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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 61:1 - 61:1
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The words of Jehovah Himself pass over here into the words of another, whom He has appointed as the Mediator of His gracious counsel. “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is over me, because Jehovah hath anointed me, to bring glad tidings to sufferers, hath sent me to bind up broken-hearted ones, to proclaim liberty to those led captive, and emancipation to the fettered; to proclaim a year of grace from Jehovah, and a day of vengeance from our God; to comfort all that mourn; to put upon the mourners of Zion, to give them a head-dress for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, a wrapper of renown for an expiring spirit, that they may be called terebinths of righteousness, a planting of Jehovah for glorification.” Who is the person speaking here? The Targum introduces the passage with נְבִיָּא אֲמַר. Nearly all the modern commentators support this view. Even the closing remarks to Drechsler (iii. 381) express the opinion, that the prophet who exhibited to the church the summit of its glory in chapter 60, an evangelist of the rising from on high, an apocalyptist who sketches the painting which the New Testament apocalyptist is to carry out in detail, is here looking up to Jehovah with a grateful eye, and praising Him with joyful heart for his exalted commission. But this view, when looked at more closely, cannot possibly be sustained. It is open to the following objections: (1.) The prophet never speaks of himself as a prophet at any such length as this; on the contrary, with the exception of the closing words of Isa 57:21, “saith my God,” he has always most studiously let his own person fall back into the shade. (2.) Wherever any other than Jehovah is represented as speaking, and as referring to his own calling, or his experience in connection with that calling, as in Isa 49:1., Isa 50:4., it is the very same “servant of Jehovah” of whom and to whom Jehovah speaks in Isa 42:1., Isaiah 52:13-53:12, and therefore not the prophet himself, but He who had been appointed to be the Mediator of a new covenant, the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of Jehovah for the whole world, and who would reach this glorious height, to which He had been called, through self-abasement even to death. (3.) All that the person speaking here says of himself is to be found in the picture of the unequalled “Servant of Jehovah,” who is 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); He has a tongue taught of God, to help the exhausted with words (Isa 50:4); He spares and rescues those who are almost despairing and destroyed, the bruised reed and expiring wick (Isa 42:7). “To open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house:” this is what He has chiefly to do for His people, both in word and deed (Isa 42:7; Isa 49:9). (4.) We can hardly expect that, after the prophet has described the Servant of Jehovah, of whom He prophesied, as coming forward to speak with such dramatic directness as in Isa 49:1., Isa 50:4. (and even Isa 48:16), he will now proceed to put himself in the foreground, and ascribe to himself those very same official attributes which he has already set forth as characteristic features in his portrait of the predicted One. For these reasons we have no doubt that we have here the words of the Servant of Jehovah. The glory of Jerusalem is depicted in chapter 60 in the direct words of Jehovah Himself, which are well sustained throughout. And now, just as in Isa 48:16, though still more elaborately, we have by their side the words of His servant, who is the mediator of this glory, and who above all others is the pioneer thereof in his evangelical predictions. Just as Jehovah says of him in Isa 42:1, “I have put my Spirit upon him;” so here he says of himself, “The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me.” And when he continues to explain this still further by saying, “because” (יַעַן from עָנָה, intention, purpose; here equivalent to אֲשֶׁר יַעַן) “Jehovah hath anointed me” (mâs 'ōthı̄, more emphatic than meshâchanı̄), notwithstanding the fact that mâshach is used here in the sense of prophetic and not regal anointing (1Ki 19:16), we may find in the choice of this particular word a hint at the fact, that the Servant of Jehovah and the Messiah are one and the same person. So also the account given in Luk 4:16-22 viz. that when Jesus was in the synagogue at Nazareth, after reading the opening words of this address, He closed the book with these words, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” - cannot be interpreted more simply in any other way, than on the supposition that Jesus here declares Himself to be the predicted and divinely anointed Servant of Jehovah, who brings the gospel of redemption to His people. Moreover, though it is not decisive in favour of our explanation, yet this explanation is favoured by the fact that the speaker not only appears as the herald of the new and great gifts of God, but also as the dispenser of them (“non praeco tantum, sed et dispensator,” Vitringa).
