineyards.
But you will be called Yahweh’s priests. Men will call you the servants of our God. You will eat the wealth of the nations. You will boast in their glory.
Instead of your shame you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will possess double. Everlasting joy will be to them.
“For I, Yahweh, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. I will give them their reward in truth and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their offspring will be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge them, that they are the offspring which Yahweh has blessed.”
I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh! My soul will be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth produces its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring up, so the Lord Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Thus appertaineth to all the Prophets and ministers of…
Thus appertaineth to all the Prophets and ministers of God, but chiefly to Christ, of whose abundant graces everyone receiveth according as it pleaseth him to distribute.
To them that are lively touched with the feeling of their sins.
Read full note →
Which are in the bondage of sin.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–11 Isa 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is]…
Isa 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound;
Ver. 1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.] Christ had graciously promised to accomplish his people’s happiness in its due time. {Isa 60:22} Here he showeth how and when he will do it - viz., by himself, anointed and appointed by his heavenly Father to be "Messiah the Prince"; {Dan 9:25} "Christ the Lord"; {Act 4:26} Priest, prophet, and king of his Church; a Saviour ex professo, consecrated as the priests of old were, first with oil, and then with blood. So was he (1.) By the Holy Spirit, invisibly at the first instant of his conception, and visibly, at his baptism; (2.) By his own blood sprinkled upon him at his circumcision, but especially at his Passion, which was another baptism. {Mat 20:23 Luk 12:50}
Read full note →
Because the Lord hath anointed me.] Prae, consortibus et pro consortibus {Psa 46:7} "Above thy fellows," and also for thy fellows, as some render that text. See Joh 1:33; Joh 3:34 Luk 4:18 Act 10:38 Heb 1:8 Psa 105:15 2Co 1:21-22 1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27. "Only unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gifts of Christ"; {Eph 4:7} "but God gave not the Spirit unto him by measure," {Joh 3:34} he had it in an abundant and transcendent manner, "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over," even as much as his human nature was capable of. Let the saints love him for this, {Son 1:2} and labour to be more and nmre made partakers of his holiness, for "of his fulness we all receive grace for grace"; {Joh 1:16} a perfection in some sort answerable to Christ’s own perfection. There are those who observe in this text, and not amiss, the mystery of the Holy Trinity - viz., God the Father anointing his Son Christ with the Holy Ghost. See the like at Christ’s baptism. {Mat 3:16} [See Trapp on "Mat 3:16"}
To preach good tidings unto the meek.] "To preach." This referreth to Christ’s prophetic office; as doth "binding up the broken hearted" to his priestly, and "proclaiming liberty to the captives," to his kingly office. To these three offices as God he was consecrated - set apart for a mediator; {as Exo 30:30} and as man he was qualified, as before. That which Christ came to preach was good tidings, goodspel or gospel, as we call it, the best news that ever came into the world. {Luk 2:10} This he came and preached not in his own person only, but by his prophets and apostles, {Eph 2:17} in whom he spake, {2Co 13:3} and before all whom himself preached the first gospel to our first parents, {Gen 3:15} even the gospel of grace.
Unto the meek.] Or, Lowly; for humility and meekness are sorores collectaneae, twin sisters. There are those poor that are gospelised - viz., the poor in spirit, sensible of their utter indigence and nothingness; {Mat 5:3} whereby also our Saviour proveth himself to John’s disciples, sent unto him for the purpose, to be the true Messiah foreshown by Isaiah, and foreshadowed in him. {Mat 11:5 Luk 7:22}
He hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted.] This Christ doth as a fit high priest, sensible of our miseries. {Heb 4:15} He hath manum medicare, hand of healing, he is the true Samaritan; not the physician only, but the surgeon of his people, cataplasmans et obligans, {a} plastering and binding up their wounds given them by the devil, that wicked thief, then when the priest and the Levites - the law - had passed them by, and yielded them no help at all.
The broken hearted.] Broken with the sense of sin and fear of wrath; so broken as if all their bones were rattling within their skin. This was David’s case, {Psa 51:8} and this he pleads, as one in case and capacity for mercy. {Psa 51:17} He knew well enough that God poured not the oil of his mercy, save only into broken vessels; for whole vessels are full vessels, and so this precious liquor would run over, and be spilt upon the ground.
To proclaim liberty to the captives.] Liberty from the tyranny of sin, and terror of hell. This Christ doth as a king, with great power. {Joh 8:32; Joh 8:34; Joh 8:36 Rom 6:17-18 Col 1:13 2Ti 2:26}
And the opening of the prison,] i.e., Of hell, called here koach from lakach, to receive, because it is capacious, and still taking in more company; sic infernus dicitur ab inferendo, ut aliqui volunt.
{a} Pangit et ungit ut sanet.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–11 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, as…
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, as it were, to accomplish that which is foretold and promised in the foregoing chapter, whereby this appears to be either the Holy Ghost; See Poole "1Ki 18:12"; or the Spirit of prophecy, i.e. the gift of prophecy; so we are often to understand by the Spirit, viz. the gifts; as the Spirit upon Samson, viz. the gift of valour, and courage, and strength: see 1Co 12:4, &c. Though the prophet may speak this of himself in person, yet that it is principally understood of Christ is evident, because he applieth this text unto himself, Luk 4:18, being the first text he preached upon after his baptism, at which time the Holy Ghost did descend upon him in a visible shape, of which that John, who baptized him, was an ocular witness, Joh 1:32,33, and so making good the truth of this prophecy; and it is said to rest upon and dwell in him, according as it is prophesied, Isa 11:2; 42:1.
Hath anointed me; set me apart, i.e. both capacitating him with gifts, and commissioning him with authority; and yet more as it is applied to Christ, a power to make all effectual, from whence he hath also the name of Messiah among the Hebrews, and of Christ among the Greeks; nay, Christ alone among the prophets hath obtained this name, Psa 45:7; and the prophet seems here to describe first who Christ is, and then what are his offices; this being the usual ceremony for the designing persons to the offices of prophets, priests, and kings, as hath been divers times shown, in all which respects it doth most eminently belong to Christ; so that the prophet doth hereby intimate both the final cause of his unction, viz. that he should execute these offices to which he was anointed; and the effect of it; that unction being upon him as the Head, it would flow from thence to his members, and so is an unction more peculiar to them; arid in a more general way it hath respect unto all the faithful, 2Co 1:21,22; 1Jo 2:20,27.
Read full note →
To preach good tidings unto the meek: being meant of Christ, this relates to his prophetical office. Literally this points at the good news that Isaiah brought of Cyrus’s being raised up to bring them out of Babylon, now they are become meek and humble; but if it be thus taken, it must be understood of his prophecies left behind him, for he died many years before the captivity. But they chiefly signify the good tidings of the gospel, that discovers Christ come in the flesh to redeem poor sinners from the captivity of sin and Satan, such as are meek, and tremble, or afflicted, as the word signifies, because ordinary afflictions make men meek and humble; called also the poor, and our Saviour expresseth it by that word, Luk 4:18. To these the gospel, these
good tidings, are brought, Mat 11:5. Whether by poor you understand,
1. The Gentiles, void of all grace and salvation, or tenders of it, till now. Or,
2. Properly so called, indigent and needy persons, of which sort were the greatest number that followed Christ, of which the reason might be, because Christ preached the contempt of the world and riches, which the poor would therefore sooner embrace, and the rich be more likely to oppose. Or,
3. The poor in spirit. To bind up: now follow several particular expressions to describe the same thing that he mentioned before more generally: a metaphor taken from chirurgeons, that carefully and tenderly roll up a broken bone, Hos 6:1; and this relates to Christ’s priestly office.
The broken-hearted; the heart dejected and broken with sorrow. I am sent to ease their pains, whose consciences are wounded with a sense of God’s wrath. To proclaim liberty to the captives; those captives in Babylon, but principally to Satan, that they shall be delivered; and this appertains to Christ’s kingly office, whereby he proclaims liberty from the dominion and bondage of sin, and from the fear and terror of hell. See Isa 42:7. The opening of the prison to them that are bound, i.e. supposing them to be in chains and fetters, yet they should be delivered, though in the greatest bondage. The further explication of these things will be found upon Luk 4:18, because there are some passages expressly mentioned here.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 10 He that is the best expositor of scripture has…
He that is the best expositor of scripture has no doubt given us the best exposition of these verses, even our Lord Jesus himself, who read this in the synagogue at Nazareth (perhaps it was the lesson for the day) and applied it entirely to himself, saying, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears (Luk 4:17, Luk 4:18, Luk 4:21); and the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, in the opening of this text, were admired by all that heard them. As Isaiah was authorized and directed to proclaim liberty to the Jews in Babylon, so was Christ, God's messenger, to publish a more joyful jubilee to a lost world. And here we are told,
I. How he was fitted and qualified for this work: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Isa 61:1. The prophets had the Spirit of God moving them at times, both instructing them what to say and exciting them to say it. Christ had the Spirit always resting on him without measure; but to the same intent that the prophets had, as a Spirit of counsel and a Spirit of courage, Isa 11:1-3. When he entered upon the execution of his prophetical office the Spirit, as a dove, descended upon him, Mat 3:16. This Spirit which was upon him he communicated to those whom he sent to proclaim the same glad tidings, saying to them, when he gave them their commission, Receive you the Holy Ghost, thereby ratifying it.
Read full note →
II. How he was appointed and ordained to it: The Spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord God has anointed me. What service God called him to he furnished him for; therefore he gave him his Spirit, because he had by a sacred and solemn unction set him apart to this great office, as kings and priests were of old destined to their offices by anointing. Hence the Redeemer was called the Messiah, the Christ, because he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. He has sent me; our Lord Jesus did not go unsent; he had a commission from him that is the fountain of power; the Father sent him and gave him commandment. This is a great satisfaction to us, that, whatever Christ said, he had a warrant from heaven for; his doctrine was not his, but his that sent him.
III. What the work was to which he was appointed and ordained.
1. He was to be a preacher, was to execute the office of a prophet. So well pleased was he with the good-will God showed towards men through him that he would himself be the preacher of it, that an honour might thereby be put upon the ministry of the gospel and the faith of the saints might be confirmed and encouraged. He must preach good tidings (so gospel signified) to the meek, to the penitent, and humble, and poor in spirit; to them the tidings of a Redeemer will be indeed good tidings, pure gospel, faithful sayings, and worthy of all acceptation. The poor are commonly best disposed to receive the gospel (Jam 2:5), and it is likely to profit us when it is received with meekness, as it ought to be; to such Christ preached good tidings when he said, Blessed are the meek.
2. He was to be a healer. He was sent to bind up the broken-hearted, as pained limbs are rolled to give them ease, as broken bones and bleeding wounds are bound up, that they may knit and close again. Those whose hearts are broken for sin, who are truly humbled under the sense of guilt and dread of wrath, are furnished in the gospel of Christ with that which will make them easy and silence their fears. Those only who have experienced the pains of a penitential contrition may expect the pleasure of divine cordials and consolations.
3. He was to be a deliverer. He was sent as a prophet to preach, as a priest to heal, and as a king to issue out proclamations and those of two kinds: - (1.) Proclamations of peace to his friends: He shall proclaim liberty to the captives (as Cyrus did to the Jews in captivity) and the opening of the prison to those that were bound. Whereas, by the guilt of sin, we are bound over to the justice of God, are his lawful captives, sold for sin till payment be made of that great debt, Christ lets us know that he has made satisfaction to divine justice for that debt, that his satisfaction is accepted, and if we will plead that, and depend upon it, and make over ourselves and all we have to him, in a grateful sense of the kindness he has done us, we may be faith sue out our pardon and take the comfort of it; there is, and shall be, no condemnation to us. And whereas, by the dominion of sin in us, we are bound under the power of Satan, sold under sin, Christ lets us know that he has conquered Satan, has destroyed him that had the power of death and his works, and provided for us grace sufficient to enable us to shake off the yoke of sin and to loose ourselves from those bands of our neck. The Son is ready by his Spirit to make us free; and then we shall be free indeed, not only discharged from the miseries of captivity, but advanced to all the immunities and dignities of citizens. This is the gospel proclamation, and it is like the blowing of the jubilee-trumpet, which proclaimed the great year of release (Lev 25:9, Lev 25:40), in allusion to which it is here called the acceptable year of the Lord, the time of our acceptance with God, which is the origin of our liberties; or it is called the year of the Lord because it publishes his free grace, to his own glory, and an acceptable year because it brings glad tidings to us, and what cannot but be very acceptable to those who know the capacities and necessities of their own souls. (2.) Proclamations of war against his enemies. Christ proclaims the day of vengeance of our God, the vengeance he takes, [1.] On sin and Satan, death and hell, and all the powers of darkness, that were to be destroyed in order to our deliverances; these Christ triumphed over in his cross, having spoiled and weakened them, shamed them, and made a show of them openly, therein taking vengeance on them for all the injury they had done both to God and man, Col 2:15. [2.] On those of the children of men that stand it out against those fair offers. They shall not only be left, as they deserve, in their captivity, but be dealt with as enemies; we have the gospel summed up, Mar 16:16, where that part of it, He that believes shall be saved, proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord to those that will accept of it; but the other part, He that believes not shall be damned, proclaims the day of vengeance of our God, that vengeance which he will take on those that obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, Th2 1:8.
4. He was to be a comforter, and so he is as preacher, healer, and deliverer; he is sent to comfort all who mourn, and who, mourning, seek to him, and not to the world, for comfort. Christ not only provides comfort for them, and proclaims it, but he applies it to them; he does by his Spirit comfort them. There is enough in him to comfort all who mourn, whatever their sore or sorrow is; but this comfort is sure to those who mourn in Zion, who sorrow after a godly sort, according to God, for his residence is in Zion, - who mourn because of Zion's calamities and desolations, and mingle their tears by a holy sympathy with those of all God's suffering people, though they themselves are not in trouble; such tears God has a bottle for (Psa 56:8), such mourners he has comfort in store for. As blessings out of Zion are spiritual blessings, so mourners in Zion are holy mourners, such as carry their sorrows to the throne of grace (for in Zion was the mercy-seat) and pour them out as Hannah did before the Lord. To such as these Christ has appointed by his gospel, and will give by his Spirit (Isa 61:3), those consolations which will not only support them under their sorrows, but turn them into songs of praise. He will give them, (1.) Beauty for ashes. Whereas they lay in ashes, as was usual in times of great mourning, they shall not only be raised out of their dust, but made to look pleasant. Note, The holy cheerfulness of Christians is their beauty and a great ornament to their profession. Here is an elegant paronomasia in the original: He will give them pheer - beauty, for epher - ashes; he will turn their sorrow into joy as quickly and as easily as you can transpose a letter; for he speaks, and it is done. (2.) The oil of joy, which make the face to shine, instead of mourning, which disfigures the countenance and makes it unlovely. this oil of joy the saints have from that oil of gladness with which Christ himself was anointed above his fellows, Heb 1:9. (3.) The garments of praise, such beautiful garments as were worn on thanksgiving-days, instead of the spirit of heaviness, dimness, or contraction - open joys for secret mournings. The spirit of heaviness they keep to themselves (Zion's mourners weep in secret); but the joy they are recompensed with they are clothed with as with a garment in the eye of others. Observe, Where God gives the oil of joy he gives the garment of praise. Those comforts which come from God dispose the heart to, and enlarge the heart in, thanksgivings to God. Whatever we have the joy of God must have the praise and glory of.
5. He was to be a planter; for the church is God's husbandry. Therefore he will do all this for his people, will cure their wounds, release them out of bondage, and comfort them in their sorrows, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that they may be such and be acknowledged to be such, that they may be ornaments to God's vineyard and may be fruitful in the fruits of righteousness, as the branches of God's planting, Isa 60:21. All that Christ does for us is to make us God's people, and some way serviceable to him as living trees, planted in the house of the Lord, and flourishing in the courts of our God; and all this that he may be glorified - that we may be brought to glorify him by a sincere devotion and an exemplary conversation (for herein is our Father glorified, that we bring broth much fruit), that others also may take occasion from God's favour shining on his people, and his grace shining in them, to praise him, and that he may be for ever glorified in his saints.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–11 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,....…
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,.... According to the Targum, these are the words of the prophet concerning himself; and so say Aben Ezra and Kimchi; but the latter elsewhere says (p) they are the words of the Messiah, who should say, "because the Lord hath anointed me", &c.; and another of their writers (q) is in a doubt about them; either, says he, they are the words of the prophet with respect to the Messiah, or the words of the prophet concerning himself; but there is no doubt but the Messiah himself is the person speaking, as appears from Luk 4:17, on whom the Spirit of God was; not his grace and gifts only, but the person of the Spirit, the third Person in the Trinity, equal with the Father and the Son; to whom several divine actions are ascribed, and to whom many things relating to Christ are attributed, and who is described as residing on him, and who, by the baptist, was seen upon him, Isa 11:2 the phrase denotes his continuance with him, whereby he was qualified, as man and Mediator, for his office:
because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek: not the Lord, the Spirit that was upon him, for Christ was anointed with the Holy Ghost; but Jehovah the, Father, he was the anointer of Christ, by whom he was anointed in some sense from everlasting, being invested by him with the office of Mediator, Pro 8:21 and in the fulness of time, in the human nature, at his birth and baptism, with the Holy Spirit, his gifts and grace, without measure, Psa 45:7, hence he has the name of Messiah or Anointed, and from him his people have the anointing which teacheth all things: and hereby he was qualified, as a prophet, to preach good tidings to the meek; such as are sensible of sin, and humbled for it; submit to the righteousness of Christ; ascribe all they have to the grace of God and have a mean opinion of themselves, and patiently bear every affliction: or "poor", as in Luk 4:18, the poor of this world, and as to their intellectuals, and spirit, who are sensible of their spiritual poverty, and seek the true riches, to these the Gospel is "good tidings"; and to such Christ preached good tidings concerning, the love, grace, and mercy of God; concerning peace, pardon, righteousness, life and salvation, by himself; concerning the kingdom of God, and the things appertaining to it:
Read full note →
he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted; whose hearts are smitten and made contrite by the Spirit and Word of God, and are truly humbled under a sense of sin; who are cut to the heart, have wounded spirits, and in great pain; these Christ binds up, by speaking comfortably to them; by applying his blood; by discovering the free and full pardon of their sins; and for this, as Mediator, he had a mission and commission from his Father; he came not of himself, but he sent him:
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening, of the prison to them that are bound; to such who were captives to sin, Satan, and the law, and as it were prisoners to them, shut up by them, and in them, and held fast there; but Christ, as he is the author of liberty; obtains it for his people, and makes them free with it, so he proclaims it in the Gospel; a liberty from sin, from the damning and governing power of it; a freedom from the curse and condemnation of the law; a deliverance from Satan, as of a prey from the mighty, or as of prisoners from the prison house. The allusion is to the proclamation of liberty, in the year of jubilee, Lev 25:10. The Targum is,
"to the prisoners appear in light.''
It may be rendered, "open clear and full light to the prisoners" (r), so Aben Ezra interprets it; See Gill on Luk 4:18.
(p) Sepher Shorash. rad. (q) Ben Melech in loc. (r) "et vinctis visum acutissimum", Vitringa.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Christ and his blessed office, ver. 1-3. The church's…
Christ and his blessed office, ver. 1-3. The church's repair and increase, ver. 4-6. And joy, ver. 7-11.
Upon me - Though the prophet may speak of himself, yet it is principally to be understood of Christ. Anointed - Set me apart, both capacitating him with gifts, and commissioning him with authority; and yet more, as it is applied to Christ, a power to make all effectual, from whence he hath also the name of Messiah among the Hebrew, and of Christ among the Greeks; nay, Christ alone among the prophets hath obtained this name, Psalm xlv, 7. The prophet describes first, who Christ is, and then what are his offices. Liberty - This appertains to Christ's kingly office, whereby he proclaims liberty from the dominion of sin, and from the fear of hell.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 The subject of the preceding chapter is continued in…
CHAPTER LXI
The subject of the preceding chapter is continued in this; and
Read full note →
to give it the greater solemnity, the Messiah is introduced
describing his character and office, and confirming the large
promises made before, 1-9.
In consequence of this the Jewish Church is introduced,
praising God for the honour done her by her restoration to
favour, and by to accession of the Gentiles, which is
beautifully described by allusions to the rich pontifical dress
of the high priest; a happy similitude to express the ornaments
of a restored nation and of a renewed mind, 10.
Certainty of the prophecy illustrated by a figure drawn from
the vegetable kingdom, 11.
NOTES ON CHAP. LXI
Verse 1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me - "The Spirit of JEHOVAH is upon me"] The Septuagint, Vulgate, and St. Luke, (Lu 4:18,) and a MS., and two old editions omit the word אדני Adonai, the Lord; which was probably added to the text through the superstition of the Jews, to prevent the pronunciation of the word יהוה Jehovah following. See Kennicott on the state of the printed Hebrew text, vol. i., p. 610.
