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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
I S A I A H.
CHAP. LXI.
In this chapter,
I. We are sure to find the grace of Christ, published by himself to a
lost world in the everlasting gospel, under the type and figure of
Isaiah’s province, which was to foretel the deliverance of the Jews out
of Babylon,
II. We think we find the glories of the church of Christ, its
spiritual glories, described under the type and figure of the Jews’
prosperity after their return out of their captivity.
1. It is promised that they decays of the church shall be repaired,
2. That those from without shall be made serviceable to the church,
3. That the church shall be a royal priesthood, maintained by the
riches of the Gentiles,
4. That she shall have honour and joy in lieu of all her shame and
sorrow,
5. That her affairs shall prosper,
6. That prosperity shall enjoy these blessings,
7. That righteousness and salvation shall be the eternal matter of the
church’s rejoicing and thanksgiving,
If the Jewish church was ever thus blessed, much more shall the
Christian church be so, and all that belong to it.
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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;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of
vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
3 To 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
trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might
be glorified.
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
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,
v. 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,
When he entered upon the execution of his prophetical office the
Spirit, as a dove, descended upon him,
Matt. iii. 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.
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. ii. 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
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,
[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,
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,
2 Thess. i. 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
(Ps. lvi. 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
(v. 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. i. 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,
ch. lx. 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.
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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 sons
of the alien shall be your ploughmen 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 boast 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 robbery for burnt
offering; and I will direct 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.
Promises are here made to the Jews now returned out of captivity, and
settled again in their own land, which are to be extended to the gospel
church, and all believers, who through grace are delivered out of
spiritual thraldom; for they are capable of being spiritually
applied.
I. It is promised that their houses shall be rebuilt
(v. 4),
that their cities shall be raised out of the ruins in which they had
long lain, and be fitted up for their use again: They shall build
the old wastes; the old wastes shall be built, the waste
cities shall be repaired, the former desolations, even
the desolations of many generations, which it was feared would
never be repaired, shall be raised up. 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 a habitation of God through the
Spirit. And they shall do this, those 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.
II. Those that were so lately servants themselves, working for their
oppressors and lying at their mercy, shall now have servants to do
their work for them and be at their command, not of their brethren
(they are all the Lord’s freemen), but of the strangers, and the
sons of the alien, who shall keep their sheep, till their
ground, and dress their gardens, the ancient employments of
Abel, Cain, and Adam: Strangers shall feed your flocks,
v. 5.
When, by the grace of God, we attain to a holy indifference as to all
the affairs of this world, buying as though we possessed
not–when, though our hands are employed about them, our hearts are
not entangled with them, but reserved entire for God and his
service–then the sons of the alien are our ploughmen and
vine-dressers.
III. They shall not only be released out of their captivity, but highly
preferred and honourably employed
(v. 6):
“While the strangers are keeping your flocks, you shall be
keeping the charge of the sanctuary; instead of being slaves to
your task-masters, you shall be named the priests of the Lord, a
high and holy calling.” Priests were princes’ peers, and in Hebrew were
called by the same name. You shall be the ministers of our God,
as the Levites were. Note, Those whom God sets at liberty he sets to
work; he delivers them out of the hands of their enemies that
they may serve him,
Luke i. 74, 75; Ps. cxvi. 16.
But his service is perfect freedom, nay, it is the greatest honour.
When God brought Israel out of Egypt he took them to be to him a
kingdom of priests,
Exod. xix. 6.
And the gospel church is a royal priesthood,
1 Pet. ii. 9.
All believers are made to our God kings and priests; and they ought to
conduct themselves as such in their devotions and in their whole
conversation, with holiness to the Lord written upon their
foreheads, that men may call them the priests of the Lord.
IV. The wealth and honour of the Gentile converts shall redound to the
benefit and credit of the church,
v. 6.
The Gentiles shall be brought into the church. Those that were
strangers shall become fellow-citizens with the saints; and with
themselves they shall bring all they have, to be devoted to the glory
of God and used in his service; and the priests, the Lord’s ministers,
shall have the advantage of it. It will be a great strengthening and
quickening, as well as a comfort and encouragement, to all good
Christians, to see the Gentiles serving the interests of God’s kingdom.
1. They shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, not which they
have themselves seized by violence, but which are fairly and honourably
presented to them, as gifts brought to the altar, which the
priests and their families lived comfortably upon. It is not said, “You
shall hoard the riches of the Gentiles, and treasure them,” but,
“You shall eat them;” for there is nothing better in riches than
to use them and to do good with them.
