Isaiah 61

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; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. 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. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and aliens shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the LORD: men shall call you the ministers of our God: ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess double: everlasting joy shall be unto them. For I the LORD love judgement, I hate robbery with iniquity; and I will give them their recompence in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed. 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 bridegroom decketh himself with a garland, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. 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.

Chap. 61. After describing the new condition of the Church, he again introduces the great Personage by whom the change is to be brought about. His mission and its objects are described by Himself in verses 1-3. Its grand result shall be the restoration of a ruined world (verse 4). The Church, as a mediator between God and the revolted nations, shall enjoy their service and support (verses 5, 6). The shame of God’s people shall be changed to honor (verse 7). His righteousness is pledged to this effect (verse 8). The Church, once restricted to a single nation, shall be recognized and honored among all (verse 9). He triumphs in the prospect of the universal spread of truth and righteousness (verses 10, 11). A.

The Messiah Himself appears, indicating His special mission (verses 1-3); the fruit of His labors upon human well-being (verse 4); the accession of new laborers to Zion and their work (verses 5, 6); the stupendous changes wrought in Zion in her transition from the Mosaic to the Christian age (verse 7); the grounds or reasons why Jehovah has wrought this change and will make it permanent (verse 8); how the Gospel will vindicate its worth and glory before the nations (verse 9); the Messiah rejoicing in the magnificent results of His mission and in the omnipotence of God pledged to insure them (verses 10, 11). Compared with chap. 60, which treats mainly of the results of Gospel truth in the better days of the Christian age, this chapter falls back somewhat to treat more fully of the causes of these results; of the manner in which the Messiah becomes a light to the nations; of His condescension and compassion in ministering to the humble, the lowly, the sin-bound and the heart-broken; but soon the course of thought glides insensibly into the same channel, the workings and results of the Gospel system. H. C.

1-3. These opening words were chosen by our Lord at Nazareth for the solemn introduction of His public ministry (Luke 4:16, 17). He opened the Book of Isaiah, found this passage, read the first six clauses, and then added: “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” That Messiah Himself speaks in these words rests on His own Divine authority. But it results no less plainly from the context. No mere prophet could appoint and give to all Zion’s mourners the oil of joy and the garment of praise, or assume the title in verse 8, “I Jehovah love judgment.” Says Cocceius, “He, in whom these characters are found, is He of whom Isaiah speaks.” Our Lord claimed to be the great Prophet, as attested by His mighty miracles (verses 21, 23), to whom this promise refers. Not only is He this Anointed One, but His work of mercy, in preaching glad tidings to the poor, was then actually begun. Birks.

The reasons for supposing the speaker to be the Messiah are entirely conclusive. For He and He only is the Head of this entire Gospel mission and work which leads the thought in this context and is the great subject of the preceding chapter. He is the Redeemer who comes to Zion (59 : 20), and upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests and abides, as well as upon His people also through Him (59 : 21). This allusion to the Spirit of the Lord in the close of chap. 59 has special value in this argument because the passage lies in the context, and indicates the course of thought. Then moreover, the same view is amply supported by previous Messianic prophecies in which the baptism of the Messiah with the Spirit of God is made prominent—e.g., chaps. 11 : 2-5 and 42 : 1. These considerations are abundantly sufficient; yet let it still be said that further support comes from those prophecies which represent the Lord as giving His messiah a message of truth to deliver, words to proclaim to His people, as here stated—e.g., Isa. 42 : 6, 7, “I the Lord will give thee for a light to the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison. Also 49 : 2 ; 50 : 4 ; 51 : 16. H. C.—It is matter of certainty that, in the judgment of the ancient Jewish Church, the person spoken of in all these passages was the Messiah; so that, in applying to Himself that particular passage in Isaiah, Jesus not only advanced the claim, but He must have been perfectly understood by those present to advance the claim, to be the Messiah of the Jewish prophets. And of all that had been spoken concerning Him by the prophet Isaiah, there is not a passage to be found that could more fitly have been appropriated by Jesus than the one He read at that opening stage of His career, as it describes Him in respect to the whole reach and compass of His Divine commission, with all its restorative energies and beneficent results. We see as well the wisdom of the selection as the justness of the application. It is also to be noted, that the appropriation by our Lord of the passage in this sixty-first chapter of Isaiah gives the virtual sanction of His authority to the applications elsewhere made of other passages in the same prophetic discourse to Gospel times—such as Matt. 12 : 18-21 ; Acts 8 : 32-35 ; 13 : 47 ; Rom. 10 : 21 ; 1 Pet. 2 : 23-25, where portions of Isa. 42, 49, 53 are so applied. P. Fairbairn.