In most of Isaiah's prophecies there is a primary and secondary sense, or a remote subject illustrated by one that is near. The deliverance of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon is constantly used to shadow forth the salvation of men by Jesus Christ. Even the prophet himself is a typical person, and is sometimes intended to represent the great Saviour. It is evident from Lu 4:18 that this is a prophecy of our blessed Lord and his preaching; and yet it is as evident that it primarily refers to Isaiah preaching the glad tidings of deliverance to the Jews.
The opening of the prison - "Perfect liberty"] פקח קוח pekach koach. Ten MSS. of Kennicott's, several of De Rossi's, and one of my own, with the Complutensian, have פקחקוח pekachkoach in one word; and so the Septuagint and Vulgate appear to have taken it: not merely opening of prisons, but every kind of liberty - complete redemption.
The proclaiming of perfect liberty to the bound, and the year of acceptance with JEHOVAH. is a manifest allusion to the proclaiming of the year of jubilee by sound of trumpet. See Le 25:9, c. This was a year of general release of debts and obligations, of bondmen and bondwomen, of lands and possessions which had been sold from the families and tribes to which they belonged. Our Saviour, by applying this text to himself, (Lu 4:18-19,) a text so manifestly relating to the institution above mentioned, plainly declares the typical design of that institution.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11 Isa 61:1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon…
Isa 61:1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me — To qualify me for effecting what is foretold and promised in the foregoing chapter. As Christ has applied this passage to himself, (see Luk 4:16,) and assured us that it was fulfilled in him, we may, with the utmost reason, conclude that he is here introduced by the prophet in his own person, and not that the prophet speaks of himself, as some have thought. Because, or rather, for, the Lord hath anointed me — Hath commissioned me with authority, qualified me with gifts, and set me apart, for the important offices here mentioned. Prophets, priests, and kings, among the Jews, were usually appointed and set apart to their several offices, as we have repeatedly seen, by anointing them with oil, which ceremony was used by the express command of God, and was intended to show, not only that the persons so anointed were called to, but were, or should be, qualified for, these offices, with suitable gifts and graces. But the anointing of Christ, who was to sustain offices incomparably more important, and productive of infinitely greater effects, was of another nature, he being anointed, not with external and corruptible oil, but with the eternal Spirit of the incorruptible God, which qualified him for every part of the great work to which he was called, beyond all others that were before him. Which Spirit he had without measure, Joh 3:34; and therefore is said (Psa 45:7; Heb 1:9) to be anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. To preach good tidings — Namely, tidings of salvation, of pardoning mercy, of renewing grace, and of eternal glory; unto the meek — Or, poor, as the words are rendered by the LXX., whom the evangelists follow Luk 4:18; Mat 11:5; namely, to the penitent, the humble, and poor in spirit; to whom the tidings of a Redeemer, and of salvation through him, are indeed good tidings, faithful sayings, and worthy of all acceptation. These, and even the poor, as to worldly circumstances, are best disposed to receive the gospel, Jas 2:5; and then it is likely to profit them when it is received with meekness, as it ought to be. This relates to Christ’s prophetic office. To bind up the broken-hearted — To give relief and comfort to persons burdened and distressed with a sense of the guilt and power of their sins, and of the wrath of God, to which they are obnoxious. It is a metaphor taken from surgeons binding up wounds: see Isa 1:6. This relates to Christ’s priestly office, his blood being the true expiation of sin, and the procuring cause of pardon and peace to the guilty. To proclaim liberty to the captives — Namely, liberty from the dominion and bondage of sin and Satan, of the world and the flesh, and from the slavish, tormenting fear of death and hell. This appertains to his kingly office. And those whom he, who is exalted to be a prince, as well as a Saviour, makes free, are free indeed; not only discharged from the miseries of captivity and bondage, but advanced to all the immunities and dignities of citizens. This is the gospel proclamation, and it is like the blowing of the jubilee trumpet, which proclaimed the great year of release, Lev 25:9; Lev 25:40; in allusion to which, it is here called the acceptable year of the Lord; the time in which men should find acceptance with God, which is the origin of their liberties: or, it is called the year of the Lord, because it publishes his free grace, to his own glory; and an acceptable year, because it brings glad tidings to us; and what cannot but be very acceptable to those who know the capacities and necessities of their own souls.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–11 The Spirit of the Lord God - Hebrew, The…
The Spirit of the Lord God - Hebrew, The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh.’ The Chaldee renders this, ‘The prophet said, the spirit of prophecy from the presence of Yahweh God is upon me.’ The Syriac, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God.’ The Septuagint, Πνεῦμα Κυρίου Pneuma Kuriou - ‘The Spirit of the Lord,’ omitting the word אדני 'ădonāy. So Luke quotes it in Luk 4:18. That this refers to the Messiah is abundantly proved by the fact that the Lord Jesus expressly applied it to himself (see Luk 4:21). Rosenmuller, Gesenius, and some others, suppose that it refers to Isaiah himself, and that the idea is, that the prophet proclaims his commission as authorized to administer consolation to the suffering exiles in Babylon. It cannot be denied that the language is such as may be applied in a subordinate sense to the office of the prophet, and that the work of the Redeemer is here described in terms derived from the consolation and deliverance afforded to the long-suffering exiles. But in a much higher sense it refers to the Messiah, and received an entire completion only as applied to him and to his work. Even Grotius, who has been said to ‘find Christ nowhere in the Old Testament,’ remarks, ‘Isaiah here speaks of himself, as the Chaldee observes; but in him we see not an obscure image of Christ.’ Applied to the Redeemer, it refers to the time when, having been baptized and set apart to the work of the Mediatorial office, he began publicly to preach (see Luk 4:21). The phrase ‘the Spirit of Yahweh is upon me,’ refers to the fact; that he had been publicly consecrated to his work by the Holy Spirit descending on him at Iris baptism Mat 3:16; Joh 1:32, and that the Spirit of God had been imparted to him ‘without measure’ to endow him for his great office (Joh 3:34; see the notes at Isa 11:2).
Because the Lord hath anointed me - The word rendered ‘hath anointed’ (משׁח mâshach), is that from which the word Messiah is derived (see the notes at Isa 45:1). prophets and kings were set apart to their high office, by the ceremony of pouring oil on their heads; and the idea here is that God had set apart the Messiah for the office which he was to bear, and had abundantly endowed him with the graces of which the anointing oil was an emblem. The same language is used in reference to the Messiah in Psa 45:7 (compare Heb 1:9).
Read full note →
To preach good tidings - On the meaning of the word (בשׂר bâs'ar) rendered here ‘to preach good tidings,’ see the notes at Isa 52:7. The Septuagint renders it, Εὐαγγελίσασθαι Euangelisasthai - ‘To evangelize,’ to preach the gospel.
Unto the meek - The word rendered ‘meek’ (ענוים ‛ănâviym) properly denotes the afflicted, the distressed, the needy. The word ‘meek’ means those who are patient in the reception of injuries, and stands opposed to revengeful and irascible. This is by no means the sense of the word here. It refers to those who were borne down by calamity in any form, and would be particularly applicable to those who had been sighing in a long captivity in Babylon. It is not improperly rendered by the Septuagint by the word πτωχοῖς ptōchois, ‘poor,’ and in like manner by Luke Luk 4:18; and the idea is, that the Redeemer came to bring a joyful message to those who were oppressed and borne down by the evils of poverty and calamity (compare Mat 11:5).
To bind up the broken-hearted - (See the notes at Isa 1:6). The broken-hearted are those who are deeply afflicted and distressed on any account. It may be either on account of their sins, or of captivity and oppressionk, or of the loss of relations and friends. The Redeemer came that he might apply the balm of consolation to all such hearts, and give them joy and peace. A similar form of expression occurs in Psa 147:3 :
He healeth the broken in heart,
And bindeth up their wounds.
To proclaim liberty to the captives - This evidently is language which is taken from the condition of the exiles in their long captivity in Babylon. The Messiah would accomplish a deliverance for those who were held under the captivity of sin similar to that of releasing captives from long and painful servitude. The gospel does not at once, and by a mere exertion of power, open prison doors, and restore captives to liberty. But it accomplishes an effect analogous to this: it releases the mind captive under sin; and it will finally open all prison doors, and by preventing crime will prevent the necessity of prisons, and will remove all the sufferings which are now endured in confinement as the consequence of crime. It may be remarked further, that the word here rendered ‘liberty’ (דרור derôr) is a word which is properly applicable to the year of Jubilee, when all were permitred to go free Lev 25:10 : ‘And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty (דרור derôr) throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.’ So in Jer 34:8-9, it is used to denote the manumission of slaves: ‘To proclaim liberty (דרור derôr) unto them; that every man should let his man-servant and every man his maid-servant, being an Hebrew, or an Hebrewess, go free.’ So also Isa 61:1, of the same chapter.
So also in Eze 46:17, it is applied to the year in which the slave was by law restored to liberty. Properly, therefore, the word has reference to the freedom of those who are held in bondage, or to servitude; and it may be implied that it was to be a part of the purpose of the Messiah to proclaim, ultimately, universal freedom, and to restore all people to their just rights. If this is the sense - and I see no reason to doubt it - while the main thing intended was that he should deliver people from the inglorious servitude of sin, it also means, that the gospel would contain principles inconsistent with the existence of slavery, and would ultimately produce universal emancipation. Accordingly it is a matter of undoubted fact that its influence was such that in less than three centuries it was the means of abolishing slavery throughout the Roman empire; and no candid reader of the New Testament can doubt that if the principles of Christianity were universally followed, the last shackle would soon fall from the slave. Be the following facts remembered:
1. No man ever made another originally a slave under the influence of Christian principle. No man ever kidnapped another, or sold another, BECAUSE it was done in obedience to the laws of Christ.
2. No Christian ever manumitted a slave who did not feel that in doing it he was obeying the spirit of Christianity, and who did not have a more quiet conscience on that account.
3. No man doubts that if freedom were to prevail everywhere, and all men were to be regarded as of equal civil rights, it would be in accordance with the mind of the Redeemer.
4. Slaves are made in violation of all the precepts of the Saviour. The work of kidnapping and selling men, women, and children; of tearing them from their homes, and confining them in the pestilential holds of ships on the ocean, and of dooming them to hard and perpetual servitude, is not the work to which the Lord Jesus calls his disciples.
5. Slavery, in fact, cannot be maintained without an incessant violation of the principles of the New Testament. To keep people in ignorance; to witchold from them the Bible; to prevent their learning to read; to render nugatory the marriage contract, or to make it subject to the will of a master; to deprive a man of the avails of Iris own labor without his consent; to make him or his family subject to a removal against his will; to prevent parents from training up their children according to their own views of what is right; to fetter and bind the intellect and shut up the avenues to knowledge as a necessary means of continuing the system; and to make people dependent wholly on others whether they shall hear the gospel or be permitted publicly to embrace it, is everywhere deemed essential to the existence of slavery, and is demanded by all the laws which rule over the regions of a country cursed with this institution. In the whole work of slavery, from the first capture of the unoffending person who is made a slave to the last act which is adopted to secure his bondage, there is an incessant and unvarying trampling on the laws of Jesus Christ. Not one thing is done to make and keep a slave in accordance with any command of Christ; not one thing which would be done if his example were followed and his law obeyed. Who then can doubt that he came ultimately to proclaim freedom to all captives, and that the prevalence of his gospel will yet be the means of universal emancipation? (compare the notes at Isa 58:6).
And the opening of the prison - This language also is taken from the release of those who had been confined in Babylon as in a prison; and the idea is, that the Redeemer would accomplish a work for sinful and suffering people like throwing open the doors of a prison and bidding the man who had been long lying in a dungeon to go free. On the grammatical structure of the verb rendered here ‘opening of the prison’ (פקץ־קיץ peqach-qôach), Gesenius (Lexicon) and Rosenmuller may be consulted. According to Gesenius, it should be read as one word. So many manuscripts read it. It occurs nowhere else. It means here deliverance. The Septuagint renders it, ‘And sight to the blind,’ which is followed by Luke. The sentiment which is found in the Septuagint and in Luke, is a correct one, and one which elsewhere occurs in the prophets (see Isa 34:5): and as the sentiment was correct, the Saviour did not deem it necessary to state that this was not the literal translation of the Hebrew. Or more properly the Saviour in the synagogue at Nazareth Luk 4:19 used the Hebrew, and when Luke came to record it, he quoted it as he found it in the version then in common use. This was the common practice with the writers of the New Testament. The Evangelist wrote probably for the Hellenists, or the Greek Jews, who commonly used the Septuagint version, and he quotes that version as being the one with which they were familiar. The sense is not materially varied whether the Hebrew be followed, or the version by the Septuagint. The Arabic version agrees nearly with the Evangelist. Horne (Introduction, ii. 403) is of opinion that the Hebrew formerly contained more than we now find in the manuscripts and the printed editions. Of that, however, I think there is no good evidence.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–11 Lord. Hebrew adds, "God." Adonai seems to have been…
Lord. Hebrew adds, "God." Adonai seems to have been inserted to prevent the pronunciation of Jehovah, (Kennicott) which alone occurs in the Septuagint, Arabic, and in St. Luke, iv. 18. (Haydock) --- Thus Elohim may have been substituted for Jehovah, Genesis xxii. 8., as [in] [Genesis xxii.] ver. 14, "Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah jireh, because he had said that day on the mount: Jehovah will provide" a victim, even Jesus Christ in the same place. Perhaps no part of the Bible is "so absurdly translated" as this, (Kennicott) by Protestants. (Haydock) --- St. Luke follows the Septuagint in his quotation, only instead of to preach a, &c., he has an explanation, to set at liberty them that are bruised. Isaias may here speak of himself, (Chaldean) yet only as a figure of Christ. The Jews admit that the Messias is meant. Christ had received the Holy Spirit at the Jordan, John i. 32. He performed these works, (Luke vii. 22.) particularly addressing his discourse to the meek and poor, Sophonias iii. 12., and Zacharias xi. 7., and 1 Corinthians i. 26. (Calmet) --- He was not anointed with oil, like Aaron, but with the Holy Ghost; so that of his fullness others must receive, Acts x. 39., &c. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Personal Centre of the Revelation of Salvation
3—THE THIRD DISCOURSE
The Personal Centre of the Revelation of Salvation
Read full note →
Isaiah 61, 62 and Isa_63:1-6
Great works are never accomplished without great men. After reading chapter 60,sone involuntarily asks himself: Who will be the instrument in God’s hand of performing this great work? This question is answered by the Prophet in the three chapters, 61–63, in which he speaks of Him who will bring complete salvation to Israel, but will judge the heathen. Most modern interpreters (with the exception of Stier, Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Rohling) are of opinion that the Prophet here speaks of himself. I approve in general of the reasons adduced by Delitzsch in favor of the view that the Saviour of Israel is the subject of the prophecy.—[Delitzsch alleges the following grounds in support of his view: 1) Nowhere has the Prophet hitherto spoken of himself as such in detail; rather he has, with the exception of the close of Isa_57:21 (saith my God), purposely kept his own person in the background. 2) On the other hand, where another than Jehovah has spoken of the work to which he was called, and of what he had experienced in the fulfilment of his calling, Isa_49:1 sqq.; Isa_1:4 sqq., that person was the very Servant of Jehovah, of whom and to whom Jehovah speaks, Isa_42:1 sqq.; Isa_52:13-15, not the Prophet, but He who is destined to be the Mediator of a new covenant, to be a light to the Gentiles, and the Salvation of Jehovah for the whole world, and who by self humiliation unto death ascends to this full glory of His calling. 3) Everything that the Prophet here says of himself is found in the picture of that Servant of Jehovah, who stands alone and unapproachable, highly exalted above the Prophet; He is endowed with the Spirit of Jehovah, Isa_42:1; Jehovah has sent Him and with Him His Spirit, Isa_48:16 b; He has the tongue of the learned, to help the weary with words, Isa_1:4; He spares and delivers those who are almost despairing and destroyed, the bruised reed and the dimly burning wick, in order, Isa_42:7, “to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house,”—this is what above all He has in word and deed to do to His people, Isa_42:7; Isa_49:9. 4) After the Prophet has once so dramatically set forth the Servant of Jehovah of whom he prophesies, and has made Him appear as the speaker in Isa_49:1 sqq.; Isa_1:4 sqq. (and also Isa_48:16 b), we cannot suppose that he will now put himself in the foreground, and ascribe to himself such official attributes as he has made to be characteristic features of that unique Personage predicted by him.”—D. M.]—To the reasons mentioned by Delitzsch, I add what Hengstenberg and Rohling have called attention to, that much which the speaker here says of himself is far too great to be ascribed to a mere man. The Prophet can indeed announce, but he cannot himself effect and bestow what he has announced. And if chapter 63, as cannot be denied, stands in closest connection with chaps, 61 and 62, is He, we ask, who there performs the negative side of the work of salvation, the Prophet? Does not the Prophet most clearly distinguish himself from Him, as the questioner from the person interrogated?
A.—THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE REVELATIONS OF SALVATION
61–62
1. A distant view of him who, as Prophet, King and Priest is the founder of Salvation
s Isa_61:1-11
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;
Because the Lord hath anointed me
To preach good tidings unto the meek;
He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And 1the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all that mourn;
3 To2 appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
To give unto them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they might be called 3trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
4 And they shall build the old wastes,
They shall raise up the former desolations,
And they shall repair the waste cities,
The desolations of many generations.
5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
And the 4sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.
6 But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord:
Men shall call you the ministers of our God:
Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles,
And in their glory shall ye 5boast yourselves.
7 For your shame ye shall have double;
And for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion:
Therefore in their land they shall possess the double:
Everlasting joy shall be unto them.
8 For I the Lord love judgment,
I hate 6robbery for burnt offering;
And I will 7direct their work in truth,
And I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles,
And their offspring among the people:
All that see them shall acknowledge them,
That they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom8 decketh himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth bringeth forth her bud,
And as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth;
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
To spring forth before all the nations.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_61:1. The expression פְקַח־קוֹחַ is to be written as one word without Maqqeph; for there is in Hebrew no word קוֹהַ (on the form see Ewald, § 157, c). As פָקַח is employed only of the opening of the eyes and ears, the LXX. in rendering τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψινare in part right, inasmuch as even prisoners who sit in darkness and the shadow of death are brought by deliverance from prison to see again the light. However the Septuagint is wrong in taking the expression to mean healing of the blind.
Isa_61:6. The ἅπ. λεγ. תִּתְיַמָּֽרוּ is either from יָמַר=מוּר (of which there is besides only the Hiphil הֵימִיר permutavit Jer_2:11), or from יָמַר=אָמַר (from which is the Hithpael הִתְאַמַּר Psa_94:4, extulit se). The former derivation seems to be the more appropriate, because הִתְאַמַּר Psa_94:4, is evidently used in a bad sense.
Isa_61:10. יְעָטַנִי (on account of the pause יְעָטָֽנִי) is, if correctly pointed, to be derived from יָעַט which occurs only here, but is identical with עָטָה. תַּעְדֶּה is Kal as Hos_2:15; Jer_4:30; Jer_31:4.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The middle triad (chaps, 61, 62 and 63) of the third Ennead (an aggregate consisting of nine) sets Him again before our eyes by whom the great salvation promised in chap. 60 is to be accomplished. Much of what the Prophet sees done by this great Personage whose name is withheld, bears a prophetic character, such as the bringing of glad tidings and comforting (Isa_61:1). But the setting free of the prisoners (ibid.), the proclaiming of the time of grace and of vengeance (Isa_61:2), and the real communication of ornament and joy for ashes and mourning (Isa_61:3), seem to indicate kingly might. Of like significance is the new order of things spoken of in Isa_61:4-7. In Isa_61:8-9 Jehovah ratifies the work of His Servant by declaring of it, that it is conformable to justice, and that He intends to make an everlasting covenant with Israel, by which the Israelites shall be known by all nations as the people blessed by Him. Finally, He, who had spoken from Isa_61:1-7, speaks again. He rejoices that He is clothed with the garments of salvation, which make Him appear as priestly bridegroom in wonderful union with His bride, to whom His righteousness and glory are by a vital and organic relation communicated (Isa_61:10-11). It almost seems as if the Prophet lets us have a glimpse of the three offices which have their common root in the unction of the Spirit.