2. They shall boast themselves in their glory. Whatever was the
honour of the Gentiles converts before their conversion–their
nobility, estates, learning, virtue, or places of trust and power–it
shall all turn to the reputation of the church to which they have
joined themselves; and whatever is their glory after their
conversion–their holy zeal and strictness of conversation, their
usefulness, their patient suffering, and all the displays of that
blessed change which divine grace has made in them–shall be very much
for the glory of God and therefore all good men shall glory in it.
V. They shall have abundance of comfort and satisfaction in their own
bosoms,
v. 7.
The Jews no doubt were thus privileged after their return; they were in
a new world, and now knew how to value their liberty and property, the
pleasures of which were continually fresh and blooming. Much more do
all those rejoice whom Christ has brought into the glorious liberty of
God’s children, especially when the privileges of their adoption shall
be completed in the resurrection of the body.
1. They shall rejoice in their portion; they shall not only have
their own again, but (which is a further gift of God) they shall have
the comfort of it, and a heart to rejoice in it,
Though the houses of the returned Jews, as well as their temple, be
much inferior to what they were before the captivity, yet they shall be
well pleased with them and thankful for them. It is a portion in
their land, their own land, the holy land, Immanuel’s land, and
therefore they shall rejoice in it, having so lately known what it was
to be strangers in a strange land. Those that have God and
heaven for their portion have reason to say that they have a worthy
portion and to rejoice in it.
2. Everlasting joy shall be unto them, that is, a joyful state
of their people, which shall last long, much longer than the captivity
had lasted. Yet that joy of the Jewish nation was so much allayed, so
often interrupted, and so soon brought to an end, that we must look for
the accomplishment of this promise in the spiritual joy which believers
have in God and the eternal joy they hope for in heaven.
3. This shall be a double recompence to them, and more than double, for
all the reproach and vexation they have lain under in the land of their
captivity: “For your shame you shall have double honour, and
in your land you shall possess double wealth, to what you
lost; the blessing of God upon it, and the comfort you shall have in
it, shall make an abundant reparation for all the damages you have
received. You shall be owned not only as God’s sons, but as his
first-born
(Exod. iv. 22),
and therefore entitled to a double portion.” As the miseries of their
captivity were so great that in them they are said to have received
double for all their sins
(ch. xl. 2),
so the joys of their return shall be so great that in them they shall
receive double for all their shame. The former is applicable to
the fulness of Christ’s satisfaction, in which God received double
for all our sins; the latter to the fulness of heaven’s joys, in
which we shall receive more than double for all our services and
sufferings. Job’s case illustrates this: when God turned again his
captivity, he gave him twice as much as he had before.
VI. God will be their faithful guide and a God in covenant with them
(v. 8):
I will direct their work in truth. God by his providence will
order their affairs for the best, according to the word of his truth.
He will guide them in the ways of true prosperity, by the rules of true
policy. He will by his grace direct the works of good people in the
right way, the true way that leads to happiness; he will direct them to
be done in sincerity and then they are pleasing to him. God desires
truth in the inward parts; and, if we do our works in truth, he
will make an everlasting covenant with us; for to those that
walk before him and are upright he will certainly be a
God all-sufficient. Now, as a reason both of this and of the
foregoing promise, that God will recompense to them double for their
shame, those words come in, in the former part of the verse, I
the Lord love judgment. He loves that judgment should be done among
men, both between magistrates and subjects and between neighbour and
neighbour, and therefore he hates all injustice; and, when wrongs are
done to his people by their oppressors and persecutors, he is
displeased with them, not only because they are done to his people, but
because they are wrongs, and against the eternal rules of equity. If
men do not do justice, he loves to do judgment himself in giving
redress to those that suffer wrong and punishing those that do wrong.
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, who honour him with what they have in
their burnt-offerings, much more does he hate it when it is against his
own people; if he hates robbery when it is for burnt-offerings to
himself, much more when it is for burnt-offerings to idols, and when
not only his people are robbed of their estates, but he is robbed of
his offerings. It is a truth much to the honour 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 of all hateful to
God which is covered with this pretence, for it makes the righteous God
to be the patron of unrighteousness. Some make this a reason of the
rejection of the Jews upon the bringing in of the Gentiles
(v. 6),
because they were so corrupt in their morals, and, while they tithed
mint and cummin, made nothing of judgment and mercy
whereas God loves judgment and insists upon that, and he hates
both robbery for burnt offerings and burnt-offerings for
robbery too, as that of the Pharisees, who made long prayers that
they might the more plausibly devour widows’ houses. Others read these
words thus: I hate rapine by iniquity, that is, the spoil which
the enemies of God’s people had unjustly made of them; God hated this,
and therefore would reckon with them for it.
