The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty 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 the LORD, that He may be glorified.” And they shall rebuild the old ruins, They shall raise up the former desolations, And they shall repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations. Isaiah 61:1-4
The condition of Israel and Judah in the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah is grim. Because of their consistent rebellion against God, dark times lay ahead for the nation once the apple of God’s eye (Deuteronomy 32:10; Zechariah 2:8). By the end of chapter thirty-nine, the nation would go into captivity to the brutal Chaldeans/Babylonians, and their hopes as God’s chosen nation will be dashed. Several other prophets wrote of these calamitous events with equally terrifying detail. When we come to Jeremiah’s second writing, Lamentations, the city has been burnt, the entire leading class and a host of others have been taken captive, and even the temple where the people were enabled to commune with God was razed and burnt down too. The city literally lay in ashes.
In Isaiah forty, however, the tone takes a striking turn from soul-shaking calamity to soul-soothing comfort as God promised to restore His fallen people to His favor (Isaiah 40:1-5), though not before they fully understood the terrible evils that led them to the lowest point in their history (cf. Jeremiah 25:8-14). The description in Isaiah 61:1-4 above captures how truly remarkable the restoration will be when the Lord’s anointed comes to rescue His people.
The glory of God’s grace is displayed in rich, beautiful terms in this text as His anointed would bring good tidings to the poor (lit. depressed, afflicted, needy, etc.), heal the brokenhearted (cf. Psalms 34:18), proclaiming liberty to the captives (cf. Romans 6:1-7, 17-18), the release of those imprisoned, the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of His vengeance, comfort to all who mourn, beauty for the ashes in which they lay, the oil of joy for mourning, the spirit of heaviness replaced with a garment of praise, and ensuring they who turn back to Him will be planted like trees of righteousness to the glory of God. What a turn of events brought about by the grace of God, all of which was fulfilled in Christ to Jew and Gentile alike (Luke 4:18-19).
These glorious events were not intended solely to comfort the captives from Israel and Judah in those days. Every piece of this tied back to God’s universal promises to undo what the serpent did in the garden (Genesis 3:15) and bless all the nations and families of the earth through Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:15-19; Galatians 3:13-29). Like the nation of Israel in the aftermath of the exile, you and I can arise from the ashes of our broken lives in Christ because of the glorious work of atonement He accomplished in His death, burial, and resurrection.