2. The Spirit of the Lord God——shall be unto them.
Isa_61:1-7. With the words, The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me, the Subject of the prophecy attributes to Himself what Jehovah Isa_42:1 declared of His Servant, and what had been already, Isa_11:2, declared of the root of Jesse. [Three times in Isaiah is Messiah described as endued with the Spirit of the Lord. First the Prophet affirms this of Him, Isa_11:2, “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him.” Next, Isa_42:1, Jehovah Himself declares of the Messiah: “I have put My Spirit upon Him.” Here, lastly, One, whose appointed work marks Him as the Messiah, declares: “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon Me.” Does not this parallelism speak in favor of the identity of person in all three passages? It serves, too, to mark the unity of the whole book. D. M.]. The speaker affirms that He has the Spirit of Jehovah, that all He speaks and does may be known to be wrought by God. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Him because (יַעַן comp. Isa_30:12; Isa_65:12; Isa_66:4) Jehovah has anointed Him. [“מַשַׁח אֹתִי is more emphatic than מְשָׁחַנִי. In the choice of the word משׁח we may find an intimation that the Servant of Jehovah and the Messiah are one person.” Delitzsch. “Anointing, whether it occurs as an outwardly performed symbolical action, or as a mere figure, is always used to designate the gifts of the Holy Ghost, comp. 1Sa_10:1; 1Sa_16:13-14; Dan_9:24. As the anointing is identical with the imparting of the Spirit, we cannot isolate the words: because the Lord has anointed me, but must closely connect them with all that follows. He has endued Me with His Spirit to preach good tidings, etc.Hengstenberg.—D. M.] בִּשַּׂר occurs only in the second part of the book, and is rendered everywhere, with the exception of Isa_41:27, in the Septuagint by εὐαγγελίζω. It is here, as frequently, connected with the accusative of the person. עָנָו is found further in Isa_11:4; Isa_29:19. [“עָנָו as עָנִי from עָנָה to bow down; the latter is one bowed down through adversity, the former one inwardly bowed down, emptied of all self-confidence.” Delitzsch. “עני and עני are never confounded. In this world of sin the meek are at the same time the suffering; and that especially here the meek are at the same time to be regarded as suffering, is shown by the glad tidings which stand in contrast to their misery. The ענוים in opposition to the wicked, appear as the people of the Messiah in Isa_11:4 also.” Hengstenberg.—D. M.]. The binding up of the broken-hearted can be conceived as wrought by words of consolation. [But comp. Psa_147:3 where this work is ascribed to Jehovah as His own; and Vitringa truly remarks that the speaker here appears non praeco tantum, sed et dispensator of the rich blessings that are mentioned.—D. M.]. On the year of liberty comp. Lev_23:8 sqq. [“The proclaiming of perfect liberty to the bounden, and the year of acceptance with Jehovah, is a manifest allusion to the proclaiming of the year of Jubilee by sound of trumpet. This was a year of general release of debts and obligations, of bond men and women, of lands and possessions, which had been sold from the families and tribes to which they belonged. Our Saviour, by applying this text to Himself, Luk_4:18-19, a text so manifestly relating to the institution above- mentioned, plainly declares the typical design of that institution.” Lowth. “The Servant of God proclaims nothing which He does not at the same time bestow, as Isa_61:3 clearly shows.” Hengstenberg.—D. M.]. The expressions, captives and bound point to, first of all. Israel’s deliverance from the Exile. For the Israelites in exile were indeed prisoners of war and captives. [But they were freed from the Babylonish exile before the mission of the Messiah. How then could He be sent to them?—D. M.]. The Prophet here comprehends in his view the whole time of salvation beginning with the liberation from exile. In all that the Prophet here says of the healing of the sick, of the freeing of prisoners, of the rejoicing of the sorrowful, or the honoring of the despised (Isa_61:7), and of the rebuilding of what was laid waste, he has evidently in his mind the getting rid of the misery of the old time, and the commencement of the new, glorious era. To this commencement he reckons also the time of the establishment of a new covenant (Isa_61:8). It is hard to say where he sees the boundary which marks the beginning of this time. It may not have been clearly perceived by him (1Pe_1:11). Yet comp. on Isa_62:2. The expression שְׁנַת־רָצוֹן is not an official term, but a rhetorical variation for דּרְוֹר and is intended to designate a time of glory and blessing such as that of the Messiah will be. It will have in its train a day of vengeance, one day of judgment, for wrath is short (comp. Psa_30:6; Isa_10:25; Isa_54:8, etc.), grace long. In Isa_34:8; Isa_63:4 we have the same kind of representation; for “the year of recompenses or redemption” [my redeemed] is just the long time of grace granted to Israel, Chaps. 61 and 62 correspond to the year of grace, chap. 63 to the day of vengeance. In regard to the expression נָקָם see remarks on Isa_34:8. [It is manifestly with allusion to the year of jubilee that the time of grace here predicted is called an acceptable year of the Lord,i.e., a year of favor or of grace. This allusion explains the employment here of the definite time year. The time of grace is elsewhere spoken of as a day; “In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee,” comp. 2Co_6:2. The New Testament speaks, too, of the day of redemption and of days of vengeance, Luk_21:22; Eph_4:30. The time of wrath towards the church is a comparatively short time, and is frequently contrasted with God’s everlasting mercy to her. But the day of vengeance here predicted has respect to obdurate enemies of the Lord, and on them God’s wrath abideth,Joh_3:36.—D. M.]. In Luk_4:16 sqq. it is related that Jesus Christ read the commencement of this chapter in the synagogue of Nazareth, and declared Himself as the person by whom this prophecy is fulfilled. We see from this that He did not apply it merely to the deliverance from the Exile, and that He regarded it as a genuine prophecy given by God, and not as the work of a deceiver. [“Our Lord ended His reading in the synagogue at ‘the acceptable year of the Lord’ (Luk_4:19); but at the close of His ministry (Luk_21:22) He spoke of the ‘days of vengeance.’ ” Kay.—D. M.] They who mourn are Zion’s mourners, Isa_61:3, and on them shall be put on, or to them shall be given (the Prophet substitutes the word תֵּת for שׂוּם because this word is applicable only to clothes) the head-ornament [E. V. beauty] for ashes.פְּאֵר is the name of the female turban (Isa_3:20) and of the priest’s cap, Exo_39:28; Eze_44:18. Note the paronomasia here. Putting ashes on the head was a sign of mourning, 2Sa_13:19. The expression שׁמן שׂשׂון is found besides only in Psa_45:5, in that Psalm which typically represents a King of Israel as a bridegroom, and which has manifold points of contact with our chapter. There shall be the oil of joy given instead of mourning, and a magnificent robe, as symbol of exaltation, instead of a heavy, oppressed spirit. [Dr. Naegelsbach takes תְּהִלּה in the sense of glory, honor, in which view he follows Delitzsch. Alexander considers a garment of praise to be a garment which excites praise or admiration. But Hengstenberg best explains the meaning of these mourners having a garment of praise put on them as denoting that “they shall be clothed with praise, the praise of a divine goodness which has been manifested to them.” Comp. Psa_109:18, He clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment.—D. M.] מַֽעֲטֶהamictus, is found only here. The same remark applies to רוּחַ כֵּהָה (comp. Isa_42:3). The Prophet proceeds now to speak of those who are blessed by Him whose work had been described. They shall be called, what they really are, Terebinths of righteousness. What this name signifies, the Prophet immediately explains in words repeated from Isa_60:21. [“The gifts of God, although described by material figures, are spiritual, inwardly efficacious, renewing and sanctifying the inner man, sap and strength and marrow and motive power of a new life. The church becomes thereby Terebinths of righteousness,i.e., possessors of a righteousness wrought by God, approved by God, in such force, constancy and fulness as Terebinths with their strong stems, their luxuriant verdure, their perennial [?] foliage—a planting of Jehovah to the end that He may get honor thereby.” Delitzsch. D. M.]. We see from Isa_61:4 that the Prophet is thinking of exiles who have returned to their own country. But here again he sees everything together which will in the future prove to be a return from exile; for he cannot possibly have before his mind only the return under Zerubbabel and Ezra, as this poor beginning in no way corresponds to the grandeur of the picture here drawn. Having reached their home the exiles will build again the places that have lain waste for an incalculably long time, and restore the ruins of the habitations built by their ancestors. Comp. Isa_58:12 and Isa_44:26. They will be assisted in this work by foreigners as their servants. For these will feed their flocks, and be their husbandmen and vinedressers, while they themselves shall be called Priests of Jehovah, ministers of our God. As a privileged, ruling caste they shall live on the wealth of the heathen, and in regard to honor and glory shall come into their place (תתימרו. Israel appears here as the priestly nobility (comp. Exo_19:6), and the Gentiles as the misera contribuens plebs, that has to perform the hard work. When the Prophet, Isa_66:21, says of the Gentiles that Priests and Levites shall be taken from them also, he rises above his Old Testament stand-point, and speaks purely and entirely as the Evangelist of the Old Covenant. [The future conversion of Israel, instead of reducing the Gentiles to the condition of menials, will conduce exceedingly to their riches, Rom_11:12. Believing Gentiles can never be considered and treated as ‘aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise’ Eph_2:12. On the contrary, they are ‘fellow heirs and of the same body,’ Eph_3:6. The Prophet is speaking here not of Israel after the flesh, but of the Israel of God (Gal_6:16), and does not contradict what he elsewhere states in regard to the equal privileges of converted Gentiles, Isa_19:24-25; Isa_66:21 sqq. Even in connection with the new heavens and the new earth our Prophet speaks of the people of Jerusalem themselves planting vineyards and eating their fruit, Isa_65:17-23,and so not confining themselves to the exercise of priestly functions. Literally understood, these places are mutually exclusive and contradictory. They must be taken figuratively. Barnes extracts the kernel from the shell in saying: “The whole idea is, that it would be a time of signal prosperity, a time when foreigners would embrace the true religion; and when the accession would be as great and important as if they were to come in among a people, and take the whole labor of attending their flocks and cultivating their fields.” I append Abarbanel’s comment on Isa_61:5-6. “He (the Prophet) mentions also that the Lord anointed him to announce to the Israelites that the nations shall be subjected unto them so that foreigners will stand and feed their flock, and aliens will cultivate their fields and vineyards, so that the children of Israel shall not be employed in any coarse work, but shall serve the glorious God with their law and prayer alone. Therefore he says: Ye shall be called Priests of the Lord, as if he would say, ye shall not feed flock, nor till the ground, but shall serve the Most High and be Priests of God and servants of the Most High, and so this will be your name. And that ye may have time for the service of the blessed God, ye shall eat the wealth of the Gentiles.” D. M.]. Isa_61:7מִשְׁנֶה is plainly duplum, double. I do not think that we can understand this of twofold in land. This interpretation puts into the text something not contained in it. The direct antithesis of shame is honor. משׁנה can therefore mean nothing else than double compensation in honor for the lost honor, which is explained when Israel enters into the glory of the Gentiles. We have to supply תַּחַת before כְּלִמָּה as in many other cases. [We have here an enallage of persons, the second giving place to the third. Dr. Naegelsbach renders: On their inheritance they shall sing for joy. But he admits that חֶלְקָם can be the accusative of the object as in Psa_51:18, which is evidently the construction adopted by the translators of the E. V. D. M.]. Israel’s land is not become larger, nor is the separate inheritance of individuals. But there are added to their own honor and to their own possession the wealth and honor of the heathen. Therefore the inheritance of each Israelite has become double, and therefore they shall have everlasting joy. If we consider what has been mentioned from Isa_61:3 b as the fruit of the agency of Him who speaks, we must say that the Israelites shall be called Terebinths of righteousness as a fruit of prophetic work. [He who produces trees of righteousness is more than a prophet.] But that they can build again their cities, make the heathen to be their servants, and live in prosperity and honor, has been brought about by their King.
3. For I the Lord——hath blessed.
Isa_61:8-9. These two verses confirm what the Accomplisher of the divine will set in prospect before the people of Israel from Isa_61:1-7. Jehovah Himself now speaks in order to sanction the word of His Anointed. Was such a sanction necessary, or does the person of Him who designated Himself, Isa_61:1, as the Anointed of Jehovah, pass over into the person of Jehovah Himself? I do not venture to decide. The latter would not be impossible. Comp. the remarks on Isa_9:5. Injustice and iniquitous robbery (עוֹלָה=עַוְלָה59:3, here as Job_5:16; Psa_58:3; Psa_64:7 with quiescent wav comp. Ps. 92:16), such as was perpetrated on Israel, challenges the justice of God. He makes good, then, for the past the injury which Israel suffered, while he renders to Israel uprightly and fairly (באמת comp. Isa_10:20; Isa_16:5; Isa_38:3; Isa_48:1) the merited פְּעֻלָּהi.e., labore partum, reward, indemnification, (Comp. Isa_40:10; Isa_49:4; Isa_62:11; Isa_65:7), [Translate not: I will direct their work, E. V., but I will give their reward in truth], and makes for the future an everlasting covenant with them, which shall guarantee to them protection against such evil. I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Comp. Jer_32:40, where also the expressions נְטַעְתִּים 61:44 (comp. Isa_61:3), and באמת are reminiscences from our place. The ninth verse speaks of one glorious result of that everlasting covenant: It unfolds its effects in such fulness and intensity, that a character (character indelebilis) is imprinted upon the Israelites which distinguishes them from all nations. They will bear the opposite of the mark of Cain, the sign of blessing on their forehead; כִּי הֵם וגו׳ is not causal, but states the object of יכירום (the subject of the dependent sentence is attracted by the governing verb, comp. Isa_3:10). “All that see them will know them that they are,” etc., is for “all that see them will know that they are,” etc. This everlasting covenant cannot possibly be any other than the “new covenant,” spoken of in Jer_31:31 sqq. (comp. Heb_8:8; Heb_8:13). We see, hence, that the Prophet has here in his eye the time following that of the old covenant, the time of the new covenant. [“The true application of this verse is to the Israel of God in its diffusion among all the nations of the earth, who shall be constrained by what they see of their spirit, character, and conduct, to acknowledge that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. The glorious fulfilment of this promise in its original and proper sense, may be seen already in the in- fluence exerted by the eloquent example of the missionary on the most ignorant and corrupted heathen, without waiting for the future restoration of the Jews to the land of their fathers.”—Alexander.—D. M.]
4. I will greatly rejoice——before all the nations. Isa_61:10-11. The speaker here is the Servant of Jehovah; for who else could be compared at the same time with the priestly Bridegroom and with the bride? He expresses his holy joy in God, because Jehovah has clothed Him with garments of salvation, and covered Him with the robe of righteousness (comp. Isa_59:17). Garments of salvation are not such as signify salvation received, but such as cause salvation, for the Servant of Jehovah is the bringer of salvation, not the receiver of it, Redeemer, not redeemed. [Yet נוֹשָׁע is predicated of Him, Zec_9:9.—D. M.] How the garments of the Redeemer cause salvation, is shown by the צְדַקָה which follows the יֶשַׁע. The Redeemer covers those who are redeemed by Him with His garment. Because His garment is pure and holy and unexceptionable before God, all who present themselves before God in this garment appear righteous, and so are redeemed. Or is it, perhaps, more correct and more accordant with what follows (Isa_61:11) to say that the Lord’s garment, as a living power, germinates and multiplies itself [?], and that, therefore, the wedding garment spoken of in Mat_22:11 sqq., and the white robes of Rev_3:4-5; Rev_4:4; Rev_6:11; Rev_7:9; Rev_7:13, are, as it were, shoots from the living garment of the Saviour? The מְעִיל is not the outer garment, the שִׂמְלָה but a tunica superior, “an over undergarment, or under overgarment”(Leyrer in Herzog,R. Enc. 7, p 725), which was worn only by distinguished persons, such as kings and princes, and by the high-priest (Exo_28:31 sqq.; Lev_8:7). Comp. the nearer description in JosephusAntiqq. 3, 7, 4. In the second part of the verse some interpreters (Hitzig, Hahn), after the LXX. and Vulg., would take כִּהֵן simply in the sense of כּוֹנֵן or הֵכִין But כִּהֵן nowhere has this meaning; and the expressions מְעִיל and פְּאֵר seem to indicate priestly ornament. פְּאֵר is not in itself the priestly covering of the head. But in two places it is brought into connection with the priestly head-ornament; Exo_39:28, and Eze_44:18. כִּהֵן is not=to act priestly, i.e., gloriously, with pomp, in the tropical sense; but it is “Sacerdotem agere, sacerdotio fungi.” Whatever its radical, etymological signification may be, the word means in the Old Testament never anything but to act priestly, to attend to the priesthood. פְּאֵר stands in the accusative of modality, or of nearer definition: the bridegroom is priest, not in general, but in relation to his head-ornament. For this characterizes him as priest. The glorified Servant of God here spoken of, is compared with a priestly bridegroom, because He has purchased the bride by His priestly work, i.e., by the sacrifice which He offered for her (53), and because He still executes the office of a priest for her by intercession and blessing. But why the comparison with the bride with her ornaments on her? Why is not the comparison rather with a bridal pair?—What means this distinction of bride and bridegroom? It seems to me that this question can be answered from only one stand-point, and this one on which the Prophet himself cannot yet have consciously stood. There hovers over this whole chapter a sort of vail which was riot raised till its fulfilment. The words of 1Pe_1:10-11, are fully applicable to our Prophet in regard to this place. The fulfilment makes known to us that the Lord comprehends the bride with Himself as one. He is the Head, she is the body (Eph_1:23). The life of Christ, His Spirit, His salvation, His righteousness, are in the church. Therefore is He who wears the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness compared both with the priestly bridegroom and the bride כַכַּלָּה recalls Isa_49:18, as כֶּחָתָן recalls Psa_19:6. Under the כֵּלִים the whole apparatus of female finery is to be understood (comp. Gen_24:53; (Deu_22:5) Isa_61:11 is and must remain enigmatical, if it is not taken, as it has been by us, as an explanation of the thought that the garments of righteousness and salvation, which the Servant of God wears, can, as a living principle, propagate themselves, and so become the ornament of the bride. Isa_61:11 is therefore connected with Isa_61:10 by כִּי. I accordingly regard Isa_61:11 as explaining why He who compared Himself with the priestly bridegroom, compares Himself also with the bride. This can be done because the righteousness which the bridegroom as priest has acquired, and consequently the glory, too, which He has obtained, must appear in His body, the bride, just as the seed committed to the ground must appear in the field or in gardens. [Alongside of this explanation I place that of Delitzsch: “The word in the mouth of the Servant of Jehovah is the seed, from which a grand thing unfolds itself before all the world. The field and soil (ארץ) of this development is the human race, the enclosed garden of the same is the church, and the grand thing itself is צְדָקָה as the actual inward nature of His church, and תְּהִלּה glory, as its actual outward appearance. He who makes the seed to grow is Jahve, but the bearer of the seed is the Servant of Jahve, and to be permitted to scatter the seed of a future so full of grace and glory is the ground of His nuptial jubilation.” While Christ and His bride the church are one, and while He does for her all our author states, more is evidently drawn from the similes in Isa_61:10 than they were intended to teach.—D. M.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_61:1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.—Old writers found in this statement the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
2. On Isa_61:1. Because Jehovah has anointed me. It is beyond question that the Saviour had the triple office of Prophet, Priest and King. Nor can it be questioned that in the old covenant priests, kings and prophets were anointed, although we must say of the prophets, that they, in accordance with the peculiar nature of their office, were not anointed by men, but were anointed solely and immediately by God with the Holy Spirit. There is, then, a threefold theocratic office, and what is common to them all is anointing. As each of the three offices has different duties, so different qualifications are needed for each. A different χρῖσμαand therefore a different χάρισμα also is imparted to the Prophet, a different one to the priest, a different one to the king. This does not prevent a king from being also prophet, or a prophet from being also priest, or a priest from being also prophet in certain special cases. But He who has the anointing in full measure, who has the Spirit not merely ἐκ μέτρου (Joh_3:34, comp. 1Co_12:27; Eph_4:7), but the whole Spirit, He is eo ipso King, Priest and Prophet, He is the מָשִׁיחַ κατ’ εξοχήν.
3. [On He hath sent me.—Christ when fulfilling His ministry delighted to speak of Himself as the sent of God. It is remarkable with what frequency He so describes Himself in the Gospel of John. In that Gospel He makes mention of the Father’s sending Him about forty times. He always acted under a sense of His responsibility as commissioned by the Father. We can reason backwards, and establish the divine mission of Jesus Christ from His corresponding to the Servant of God here described, more perfectly than any person who has ever appeared in the world. Mark how every trait in the picture was fulfilled in Him.—D. M.].
4. [On to proclaim liberty to the captives.—“Whereas by the guilt of sin we are bound over to the justice of God, are His lawful captives, sold for sin till payment be made of that great debt, Christ lets us know that He has made satisfaction to divine justice for that debt, that His satisfaction is accepted, and if we will plead that, and depend upon it, and make ourselves over and all we have to Him, in a grateful sense of the kindness He has done us, we may by faith sue out our pardon, and take the comfort of it; there is, and shall be, no condemnation to us. And whereas by the power of sin in us we are bound under the power of Satan, sold under sin, Christ lets us know that He has conquered Satan, has destroyed him that had the power of death, and his work, and provided for us grace sufficient to enable us to shake off the yoke of sin, and to loose ourselves from those bands of our neck. The Son is ready by His Spirit to make us free.” Henry.—D. M.].
5. On Isa_61:2-3. “The year of Jubilee in the prophecy Isa_61:1-3, as whose fulfiller Christ presents Himself, Luk_4:21, is regarded as a type of the Messianic time of salvation, in which, after all the conflicts of the kingdom of God are victoriously passed through, the discords of the world will lose themselves in the harmony of the divine life, and with the σαββατισμὸςof the people of God (Heb_4:9) the acts of history will be concluded.” Œhler.
6. On Isa_61:2. On this passage Clement of Alexandria (Strom. Isa_1:21) and other cotemporary fathers founded the view that Christ’s public ministry lasted only one year, a view which Gerh. Joh. Vossius took up afterwards on other grounds.