Christ joined two disciples as they walked to Emmaus, “and beginning at Moses and all the prophets He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” He claimed that He was in every part of the Old Testament. Touch those venerable records where you will, with the finger of faith, and you are thrilled by the presence of Christ. He is the Word. He is incarnated in the Bible as truly as He was in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Every part of the Bible is necessary to the complete revelation of the Divine Redeemer, as every member and organ of that human body was to the Word made flesh. Interior.

The Divine Christ belongs not exclusively or especially to the past. He is at this moment all that He was eighteen centuries ago—all that He has been to our fathers—all that He will be to our children. He is the Divine and infallible Teacher, the Healer and Pardoner of sin, the Source of all graces, the Conqueror of Satan and of death—now, as of old, and as in years to come. He is ever the same. Liddon.

The living, life-giving Christ! That is our sole and sufficient theme. A life disloyal to Him is the fundamental heresy. The constraint of His sweet and awful love is the essential orthodoxy. Christ, the Sacrifice for sinners; Christ, the Teacher of the ignorant; Christ, the King of faithful souls; the Emancipator of moral slaves; the Consoler of the sorrowing; the sure Hope of the dying; the Guide of the baffled children of God; the Heaven of glorified multitudes innumerable on high; my Christ, your Christ, humanity’s Christ; He alone is the truth, the life, the bond and the test of the true Church of God. McPherson.

In Christ’s devotional spirit, in His holiness, in His exertions to promote the Divine glory, in His tenderness for immortal souls, in His zeal to do those around Him good, in His self-denying perseverance, in His tender charity, His generous love, His meekness, His patience, His forgiveness of injuries—in these and all other moral excellences of His character, He stands before us for our study, or admiration, or imitation. Though we cannot work miracles like Him, we may imitate His acts of mercy, His prodigies of benevolence; though we cannot prophesy, we may yet proclaim His truth and make known His salvation; though we cannot forgive sins, we may yet pardon affronts and injuries; though we cannot die as atoning sacrifices for the sins of those around us, we may yet make many sacrifices for their sakes; and we may imitate His patience, His meekness, and suffer what befalls us for His sake, in the spirit in which He suffered. R. Hall.

It is indeed true, as a saint who knew Christianity from the life, once said in his heart-winning way, “One might well consent to be branded and broken on the wheel, merely for the idea of such a character as Christ’s; and if any one should be able to mock and deride, he must be insane. Every man, whose heart is in the right state, will lie in the dust, and rejoice, and adore.” It is true; even as a bare idea, the spiritual image of Jesus which the Bible holds out to us is the most dignified and the most precious which is known to our race. It is the most sublime idea to which, in the province of morality and religion, the human mind has been raised. Let it be a fable, it is still the most noble truth which has been either received or communicated by the human mind, and preponderates, even as a fable, over a thousand verities of ordinary experience. But it is not a fable; it is not a bare idea; for the man who was able to produce, from his own invention, such a character, such a pattern, must himself have possessed this greatness of soul, if we deny that he observed it in another. We must transfer the spiritual and moral greatness of Jesus to His biographer if we deny it to Himself. If we glance at the greatest characters which have been exquisitely portrayed to us by the creative power and art of the most gifted poets, do we find in these characters anything like that which is developed in Jesus? And these plain, uncultivated, Jewish evangelists, they forsooth desired to invent such a character! they forsooth were able to invent it! How far, as an unaided man, did each of these writers of Memorabilia stand below Xenophon and Plato; and yet how high, in its silent majesty, stands the simple image of Jesus, which the unlettered evangelists present, above the character that is given to the wisest Greeks by the two masters of language and rhetoric! Ullmann.

