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Isaiah 61:1-3a, 6a, 8b-9
The herald of good tidings
[6] [B]ut you shall be called the priests of the Lord,
men shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
[8] I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
[9] Their descendants shall be known among the nations,
and their offspring in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
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Commentary:
1-11. Into the air of great joy reflected in the previous hymn, the prophet inserts
this very important oracle about the new messenger (vv. 1-3). The rest of the
chapter is made up of three stanzas that celebrate the wonders of the holy city.
These can be seen in profound, spiritual renewal (vv. 4-7), perfect fulfillment of
the promises made to the ancient patriarchs (vv. 8-9), and joy-in-worship, com-
parable to that of a bridegroom and bride, or that of the farmer on seeing a rich
harvest (vv. 10-11).
The remarkable events and features of the city point to the time of the End, the
time of the Lord’s definitive, salvific intervention. In this context, these new things
are ultimate and definitive. Because in the New Testament the Church is called
“God’s building” (1 Cor 3:9), erected on the foundation of the apostles (1 Cor 3:
11), Christian tradition has seen the new, glorious Jerusalem as a symbol of the
Church that makes its way through this world and will be made manifest at the
end of time (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 756-757).
61:1-3 This very compact oracle depicts the eschatological messenger speaking
a soliloquy. It is one of the key passages in the book of Isaiah. It clearly has con-
nexions with the songs of the Servant, especially the second song (49:1-6). The
pouring out of the Spirit involves anointing, as in the case of the king (cf. 11:2)
and in that of the Servant of the Lord (42:1). But the messenger is more than a
king, more than a prophet, more than the community dwelling in the holy city in
the latter days. His mission is a dual one — to be a messenger and a comforter.
As a messenger, like a king’s ambassador in times of war, he brings good ti-
dings: he announces redemption for slaves, release for prisoners (cf. Jer 34:8,
17). His message proclaims a new order of things where there will be no need for
repression, and where concord and well-being will prevail. The “year of the Lord’s
favour” (v. 2) is similar to the jubilee year (cf. Lev 25:9-19) or the sabbatical year
(cf. Ex 21:2-11; Jer 34:14; Ezek 46:17) in the sense that it is a day chosen by
the Lord, and different from any other; but here it means the point at which God
shows himself to be most gracious and bestows definitive salvation (cf. 49:8). It
is also called the day of vengeance (v. 2) because on that day, essentially a day
of good news, the wicked, too, will receive their just deserts.
As a comforter he will bind up hearts broken by illness or misfortune, and give en-
couragement to those who weep and revive those who mourn in Zion. When the
comforter is the Lord or a messenger of his (cf. 40:1), one can expect him to re-
establish his people, to set things right, (the way they were at the beginning), to
renew the broken Covenant and re-establish institutions that had been disman-
tled, that is, bring about a situation where everything is in plentiful supply.
People who have reached rock bottom (the poor, prisoners, etc.) will be given a
place of honour on that day, and a wreath, perfume and a mantle of praise (v. 3).
In sacred texts of the post-exilic period, the concept of the “poor” (or “afflicted”:
cf. note m) already went beyond the social category of those least well off: it had
a religious connotation, meaning “the humble”, those who saw themselves as ha-
ving no value before God and who simply put their faith in his divine mercy. The
final definition of the “poor” will emerge in the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12).
In Jesus’ time, Jewish tradition, found in the targum or Aramaic translation of the
Bible, considered the messenger described here to be a prophet (and for that rea-
son it introduced this oracle with the words “Thus says the prophet”). So, when
Jesus reads this passage in the synagogue of Nazareth he points out that “today
the scripture has been fulfilled” (Lk 4:21) and that he is the prophet of whom Isai-
ah spoke. By doing so, he is saying that he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one
anointed by the Holy Spirit (cf. Is 11:2), not so much as a king but as a prophet
who proclaims salvation. Ever since then, Christian teaching sees Jesus as the
last messenger sent by the Holy Spirit: “The prophet presents the Messiah as
the one who comes in the Holy Spirit, the one who possesses the fullness of
this Spirit in himself and at the same time for others, for Israel, for all the nations,
for all humanity. The fullness of the Spirit of God is accompanied by many diffe-
rent gifts, the treasures of salvation, destined in a particular way for the poor and
suffering, for all those who open their hearts to these gifts — sometimes through
the painful experience of their own existence — but first of all through that interior
availability which comes from faith. The aged Simeon, the ‘righteous and devout
man’ upon whom ‘rested the Holy Spirit’, sensed this at the moment of Jesus’
presentation in the Temple, when he perceived in him the ‘salvation … prepared
in the presence of all peoples’ at the price of the great suffering — the Cross —
which he would have to embrace together with his Mother. The Virgin Mary, who
“had conceived by the Holy Spirit’, sensed this even more clearly, when she pon-
dered in her heart the “mysteries” of the Messiah, with whom she was associa-
ted” (Dominum et Vivficantem, 16).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.