7. [On Isa_61:2. The day of vengeance of our God.—“It is a great truth manifest everywhere that God’s coming forth at any time to deliver His people is attended with vengeance on His foes. So it was in the destruction of Idumea—regarded as the general representative of the foes of God (34–35); so it was in the deliverance from Egypt—involving the destruction of Pharaoh and his host; so in the destruction of Babylon and the deliverance of the captives there. So in like manner it was in the destruction of Jerusalem; and so it will be at the end of the world, (Mat_25:31-46; 2Th_1:7-10). The coming of the Redeemer to save His people involved heavy vengeance on the inhabitants of guilty Jerusalem, and His coming to judgment in the last day will involve the divine vengeance on all who have opposed and hated God.” Barnes.—D. M.]
8. On Isa_61:3. “Christ in coming to preach the Gospel confers many benefits: He binds up, He sets free, He opens, He comforts, He gladdens, He adorns, He anoints, He clothes. In Him we have every thing, so that we can say with Ambrosius: ‘We have every thing in Christ, and Christ is every thing in us. Wilt thou that thy wounds be healed, He is the physician; art thou in a burning fever, He is the cool fountain of water; art thou burdened with sins, He is righteousness; dost thou need aid, He is strength; dost thou fear death, He is the life; dost thou desire heaven, He is the way; dost thou fear darkness, He is the light; dost thou crave nourishment, He is food. Therefore taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusteth in Him (Psa_34:9).’ ” Cramer.
9. On Isa_61:4. [“The setting up of Christianity in the world repaired the decays of natural religion, and raised up those desolations both of piety and honesty, which had been for many generations the reproach of mankind. An unsanctified soul is like a city that is broken down, and has no walls, like a house in ruins; but by the power of Christ’s gospel and grace it is repaired, it is put in order again, and fitted to be an habitation of God through the Spirit. And they shall do this, they that are released out of captivity; for we are brought out of the house of bondage, that we may serve God, both in building up ourselves to His glory, and in helping to build up His church on earth.” Henry,—D. M.] When hereafter the city will be on earth in which there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, in which, too, there will be no temple, for the Lord God Almighty is Himself its temple—then will the earth itself, which is the oldest ruin, be restored to what it originally was, to be the soil and ground which bears the tabernacle of God with men (Rev_21:3).
10. On Isa_61:5-6. Weber is of the opinion that the Israelites will fulfil the priestly office only in so far as it related to teaching, and that they will receive for this as fair compensation “the bodily services” of the Gentiles. But that the office of teachers is not here in question is shown by the words משׁרתי אלהינו Teaching is not the essential function of the priesthood, but sacrificial and sacramental mediation. [We have not far to look to find the animal sacrifices (see Isa_60:7), if we find here a prophecy of the literal conversion of Israel after the flesh into a nation of priests. Ezekiel, however, tells us (Isa_45:15-16) that not even all the Levites, but only the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, should perform the proper functions of priests in the house of the Lord in that city whose name is Jehovah-Shammah. The New Testament and the providence of God have sufficiently shown that this prophecy was not designed to confer on the Jews a patent of nobility among the nations. In the exposition of Isa_61:5-6 we have pointed out its true interpretation. How the Jews understood this passage may be seen in Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judenthum, Vol. 2, p. 758 sqq. It will not be every nation that will be allowed the privilege of serving the Jews. Some will perish utterly. But every Jew will have two thousand eight hundred servants. And this number of servants is determined by Zec_8:23 : “In. those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.” Now there are according to the Jews seventy nations, and ten men from each would make seven hundred, but as the garment of every Jew will have four wings (כנף not skirts), each of which will be seized by a Gentile, it follows that four times seven hundred persons, i.e., two thousand eight hundred, will be the servants of one Jew. How so many could take hold of the garment of one man is not explained. But Peter, the Jewish Christian, may be supposed to have understood in what sense we should take the prophecies in Isaiah 60, 61. Yet he would not suffer the Gentile Cornelius to bow down at the soles of his feet, and he thought that no human being should permit a fellow-man to do so. Act_10:25-26. And those words of his (Act_10:34-35), “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him,” should have prevented Christian expositors of the Old Testament from adopting the carnal interpretation of the Jews. Dr. Charles Hodge has truly said that in the didactic portions of the New Testament “there is no intimation that any one class of Christians, or Christians of any one nation or race, are to be exalted over their brethren; neither is there the slightest suggestion that the future kingdom of Christ is to be of earthly splendor. Not only are these expectations without any foundation in the teachings of the Apostles, but they are also inconsistent with the whole spirit of their instructions. … It is as much opposed to the spirit of the Gospel that pre-eminence in Christ’s kingdom should be adjudged to any man or set of men on the ground of natural descent, as on the ground of superior stature, physical strength, or wealth.”—D. M.].
11. On Isa_61:9. “Omnis, qui viderit eos, prima fronte cognoscet, quia semen sit, cui benedixerit Dominus. Quis enim ex ordine vitae, mansuetudine, continentia, hospitalitate, cunctisque virtutibus non intelligai populum Dei?” Hieronymus.
12. On Isa_61:11. [“So that the whole world is become Eden: reclaimed for ever out of the hand of the unrighteous spoiler. In, this year of Jubilee the earth is restored to its proper heirs, the righteous seed. For all those weary ages of wrong, compensation shall be made. The Priestly King will re-consecrate shame-stricken men, and they shall now be ‘kings and priests unto God.’ ” Kay, D. M.].
HOMILETICAL HITS
1. On Isa_61:1-3. The announcement of the coming Saviour by Himself—It tells 1) the Person who sends Him; 2) His equipment for His work; 3) the design of His mission. It is a) to promise and bestow all consolation for the godly; b) to announce judgment for the wicked.
2. [The Lord hath anointed me.—“Aaron wag anointed to be high-priest by Moses (Exo_40:13; Lev_8:12). The Lord Himself has anointed Messiah Psa_45:7, ‘God thy God, hath anointed Thee.’ So we know that when Jesus was baptized (amidst crowds who were confessing their sins, Mat_3:6, as on a great Day of Atonement), the heavens were ‘rent’ (Mar_1:10), as if the veil which separated God and man were torn asunder, and ‘God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost’ (Act_10:38), declaring Him to be “His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased.” Shortly afterwards Jesus publicly applied this prophecy to Himself (Luk_4:17); and then went forth to proclaim the world’s Jubilee (Luk_4:43; Luk_8:1).” Kay, D. M.].
3. On Isa_61:6-7. The Spiritual Priesthood of Christians.—1) Their office (ministers of God), a) by spiritual sacrifices (Rom_12:1; 1Pe_2:5; Heb_13:16); 6) by interceding and blessing; 2) Their present shame; 3) Their future glorification.
4. On Isa_61:9. How are Christians known among other men? 1) By their confession, which does not agree with that of the world; 2) By their walk, which differs most decidedly from that of the children of the world.
5. On Isa_61:10-11. The mutual relation between Christ and His Church.—1) Christ as the priestly bridegroom puts His Church in possession of righteousness and salvation; 2) The church, arrayed in her bridal ornament, brings forth righteousness and praise to the Lord.
Footnotes:
[1]opening of the eyes.
[2]put on.
[3]terebinths.
[4]aliens.
[5]enter, substitute yourselves.
[6]robbery by iniquity.
[7]give their reward.
[8]Heb. decketh as a priest.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–11 acceptable year--the year of jubilee on which "liberty was…
acceptable year--the year of jubilee on which "liberty was proclaimed to the captives" (Isa 61:1 Co2 6:2).
day of vengeance--The "acceptable time of grace" is a "year"; the time of "vengeance" but "a day" (so Isa 34:8; Isa 63:4; Mal 4:1). Jesus (Luk 4:20-21) "closed the book" before this clause; for the interval from His first to His second coming is "the acceptable year"; the day of vengeance" will not be till He comes again (Th2 1:7-9).
Read full note →
our God--The saints call Him "our God"; for He cometh to "avenge" them (Rev 6:10; Rev 19:2).
all that mourn--The "all" seems to include the spiritual Israelite mourners, as well as the literal, who are in Isa 61:3 called "them that mourn in Zion," and to whom Isa 57:18 refers.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 1-3. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon…
1-3. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me — Upon whom? The use which our Lord Jesus Christ at Nazareth (Luk_4:16-22) made of these words must decide that he made himself the person meant. He declared himself herein the predicted and divinely anointed Servant of Jehovah; and that he had brought glad tidings of redemption to his people. The passages in Isa_42:6-7; Isa_59:20-21, point out the same idea. He (the “Lord God”) hath sent me — The “Servant of Jehovah,” the “Messiah.” See Psa_45:7; also Mar_1:1, and Act_10:38. The jubilee phrases are figures expressive of the work really wrought by Christ at his visible advent. The phrases are as follows: “The meek,” “the brokenhearted,” “the captives,” that is, to sin; “the prison-opening,” “the acceptable year,” “the mourners in Zion,” etc. All these were terms of jubilee specialty, and the objects mentioned were those upon which Jesus was tenderly compassionate.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–11 1. The Spirit … upon me] Cf. Isa_42:1, Isa_48:16…
1. The Spirit … upon me] Cf. Isa_42:1, Isa_48:16 (Isa_59:21).
because the Lord hath anointed me] The abiding possession of the spirit is the consequence of this consecrating act of Jehovah. “Anoint” is used, as often, in a metaphorical sense. The idea that prophets were actually anointed with oil is supported only by 1Ki_19:16, and even there the sense may be metaphorical since (as Cheyne observes) we do not read that the act was performed.
Read full note →
to preach good tidings] The verb is bassçr (εὐαγγελίσασθαι), on which see the notes to Isa_40:9 and Isa_52:7. It is to be remarked that in ch. 40–55 the mĕbassçr (or mebasséreth) is an ideal personage or company, whose function is quite distinct from that of the prophet or the Servant.
to bind up (i.e. heal) the broken-hearted] Cf. Psa_147:3; Psa_34:18; Psa_51:17.
The terms “meek” and “broken-hearted” denote the religious qualities which characterise the recipients of the prophet’s Evangel. How far the following designations, “captives,” “bound,” “mourners,” are to be understood in a spiritual sense is doubtful. It is not unlikely that the immediate reference is to the social evils whose redress is already demanded in ch. Isa_58:6; Isa_58:9.
to proclaim liberty] a suggestive expression, shewing that the idea of the year of salvation is based on the institution of the Jubilee; see Lev_25:10; and cf. Jer_34:8; Jer_34:15; Jer_34:17, Eze_46:17. These, indeed, are the only occurrences of the word for “liberty,” which is thus seen to denote always a universal emancipation by public decree.
the opening of the prison] The rendering “opening of the eyes” (R.V. marg.) does not suit the context, though it is true that the word is generally used of the opening of eyes (once of ears). [In the Heb. read pĕqaḥqôaḥ as a single word, = “opening.”]
1–3. The prophet as Evangelist.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–11 (1) The Spirit of the Lord God is upon…
LXI.
(1) The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me . . .—We have obviously a new poem in the form of a soliloquy, and we ask, “Who is the speaker.?” The Jewish Targum and many modern critics hear only the voice of Isaiah. Guided by Isa_41:1; Isa_1:4-9, we recognise here, as there, the utterance of the ideal Servant of Jehovah. That view, it needs scarcely be said, is the one suggested to all Christian minds by our Lord’s application of the passage to His own work in Luk_4:16-22. The opening words repeat what had been said by Jehovah of the Servant in Isa_42:1. The “anointing,” as it stands, might be that of king (1Sa_9:16; 1Sa_10:1), or priest (Exo_29:2; Lev_7:36), or prophet (1Ki_19:16). As interpreted by its fulfilment, it may be held to include all three.
Read full note →
To preach good tidings . . .—Comp. Note on Isa_40:9. To this passage, more than any other, even than Isa_40:9, we may trace the use of the word “gospel” (“evangel,” “good tidings”) in our Lord’s teaching and that of the Apostles. Claiming the promise as fulfilled in Himself, He became the great evangelist, and all who followed Him were called to the same office.
To bind up the broken-hearted . . .—The primary thought is that of a healing bandage applied to the heart’s wounds. (Comp. 1:6), The Servant of Jehovah is the great physician as well as the evangelist.
To proclaim liberty.—Phrase and thought are taken from the law of the Year of Jubilee (Lev_25:10; Eze_46:17; Jer_34:8).
The opening of the prison.—The LXX., adopted in Luk_4:18, gives “recovery of sight to the blind;” and as the verb is never used for the opening of a room or door, and is used in Isa_35:5; Isa_42:7, for the opening of the eyes, that is probably its meaning here.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–11 Vers. 1-3. THE MISSION OF THE SERVANT OF THE…
Vers. 1-3. THE MISSION OF THE SERVANT OF THE LORD. The words of our Lord in Luk_4:21, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears," preclude the application of this passage to any other than the Lord himself. It is simply astonishing that some Christian commentators (Ewald, Hitzig, Knobel) have not seen the force of this argument, but, with the Jews, imagine the prophet to be speaking of his own ministry. It is contrary to the entire spirit of Isaiah"s writings so to glorify himself, and specially unsuitable that, after having brought forward with such emphasis the Person of "the Servant", (Isa_42:1-8 Isa_49:1-12 Isa_1:4-9 Isa_52:13-15 Isa_53:1-12) he should proceed to take his place, and to "ascribe to himself those very same official attributes which he has already set forth as characteristic features in his portrait of the predicted One" (Delitzsch). Hence most recent commentators, whatever their school of thought, have acquiesced in the patristic interpretation, which regarded the Servant of Jehovah as here speaking of himself.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; literally, the Spirit of the Lord Jehovah (Adonai Jehovah) is upon me. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and one manuscript omit adonai. In the original announcement of "the Servant" it was stated that God had "put his Spirit upon him". (Isa_42:1) The sanctification of our Lord"s human nature by the Holy Spirit is very explicitly taught in the Gospels. (Mat_1:20 Mat_3:16 Mat_4:1, etc.; Mar_1:10, 12 Luk_1:35 Luk_2:40 Luk_3:22 Luk_4:1, Luk_4:14, Luk_4:18-21, etc.; Joh_1:32, 33 3:34, etc.) The Lord hath anointed me. The "anointing" of Jesus was that sanctification of his human nature by the Holy Spirit, which commenced in the womb of the blessed Virgin, (Luk_1:35) which continued as he grew to manhood, (Luk_2:40, Luk_2:52) which was openly manifested at his baptism, and never ceased till he took his body and soul with him into heaven. Of this spiritual anointing, all material unction, whether under the Law (Lev_8:10-12, 30 1Sa_10:1 1Sa_16:13 1Ki_1:39 1Ki_19:15, 1Ki_19:16, etc.) or under the gospel Mar_6:13 Jam_5:14), was symbolical or typical. To preach good tidings. (comp. Isa_40:9 Isa_41:27 Isa_52:7; and Nah_1:15) Unto the meek. (see Mat_5:5 Mat_11:29; and comp. Isa_11:4 Isa_29:19) To bind up the broken-hearted. (comp. Psa_147:3, where this is declared to be the office of Jehovah himself) "Binding up" is an ordinary expression in Isaiah"s writings for "healing". (see Isa_1:6 Isa_3:7 Isa_30:26) To proclaim liberty to the captives. This was one of the special offices of "the Servant". (see Isa_42:7) The "captivity" intended is doubtless that of sin. And the opening of the prison to them that are bound. St. Luke, following the Septuagint, has, "and recovering of sight to the blind." It is thought by some that the original Hebrew text has been corrupted. Others regard the Septuagint rendering as a paraphrase.
Read full note →
Vers. 1-3. The purposes of Messiah"s mission.
We are not to suppose that the prophet unfolds to us in the present passage the whole purpose of God in sending his Son into the world. Such logical exactness is alien to the spirit of prophecy, and especially unsuited to the rhetorical tone which everywhere characterizes Isaiah. Still, as the subject is one of transcendent interest, and as our Lord himself cites the passage as descriptive of his mission, it may be useful to note how many, and what purposes, it sets before us as included in the counsels of the Father, and intended to be realized by Christ"s coming. They seem to be some nine or ten.
I THE PREACHING OF GOOD TIDINGS. Christ "came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved". (Joh_3:17) The angels who announced his birth intimated that it was a subject for joy and rejoicing to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men". (Luk_2:14) His forerunner declared it to be the object of his coming, "that all flesh should see the salvation of God". (Luk_3:6) He himself came with "gracious words", (Luk_4:22) and called men into his kingdom. Hence from a very early date his message to man was known as the gospel, i.e. "the good tidings." What could be better tidings than the announcement of free pardon on repentance, of salvation, of atonement, of deliverance from sin, of a Comforter to support, and sustain, and cleanse the heart, and give men peace and joy in believing? Man, lost without him, was by him sought and saved, and brought out of darkness and misery into light and happiness.
II THE HEALING OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. By "the brokenhearted" seem to be meant, not so much those whom misfortune and calamity have afflicted and reduced to despondency, as those who are deeply grieved on account of their sins. Among the objects of Christ"s coming was the healing, or restoring to health, of such persons. He "healed the broken in heart, and bound up their wounds". (Psa_147:3) He made atonement for their sins, and thus secured them forgiveness; he assured them of God"s mercy and readiness to pardon; he bade them "come to him," and promised to "give them rest". (Mat_11:28) Through his actions and his teaching all the contrite in all ages have their wounds bound up; are strengthened, sustained, and comforted; obtain, even in this life, a "peace that passeth all understanding.
III THE GIVING OF LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES. "The captives" are the servants of sin the unfortunates whom Satan has made his prisoners, and compels to labour in his service. Christ came to "proclaim" to them "liberty," to make them an offer of release. "Christ Jesus," St. Paul tells us, "came into the world to save sinners". (1Ti_1:15) He himself declared, "I came not to call,he righteous, but sinners to repentance". (Mat_9:18) It is one of his greatest glories that he delivers men "from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God". (Rom_8:21) He offers to do this for all; but unless his offer is accepted he can do nothing. Men must not only be sinners, but must pass into the class of repentant sinners, before he can aid them. Then, however, his aid is effectual. All the bonds of sin may be struck off; the service of Satan may be renounced and quitted; and the captives have only thenceforth to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free". (Gal_5:1)
IV THE GIVING OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND. (See Luk_4:18) Our Lord, when-on earth, gave recovery of sight, in the most literal sense, to several persons who were literally blind. (Mat_9:30 Mar_8:23 10:52 Luk_7:21Jo Luk_9:7) But this is scarcely the "giving of sight" which was one of the main purposes of his coming. He came to open the eyes of men"s understandings, to give them spiritual intelligence and spiritual insight, to enable them to discern between right and wrong, between good and evil. Men at the time were so far gone from original righteousness, that they were to a large extent blind to moral distinctions bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, darkness for light, and light for darkness", (Isa_5:20) were vain in their imaginations, and had "their foolish hearts darkened. (Rom_1:21) Christ dispelled this spiritual darkness. He taught a pure and broad morality, which reestablished moral distinctions in the general conscience, and at the same time, through his Spirit, he gave to each individual Christian an inward light, which man did not possess before, by which he might direct his paths.
V THE PROCLAIMING OF A TIME OF ACCEPTANCE. Christ proclaimed a "time of acceptance" in various ways. To the Jews generally the three years of his ministry formed "the acceptable time," during which, if they had received him, (Joh_1:11) they would have maintained their position as a nation, and have held pre-eminence in the Church of Christ. To individuals who heard him the "time of acceptance" was that between such hearing and a hardening of the heart consequent on the rejection of his gracious message. To mankind at large the "time of acceptance" is the time of their sojourn here below, during which it is always possible for them to repent and turn to him, unless perchance they have been guilty of the "sin against the Holy Ghost." Such sin is probably still possible; but it may be hoped that few have committed it, and that the apostle"s declaration, which he made to all his converts, (2Co_6:2) may still be repeated to professing Christians generally, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
VI THE PROCLAIMING OF A DAY OF VENGEANCE. It was among the purposes of our Lord"s coming that he should "proclaim a day of vengeance.
1. To the nation of the Jews, which by rejecting him caused its own rejection from the position assigned it under the first covenant, and was delivered up for punishment to the Romans. This he did by a number of remarkable prophecies, (e.g. the following: Mat_21:40-43 Mat_24:4-28 Luk_13:34, 35 21:20-22) which announced that Jerusalem was to be destroyed, and that there was to be "great wrath upon the people". (Luk_21:23)
2. To the enemies of God universally. The general day of vengeance upon God"s enemies is that "last day," which our Lord announced so often, when he "will come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead". (Mat_7:22, 23 24:29-31 25:31-46 26:64, etc.) Then all his enemies will be "put under his feet." Then will be fulfilled the apocalyptic vision, "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire". (Rev_20:12-15)
VII THE COMFORTING OF MOURNERS. It was indicative of the tenderness of Jesus, that in his life on earth he had ever such great compassion for mourners. In his sermon on the mount he assigned to them the second Beatitude, "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted". (Mat_5:4) Thrice only in his ministry does he seem to have come across actual death, and then each time he had such pity on those who mourned their dead, that he worked miracles on their behalf, and comforted them by raising their lost ones to life again. (Mar_5:22-Luk_7:12-15 Joh_11:32-44) After his resurrection, he hastened to comfort the women who mourned him, by special appearances to them. (Mat_28:9 Mar_16:9) These, however, were but samples of his power and of his good will. Through the long ages that have elapsed since he founded his Church, mourners have ever found in him a true and potent Comforter. Through him it is that Christians "sorrow not as they that have no hope"; (1Th_4:13) through him that they have resignation, and are able to say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord;" through him that they look to receive their dead again raised to life, (Heb_11:35) and to be joined with them in a land where there is no parting.