1. The original, translated “to preach good tidings,” is the word which has occurred repeatedly in the sense of preaching the Gospel—e.g., 40:9; 41:27 and 52:7. “Binding up,” applied to the broken in heart, carries out the figure and refers to the consolation and peace of an humble trust in God, which naturally heals the wounded spirit. (Cf. chap. 57:15, 18, 19.) Liberty to the captive draws its figure and terms from the day of Jubilee which gave freedom to all Hebrew bondmen. Both this “liberty to the captive” and “the opening of the prison to the bound” must be referred to spiritual bondage, the slavery in which sin and Satan hold their victims, and from which Christ sets them free. H. C.

The Gospel of Christ, the Word Incarnate of God, entering into our life is indeed good tidings—good tidings to the poor—as reaching down to the lowest depths where humanity still lingers, and growing with man’s growth to the utmost bounds of his possible attainments, reaching and growing without limit, for if it could be shown that any human powers lie without the range of its benediction; that any form of man’s distress and perplexity are inaccessible to its consolation; that any parts of nature or history are in conflict with its premises, then I should feel compelled to write against this also the sentence of dreariness and desolation, and look for another. But the Gospel of Christ is subject to no such condemnation. It shows us that the Divine is the foundation of the human and (most overwhelming wonder) that the human is the fulfilment of the Divine. It turns our thoughts from what we can do to what God has done and is doing. It discloses in the idea of creation a splendor which communicates its light to all created things. It pierces to the depths of misery, and brings back even from their darkness a promise of hope. It transfigures all personal suffering by the thought of a fellowship with God in Christ. It is a new, an eternal commandment in which all things, our utmost hopes and efforts, are shown to be of Him, and through Him, and unto Him. From the foreign mission field, and from the home mission field, the same story comes, that the vision of life has been brightened, the work of life has been quickened, the wounds of sin have been healed by the old—and ever new—tidings of Jesus and the resurrection, and above all that this Gospel has been found to be a Gospel powerful to transform the nature and the circumstances of men. Bp. Westcott.

The effects of the work of Christ are even to the unbeliever indisputable and historical. It expelled cruelty; it curbed passion; it branded suicide; it punished and repressed an execrable infanticide; it drove the shameless impurities of heathendom into a congenial darkness. There was hardly a class whose wrongs it did not remedy. It rescued the gladiator; it freed the slave; it protected the captive; it nursed the sick; it sheltered the orphan; it elevated the woman; it shrouded as with a halo of sacred innocence the tender years of the child. In every region of life its ameliorating influence was felt. It changed pity from a vice into a virtue. It elevated poverty from a curse into a beatitude. It ennobled labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and a duty. It sanctified marriage. It revealed for the first time the angelic beauty of a Purity of which men had despaired and of a Meekness at which they had utterly scoffed. It created the very conception of charity, and broadened the limits of its obligation from the narrow circle of a neighborhood to the widest horizons of the race. And while it thus evolved the idea of Humanity as a common brotherhood, even where its tidings were not believed—all over the world, wherever its tidings were believed, it cleansed the life, and elevated the soul of each individual man. Farrar.

It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictors, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled in the dust. Macaulay.

2. It was not to announce a period well known before, but to proclaim that such a year of mercy, a great antitype of the year of jubilee, was now begun. Here our Lord paused at the opening of His message, and only added much later the warning of “the days of vengeance” (Luke 21: 20-24), when this mercy had been despised. Birks.

“The acceptable year of the Lord,” when “liberty was proclaimed to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,” evidently refers to the jubilee; but in the prophetic sense, it means the Gospel state and dispensation, which proclaims spiritual liberty from the bondage of sin and Satan, and the liberty of returning to our own possession, even the heavenly inheritance, to which, having incurred a forfeiture by sin, we had lost all right and claim. J. T. Bannister.

2,3. 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 them who “mourn in Zion.” To these Christ has appointed by His Gospel and will give by His Spirit those consolations which will not only support them under their sorrows, but turn them into songs of praise. H.

3. Beauty for ashes, etc. A description of the change of habit and appearance that should take place in proportion to the change of circumstances. While they were mourners, they used to put ashes on their heads; now they were to wear a crown or diadem; for the word rendered here “beauty” signifies an ornament proper to the head, and is so translated (Ezek. 24: 17). W. Lowth.