The combination of the names of God ('Adonai Yehovâh) is the same as in Isa 50:4-9. On bissēr, εὐαγγελίζειν (-εσθαι). He comes to put a bandage on the hearts' wounds of those who are broken-hearted: לְ חָבַשׁ (חִבֵּשׁ) as in Eze 34:4; Psa 147:3; cf., לְ רָפָא (רִפֵּא); לְ הִצְדיִק. דְרוֹר קָרָא is the phrase used in the law for the proclamation of the freedom brought by the year of jubilee, which occurred every fiftieth year after seven sabbatical periods, and was called shenath hadderōr (Eze 46:17); deror from dârar, a verbal stem, denoting the straight, swift flight of a swallow (see at Psa 84:4), and free motion in general, such as that of a flash of lightning, a liberal self-diffusion, like that of a superabundant fulness. Peqach-qōăch is written like two words (see at Isa 2:20). The Targum translates it as if peqach were an imperative: “Come to the light,” probably meaning undo the bands. But qōăch is not a Hebrew word; for the qı̄chōth of the Mishna (the loops through which the strings of a purse are drawn, for the purpose of lacing it up) cannot be adduced as a comparison. Parchon, AE, and A, take peqachqōăch as one word (of the form פְּתַלְתֹּל, שְׁחַרְחֹר), in the sense of throwing open, viz., the prison. But as pâqach is never used like pâthach (Isa 14:17; Isa 51:14), to signify the opening of a room, but is always applied to the opening of the eyes (Isa 35:5; Isa 42:7, etc.), except in Isa 42:20, where it is used for the opening of the ears, we adhere to the strict usage of the language, if we understand by peqachqōăch the opening up of the eyes (as contrasted with the dense darkness of the prison); and this is how it has been taken even by the lxx, who have rendered it καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν, as if the reading had been וְלַעִוְרִים (Psa 146:8). Again, he is sent to promise with a loud proclamation a year of good pleasure (râtsōn: syn. yeshū‛âh) and a day of vengeance, which Jehovah has appointed; a promise which assigns the length of a year for the thorough accomplishment of the work of grace, and only the length of a day for the work of vengeance. The vengeance applies to those who hold the people of God in fetters, and oppress them; the grace to all those whom the infliction of punishment has inwardly humbled, though they have been strongly agitated by its long continuance (Isa 57:15). The 'ăbhēlı̄m, whom the Servant of Jehovah has to comfort, are the “mourners of Zion,” those who take to heart the fall of Zion. In Isa 61:3, לָשׂוּם ... לָתֵת, he corrects himself, because what he brings is not merely a diadem, to which the word sūm (to set) would apply, but an abundant supply of manifold gifts, to which only a general word like nâthan (to give) is appropriate. Instead of אֵפֶר, the ashes of mourning or repentance laid upon the head, he brings פְּאֵר, a diadem to adorn the head (a transposition even so far as the letters are concerned, and therefore the counterpart of אפר; the”oil of joy” (from Psa 45:8; compare also מְשָׁחֲךָ there with אֹתִי מָשַׁח here) instead of mourning; “a wrapper (cloak) of renown” instead of a faint and almost extinguished spirit. The oil with which they henceforth anoint themselves is to be joy or gladness, and renown the cloak in which they wrap themselves (a genitive connection, as in Isa 59:17). And whence is all this? The gifts of God, though represented in outward figures, are really spiritual, and take effect within, rejuvenating and sanctifying the inward man; they are the sap and strength, the marrow and impulse of a new life. The church thereby becomes “terebinths of righteousness” (אֵילֵי: Targ., Symm., Jer., render this, strong ones, mighty ones; Syr. dechre, rams; but though both of these are possible, so far as the letters are concerned, they are unsuitable here), i.e., possessors of righteousness, produced by God and acceptable with God, having all the firmness and fulness of terebinths, with their strong trunks, their luxuriant verdure, and their perennial foliage - a planting of Jehovah, to the end that He may get glory out of it (a repetition of Isa 60:21).