VIII THE CROWNING OF THE SAINTS IN BLISS. "Henceforth," said St. Paul, as he approached the end of his life, "there is laid. up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them that love his appearing". (2Ti_4:8) We shall receive, says St. James, "the crown of life". (Jam_1:12) "When the chief Shepherd shall appear," says St. Peter, "ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away". (1Pe_5:4) Such crowns were seen by the beloved disciple as worn by the elders in the heaven]y region, (Rev_4:4) and were promised to all who should remain "faithful unto death" (Rev_2:10) by him that is "Faithful and True". (Rev_19:11) A part of the intention of Christ"s mission was to purify to himself a people to whom such crowns might without unfitness be awarded in his heavenly kingdom. The term "crown" is, no doubt, a metaphor; but it signifies some definite and positive degree of glory, having a substantial value, and forming a proper object of the Christian"s desire.
IX THE ANNOINTING THEM WITH THE OIL OF JOY. Christ himself was to be "anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows" . (Psa_45:7) His mission on earth was, in part, to extend the blessing of this anointing to his disciples. The oil of gladness," whatever else it may mean, cannot but primarily symbolize the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is called by St. John an "unction from the Holy One", (1Jn_2:20) and which was, in fact, the unction wherewith Christ himself was anointed (see the comment on ver. 1). To give the Holy Spirit to Christians was a very main object of his coming. The Spirit was essential to the sanctification of Christians; and he must "send the Spirit," and he could not send him until he himself was first "glorified". (Joh_7:39 Joh_16:7) St. Luke tells us how soon after his ascension the Spirit was given; (Act_2:4-33) and our Lord promised that, after he once came, he would abide with the Church "for ever". (Joh_14:16) Of all the immediate consequences of our Lord"s mission the gift of the Spirit was perhaps the most precious, embracing as it did regeneration, sanctification, comfort, strength, gladness.
X THE CAUSING THEM TO BE CALLED, AND THEREFORE TO BE, RIGHTEOUS. All the other objects had this final end in view. The good tidings were preached, and the brokenhearted healed, and the captives set free, and the dull of sight given moral discernment, and the acceptable time proclaimed, and the day of vengeance threatened, and the mourners comforted, and the crowns of glory promised, and the Holy Spirit given, in order that "oaks of righteousness" might be planted in the garden of the Lord that men might burst the bonds of sin, and become righteous, "perfecting holiness in the fear of God". (2Co_7:1) Christ "gave himself for us," says St. Paul, "that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works". (Tit_2:14) This was the principal object of our Lord"s coming to "save men from their sins." Other objects were rather means to cuds. This was the great end. Christianity is a success just so far forth as it weans man from sin, and creates and maintains in the world a "company of faithful men," who deserve to "be called oaks of righteousness," who persistently and determinately "eschew evil and do good," who lead holy lives, who "shine like lights in the world," "adorning the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things". (Tit_2:10)
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-9. Message of grace to Zion.
I THE ANOINTING OF THE MESSENGER. Under the Law, the priests were anointed, (Exo_29:7 Lev_7:36) and also the kings. (1Sa_9:16 1Sa_10:1 1Sa_16:13) It was the sign of appointment to a high office or commission from God. Hence, by a figure, it is applied to the appointment of Elisha to the prophetic office, (1Ki_19:16) and to the designation of Cyrus as the instrument of the purpose of Jehovah. Similarly, in 1Jn_2:20, the use is figurative. The idea is that of consecrated dedication. (cf. Psa_45:7 Heb_1:9)
II THE PURPOSE OF THE ANOINTING.
1. That he may evangelize, or preach the gospel. To whom? To those who need good tidings the afflicted, the distressed and needy, the poor, (Luk_4:18) or those borne down by long captivity or other calamity. (Mat_11:5)
1. To bind up the broken-hearted. In temporal or spiritual reference, "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds". (Psa_147:3) And this by the proclamation of liberty. The sound of the words would remind of the great "year of jubilee". (Lev_25:10; cf. Eze_46:17 Jer_34:8) If nothing is said in the law of jubilee about the release of prisoners or the remission of debts, all the associations of the time led to its being spoken of as a symbol of manumission, emancipation, and so of universal joy.
2. To proclaim a time of grace and of retribution. A "year" of mercy, a "day" only of vengeance. Punishment descends to the third and fourth generation, but mercy to the thousandth. (Exo_20:5, Exo_20:6; cf. Deu_7:9) But the coming or deliverance must ever mean also the coming in destruction. (cf. Mat_25:31-46 2Th_1:7-10)
3. To comfort mourners. Especially those of Zion. But an application of evangelical promises must be equally larger with human need, human receptivity, human willingness, human power to receive, i.e. faith. Upon such the "coronet" is to be placed instead of ashes; the associations of the wedding (ver. 10) are to replace those of the funeral, (2Sa_13:19) the nuptial song the former lamentation. Instead of the failing spirit," described under the image of a wick burning out, or of dimness, or faintness, (Isa_42:3 1Sa_3:2 Lev_13:39) there will be the "mantle of renown." In the Orient, especially, the apparel expresses the mood of the mind. See an illustration in Jud_1:10:3, 4: she "put on her garments of gladness, wherewith she was clad during the life of Manasses her husband.
4. To produce a vigorous and beautiful life. Men shall call them "oaks of righteousness, the plantation of Jehovah for showing himself glorious". (cf. on the simile, Psa_92:12-14, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree," etc.; Psa_1:3 Jer_17:8) A mystic plantation under the care of the Divine Gardener. (cf. Mat_15:13) The exiles will return, will "build up the ruins of antiquity, and raise up the desolations of the forefathers, and renew the ruined cities. As ruins suggest all the pathos of the decay of families and nations, so does the act of rebuilding remind of that ever-recreative energy which lies in the religious heart of mankind, and which breaks forth afresh after every epoch of calamity. Strangers are to feed their flocks, aliens are to be their ploughmen and vinedressers, and all classes are to partake in the Messianic blessings. The people of Israel themselves will be called the "priests of Jehovah." For the priests, as a class only, represented the idea of Israel, as a nation consecrated to the service of the Eternal, destined to perform a holy ministry to the rest of mankind. Men will take hold of the skirts of the Jew. (Zec_8:23) There will be compensation, double compensation, in the possession of the land in increased fertility and. with enlarged boundaries.
III THE CONFIRMATION OF JEHOVAH.
1. The principle of justice and compensation. He "hates things torn away unjustly," and will compensate his people for their past sufferings. How grand and all-consoling that truth of compensation! "All things are moral. That soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; yonder in history we can see its fatal strength." "It is in the world, and the world was made by it. Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. The dice of God are always loaded. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears" (Emerson).
2. The everlasting covenant. (Isa_55:3) Part of the condition of that covenant is the securing of an illustrious position for Israel among the nations; to be "known" is to be honoured, as in Psa_67:2 Psa_76:1 Psa_79:10. The time shall come in a larger sense, when the friends of the lowly and despised Nazarene shall be regarded as the favoured of the Lord; instead of being persecuted and despised, the whole earth shall regard them with confidence and esteem. Providence throws a veil of obscurity over its deepest designs, and the seed of glorious futures lies slumbering in the rough husk until the appointed time for its germination and growth. J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Ver. 1. The coming Saviour.
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," etc. These words are specially memorable as being those which the Saviour read in the synagogue at Nazareth. We have had it described to us "with its pillared portico of Grecian architecture, with its scats on one side for the men; on the other, behind a lattice, are seated the women, shrouded in their long veils." When the lesson from the Pentateuch was over, Jesus ascended the steps of the desk, and the chazzan, or clerk, "drew aside the silk curtain of the painted ark, which contained the sacred manuscripts," and from the roll of the Prophet Isaiah, either read the lesson for the day, or chose the portion himself. We can scarcely read these words here without thinking of him there, the whole congregation standing up to listen to him. The words contain
I THE MESSIANIC GRANDEUR OF CHRIST. Anointed of the Father. No mere prophet or teacher, but the Holy One of Israel. This prophecy, written some seven hundred years before, and thus attested by the Saviour as written concerning himself, gives Divine testimony to the ancient inspiration.
II THE MESSIANIC WORK OF CHRIST.
1. It was a proclamation. "Good tidings." Think of the iron power of Rome; the selfishness of the rich; the pride of the patrician; the helplessness of the slave; the hopelessness of the philosopher. Christ came to the meek, not the mighty.
2. It was a consolation. "To bind up the brokenhearted." To heal by the touch of his sympathy, and to save by the power of his cross.
3. It was a deliverance. "To proclaim liberty to the captives," etc. Sin had woven its silken cords into iron bands. Men were slaves of lust and habit. The prison was opened; and the fetters which they could not shake off Christ struck from their souls. W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1, 2. The beneficent mission.
These words are undeniably Messianic; that is their secondary, if not their primary, import. Of the mission of Christ they remind us
I THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS SENT OF GOD. Our Lord not only stated but insisted that he came forth from God. He constantly took up the position here asserted, "the Lord hath anointed me". (Joh_4:34 Joh_5:19, 30 8:28 9:4 12:49)
II THAT HE WAS FILLED WITH THE STRAIT OF GOD. "The Spirit of the Lord God" was upon him, and dwelt in him as in no other child of man. God gave not the Spirit "by measure" unto him. (Joh_3:34 Joh_14:10, etc.)
III THAT HE WAS CHARGED WITH A MISSION OF DIVINE BENEFICENCE. "Anointed to preach good tidings." Well might the human world have expected that a special messenger from heaven would come with ill tidings on his lips; would come to announce wrath, penalty, destruction; would pass through town and village with such a "burden" as that of Jonah to the thousands of Nineveh. (Jon_3:4) But the coming of Christ was the advent of grace; he came to promise peace, to publish salvation. The thoughts and ways of the Supreme are not as ours; they are immeasurably magnanimous.
IV THAT THE BENEFICENCE OF CHRIST WAS SPIRITUAL AND PROFOUND. He came to effect something more and better than the overthrow of a tyrannical government and the establishment of an earthly kingdom, than the removal of abounding poverty and the supply of material prosperity, than the introduction of any visible and transient good. He came:
1. To confer spiritual freedom on those who were in bondage. "To proclaim liberty to the captives;" to open the prison-doors and emancipate human souls from the thraldom of sin, of vice, of error, of folly, and to lead them into the glorious liberty of the children of God the liberty of truth and righteousness.
2. To convey comfort to the sorrowful. "To bind up the broken-hearted:" to comfort all that mourn. He came to furnish us with those facts and principles which can light up the dark shadows of deepest affliction with rays of peace and hope. (See next homily.)
V THAT EVEN THE LIGHT OF DIVINE BENEFICENCE CASTS A SHADOW OF CONDEMNATION. The day of deliverance to the righteous is a "day of vengeance" or retribution to the guilty. The brightest light of truth must fling the darkest shadow of responsibility and condemnation. The corner-stone of salvation to the penitent and believing must prove a stumbling-block to the impenitent and the unbelieving. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. Messiah"s mission, to the troubled.
Those more especially addressed by Messiah are called the "meek," the "broken-hearted," the "captives," and the "bound." It at once comes to mind that precisely such persons were addressed in the sermon on the mount: and it may be remarked, as distinguishing Christ from all ordinary human teachers, who have their own personal gain and success to consider, that he never sought out the great, the rich, or the learned, but gave his best to the heart-sore, the body-smitten, and the life-humbled. Our Lord makes a very striking reference to this passage in his sermon at Nazareth. (Luk_4:18) Before entering on the proper subject of this homily, it may be well to note that the only credentials which our Lord cared to present were the manifest signs and proofs that the Spirit of God was upon him. And what better credentials would any true-hearted man wish to offer? Material figures of moral conditions may be found in the depressed, afflicted, almost despairing state of the captives in Babylon.
I MESSIAH"S MISSION TO THE MEEK. This term is used in several senses in Scripture. Sometimes it stands for the humble, who think lowly things concerning themselves. Sometimes it stands for the disinterested, who are willing to give up their own things for the sake of others. Here it stands for crushed and hopeless ones, who have lost all spirit, and think there is no light, no cheer, in this life for them. The battle with sin sometimes leaves men hard, and then it is of little use to bring "good tidings." But sometimes it makes men meek, sort, impressible, and to them Messiah comes with "good tidings:" for them is born a Saviour.
II MESSIAH"S MISSION TO THE BROKEN-HEARTED. This term best expresses the state of conviction and penitence. It is the sign of that supreme grief which a man knows when he sees himself as he is, and as God regards him. To such a man Messiah comes with the message of a free and full forgiveness, which is a binding up, a healing; the joy of acceptance and welcome of love.
III MESSIAH"S MISSION TO THE CAPTIVES. Those between whose circumstances and whose souls there is constant conflict. Sin gets power to enslave through the body. "Whoso committeth sin is the slave of" sin." Messiah comes to energize souls for victory over enslaving bodies and enslaving circumstances. Giving life to souls, he gives liberty. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
IV MESSIAH"S MISSION TO THE BOUND. The moral suggestion is of those who are mastered by old evil habits, easily besetting sins. These become the distress of souls that have been forgiven and accepted. And Messiah comes to give "more grace," so that they may "resist unto blood, striving against sin." So Messiah meets all our gravest human troubles. He is Burden-bearer and Burden-lifter. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me
Isa_61:1-8
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me
Read full note →
The Speaker; probably the Servant of Jonah
Who is the speaker here?
The Targum prefaces the passage with the words, The prophet says, and, except a few, all modern expositors make the author of this book of consolation to be the speaker who, after having (in chap. 55.) let the Church behold the summit of her glory, now, with grateful look directed to Jehovah and rejoicing in spirit, extols his grand commission. But this view is objectionable, for the following reasons--
1. Nowhere has the prophet yet spoken of himself as such in lengthy utterances, but rather (except in the closing words, saith my God, in Isa_57:21) everywhere studiously kept himself in the background.
2. On the other hand, whenever another than Jehovah began to speak, and made reference to the work of his calling and his experiences connected therewith (as in Isa_49:1 ff; Isa_50:4 ff.) it was in such eases this self-same Servant of Jehovah of whom and to whom Jehovah speaks (see Isa_42:1 ff; Isa_52:13 on to end of 53.).
3. All that the person here speaking says of himself is again met with in the picture of the one unique Servant of Jehovah; he has been endowed with the Spirit of Jehovah (Isa_42:1); Jehovah has sent him, and with him sent His Spirit (Isa_48:16); he has a tongue that has been taught ofGod, to assist with words him who is wearied (Isa_50:4); those whoare almost despairing and destroyed he goes to spare and save, preserving the broken reed and expiring wick (Isa_42:3); to open blind eyes, to lead prisoners out of the prison, those who are sitting in darkness out of the house of confinement,--this is what, above all, he has to do in word and deed for his people (Isa_42:7; Isa_49:9).
4. After the prophet has represented the Servant of Jehovah, of whom he prophesies, as speaking in such dramatic directness (as in Isa_49:1 ff; Isa_50:4 ff., and also 48:16 b.), one could not expect that he would now place himself in the foreground and claim for himself official attributes which he has set down as characteristic features in the picture of the predicted One, who (as Vitringa well says) not merely proclaims but dispenses the new and great gifts of God. For these reasons we (with Nagelsbach, Cheyne, Driver and Orelli) consider that the Servant of Jehovah is the speaker here. (F. Delitzch, D. D.)
The speaker: probably the prophet himself
The speaker is not introduced by name. Therefore he may be the prophet himself, or he may be the Servant. The present expositor, while feeling that the evidence is not conclusive against either of these . . . inclines to think that there is, on the whole, less objection to its being the prophet who speaks than to its being the Servant. But it is not a very important question which is intended, for the Servant was representative of prophecy; and if it be the prophet who speaks here, he also speaks with the conscience of the whole function and aim of the prophetic order. That Jesus Christ fulfilled this programme does not decide the question one way or the other; for a prophet so representative was as much the antetype and foreshadowing of Christ as the Servant Himself was. On the whole, then, we must be content to feel about this passage, what we must have already felt about many others in our prophecy, that the writer is more anxious to place before us the whole range and ideal of the prophetic gift than to make clear in whom this ideal is realized; and for the rest Jesus of Nazareth so plainly fulfilled it, that it becomes, indeed, a very minor question to ask whom the writer may have intended as its first application. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
The lofty mission and its great results are not too lofty or great for our prophet, for Jeremiah received his orifice in terms as large. That the prophet has not yet spoken at such length in his own person is no reason why he should not do so now, especially as this is an occasion on which he sums up and enforces the whole range of prophecy. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
The Spirit in the Son of man
The fact that Christs earthly life became effectual through the ministry of the Holy Spirit within Him, and not alone through the inherent virtue and power He brought with Him from His pre-existent state, has become one of the commonplaces of theology; and yet how little do we realize its true import, and cultivate that humility and dependence of soul which would distinguish us if the great truth were ever in view! In spite of our formal adhesion to this doctrine, it seems still strange to us that one whom we think of as holy and Divine should be indebted at every stage of His earthly life to that inward mystic ministry which is so necessary to us because of our sinfulness. We speak of the Holy Ghost as a Deliverer from inbred corruption, and are ready to assume, quite unwarrantably, that where there is no corruption in the nature, the stimulating forces and fervours of His benign indwelling are needless. We are accustomed to look upon this ministry, which perpetuates in our souls the saving work of the Lord Jesus, as though it were a special antidote to human depravity only. For the Spirit to abide moment by moment with Jesus Christ, and work in His humanity, seems like painting the lily, gilding fine gold, and bleaching the untrampled snow. But that is a mistaken view. When the universal Church shall have been built up and consecrated to its high uses, it be by the Spirit that God will dwell in the temple. And the temple of Christs sacred flesh needed this same indwelling presence. The great Sanctifier blends the essential forces of His personality into this Divinest type of goodness, to show that goodness in even the only begotten Son is not self-originated. In the less mature stages of Christs expanding humanity implicit and docile dependence on this inward leading was the test of His entire acceptability to the Father. (T. G. Selby.)
The Spirit a compensation for the self-emptying of Jesus
The Spirit seems to have been given to compensate for that renunciation of power involved in the mystery of the incarnation, and as an earnest of its coming restitution. The wonderful works accomplished by the Son of Man took their rise, not so much in the superhuman qualities of His personality as in the power of that Spirit with which He was anointed. Although there is no clearly developed doctrine of the Spirit in the older portions of the Old Testament writings, Isaiah at least in his day was made to see that the Messianic works of healing and deliverance and redemption would flow out of that anointing by the Spirit which would single out the elect Servant of the Lord from His fellows. And Peter enforces the same thought in the household of Cornelius, declaring how that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. His own experiences in the Pentecost had taught Peter the secret of his Masters power. Perhaps the discovery had come to him through his own recent mastery over the pride and boastfulness of his nature, and may have helped to confirm him in his new habits of childlike trust upon another. In the days of his self-sufficiency it would have been quite impossible for Peter to believe that He who had been supernaturally revealed as the very Son of God, and glorified by a strange transfiguration splendour that seemed to make Him the fellow of the Most High, should need to achieve His mighty, works by leaning upon another. Could Peter have been told that his Masters marvellous gifts were held upon this tenure, he might have looked upon it as an affront to the Divine dignity of his hero, and have exclaimed, as about the death of shame, Be it far from Thee, Lord. Sometimes Christs miracles are quoted as proofs of His Divine nature. They are certainly proofs of His Divine authority, but they illustrate the energies of this attending Spirit rather than the attributes of Christs own proper personality. Christ cast out devils and opened prison doors and raised the dead, but it was by the power of the Holy Ghost alone. The tempter once tried to induce Him to work in His own strength, in the power of His inherent Godhead, so that He might undo and reverse the self-renouncing humility of His own incarnation, but in vain. All He did was in loyalty to this inward Guide who made known to Him the will of the Father and gave Him power for His appointed tasks. Fools that we are, we attempt much in our own strength, but the Son in His humiliation received back His infinite forces of life and dominion only through this Divine messenger from the Father. (T. G.Selby.)
A faithful Gospel ministry
I. THE ANOINTING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL GOSPEL MINISTRY. So it was in Christs ministry.
II. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ALL FAITHFUL PREACHING.
1. A faithful minister preaches good tidings to all distressed consciences.
2. A faithful pastor comforts mourners in Zion.
3. A faithful watchman preaches a free Saviour to all the world. (R. M.McCheyne.)
A trite ministry
I. THE TRUE MINISTRY IS ALWAYS INSPIRED AND DIRECTED BY THE HOLY GHOST. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
II. THE TRUE MINISTRY IS ANIMATED BY THE SUBLIMEST BENEVOLENCE. If you read the statement given by the prophet, you will find throughout a tone of kindliness, benevolence, sympathy, gentleness, pity, for all human sorrow. Therein may be known the true ministry of the Gospel.