That the efficacy of Sorrow for the great work of self-abasement is mighty scarcely requires a statement. Affliction is the very voice of God speaking to the heart of man its nothingness. Sermons may fail, but sorrow is more eloquent than sermons. It is not the Gospel, but it is the herald of the Gospel; it is the very “voice of Him that crieth” in the vast “wilderness” of the desolated heart, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in this desert a highway for our God!” Surrounded by all earthly comforts, we may not comprehend the message, “Comfort ye!” But when around us lie shattered the hopes and dreams of that fleeting prosperity, when we walk among ruins, ourselves a ruin, then God’s time is near, His hand is busy in that chaos, the “broken heart” is there which He has promised not to spurn, and His Spirit (which works by means and times and seasons) is even now about to weave of the dark substance of that grief the “garment of praise” of which His prophet has spoken—the adorning meet for the everlasting kingdom! W. A. B.

Trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. 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” (chap. 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 forth much fruit;” and that others also may take occasion from God’s favor shining on His people, and His grace shining in them, to praise Him; and that He might be forever “glorified in His saints.” H.

The Christian is entered on the catalogue of the Lord’s vineyard as a tree of righteousness, and is expected to bring forth much fruit. If his growth in grace is small and his fruitage unto holiness is meagre, he is little better than the barren fig tree that was a cumberer of the ground. He disappoints the hopes and grieves the heart of the husbandman. The condition of fruitfulness is very simple and is clearly stated by our Saviour. “He that abideth in Me and I in him.” As long as the union is kept up between the branch and the vine the branch bears abundantly. It derives all that it needs from the vine. It has not to do, but only to cling and to receive. The new life comes by faith. But it is a faith that quickens and that leads to intense activity. When the warm rain visits the roots of a healthy vine, and the sap rises and pushes out in all the branches, those branches begin to unfold leaf buds and fruit buds. The life that they receive manifests itself in growth. One who knew not the secret of that growth would think that the branch itself was working the wonders that are revealed. And so it is in spiritual growth. The Christian by his union with Christ is quickened. He puts forth new graces of the Spirit and new activities in the Divine life as the result of that quickening. His faith in Christ works by love. That is its nature, and unless he represses the normal action he must bring forth much fruit. Interior.

Looking over the scope of these first three verses, it may well excite our admiration that the sublimely glorious results of chap. 60 are effected by agencies and methods so mild and gentle, so condescending and compassionate, so fraught with loving-kindness and matchless mercy.

4. “They” in this verse are those stable Christians, spoken of above as “trees of righteousness.” What they shall do has been already expressed under the same and similar figures in chaps. 49:8; 54:3 and 58:12. The idea is, they repair the wastes and desolations of sin wrought during the ages in which Satan has had sway. The figure conceives of these desolations as external—i.e., ruined villages; burned cities; fields wasted by war, or impoverished by slave culture; but the underlying sense is rather of those usages in society, those habitudes of thought, those immoral, depraved maxims and sentiments which shut out God, and pervert man’s moral convictions and thus make the souls of men desolate. H. C.

Godliness develops such graces of the spirit as love, faith, meekness and humility. It produces the fruits of righteousness. It feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits those who are sick and in prison; and all this it does not for reward, or applause, but solely to glorify God who has planted it in the warm, mellow soil of His grace, watered it with the influences of His Spirit, and set the sun of righteousness in the firmament of redemption to shine upon it. Babb.

6. The persons addressed here, “Ye” who are to be “priests of the Lord,” comprise all God’s true-hearted Gospel laborers, whether Jew or Gentile, and with special reference to those who do the work of the Gospel ministry. They are to be amply sustained by their Christian brethren. They are to fill a sphere analogous to that of the ancient priests, and, like them, must live at and of the Temple. (See Paul’s doctrine, Rom 15:27; 1 Cor. 9:11 and Gal. 6:6.) That they shall “cat the riches of the Gentiles,” may also mean that God in His providence brings the resources of wealth, industry and art into the service of His Zion, transferring from unconsecrated commerce and perhaps from ungodly hands the resources and powers of art and of Christian civilization, to the use of His Gospel kingdom. H. C.

