Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 60-63.

At several points in today’s passage, at least as I read it, Isaiah changes “narrative voice” in his writing.  At some points, he is “quoting” God, then he changes to referring to God in the third person.  I interpret all of this passage around the beginning of chapter 61, combined with the fact that Jesus quoted those verses when He read in the synagogue in Nazareth.  Thus, when Isaiah writes at the beginning of chapter 60:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
…
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

I see that as a prophecy concerning how people will come to the Light of Jesus, brought into this world through the descendants of Israel.  The rest of the chapter refers, more or less, to the year of the Lord’s favor which Jesus declared when He was on Earth.  Christ came to comfort those who mourn, to give them cause for joy.  In particular, He offers joy to those who are grieved by injustice.  They will be a planting of the Lord designed to grow into oaks of righteousness.  Those who call upon the Lord should give themselves no rest, nor stop calling out to God for His intervention, until He establishes justice on earth.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 60-63.

Luke records that Jesus read from Isaiah 61 when He returned to Nazareth after being tempted in the wilderness.  Jesus told those present on that day that Isaiah 61 verse 1 through the first part of verse 2 was fulfilled in Him that day.  So, Jesus declared that the year of the Lord’s favor had come.  Now, there is a Jewish tradition, which was prevalent in the First Century, that to quote part of a passage was to quote the entire passage.  So, if Jesus was following that He was also proclaiming the day of God’s judgement.  However, I have seen some commentators on Luke 4 say that Jesus stopped where He did on purpose because He was proclaiming the year of God’s favor, but not yet the day of God’s judgement.  There is some merit to that idea, both because of the way Jesus stopped reading where He did and because of the way the prophet presents it here.  Here, the prophet makes the statement proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of God’s judgement then he spends the rest of chapter 61 and chapter 62 discussing what the “year of the Lord’s favor” means.  It is not until chapter 63 that he starts writing about the “day of God’s judgement.

So, was the prophet saying that the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of God’s judgement would come at the same time?  Or, was he saying, as some interpret the Luke passage, that the year of the Lord’s favor arrived with Jesus and the day of God’s judgement will arrive with Jesus’ return?  I suspect a bit of both.  I have noticed that many Old Testament prophecies have more than one meaning and apply to more than one occasion.  I am not sure of the answer, but reading the prophet we can see that we want to avoid the day of God’s vengeance (a term the prophet uses in parallel with judgement).  God loves justice and hates wrongdoing.  In chapter 63, while discussing the day of judgement, the prophet tells us that God looked for those who would support Him in His quest for justice and found no one.  So, let us support justice and work against injustice, otherwise we may find ourselves subject to God’s vegeance.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 60-63.

Since I am going to be on vacation from July 31-August 9 I have already written my blog posts for these days and scheduled them to be posted.  However, I may not be able to post a link to them on FaceBook, Gab.com, or MeWe.com during every day (or any day) during this time period.  So, please continue to visit my site to read my daily devotional.

According to the Gospel of Luke when Jesus began His ministry in Nazareth, He read from Isaiah 61 and said that it was fulfilled in their hearing.  He stopped with the phrase, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  However, rabbinic tradition was (and I believe still is) that to quote the beginning of a prophecy is to call out the entire passage.  Which is interesting because the sentence Jesus ended with concludes with “and the day of vengeance of our God.”  Now most of chapter 61 continues speaking about things related to the “year of the Lord’s favor”, and I believe that Jesus’ ministry was (and is) about God’s love and forgiveness.  However, I also believe that God’s vengeance against those who will not turn from evil, as described in chapter 63, goes along with His renewed offer of forgiveness.  Whenever I read this I am reminded of the song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (also known as “Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory”).  While some have said that the song glorifies the war making of the Union Army during the Civil War, I have always thought of the death and suffering experienced on both sides as examples of God “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”  The terrible suffering of the Civil War came about because of the grave sin of the way slavery was practiced in this country (I believe that many other countries are still suffering from the ways in which they practiced slavery).  I fear that a new day of such suffering will come upon this country when God pours out His wrath over the innocent blood which is shed in our abortion mills.  Let us fast and pray that God transform our society before that day comes.
I want to note that the passage tells us that it is but a day of God’s wrath with a year of His favor.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 60-63.

There are three thoughts I want to emphasize in today’s passage.  I am hoping I can write about them in a way which shows how they are connected in my mind.  So, I will begin with the beginning of chapter 61, which Jesus quoted and said that He fulfilled.  Jesus certainly fulfilled that prophecy, but there is a way in which each of us should also be a fulfillment of this prophecy.  The Spirit of the Lord, the Sovereign Lord, should be upon us.  For God has certainly anointed those who choose to imitate Christ to bring good news to the poor.  The captives will be freed if they choose to accept the salvation which God offers.