III. THE TRUE MINISTRY, WHETHER PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, NEVER SHRINKS FROM ITS MORE AWFUL FUNCTIONS. Observe this sentence in the midst of the declarations of the text: To proclaim the day of vengeance of our God. (J. Parker, D. D.)
To preach good tidings unto the meek
Jesus a Preacher of good tidings to the meek
I. THE WORK ITSELF IN WHICH THE SON OF GOD WAS EMPLOYED, and to which He was called. To preach good tidings.
II. THE SPECIAL OBJECT OF THIS PART OF THE WORK. The meek. In the parallel place, it reads poor, and the one explains the other. By the meek here is meant the poor in spirit, those who, as being convinced by the law, have seen themselves to be poor, that they have nothing in which they could stand before God as righteous, but look on themselves as wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. And it is remarkable that our Saviours Sermon on the Mount begins with good tidings to such persons (Mat_5:3). Our Lord preached to all who heard Him promiscuously these good tidings, but in effect they were not good to any but to the poor in spirit among them. (T. Boston.)
Jesus and the meek
I. CONSIDER THIS MEEKNESS AND POVERTY, AND SHOW WHO ARE THESE MEEK POOR ONES. This meekness comprehends in it--
1. A pressing sense of utter emptiness in ones self (Rom_7:18).
2. A pressing sense of sinfulness.
3. A pressing sense of misery by sin. Like the prodigal, they see themselves ready to perish with hunger. Debt is a heavy burden to an honest heart, and filthiness to one that desires to be clean. Their poverty presses them down.
4. A sense of utter inability to help ones self. They find the sting in their conscience, but cannot draw it out; guilt is a burden, but they cannot throw it off; lusts are strong and uneasy, but they are not able to master them; and this presses them sore.
5. A sense of the absolute need of a Saviour, and of help from heaven.
6. A sense as to utter unworthiness of the Lords help; they see nothing which they have to recommend them to the Lords help.
7. An earnest desire as to the supply of soul-wants (Mat_5:6).
8. A hearty contentment in submitting to any method of help which the Lord prescribes.
II. EXPLAIN THE GOOD TIDINGS OF THE GOSPEL, AND SHOW THAT THEY ARE GOOD AND WELCOME TIDINGS TO SUCH PERSONS.
1. Gospel tidings are tidings of a complete salvation.
2. These tidings relate to a redemption, to a ransom paid (Gal_3:13).
3. To an indemnity, a pardon to criminals who will come to Jesus (Act_13:38-39).
4. To a glorious Physician of souls, who never fails to cure HIS patients.
5. These tidings are the tidings of a feast (Isa_25:6; Isa_55:2; Psa_22:26).
6. These tidings relate to a treasure (2Co_4:7).
7. To a marriage, a most happy match for poor sinners (Hos_2:19-20).
8. To a glorious victory (Isa_25:8; Rev_3:21).
9. To a most desirable peace (Eph_2:14).
III. SHOW HOW THIS GREAT WORK OF PREACHING IS, AND HATH BEEN, PERFORMED BY CHRIST.
1. He performed this work under the Old Testament dispensation,
(1) Personally, by Himself in paradise (Gen_3:15).
(2) By His ambassador, in HIS name, the prophets, and ordinary teachers.
(3) By His written Word.
2. He preached, and preaches, under the New Testament dispensation.
(1) By His own personal preaching in the days of His flesh, when He went about among the Jews, preaching to them as the Minister of the circumcision (Rom_15:8).
(2) By inspiring His apostles to preach and write the doctrines of salvation contained in the New Testament, on whom He poured out His Spirit, and by their writings, they being dead, yet speak to us from Him and by Him.
(3) By raising up and continuing always a Gospel ministry in the Church Eph_4:11-13; Mat_28:20). (T. Boston.)
To bind up the broken-hearted
Jesus binds up the broken-hearted
I. INQUIRE WHAT IS THAT BROKENNESS OF HEART WHICH IS HERE MEANT. The broken-heartedness is of two kinds.
1. Natural, arising from natural and carnal causes merely, which worketh 2Co_7:10). Many who arc very whole-hearted in respect of sin, complain that their hearts and spirits are broken by their crosses, afflictions, and ill-usage which they meet with in the world. Thus Ahab, Haman, and Nabal, their hearts were broken with their respective crosses.
2. Religious, which arises from religious causes, namely, sin and its consequences. There is a twofold religious breaking of heart.
(1) A mere legal one (Jer_23:29). When the heart is broken by the mere force of the law, it is broken as a rock in pieces by a hammer, each part remaining hard and rocky still. This breaks the heart for sin, but not from it.
(2) An evangelical one, when not only the law does its part, but the Gospel also breaks the sinners heart (Zec_12:10).
II. INQUIRE WHAT IT IS IN AND ABOUT SIN WHICH BREAKS THE MANS HEART, WHO IS THUS EVANGELICALLY BROKEN-HEARTED. There is--
1. The guilt of sin, by which he is bound over to the wrath of God.
2. The domineering power of sin, or its tyranny, by which he is led captive to 2:3. The contrariety which is in sin to the holy nature and law of God.
4. The indwelling of sin, and, its cleaving so close to a person that he cannot shake it off (Rom_7:24).
5. Sins mixing itself with all he does, even with his best duties Rom_7:21).
6. Frequent backslidings (Jer_31:18).
7. Desertions, hiding of the Lords face, and interruptions of the souls communion with God (Isa_54:6; Lam_3:18; Lam_3:44).
8. A Christians sinfulness, with the bitter fruits springing from his sin Rom_7:19).
III. SHOW WHAT SORT OF A HEART A BROKEN HEART IS.
1. It is a contrite or bruised heart (Psa_51:17). Not only broken in pieces like a rock, but broken to powder, and so fit to receive any impression. The heart is now kindly broken and bruised betwixt the upper and nether mill-stones; the upper mill-stone of the law, a sense of Gods wrath against sin; and the nether millstone of the Gospel, of Divine love, mercy, and favour, manifested in word and providences.
2. An aching heart (Act_2:37).
3. A shameful heart (Ezr_9:6; Psa_40:12).
4. A tender heart (Eze_36:26).
5. A rent heart (Joe_2:13).
6. A pliable heart.
7. A humble heart (Isa_57:15).
IV. SHOW HOW THE LORD CHRIST BINDS UP AND HEALS THE BROKEN-HEARTED. The great Physician uses two sorts of bands for a broken heart: He binds them up with inner and with outward bands.
1. With inner bands, which go nearest the sore, the pained broken heart. And these are two.
(1) The Spirit of adoption.
(2) Faith in Christ (the band of the covenant), which He works in the heart by His Spirit. Faith is a healing band, for it knits the soul.
2. Outward bands. There are also two.
(1) His own word, especially the promises of the Gospel.
(2) His own seals of the covenant (Act_2:38). (T. Boston.)
Jesus and the broken-hearted
I. THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF BROKEN HEARTS--THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL. They may be united. Often they are divided. Every broken heart becomes the subject of Jesus care, and is dear to Him, if for no other reason in the world but for this--because it is unhappy.
II. CHRIST WAS HIMSELF WELL TRAINED IN THE SCHOOL OF SUFFERING HEARTS, THAT HE MIGHT LEARN TO BIND THE MOURNERS. All which goes to break mens hearts He felt. No wonder, then, that the bindings are what they are.
1. Delicate.
2. Very wise.
3. Sure and thorough.
There is no such thing as a half-cure in that treatment. No heart which has not known a breaking knows, indeed, what strength is. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
A broken heart
Many things are valuable when whole, which, being broken, are little worth; but it is otherwise with the human heart. (R. Macculloch.)
To proclaim liberty to the captives
Jesus proclaims liberty to the captives
I. MENS NATURAL STATE. A state of captivity. They are captives to Satan 2Ti_2:26).
II. CHRISTS WORK WITH RESPECT TO THEM. To proclaim liberty to them. (T. Boston.)
Liberty for Satans captives
I. SINNERS IN THEIR UNREGENERATE STATE ARE SATANS CAPTIVES.
II. JESUS CHRIST, WITH THE EXPRESS CONSENT OF HIS FATHER, HAS ISSUED HIS ROYAL PROCLAMATION OF LIBERTY TO SATANS CAPTIVES. (R. Macculloch.)
The sinners captivity
The properties of it. It is--
1. A spiritual captivity, a captivity of the soul.
2. Universal. It extends to all the powers and faculties of the soul, the inner marl.
3. A hard and sore captivity.
4. A perpetual captivity. This conqueror will never quit his captives, unless they be taken from him by Almighty power.
5. A voluntary captivity, and thus the more hopeless. Though they were taken in war, and born captives, yet now he is their master by their own consent and choice, while they choose to serve the devil, and cannot be brought to give themselves to the Lord. It is a bewitching captivity. (R. Macculloch.)
The Gospel proclamation
1. It is a jubilee proclamation (Lev_25:10).
2. It is a conquerors proclamation to captives. Satan warred against mankind, he carried them all captive into his own kingdom; and there was none to deliver out of his hand. But King Jesus had engaged him, routed all his forces, overturned his kingdom, and taken the kingdom to Himself Col_2:15; 1Jn_3:8). And now being settled on His throne, His royal proclamation is issued, that Satans captives may again return into the kingdom of God. (R. Macculloch.)
Liberty to the captive.
Our Lord Himself directs us to consider Him as speaking in these words.
I. THE DEPLORABLE OBJECTS HE REGARDS. Captives. This slavery--
1. So universal as to our species.
2. Dreadful in its operations upon the individual. Voluntary, and submitted to as though it were a blessing rather than a curse.
4. Diversified as to the degree of its influence and the manner of its operations.
5. Cruel in its present effects and inconceivably more wretched in its final results. Men are guilty as well as enslaved.
II. THE GRACIOUS DESIGN OF THE OFFICE WHICH HE SUSTAINS. To effect deliverance for the captives. To this He is consecrated by the Spirit of the Lord.
1. By Him the claims of justice are perfectly satisfied.
2. Christ dissolves or breaks the power which leads us captive.
3. He induces the captive to accept deliverance when it is offered to him.
4. He renders their deliverance permanent, and prevents them from being again entangled in the yoke of bondage.
III. THE CORRESPONDING MANNER IN WHICH HIS GRACIOUS DESIGN IS TO BE MADE KNOWN. By proclamation.
1. It indicates that His office and its design are to be made universally known.
2. It is intended to excite universal attention--to create the most deep and lively interest. It is a proclamation which at once demands and deserves attention.
3. It shows that deliverance is to be effected in a way perfectly consistent with the freedom of human agency.
4. It is in such a way as to secure the glory of their deliverance to Him who thus proclaims it. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
Jesus the Liberator
It is a blessed name of Jesus, and as true as it is blessed--the Liberator. We can scarcely conceive anything grander, or more delightful, than to be always going about making everything free. To this end, Christ first liberated Himself.
1. As in Him there was no sin, He never indeed could know the worst of all bondage--the bondage of the spirit to the flesh. But He did know the restraints of fear; He did feel the harassing of indecision; He did experience the irksomeness of the sense of a body too narrow for the largeness of His soul; and He did go through the contractions of all that is material, and the mortifying conventionalities of life--for He was hungry, thirsty, weary, sad, and the sport of fools. From all this Christ freed Himself--distinctly, progressively, He freed Himself. Step by step, He led captivity captive. He made for Himself a spiritual body which, in its own nature, and by the law of its being, soared at once beyond the trammels of humanity. Therefore He is the Liberator, because He was once Himself the Prisoner.
2. And all Christ did, and all Christ was, upon this earth--His whole mission--was essentially either to teach or to give liberty. His preaching was, for the most part, to change the constraint of law into the largeness of love. Every word He said, in private or in public, proved expansion.
3. When Christ burst through all the tombs--the moral tombs and the physical tombs in which we all lay buried--and when He went out into life and glory, He was not Himself alone--He was at that moment the covenanted Head of a mystical body, and all that body rose with Him. If so be you have union with Christ, you are risen; bondage is past; you are free. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The opening of the prison to them that are bound
Sinners worse than captives
1. They are also prisoners. Every captive is not a prisoner, but all natural men, being Satans captives, are held prisoners.
2. They are prisoners in chains, bound in the prison.
3. They are blinded too in their prison (compare Luk_4:18). It was a custom much used in the Eastern nations to put out the eyes of some of their prisoners, adding this misery to their imprisonment. So the Philistines did with Samson (Jdg_16:21); and. Nebuchadnezzar with Zedekiah2Ki 25:7). This, in a spiritual sense, is the case of all prisoners in their natural state. (T. Boston.)
Causes of sinners imprisonment
1. As debtors to Divine justice.
2. As malefactors condemned in law (Joh_3:18). (T. Boston.)
Satans bands
1. The band of prejudices.
2. Of ill company.
3. Of earthly-mindedness.
4. Of unbelief.
5. Of slothfulness.
6. Of delays (Act_24:25).
7. Of delusion (Isa_44:20; Rev_3:17).
8. Of divers lusts (2Ti_3:6). (T. Boston.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 9, 11 Isa_61:1-3. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon…
THE SIGNS OF A TRUE MINISTRY
Isa_61:1-3. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, &c.
Read full note →
This word, in all the beauty and grace of its meaning, was fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ; yet it may be regarded as setting forth the signs of a true service for the Kingdom of God, whether rendered by an individual labourer or by the Church in its collective capacity. Looked at in this light, the text becomes solemn as a judgment-seat, and terrible as the vision of God. It declares—
I. THAT THE TRUE MINISTRY IS ALWAYS INSPIRED AND DIRECTED BY THE HOLY GHOST.
That our service may be animated by the Holy Spirit, and should express Divine ideas and purposes, is clear, from the consideration that ours is not an earthly ministry contemplating earthly matters. In working out religious ideas and Christian purposes, it is not the man who has the longest head that can always do the most good; it is the man who says—and says in reverence and humility—“I am but a vessel, an instrument, an agent; I am not the master, I am but a servant; Lord God, be thou my inspiration, my strength, and the completeness of my power!” (1Co_2:14). Our service at home, in the school, &c., ought to be more intensely spiritual. Spiritual character, vitality, will exercise a subtle influence, intensify, and extend. Have we the Holy Ghost?
II. THAT THE TRUE MINISTRY IS ANIMATED BY THE SUBLIMEST BENEVOLENCE.
Throughout the statement of the prophet, there is a tone of kindliness, benevolence, sympathy, gentleness, pity for all human sorrow. The keynote of the Gospel is joy; the watchword of the Gospel is liberty. A ministry that interprets human sorrow downward is not of God [1752]
[1752] The great appeal which Christianity makes to the world is this:—“I come to make human life freer, grander, purer; I come to open worlds in which human life can be more perfectly developed; I come to set man towards man in the relation of brother towards brother; to break the chains of human captivity; to dispel intellectual and moral darkness, and to bring in an unending summer day:” and any religion that comes with a profession of that kind, even were it nothing more, will, primâ facie, demand to be heard as possibly for God.—Dr. Parker.
III. THAT THE TRUE MINISTRY, WHETHER PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, NEVER SHRINKS FROM ITS MORE AWFUL FUNCTIONS (Isa_61:2).
Without a day of vengeance human history would not be merely poetically incomplete, but morally imperfect. All trampled rights demand a day of vengeance. Peace is impossible so long as impurity is in existence. The day of vengeance will be spiritual [1755]
[1755] You cannot beat a man with rods, and cause him to suffer to the utmost extremity of his capability; you cannot whip a man with cords till you have whipped him enough: every man must be his own scourge. The Spirit of God must be so revealed in a man that he will see himself as he really is, and pronounce his own sentence upon himself, so that he shall turn himself away from heaven, and from life, and from God, and from saints, and say, “Yes, it is right; I ought not to be there.” When a man gives way so, when his heart collapses, when he says to God, “Yes, I am visited with Thy judgments: they are right and true altogether,” that is the day of vengeance.—Dr. Parker.
APPLICATION—Let us often stand before this text as before a judgment-seat. Have we the Holy Ghost, or is ours but a feeble testimony we have learnt from teachers that have no claim to Divine inspiration? Are we a joy to all that mourn, &c.? are we a terror to evil-doers, &c.?—Joseph Parker, D.D., City Temple, pp. 397–404.
THE DIVINE PREACHER “Of whom saith the prophet this?” I. THE SPEAKER. Doubtless Isaiah was called to comfort the exiles in Babylon, But this language is too elevated to apply to him. The speaker is “the servant of Jehovah,” the Messiah. Jesus, when at Nazareth, appropriated the words to Himself (Luk_4:28, &c.) Though to all appearance a poor, unlettered peasant, Jesus was appointed to fulfil so high a function. What an evidence of His divinity! II. IN WHOSE NAME AND WITH WHAT AUTHORITY DOES HE SPEAK?
1. The qualification. The Spirit was given without measure—the Spirit of wisdom, of compassion, of help.
2. The commission. The Lord “anointed Him.” Approved, sanctioned, prospered by the Lord, He must needs possess the attractiveness and the authority ascribed to Him. This is the explanation of His incomparable power. III. TO WHOM DOES HE SPEAK? To the meek, &c. IV. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE MESSAGE Good tidings, &c.
1. Of the Father’s interest and care.
2. Of His purpose of salvation.
3. Of redemption, as expressing and carrying out Divine intentions of grace.
4. Of spiritual riches, which the poor of this world might possess.
5. Of everlasting life and happiness.
APPLICATION.—
1. Accept Christ’s offers of grace!
2. Publish the compassion of this Divine Messiah!—The Homiletical Library, vol. ii. pp. 123, 124.
I. The moral disease—broken-heartedness.
By the broken-hearted, I understand those who, in the language of Scripture, “sorrow after a godly sort;” whose grief is occasioned by sin, in some one of its endlessly varied forms. It may be best understood by a reference to one or two examples—presenting it in its causes, and in its effects and outward features. Brokenness of heart is often the result—
1. Of the presence of guilt upon the conscience (Psa_32:3-4; Psa_38:1-8).
2. Of a continued feeling of sin, in its strength in the nature (Rom_7:23-24).
3. Of God’s dealings with the soul, in order to recover it from backsliding (Psalms 51; Jer_31:18-19).
4. Of seeing sin prevailing in the Church, and among the people of God (Jer_23:9).
5. Of a season of desertion (Psa_77:1-9).
6. Of the reproaches, and calumnies, and persecutions of the wicked (Psa_69:20). If broken-hearted, is it through the sorrow of this life, or sin?
II. The Physician.
1. The sympathy which leads to the healing of the broken-hearted is with God. There are other comforters.
2. He who has come to heal is peculiarly qualified, by His nature and by His experience, for sympathising with the afflicted—the Spirit, the “Comforter.”
3. The balm which the Physician applies differs according to the different causes of brokenness of heart.
(1.) If unpardoned guilt—the blood and righteousness of Christ (Heb_9:14).
(2.) If unsubdued sin—grace, and strength, and purity, secured in the covenant (Eze_36:25).
(3.) If backsliding—the tokens of reconciliation (Luk_15:22-24). (4,) If desertion and darkness—support of faith (Isa_1:10), restoration of God’s presence.
(5.) If prevailing iniquity—the Sovereignty of God. He can vindicate His glory. He will yet do so.
I. The condition of men by nature—they are captives.
1. Men are not now in their original and native country. The captive, though born in bondage, yet looks away to his fatherland. That man is not in his native and original condition is evident.
(1.) This is an historical fact—recorded.
(2.) The evidence of this is to be found in the very nature of man himself—for, He must have a god, and worship. He bears a conscience, recoguising another law than that which he is under. He is still in a state of progression.
2. The expression “captives” has a reference to the manner in which men became foreigners. There are but two ways in which any can pass into bondage—through war and stratagem, or through being sold.
3. The expression of the text leads us to look to the state and character of man for the features of captivity.
(1.) Like the captive and slave, man has lost his freedom. He is in bondage to sin—to the flesh—to the world.
(2.) Like the captive and slave, man has lost his dignity. Of position—as a king’s son. Of character—as Godlike, Of employment—as a worshipper of, and a fellow-worker with, God.
(3.) Like the captive and slave, he has lost his courage—denying God, he dreads man.
(4.) Like the captive and slave, there are given to him hard and unrewarded tasks. He is made to fight against God—to destroy himself—to violate conscience.
(5.) Like the captive and slave, he is miserable.
II. The object and office of Christ.
1. Before accomplishing the actual deliverance of man from his captivity, Christ procures the reversal of his sentence of banishment (Gen_3:24).
2. Before, &c., Christ had to ransom man as a lawful captive, passive. “Ransomed”—“redeemed”—“bought,” &c.
3. In order that men may be delivered, Christ overthrows the power which has led them captive, and keeps them enslaved (Mat_12:29; Col_2:15; Psa_68:18).
4. Having crushed the oppressor, Christ leads forth His people from their captivity (Isa_35:10; Isa_49:25).
5. This He does through preaching (2Co_10:4-5).
6. That believers are the Lord’s freemen, is manifest in their character and conduct.
I. The time—“the acceptable year of the Lord.”
1. Reference is here made to the sabbatical year of the Jews, and especially to the Jubilee (Lev_25:8-17) [1758]
2. While this law served important political and religious purposes among the Jews, it was typical of the Christian dispensation (Luk_4:21).