The essential idea here and in Rom. 15:27 is that the Church, the chosen people, or the Israel of God, is charged with the duty of communicating spiritual things to those without, and entitled, in return to an increase of outward strength from those who thus become incorporated with it. But it is not merely in this lower sense that the people of God are in the law (Ex. 19:20) and the Gospel (1 Pet. 1:3), as well as in the prophets, represented as the ministers and priests of God. Not only as instructors and reclaimers of the unbelieving world do they enjoy this sacred dignity, but also as the only representatives of their Great High Priest, in Him and through Him possessing free access to the fountain of salvation and the throne of grace (Heb. 4:14-16). In this respect, as in every other which concerns the method of salvation and access to God, there is no distinction of Jew and Gentile any more than of Greek and barbarian, male and female, bond and free; but all are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s, and all alike are priests and ministers of God. A.

The world does not read the Bible nor come to church. All it learns about Christ and the Christian life it must learn from those who bear Christ’s name and represent Him. If all church-members lived truly consecrated lives, loyal to Christ in business, in pleasure, in all things, it is impossible to estimate what the saving power of the Church would be in example alone. . . . There is a silent, personal influence that goes out from every one, and this influence is always leaving results and impressions wherever it touches. You cannot live a day and not touch some other life. Our influence depends upon what we are more than upon what we do. It is by living a beautiful life that we bless the world. We need not underestimate holy activities. Good deeds must characterize every true life. But if the life itself is noble, beautiful, holy, Christ-like, one that is itself a benediction, an inspiration, the worth of the influence is many times multiplied. . . . We get the largest measure of good for ourselves from what we do when our first aim is to do good to another. If you would get the best from any good thing, receive it from God, and then hasten to minister it in Christ’s name to others. The richest blessing comes not in the receiving, but in the giving and doing. J. R. M.

7. When the riches of the Gentiles pass over into the hands of Zion in the sense of the verse previous, then instead of Zion’s former shame, she shall have double; instead of confusion, being ashamed and confounded because of her relative weakness, she now has a joyous portion, a lot in which she may well exult, so that in their land they shall have double strength and glory, and it is to them an everlasting joy. H. C.

8. An enunciation of the general truth, that the Divine justice renders absolutely necessary the destruction of His obstinate enemies, and the deliverance of His people from oppression. (Cf. 2 Thess. 1 : 6-8.) A.—If men do not do justice, He loves to do judgment Himself in righting them that suffer wrong, and punishing them that do it. God pleads His people’s injured cause not only because He is jealous for them, but because He is jealous for justice. To illustrate this, it is added, that He “hates robbery for burnt offering;” He hates injustice even in His own people, that honor Him with what they have in their burnt offerings. It is a truth much to the honor of God, that ritual services will never atone for the violation of moral precepts, nor will it justify any man’s robbery to say, “It was for burnt offerings;” or “Corban—it is a gift.” Behold, “to obey is better than sacrifice, to do justly and love mercy better than thousands of rams;” nay, that robbery is most hateful to God which is covered with this pretence, for it makes the righteous God to be the patron of unrighteousness. H.

9. The meaning is not merely that all seeing them shall acknowledge that they are a seed, etc., but that all seeing them shall recognize them by recognizing the effects and evidences of the Divine blessing. The true application of the 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 influence exerted by the eloquent example of the missionary on the most ignorant and corrupted heathen. A.

10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. Those that rejoice in God have cause to rejoice greatly, and we need not fear running into an extreme in the greatness of our joy, when we make God the “gladness of our joy.” The first Gospel song begins like this, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1 : 46, 47). There is just matter for this joy, for salvation and righteousness are wrought out and brought in, and the Church is clothed with them. H.

11. The glory of the promise is its universality, in which the fulfilment will no doubt be coextensive with the prophecy itself. A.—The Lord has ordained that righteousness and praise shall spring up with a vigorous and sure growth before all the nations, even as the warm bosom of the earth pushes forward the seed planted therein to germination, growth and fruitage. The Gospel is to be an effective and glorious moral power for the regeneration of society and of human hearts in all the ends of the earth! In this the Messiah rejoices with exceeding great joy. This universal victory of truth and righteousness is the “joy set before Him” (as this prophecy plainly shows), “for which He endured the cross, despising the shame.” H. C.