But there is more to this passage than just good news.  The time of the Lord’s favor for those who worship Him will also be the day of His anger against His enemies.  We get to choose which group we wish to be in.  Chapter 63 verse 3 says the following:

I have been treading the winepress alone;
no one was there to help me.
In my anger I have trampled my enemies
as if they were grapes.
In my fury I have trampled my foes.
Their blood has stained my clothes.

This reminds me of the first verse of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.  The writer of that song saw the horrors of the American Civil War as a fulfillment of chapter 63, and I would not disagree with them.  There are some who think she was implying that the Union Army was acting as God’s agent in bringing judgement against the Confederacy.  My take on the lyrics, and on this passage, is that both sides in that conflict were suffering God’s judgement in that horrible war.  Let us pray that we do not live to be on the receiving end of God’s judgement in a similar manner.  God rose up to avenge those who had been oppressed.  He will do so again, and when He does the suffering will be immense.

Which brings me to the third point I wanted to discuss.  In between the two passages I have discussed so far, Isaiah writes that he cannot stop praying for Zion, Jerusalem, because he loves her so much.   He writes that he cannot remain silent and will not stop praying.  But what does he pray for?  He prays that Zion’s righteousness will shine like the dawn.  We should do likewise for the land in which we live.  Let us pray that the people we live among will turn to God and accept His salvation. That they will allow His Spirit to come upon them and shine through them.  However, before that can happen we must allow the righteousness which comes from God’s Spirit to shine through us.  Let us choose to pray that God’s Spirit will come upon us and shine through us.  And then let us pray that God’s Spirit will transform us, and those around us, so that He does not need to come down in His wrath upon our neighbors and ourselves.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  I am going to be on vacation through August 10th.  I have prepared my daily Bible Studies for each day throughout that time in advance since I will have limited access to the Internet during this time.  The timing on when I publish these blogs may be erratic during this time.  As I feared might happen, I was unable to get this published as soon as I would have liked.  My apologies to anyone whose Bible study schedule was disrupted.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 60-63.

When I was growing up, from time to time my Dad would say that many of the Old Testament prophecies referred to more than one future event.  That has always stuck with me and influenced my understanding of these prophecies because I believe that he was correct.  For example the description in today’s passage about the ways in which the people of Israel will return to Jerusalem reminds me of modern Israel.  The way in which Isaiah describes the Jewish people returning from all over the world,  followed by his description of the economic success of the restored nation, strikes me as being fulfilled by the establishment of the modern state of Israel.  But then Isaiah goes on to speak of them living in the land in peace and the parallels fall apart.

Then I get to the end of today’s passage where Isaiah refers to God bemoaning how the people of Israel betrayed Him time and again.  This made me think of something one of my brothers says about Israel: since they returned from the Babylonian Exile the descendants of Jacob have never been sovereign over the Land of Israel for more than 100 consecutive years at a time.  This leads me to believe that these prophecies of their return have been fulfilled more than once.  Each time, the final fulfillment has been delayed because they have, like every other people, turned away from God to sin.  However, the day will come when God’s people will not turn away from Him and He will finally bring them peace.

Today’s passage also contains the passage which Jesus used to announce the beginning of His ministry.   Jesus declared that the Spirit of God was on Him to declare good news that the time of the Lord’s favor had come.  Jesus stopped reading there, but the passage continued one more key line: the time of God’s favor was also the time of His vengeance.  The Good News which Jesus gave us includes both God’s favor on the faithful and His vengeance against the wicked.  

And speaking of God’s vengeance, Isaiah 63 verses 3 and following inspired the song “Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory”.  That writer of that song saw fulfillment of God trampling His foes in the horrors of the Civil War.  I believe that there use of those themes was more apt than the writer realized.  Certainly, the Civil war can be aptly viewed as God trampling His foes and avenging the oppressed.  The writer in my view inaccurately believed the Union Army to be doing the trampling for God, when in fact the Union Army was as much the subject of God’s trampling as the Confederate Army.   The blood, death, and suffering of the Civil War was God’s punishment upon the people of the Untied States for allowing the injustice and oppression of the institution of slavery to go on as long as it did.  This passage and that song remind us that while there is great joy when God takes His vengeance, it is also a time of great suffering.  Let us pray that the day of God’s vengeance is delayed and that those whose actions bring it ever closer will repent and turn to God before that day arrives.