3. As the Jubilee was ushered in by trumpets, so was the Christian dispensation by preaching. Christ is said to have died at the commencement of the last Jubilee observed.
4. We have thus a perpetual Jubilee, and a perpetual sounding of trumpets (Rom_10:15).
[1758] The allusion in these words is to the Jewish year of Jubilee. The evangelical sense of the term, as it is to be here understood, is confirmed by the fact that when the Saviour preached in the synagogue this was His text, and He announced the fulfilment of the prophecy from the advent of the dispensation of the Gospel.
The Jewish year of Jubilee was a political institution intended for wise purposes. It was to prevent the oppression of the poor, to guard against the miserly accumulations of the rich, and to preserve the ancient patrimony of families, notwithstanding personal reverses, as a sort of inalienable entail. As in the year of Jubilee all slaves that had sold themselves, in the liquidation of their debts into bondage were liberated, and all property that had been temporarily alienated reverted to its original owner, there was a sort of equality retained amid the tribes, the balance of society was preserved, and an effectual check was put upon the system of confiscation and bondage, which might otherwise have become an unmitigated feudalism.… With the Jubilee, however, as a political institution, we have not now to deal: our object is to show that like almost everything else in Jewish polity or ritual, it set forth in shadow the deliverances of the new and better covenant. The analogies are plenteous and significant.
If you study the history of the Jewish Jubilee, you will find—
1. That IT COMMENCED AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY OF ATONEMENT. Of the solemnities of that day, you are doubtless aware.… It was after these solemnities, after the prostrate knee and afflicted soul, after the ensanguined altar and the banished trespass offering, after the humbled entrance into the holiest and the exulting emergence from it, that the solemnities of the Sabbatical year began. Scarcely had the priest’s voice been hushed, scarcely had the last echoing benediction from his lips reached and thrilled the furthest of the crowd, before the sound of the trumpet, caught up and transmitted through all the Jewish city, proclaimed the commencement of the year of Jubilee. Is not this a type of the way in which spiritual blessings are exclusively introduced to mankind.
There could be no Jubilee for us, a race of lost and guilty rebels taken in arms, traitors convicted of treason, unless an all-prevalent atonement had previously purchased our pardon. A criminal does not rejoice in the interval between the sentence and its execution.… The atonement is the exclusive source of safety and happiness for man. Apart from its reconciling provisions there is a curse upon humanity which no sorcery of the world’s wizardry can charm away. And all complacency which men may feel, and all good of which they may imagine themselves possessed, are but delusive as the midnight dream. There can be no peace, or if there be it is a peace which God hath not spoken, like the treacherous calm just outside the eddy of the maelström, which only speeds the doomed vessel into the cruel eddy of its waves. There can be no hope, or if there be it will have no freedom from the blush of shame, and no steadfast anchorage by which to hold. There can be no joy, or if there be it will be a baseless and fugitive emotion, transient as the dew, but not like the dew, melting into the light of heaven. Peace and hope and joy for renovated man can come in happy jubilee only from the Atonement of Christ.
2. Among the blessings of the Jubilee there was REST FROM EXHAUSTING LABOUR.
By a providential arrangement, similar to that which secured a double supply of manna on the sixth day, the land had unusual fertility in the sixth year, so that in the seventh, which was the ordinary, and in the fiftieth, which was the special Sabbatical year, there was a suspension of the common duties of husbandry. Both the land and the labourers had rest, and yet the supply did not fail, for there was plenty in every barn, and there was gladness in every heart. Profane history tells and confirms what scoffing unbelief might otherwise have regarded as a tale, for we are told by Josephus, an impartial historian certainly, that in the time of Alexander the Great, there was special exemption from taxes during the Sabbatical year, and after the return from captivity the Sabbatical year was reverently and constantly maintained.
3. THE RESTORATION OF ALIENATED PROPERTY.
4. THE RESTORATION OF FREEDOM.—W. M. Punshon, LL.D.: The Penny Pulpit, No. 3397.
II. The circumstances which render this year, or season, acceptable or joyous.
If we advert to the year of Jubilee, these will become apparent.
III. The ground on which this year, or season, has become acceptable.
1. The ground of its being acceptable is suggested in Lev_25:9. It commenced on the day of atonement.
2. By His work of atonement Christ has procured—
(1.) The remission of sins (Act_13:38-39).
(2.) Deliverance from prison and bondage (Gal_5:1).
(3.) Our lost inheritance (Eph_1:13-14).
(4.) He has produced mutual love (Joh_13:34-35).
3. It is only in Christ that the privileges of this year can be offered—that you can reach them. These blessings are as free to all, as were those of the Jubilee to the Jews.
IV. The acceptable season is limited—a year.
1. The whole Gospel dispensation, which must come to a close.
2. This life, as respects individuals. There are no years in hell. It matters not to those there, that there is grace here.
3. See that it mean not something still shorter—the season of the strivings of God’s Spirit.
Practical lessons.—
1. That we come to God in Christ—immediately.
2. That we sound the silver trumpet of the Gospel, and proclaim the Jubilee of the world.
I. A leading employment of Christ as Mediator—preaching.
1. The grand instrument for establishing this kingdom.
2. Christ still fulfils this inspired declaration variously. By the inspired writings—often alone. By a standing ministry. By the lives of consistent believers, &c.
3. Look to Christ as your teacher.
4. Seek to be an instrument, or mouth to Christ. II. The subject of Christ’s preaching—“the Gospel.” III. The persons to whom Christ preached.—James Stewart: Outlines, pp. 17–28.
The world seems to echo and re-echo with the groans of the suffering. We can form no adequate conception of the widespread misery that exists. Surely, if ever there was a time when Messiah could prove the power of His grace to comfort those who suffer it is now. Has He given such proof? Let facts speak. See the dying who have heeded His story. In our own experience we find no helper in sorrow like the Lord. In health and prosperity we may undervalue His succouring grace; but whenever we are brought into circumstances of sore distress, we find no arm but His can support us.
I. He is an appreciative comforter. Strictly speaking, Jesus is the only appreciative comforter. We wish to be, but fail through incapacity. Let us not say, “No one knows what I feel.” He knows the very degree, &c. II. He is a sympathetic comforter—suffers with us. III. He is a wise comforter. IV. The main truth is, He is an intelligent comforter.
It is He alone that brings to us the true explanation of suffering. The world without Him regard it as a penal arrangement; Christ shows us sorrow is discipline; that those who suffer most should be the best. We had never found this out apart from revelation. Whatever nature shrinks from we deem obnoxious. Take heed lest you miss the blessing of woe. Sorrow is discipline. Those who suffer most become the worst, unless they become the best. The child who is corrected either becomes more obedient or more way ward. Christ shows us sorrow is not misfortune. In the article of sorrow, spiritual prosperity may be as great as at any other time. Amidst the wildest storm the vessel may be borne on a strong current towards the desired haven. The most fertilising rain may descend at midnight. In the seven-time heated furnace the Hebrews walked with God.—Stems and Twigs: second series, pp. 255–257.
CHRIST’S MISSION. I. The great distinction in which our Lord exulted. II. The great message our Lord had to deliver. III. The great work our Lord had to accomplish.—J. P. Chown: Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., pp. 49–52.
I. The anointing of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit communicated. The manner. The measure. II. The object for which He was anointed.—Studies for the Pulpit, Part I., pp. 318–320.
I. The qualification. II. Work. III. Aim of a true minister of Christ.—Dr. Lyth.
I. The auspicious day on which the Jubilee commenced. II. The valuable privileges the Jubilee secured. III. The publicity with which the Jubilee was announced.—J. Rawlinson.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The person of our blessed Lord is a type…
Isa 61:1
The person of our blessed Lord is a type of the mystic personality of His Church. The notes by which He was manifested to the world as the true Messiah are notes by which also His Church is manifested to the world as the true Church. He was to be the true Healer and Comforter of all, bringing good tidings of good, binding up broken hearts, loosing prisoners out of bondage, comforting mourners, sympathising with all, drawing all that are afflicted to Himself, by the consciousness of their own miseries and by the attractions of His compassion. And this He did by His own Divine love, by His perfect human sympathy, by His own mysterious experience as the Man of Sorrows.
Read full note →
I. Such was His character and ministry; such is the character and ministry of His mystical body, the Church. The anointing which was upon Him flowed down from the Head to the members. So we find after His ascension. The Holy Ghost came upon the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, and thenceforward they opened their work of compassion and of spiritual mercy by works of healing and by words of consolation. It was indeed the dispensation of the Comforter; the Church was the almoner of the poor, the physician of souls, the solace of the afflicted. It spoke peace, forgiveness, ransom, purity, gladness of heart, to all. And after the descent of the Spirit, the Church passed into that truest discipline of sympathy, the experience of sorrow. Christians were sons of consolation, because they were men of sorrows. To the poor was given the first place in Christ’s earthly kingdom; widows, orphans, mourners, were so many distinct orders whom the Church nourished and consoled; little children were among its chiefest cares. The whole visible system of hospitals, asylums, alms-houses, and the like, are the expression and means of fulfilling the ends of mercy for which the Messiah was anointed by the Spirit of the Lord.
II. What has been said will show us the benefit of affliction to the Church. It is most certain that it was never so like its Divine Head as when it suffered for His name’s sake. Whatsoever adversity be upon us, it is manifestly a token not only of God’s love, but of God’s purpose, to make us fitter for His work of mercy to the world.
III. Another thing we learn from what has been said is the design of God in afflicting the several members of the Church. It is to make them partakers of this true note of Christ’s mystical body. We are all by nature hard and unsympathising. By our regeneration we learn to see the great truth of Christian compassion; but it lies dormant in us, until by the visitations of God’s hand it is unfolded into contrition and spiritual sorrow. It is God’s deepest way of teaching, and what we learn by affliction is our truest learning.
H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 200.
Isa 61:1
It is a blessed name of Jesus, and as true as it is blessed—the Liberator. We can scarcely conceive anything grander, or more delightful, than to be always going about making everything free. To this end, Christ first liberated Himself.
I. As in Him there was no sin, He never indeed could know the worst of all bondage—the bondage of the spirit to the flesh. But He did know the restraints of fear; He did feel the harassing of indecision; He did experience the irksomeness of the sense of a body too narrow for the largeness of His soul; and He did go through the contractions of all that is material, and the mortifying conventionalities of life,—for He was hungry, thirsty, weary, sad, and the sport of fools. From all this Christ freed Himself—distinctly, progressively, He freed Himself. Step by step, He led captivity captive. He made for Himself a spiritual body, which, in its own nature, and by the law of its being, soared at once beyond the trammels of its humanity. And therefore He is the Liberator, because He was once Himself the Prisoner.
II. And all Christ did, and all Christ was, upon this earth—His whole mission—was essentially either to teach or to give liberty. His preaching was, for the most part, to change the constraint of law into the largeness of love. Every word He said, in private or in public, proved expansion. He was always opening new fields of thought and being, bidding men go out into the breadth of the liberty of their sonship and their destiny and their immortality. His disciples were always looking down into the valleys and shut-up things: He led them to the high hills beyond. Men saw the shadows: He pointed to the sun travelling in its strength, without which those shadows could not be, and into which all those shadows were to be absorbed.
III. When Christ burst through all the tombs—the moral tombs and the physical tombs in which we all lay buried—and when He went out into life and glory, He was not Himself alone,—He was at that moment the covenanted Head of a mystical body, and all that body rose with Him. If so be you have union with Christ, you are risen; bondage is past; you are free.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 7th series, p. 274.
Isa 61:1
I. There are two kinds of broken hearts: the natural and the spiritual. They may be united; and sometimes the heart is broken in nature, when it is very plain that it may be broken in grace. Often they are divided. Every broken heart becomes the subject of Jesus’ care, and is dear to Him, if for no other reason in the world but for this—because it is unhappy.
II. Christ was Himself well trained in the school of suffering hearts, that He might learn to bind the mourners. All which goes to break men’s hearts He felt. No wonder then that the bindings are what they are. (1) They are delicate. (2) They are very wise. (3) They are sure and thorough. There is no such thing as a half-cure in that treatment. No heart which has not known a breaking knows indeed what strength is.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 7th series, p. 269.
References: Isa 61:1.—J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 7th series, pp. 262, 282; A. F. Barfield, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 70; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1604; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 337; W. M. Punshon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 239.
Isa 61:1-3
Observe the breadth and comprehensiveness of this great announcement. It includes all forms and classes of sorrow: "the poor"—the world’s sad and uniform majority; "the brokenhearted"—all the children of sorrow; "the captives"—all upon whose soul ignorance or sin had bound fetters; "the blind "—all who were insensible to the light and joy with which Christ’s mercy had filled the world. He came to teach all who needed teaching, to heal all who needed healing, to liberate all who were deprived of freedom. The misery that selfish men traded on, that sentimental pity turned away from because it could not bear to look upon it, His strong, healthy compassion went amongst; His hand was firm as His heart was tender. He had no professional narrowness that excluded the pariahs of life. He assumed no Pharisaic superiority. He seemed as if unconscious of Himself—a pure, ministering angel of God, bent only upon pitying and saving others. Let us distinctly note His principles and motives.
I. Can we suppose that His natural tastes and sympathies were not hurt by such association? He had no preference for squalor and poverty and misery for their own sakes. We may be sure that all the human sensibilities and refinements of our Lord would be jarred and pained by His contact with the poor, and yet we never hear of Him borrowing an excuse from His sensibilities.
II. Nor can we think of Him as insensible to the vices, the moral loathsomeness, of those to whom He ministered. His sinless sensitive soul came into direct contact with the world’s reprobates, whose every word was a blasphemy and every act a sin. He subjected Himself to the unspeakable moral anguish of this: "endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself."
III. Nor did He throw the glamour of romance about the vices of the poor. He spake to them, and of them, with a calm, clear, righteous judgment, without favour and without partiality. They were not interesting because they were wicked. His pity was perfectly holy. Their misery touched not His sentimentalism, but His deep, strong, holy compassion.
IV. In proclaiming His mission to the poor, our Lord began at the root of the world’s misery and sin. All the mightiest social influences come from beneath, upwards. If we would make the tree good, we must mend its root, not its upper branches. The religious system which is strong enough and purifying enough to sanctify the poor will thereby most effectually influence the rich.
H. Allon, Sermons at the Dedication of Union Chapel, Islington, p. 175.
I. The text declares that the true ministry is always inspired and directed by the Holy Ghost. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me." The minister does not speak in his own name, or work in his own strength. A ministry without the Holy Ghost is a cloud without water; a Church without the Holy Ghost is a tree twice dead, that cannot too soon be plucked up by the roots. That our service may be animated by the Holy Spirit, and should express Divine ideas and purposes, is clear from the consideration that ours is not an earthly ministry contemplating earthly matters. When we are working not for this world only, but for worlds we have never seen, and which have been revealed to us by a Spirit which is not of this world, we have to be careful that we work not in our own strength or after our own imagination, but clearly, steadily, and constantly along the line of Divine inspiration.
II. The text shows us that the true ministry is animated by the sublimest benevolence. If you read the statement given by the prophet, you will find throughout the statement a tone of kindliness, benevolence, sympathy, gentleness, pity, for all human sorrow. Therein may be known the true ministry of the Gospel. Suspect every ministry that is gloomy. The keynote of the Gospel is joy; the watchword of the Gospel is liberty. Any ministry, public or private, that increases our gloom is a ministry that never came out of yonder central Light that is the light of the universe.
III. The text shows that the true ministry, whether public or private, never shrinks from its more awful functions. Observe this sentence in the midst of the declarations of the text: "To proclaim the day of vengeance of our God." There must yet be a day of vengeance in human history. Without a day of vengeance human history would not be merely poetically incomplete, but morally imperfect.
Parker, City Temple, 1870, p. 397.
References: Isa 61:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1369; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 44, and vol. ix., p. 50.
Isa 61:3
I. God’s people are called "trees of righteousness" because they are "the planting of the Lord." Godliness is not a thing which any craft of man can fashion. A man can no more make Himself godly than he can make a tree, or so much as the seed of a tree. If he becomes so, it must be the work of God. When God gave His word to man, He gave it to be full of seeds. If this seed be duly sown in the heart (it matters not by what means—let it only be sown), and if it neither be choked by thorns, nor burnt up by the heat, nor killed by the frost, the plant thus sown, if God watches over it and prospers it, will grow up to be a tree of righteousness.
II. Growth is a second point of likeness between trees and godliness, which makes it proper to call the righteous "trees of righteousness." Without the sun and air and rain, where would be the growth of the tree? Without the light and the purifying breath and dew of God’s Spirit, where would be the growth of the Christian? It is God, and God alone, who giveth the growth and increase. What then is left for man to do toward working out his salvation? It is left for man (1) to pray; (2) to seek manure for the spiritual orchard in the constant study of God’s word, and in diligent attendance on the ordinances of his Church.
III. A third likeness between the spiritual and the natural tree is that their growth is by degrees. A forest tree does not spring up in a day or a month or a year. Nor do the trees of righteousness; they too want time to grow. Plant your tree in good time, that you may be trees and not gourds.
IV. The next and perhaps the most remarkable point of likeness between the spiritual and vegetable life is the sap which flows through a healthy tree and makes it thrive and grow. "The trees of the Lord are full of sap." In other words, they are full of Christian feeling, which is the food and nourishment of Christian practice. You can no more have the fruits of holiness, without the life-blood of Christian love, than you can have a tree thriving and growing without sap.
V. The finest trees are rooted deep in earth, and point in their uprightness to heaven. So too must we have our root of faith strong in Christ; so our hearts must look, our minds must turn, our souls must rise, toward heaven.
A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 258.
References: Isa 61:3—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1016; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 463; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 20, and vol. xiv., p. 15; W. H. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 346; Forsyth and Hamilton, Pulpit Parables, p. 1.
Isa 61:10-11
"The robe of righteousness" is a familiar phrase with evangelical Christians. Adopted, undoubtedly, from the passage just read, it is used to denote that righteousness of the Lord Jesus which they who believe in Him are supposed to have attributed to them by God, so that their actual personal imperfections and defects disappear before Him, like some foul or ugly object beneath the overspreading of a fair white mantle; and He is enabled to accept them for what they are not—to regard and deal with them as sinless.
I. Now here is, first, an assumption—the false and cruel assumption—that the great Father, while waiting the gradual accomplishment of our complete purification from sin, requires to have our existing sinfulness hidden from Him, requires to have it veiled and concealed; that He must not be revolted nor disturbed by the spectacle; that we must be made somehow, nay anyhow, at least to look clean to Him, whatever our actual uncleanness may be; that He is not capable of enduring the sight of His children as they are, but needs that a mask shall be worn by them, to smile between Him and their unseemliness. Is it conceivable that God should ever be content to be blind to that which is, that He should ever endure to have any reality disguised to Him? Can aught be hidden from Him, the All-seeing One?
II. Turn now to the prophet, whose noble figure has been so miserably perverted, so falsely applied, and observe how different his idea of the robe of which he speaks. "The Lord hath covered me," he says, "as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels," which seems to imply certainly a putting on from without, and nothing more; yet, if we consider, the writer may well have discerned, in the lavish decoration of themselves on the part of the bridegroom and the bride, something more than that—not a mere imposition, but an expression, the natural expression, of what was within. But then, as if apprehensive of mistakes—as if anxious to guard against the conclusion that the robe of which he sang was only flung over him from without—the prophet hastens on to a further and more complete illustration (Isa 61:11), as though He had said: While in the self-adorning of the bridegroom and the bride on their wedding-day, I find an image of the grace with which my Lord clothes me, and of the joy that belongs to it, yet this fails to represent the whole of the matter—fails, indeed, to represent the profoundest and most important part of it, viz., the modus operandi—the way in which my clothing is effected. That is adumbrated, in the world of material nature, in the vernal decking of the bare brown fields, and the winter-stripped pleasure grounds. What is it, and whence comes it? Is it not just a growth from within—an efflux upon the surface of life that throbs below—a bursting through and running over of the earth’s own germ-charged bosom? And God’s robe of righteousness is the forth-flowing upon me of His hidden movement and working in my soul—not a robe laid on, but a robe coming out—not a robe assumed, but a robe issuing; it is the holy character and the holy living that are begotten of His Divine inbreathing.
S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words, p. 107.
Reference: Isa 61:10.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 17.
Isa 61:11
Just as incredible as spring is to winter, as life is to death, is the summer splendour that shall one day mantle this sad world, this sad universe, to the darkness and drearihood of its present winter and night.
I. Consider the concords of the natural and the human worlds. The worlds are one; the Author is one; the life is one. Nature fits man as a dress the body. Man is the mould on which, as a garment, nature is fashioned. Isaiah had a keen eye for this unity. His prophecies are full of imaginative revelations of the likeness between the ways of God in nature and in man. The future of the world, of the universe, unfolded itself before him, as the outburst of a glorious spring—a spring which should know no autumn, a dawn that should never darken into night.