VII. God will entail a blessing upon their posterity after them
(v. 9):
Their seed (the children of those persons themselves that are
now the blessed of the Lord, or their successors in profession, the
church’s seed) shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation,
Ps. xxii. 30.
1. They shall signalize themselves and make their neighbours to take
notice of them: They shall be known among the Gentiles, shall
distinguish themselves by the gravity, seriousness, humility, and
cheerfulness of their conversation, especially by that brotherly love
by which all men shall know them to be Christ’s disciples. And, they
thus distinguishing themselves, God shall dignify them, by making them
the blessings of their age and instruments of his glory, and by giving
them remarkable tokens of his favour, which shall make them eminent and
gain them respect from all about them. Let the children of godly
parents love in such a manner that they may be known to be such, that
all who observe them may see in them the fruits of a good education,
and an answer to the prayers that were put up for them; and then they
may expect that God will make them known, by the fulfilling of that
promise to them, that the generation of the upright shall be
blessed.
2. God shall have the glory of this, for every one shall attribute it
to the blessing of God; all that see them shall see so much of the
grace of God in them, and his favour towards them, that they shall
acknowledge them to be the seed which the Lord has blessed and
doth bless, for it includes both. See what it is to be blessed of God.
Whatever good appears in any it must be taken notice of as the fruit of
God’s blessing and he must be glorified in it.
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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
bridegroom 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.
Some make this the song of joy and praise to be sung by the prophet in
the name of Jerusalem, congratulating her on the happy change of her
circumstances in the accomplishment of the foregoing promises; others
make it to be spoken by Christ in the name of the New-Testament church
triumphing in gospel grace. We may take in both, the former as a type
of the latter. We are here taught to rejoice with holy joy, to God’s
honour,
1. In the beginning of this good work, the clothing of the church
with righteousness and salvation,
v. 10.
Upon this account 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 i. 46, 47.
There is just matter for this joy, and all the reason in the world why
it should terminate in God; for salvation and righteousness are wrought
out and brought in, and the church is clothed with them. The salvation
God wrought for the Jews, and that righteousness of his in which he
appeared for them, and that reformation which appeared among them, made
them look as glorious in the eyes of all wise men as if they had been
clothed in robes of state or nuptial garments. Christ has clothed his
church with an eternal salvation (and that is truly great) by clothing
it with the righteousness both of justification and sanctification. The
clean linen is the righteousness of saints,
Rev. xix. 8.
Observe how these tow are put together; those, and those only, shall be
clothed with the garments of salvation hereafter that are covered with
the robe of righteousness now: and those garments are rich and splendid
clothing, like the priestly garments (for so the word signifies) with
which the bridegroom decks himself. The brightness of the sun
itself is compared to them.
He is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, completely
dressed. Such is the beauty of God’s grace in those that are clothed
with the robe of righteousness, that by the righteousness of Christ are
recommended to God’s favour and by the sanctification of the Spirit
have God’s image renewed upon them; they are decked as a bride to be
espoused to God, and taken into covenant with him; they are decked as a
priest to be employed for God, and taken into communion with him.
2. In the progress and continuance of this good work,
It is not like a day of triumph, which is glorious for the present, but
is soon over. No; the righteousness and salvation with which the church
is clothed are durable clothing; so they are said to be,
The church, when she is pleasing herself with the righteousness and
salvation that Jesus Christ has clothed her with, rejoices to think
that these inestimable blessings shall both spring for future ages and
spread to distant regions.
(1.) They shall spring forth for ages to come, as the fruits of the
earth which are produced very year, from generation to generation.
As the earth, even that which lies common, brings forth her
bud, the tender grass at the return of the year, and as the
garden enclosed causes the things that are sown in it to spring
forth in their season, so duly, so constantly, so powerfully, and
with such advantage to mankind will the Lord God cause righteousness
and praise to spring forth, by virtue of the covenant of grace, as,
in the former case, by virtue of the covenant of providence. See what
the promised blessings are–righteousness and praise (for those
that are clothed with righteousness show forth the praises of
him that clothed them); these shall spring forth under the influence of
the dew of divine grace. Though it may sometimes be winter with the
church, when those blessings seem to wither and do not appear, yet the
root of them is fixed, a spring-time will come, when through the
reviving beams of the approaching Sun of righteousness they shall
flourish again.
(2.) They shall spread far, and spring forth before all the
nations; the great salvation shall be published and proclaimed to
all the world and the ends of the earth shall see it.
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