1The 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,
2to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3to 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.
4They 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.
5Strangers will stand and feed your flocks.
Foreigners will work your fields and your vineyards.
6But 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.
7Instead 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.
8“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.
9Their 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.”
10I 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.
11For 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.
The Appointed Reading
Reading the Scroll of Isaiah in the Synagogue
I have been blessed to visit Nazareth on several occasions, and I’ve gone to an open-air museum called “Nazareth Village”. In that museum, a person can go into a replica of a first-century synagogue and see the exact setting where Jesus read this passage out of Isaiah. Unless you are familiar with the weekly Parashah, it may seem like Jesus was being rather arrogant to open the Bible to an exact reference to Himself. This isn’t what happened. This was a miraculous event tied to the Jewish calendar. God arranged the reading of this portion of scripture.
Scholars believe that during the Second Temple Period, Ezra the Prophet divided the Torah up into weekly readings that are still observed today. Jews all over the world read the same passage of scripture each week. It is called the week’s portion or parashah (in Hebrew). In addition, the rest of the Jewish Bible (our Old Testament) is divided into portions called haftorah, which are also assigned to specific weeks for reading. So together, these readings comprise a schedule by which Jews read the entire Jewish Bible in a year. Hence, on Friday night or Saturday morning, when Jesus stood in the synagogue in Nazareth, there was an appointed scripture reading that He would not have selected, but it was already on the “reading schedule” for the week. He was invited to read it. How fitting of God to have arranged things so that on that day, Jesus, who fulfilled those specific scriptures (Isaiah 61:1-2), went before the congregation and read that which applied to Him.
Jesus did come to preach good news to the poor. He would say later in His ministry, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” We who were and are broken-hearted by many things can be comforted by Him. We once were blind, and now we see. We who are crushed find our solace in Him. If you are feeling any of those emotions today, give them to Jesus. He already declared on that day in Nazareth what He is able to do for each of us. Embrace Him today and be comforted.