II. The winter of life and of the world. All that we look upon, all that strains our pity, oppresses our sympathy, saddens our heart and kills our hope, to the prophet’s eye was but as the earth in winter—bare, bleak, stern, cold, dark, storm-beaten, frost-nipped, a wilderness of desolation, a waste of death. It is winter; and winter, let us understand, it will be yet. But in our dark despondent moods we entrench ourselves in the promise, "The Lord God shall cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations."
III. The certainty of a future everlasting spring. The law reigns throughout all the spheres, that light shall burst out of darkness, spring out of winter, life out of death. To an intelligent eye winter is not all desolation. There is a prophecy in every shrinking bud and blade. There is a living thing shining faintly under the pall. Those see it most whose hearts are most attuned to sympathy with the patience and the hope of God. There is more good in the worst heart than any of us dare credit. There is more seed springing under the hard dead crust of winter than any of us dare dream.
J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 111.
Reference: Isa 61:11.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1104.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v3
Isaiah
THE JOY-BRINGER
Read full note →
Isa 61:3.
In the little synagogue of Nazareth Jesus began His ministry by laying His hand upon this great prophecy and saying, ‘It is Mine! I have fulfilled it.’ The prophet had been painting the ideal Messianic Deliverer, with special reference to the return from the Babylonian captivity. That was ‘the liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,’ and about which he was thinking. But no external deliverance of that sort could meet the needs, nor satisfy the aspirations, of a soul that knows itself and its circumstances. Isaiah, or the man who goes by his name, spoke greater things than he knew. I am not going to enter upon questions of interpretation; but I may say, that no conception of Jewish prophecy can hold its ground which is not framed in the light of that great saying in the synagogue of Nazareth. So, then, we have here the ‘Man of Sorrows,’ as this very prophet calls Him in another place, presenting Himself as the Transformer of sorrow and the Bringer of joy, in regard to infinitely deeper griefs than those which sprang in the heart of the nation because of the historical captivity.
There is another beautiful thing in our text, which comes out more distinctly if we follow the Revised Version, and read ‘to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.’ There we have two contrasted pictures suggested: one of a mourner with grey ashes strewed upon his dishevelled locks, and his spirit clothed in gloom like a black robe; and to him there comes One who, with gentle hand, smoothes the ashes out of his hair, trains a garland round his brow, anoints his head with oil, and, stripping off the trappings of woe, casts about him a bright robe fit for a guest at a festival. That is the miracle that Jesus Christ can do for every one, and is ready to do for us, if we will let Him. Let us look at this wonderful transformation, and at the way by which it is effected.
The first point I would make is that-
I. Jesus Christ is the Joy-bringer to men because He is the Redeemer of men.
Remember that in the original application of my text to the deliverance from captivity, this gift of joy and change of sorrow into gladness was no independent and second bestowment, but was simply the issue of the one that preceded it, viz., the gift of liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that were bound. The gladness was a gladness that welled up in the heart of the captives set free, and coming out from the gloom of the Babylonian dungeon into the sunshine of God’s favour, with their faces set towards Zion ‘with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.’
Now you have only to keep firm hold of this connection between these two thoughts to come to the crown and centre-point of this great prophecy, as far as it applies to us, and that is that it is Christ as the Emancipator, Christ as the Deliverer, Christ as He who brings us out of the prison of bondage of the tyranny of sin, who is the great Joy-Giver. For there is no real, deep, fundamental and impregnable gladness possible to a man until his relations to God have been rectified, and until, with these rectified relations, with the consciousness of forgiveness and the divine love nestling warm at his heart, he has turned himself away from his dread and his sin, and has recognised in his Father God ‘the gladness of his joy.’
Of course, there are many of us who feel that life is sufficiently comfortable and moderately happy, or at least quite tolerable, without any kind of reference to God at all. And in this day of growing materialism, and growing consequent indifference to the deepest needs of the spirit and the claims of religion, more and more men are finding, or fancying that they find, that they can rub along somehow, and have a fair share of gladness and satisfaction, without any need for a redeeming gospel and a forgiving Christ. But about all that kind of surface-joy the old words are true, ‘even in laughter the heart is sorrowful,’ and hosts of us are satisfied with joys which Jesus has no part in bringing, simply because our truest self has never once awakened. When it does-and perhaps it will do so with some of you, like the sleeping giant that is fabled to lie beneath the volcano whose sunny slopes are smiling with flowers-then you will find out that no one can bring real joy who does not take away guilt and sin.
Jesus Christ is the Joy-bringer, because Jesus Christ is the Emancipator. And true gladness is the gladness that springs from the conscious possession of liberty from the captivity which holds men slaves to evil and to their worst selves. Brethren, let us not fancy that these surface-joys are the joys adequate to a human spirit. They are ignoble, and they are infinitely foolish, because a touch of an awakened conscience, a stirring of one’s deeper self, can scatter them all to pieces. So then, that is my first thought.
Let us suggest a second, that-
II. Jesus Christ transforms sorrow because He transforms the mourner.
In my text, all that this Joy-bringer and Transmuter of grief into its opposite is represented as doing is on the man who feels the sorrow. And although, as I have said, the text, in its original position, is simply a deduction from the previous great prophecy which did point to a change of circumstances, and although Jesus does bring the ‘joy of salvation’ by a great change in a man’s relations, yet in regard to the ordinary sorrows of life, He affects these not so much by an operation upon our circumstances as by an operation upon ourselves, and transforms sorrow and brings gladness, because He transforms the man who endures it. The landscape remains the same, the difference is in the colour of the glass through which we look at it. Instead of having it presented through some black and smoked medium, we see it through what the painter calls a ‘Claude Lorraine’ glass, tinged golden, and which throws its own lovely light upon all that it shows us. It is possible-the eye that looks being purged and cleansed, so as to see more clearly-that the facts remaining identical, their whole aspect and bearing may be altered, and that which was felt, and rightly felt, to be painful and provocative of sadness and gloom, may change its character and beget a solemn joy. It would be but a small thing to transform the conditions; it is far better and higher to transform us. We all need, and some of us, I have no doubt, do especially need, to remember that the Lord who brings this sudden transformation for us, does so by His operation within us, and, therefore, to that operation we should willingly yield ourselves.
How does He do this? One answer to that question is-by giving to the man with ashes on his head and gloom wrapped about his spirit, sources of joy, if he will use them, altogether independent of external circumstances.’ Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, and there be no fruit in the vine . . . yet will I rejoice in the Lord.’ And every Christian man, especially when days are dark and clouds are gathering, has it open to him, and is bound to use the possibility, to turn away his mind from the external occasions of sadness, and fix it on the changeless reason for deep and unchanging joy-the sweet presence, the strong love, the sustaining hand, the infinite wisdom, of his Father God.
Brethren, “the paradox of the Christian life” is, ‘as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’ Christ calls for no hypocritical insensibility to ‘the ills that flesh is heir to.’ He has sanctioned by His example the tears that flow when death hurts loving hearts. He commanded the women of Jerusalem to ‘weep for themselves and for their children.’ He means that we should feel the full bitterness and pain of sorrows which will not be medicinal unless they are bitter, and will not be curative unless they cut deep. But He also means that whilst thus we suffer as men, in the depths of our own hearts we should, at the same time, be turning away from the sufferings and their cause, and fixing our hearts, quiet even then amidst the distractions, upon God Himself. Ah! it is hard to do, and because we do not do it, the promise that He will turn the sorrow into joy often seems to be a vain word for us.
It is not ours to rejoice as the world does, nor is it ours to sorrow as those who have no hope, or as those who have no God with them. But the two opposite emotions may, to a large extent, be harmonised and co-existent in a Christian heart, and, since they can be, they should be. The Christian in sorrow should be as an island set in some stormy sea, with wild waves breaking against its black, rocky coast, and the wind howling around it, but in the centre of it there is a deep and shady dell ‘that heareth not the loud winds when they call,’ and where not a leaf is moved by the tempest. In a like depth of calm and central tranquillity it is possible for us to live, even while the storm hurtles its loudest on the outermost coasts of our being; ‘as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,’ because the Joy-bringer has opened for us sources of gladness independent of externals.
And then there is another way by which, for us, if we will use our privileges, the sorrows of life may be transmuted, because we, contemplating them, have come to a changed understanding of their meaning. That is, after all, the secret charm to be commended to us at all times, but to be commended to us most when our hearts are heavy and the days are dark around us. We shall never understand life if we class its diverse events simply under the two opposite categories of good- evil; prosperity-adversity; gains-losses; fulfilled expectations- disappointed hopes, Put them all together under one class-discipline and education; means for growth; means for Christlikeness. When we have found out, what it takes a long while for us to learn, that the lancet and the bandage are for the same purpose, and that opposite weathers conspire to the same end, that of the harvest, the sting is out of the sorrow, the poison is wiped off the arrow. We can have, if not a solemn joy, at least a patient acquiescence, in the diversities of operation, when we learn that the same hand is working in all for the same end, and that all that contributes to that end is good.
Here we may suggest a third way by which a transformation wrought upon ourselves transforms the aspect of our sorrows, and that is, that possessing independent sources of joy, and having come to learn the educational aspect of all adversity, we hereby are brought by Jesus Christ Himself to the position of submission. And that is the most potent talisman to transform mourning into praise. An accepted grief is a conquered grief; a conquered grief will very soon be a comforted grief; and a comforted grief is a joy. By all these means Jesus Christ, here and now, is transmuting the lead and iron of our griefs into the gold of a not ignoble nor transient gladness.
And may I say one last word? My text suggests not only these two points to which I have already referred-viz. that Jesus Christ is the Joy-bringer because He is the Emancipator, and that He transforms sorrow by transforming the mourner-but, lastly, that III. Jesus gives joy after sorrow.
‘Nevertheless, afterward’ is a great word of glowing encouragement for all sad hearts. ‘Fools and children,’ says the old proverb, ‘should not see half-done work ‘; at least, they should not judge it. When the ploughshare goes deep into the brown, frosty ground, the work is only begun. The earth may seem to be scarped and hurt, and, if one might say, to bleed, but in six months’ time ‘you scarce can see’ the soil for waving corn. Yes; and sorrow, as some of us could witness, is the forecast of purest joy. I have no doubt that there are men and women here who could say, ‘I never knew the power of God, and the blessedness of Christ as a Saviour, until I was in deep affliction, and when everything else went dark, then in His light I saw light.’ Do not some of you know the experience? and might we not all know it? and why do we not know it?
Jesus Christ, even here and now, gives these blessed results of our sorrows, if they are taken to the right place, and borne in right fashion. For it is they ‘that mourn in Zion’ that He thus blesses. There are some of us, I fear, whose only resource in trouble is to fling ourselves into some work, or some dissipation. There are people who try to work away their griefs, as well as people who try feverishly to drink them away. And there are some of us whose only resource for deliverance from our sorrows is that, after the wound has bled all it can, it stops bleeding, and the grief simply dies by lapse of time and for want of fuel. An affliction wasted is the worst of all waste. But if we carry our grief into the sanctuary, then, here and now, it will change its aspect and become a solemn joy.
I say nothing about the ultimate result where every sorrow rightly borne shall be represented in the future life by some stage in grace or glory, where every tear shall be crystallised, if I might say so, into a flashing diamond, which flings off the reflection of the divine light, where ‘there shall be no sorrow nor sighing, nor any more pain, for the former things are passed away.’ When the lesson has been learned, God burns the rod.
But, brethren, there is another sadder transformation. I have been speaking about the transformation of sorrow into joy. There is also the transformation of joy into sorrow. I spoke a little while ago about the ‘laughter’ in which the heart is ‘sorrowful,’ and the writer from whom I quoted the words goes on to say, ‘The end of that mirth is heaviness.’ ‘Thereof cometh in the end despondency and madness.’ I saw, on a hilltop, a black circle among the grass and heather. There had been a bonfire there on Coronation Night, and it had all died down, and that was the end-a hideous ring of scorched barrenness amidst the verdure. Take care that your gladnesses do not die down like that, but that they are pure, and being pure are undying. Union with Jesus Christ makes sorrow light, and secures that it shall merge at last into ‘joy unspeakable and full of joy.’ I believe that separation from Christ makes joy shallow, and makes it certain that at last, instead of a garland, shall be ashes on the head, and that, instead of a festal robe, the spirit shall be wrapped in a garment of heaviness.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 1. The speaker is the prophet, either in his…
1. The speaker is the prophet, either in his own person, or in that of the Servant of Jehovah. The mission here spoken of is identical with the mission of the Servant as already indicated; e.g. to bind up, etc. (cp. Isa_42:3, Isa_42:7), and, again, proclaim liberty, etc. (cp. Isa_42:7; Isa_49:9). This phrase is taken from the law of the year of jubilee (Lev_25:8-10). Our Lord applies the passage to His own work in Luk_4:16. Anointed] i.e. to prophetic office (1Ki_19:16).
2. The period of God's favour (acceptable year) is contrasted with the short time that His wrath endures (day of vengeance).
Read full note →
3. Appoint] assign to, provide. Beauty] RV 'a garland.'
4. The outcome of the mission recounted in Isa_61:1 is the same as the issue of the Servant's work (Isa_49:8).
5. Other nations represented as filling menial offices.
6. Israel will attain its original ideal (Exo_19:6). Riches.. Gentiles] wealth of the nations. In their glory, etc.] RM 'to their glory shall ye succeed.'
7. Double] i.e. by way of compensation or reward (Isa_40:2).
8. Judgment] i.e. justice. For burnt offering] RV 'with iniquity.' The reference is to the spoliation of which Israel is the victim.
Direct their work] RV 'give them their recompence.'
9. Known] i.e. renowned.
10. Decketh.. ornaments] lit. 'decketh himself with a priestly head-dress.' The allusion is to the custom of the bridegroom wearing a special head-dress on the wedding day (Son_3:11).
11. As the earth, etc.] i.e. as surely as the seasons come round. Righteousness] i.e. the justification of his people in the eyes of the world.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v2 acceptable year of the Lord
acceptable year of the Lord
Observe that Jesus suspended the reading of this passage in the synagogue at Nazareth Luk 4:16-21 at the comma in the middle of Isa 61:2. The first advent, therefore, opened the day of grace, "the acceptable year of Jehovah," but does not fulfil the day of vengeance. That will be taken up when Messiah returns 2Th 1:7-10 Cf.; Isa 34:8; Isa 35:4-10. The last verse, taken with the 4th, gives the historic connection: the vengeance precedes the regathering of Israel, and synchronizes with the day of the Lord.; Isa 2:10-22; Rev 19:11-21; Isa 63:1-6.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The King, Jehovah’s Messenger: His People and their Salvation…
CHAPTER 61
The King, Jehovah’s Messenger: His People and their Salvation Song
Read full note →
1. Jehovah’s Messenger and His work (Isa 61:1-5) 2. His people a kingdom of priests and their work (Isa 61:6-9) 3. The salvation song (Isa 61:10) 4. The blessings of the whole earth (Isa 61:11 Luk 4:1-44 tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ applied the opening verses to Himself. The destructive criticism denies both the Isaiah authorship of this chapter and its messianic application. The satanic origin of this kind of criticism is here fully exposed. But our Lord did not quote the whole of verse 2. He only read up to “the acceptable year of the Lord.” This sentence marks the work He did in His first advent. The day of vengeance is introduced by His second advent. The results of His second coming are described in the verses which follow. Then Israel will be the kingdom of priests and a holy nation Exo 19:1-25). They will sing the song of salvation (Isa 61:10). Righteousness and praise will follow.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Lord’s Year of Jubilee.
The Lord’s Year of Jubilee.
The chapter opens with a powerful description of the office of the Servant of Jehovah, of the Messiah Himself.
Read full note →
v. 1. The Spirit of the Lord God, of the all-powerful Ruler, the covenant God, whose name is Jehovah, is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings, a joyful message, the Gospel proclamation, unto the meek, to those subject to spiritual misery; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
v. 2. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, literally, "a year of good pleasure to Jehovah," and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
v. 3. to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty, an ornamental headdress, the groom’s turban, for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, of distress and discouragement; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified, the fact that the believers have become partakers of His mercy redounding to His praise. It is the Messiah Himself who is speaking here, for so He interprets the passage in His great sermon at Nazareth, Luk 4:18-21. It is repeatedly stated in Scripture that the Messiah has the Spirit of Jehovah, that He has been anointed with the Holy Ghost without measure. The anointing on the part of Jehovah, however, concerns not merely an acknowledgment and acceptance of Christ’s person, but includes the laying of a charge upon Him, giving Him an office to perform. It is Christ’s prophetic office which here stands out so plainly, His work of bringing the Gospel to poor sinners. That is the essence of His work, to announce the joyful message, the glorious news of salvation, to all men. God has commissioned Him to bind up the broken in heart, the poor, lost, repentant sinners, to proclaim liberation to those who have been taken captive by sin and Satan, to tell those who are bound that they are to be free, that their prison-doors have been opened, to announce that a year, an endless period, of good pleasure and favor of Jehovah has come, a day in which He will avenge His own wrongs and those of His people upon His enemies. For the purpose of His work is to bring comfort and joy to the mourners, to replace the ashes on their head with the turban and tiara of joy, like that worn by a happy bridegroom, to put on the oil of gladness and adornment after the period of deep mourning, when they were in the power of Satan. Where formerly the spirit of distress and uneasiness ruled, the garment of praise to Jehovah shall be donned. All this will result in making the believers trees of righteousness, characterized by the fruits of righteousness in them which are the result of faith. For all this is not their own doing, a matter of self-righteous glorification, but they are the planting of Jehovah, who lives in them, and it is through His favor and mercy that they will be glorified before Him. Such is the office of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Lord.
v. 4. And they shall build the old wastes, so that Zion will rise out of its ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, the places of the Holy Land which lay waste from the time before the Exile, and they shall repair the waste cities, building them up new, the desolations of many generations, the parts of the country which have been a wilderness from ancient times. In this way the true Israelites, the believers, are regarded as the restorers of their Zion. But they are joined by others, as the text shows.
v. 5. And strangers, members of the Gentile nations who have been converted to the true God, shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers, voluntarily providing for the needs of the Church by the work and the time which they devote to the support of the ministry of the Word in its various forms.
v. 6. But ye, all the members of the Church of God, shall be named the priests of the Lord, every one of whom has direct access to the Lord, without special intercession; men shall call you the ministers of our God, all of them being active in His service, deeming it an honor to fulfill His will; ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, being supported also by the material help which the former heathen willingly offered, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves, so that honor and distinction would come to the Church because of the conversion and service of these Gentiles.
v. 7. For your shame ye shall have double, the disgrace not only being balanced by the honor given them, but the glory being twice as great as the former shame, and for confusion, instead of the infamy which had been heaped upon Israel, the Lord’s Zion, they shall rejoice in their portion, the believers once more enjoying the inheritance which is theirs in agreement with the Lord’s promises. Therefore in their land they shall possess the double, the twofold mercy of Jehovah, a much greater amount of His mercy than has been revealed heretofore; everlasting joy shall be unto them, this marking the condition of the believers’ heart as a consequence of the Lord’s blessing.
v. 8. For I, the Lord, love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering, because Jehovah is a God who loves equity and hates robbery and unrighteousness in every form, and, or "therefore," I will direct their work in truth, secure the fruit of their labor, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. The Lord’s people, having been replaced into their inheritance, shall never again become a prey of unrighteousness, but Jehovah will place it beyond the oppression of all enemies.
v. 9. And their seed, the spiritual children of Israel, the Church of the Lord, shall be known among the Gentiles, regarded with respect, and their offspring among the people, those of the world in general; all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed, the Church receiving this recognition even from the outsiders and from outspoken enemies. And so Israel, the congregation of the redeemed saints, breaks forth into a song of praise to Jehovah, the covenant God.
v. 10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, the Inspiration and Source of all true spiritual joy; my soul shall be joyful in my God, on account of the deliverance which the believers have experienced; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, with the righteousness of the Messiah imputed by faith; He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, so that the believer’s sinfulness is no longer visible before the eyes of the holy God, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, winding his turban after the manner of priests, to give expression to his joy, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. Thus the Church, and every member of the Church, is adorned with the beauty of the righteousness of the Lord.
v. 11. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, causing the seed to sprout and come up, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, in accordance with the laws of nature fixed by God, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations, so that all men must acknowledge these virtues as existing in the midst of the Church. The God who causes the laws of nature to control the round of the seasons also makes the word of His mercy to come true, so that His salvation is fulfilled.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me
The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me
"Spirit" here is the Holy Spirit of Yahweh who compels or motivates the person. See how you translated this in Isaiah 11:2 or in Isaiah 42:1.
Read full note →
the afflicted
This refers to poor people, those in great sorrow, or oppressed people who have problems they cannot overcome by themselves.
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison for those who are bound
These two phrases mean the same thing. They state that God will certainly give freedom to captives. (See: Parallelism)
translationWords
Holy Spirit
Lord Yahweh
anoint
good news
cure
heart
preach
free
captive
prison
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 61:1-3 The servant here proclaims the good news that…
61:1-3 The servant here proclaims the good news that his ministry will restore Zion. The Lord Jesus applied these words to his own mission (Luke 4:18-19).
61:1 The presence of God’s Spirit ensures the success of the servant’s mission (see 11:1-5; 42:1). • The servant will restore and heal the marginalized poor and the brokenhearted (see 25:4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.