Isaiah 61:5-7

2. FORTUNE

TEXT: Isaiah 61:5-7

5

And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners shall be your plowman and your vinedressers.

6

But ye shall be named the priests of Jehovah; men shall call you the ministers of our God: ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.

7

Instead of your shame ye shall have double; and instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be unto them.

QUERIES

a.

Why emphasize so much the subjugation of foreigners?

b.

Why promise that New Zion's citizens would be priests?

PARAPHRASE

Amazing but true, many of those who are now your enemies, alienated against you, will, in the days of the messianic Jubilee, become subjects of the. New Kingdom of Zion and join with you in service to Jehovah. All of you together will be anointed as priests and ministers of Jehovah. Those former enemies who become members of New Zion will be the most precious thing their nations have and they will aid in the ongoing of Zion and their coming will bring fame and honor and blessing to you. The fact that Jehovah will conquer and make citizens of Zion of those who once opposed and mocked Him will replace whatever shame you once knew with twice as much glory and honor and blessing. And Zion will be glad and happy forever because of this.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 61:5-6 JOINING: The Hebrew word zarim is translated strangers and means, loathed-ones, barbarians, enemies, excluded-ones. Ben-nekar is Hebrew for sons of the alien or sons of the foreigner. When the Messiah-Servant came crying aloud the time of the messianic Jubilee (the time of the Lord's pleasure), those who had been excluded, alienated from covenant relationship to Jehovah were to be given an invitation to join the chosen people in serving and ministering to Him. Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth apparently closed the scroll of Isaiah before He read beyond verses one and two of this chapter. He did not read the verses now under consideration, but He implied them in His reference to the mercy shown by Jehovah to two Gentiles (Luke 4:23-27) in the remainder of His sermon!

Paul's statement to the Gentiles in Ephesians 2:11-22 is certainly the fulfillment of this. Isaiah is replete with predictions that the nations (goiym) will be included in the messianic age as God's people (Isaiah 2:1-4; Isaiah 19:23-25; Isaiah 25:6-12; Isaiah 56:6-8; Isaiah 60:10-14, etc.).

The Jewish Apocrypha (non-canonical writings) however, reflect the humanistic, materialistic interpretations of such prophecies as those of Isaiah here concerning God's purposes for the Gentiles in the messianic age. These apocryphal writings show a liberal attitude of the Jewish mind toward the Gentiles during a time of relative freedom and peace for the Jews in the days of the Maccabeans, but an intensifying bitterness and hatred for the Gentiles as the oppression of Rome increased until the days of Jesus and the hotheaded Zealots and Sicarii eventually stirred up the rebellion and insurrection that brought about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation in 70 A.D.

According to I Enoch Isaiah 10:21, (written about 164 B.C.), all the Gentiles will become righteous and offer to God their adoration and worship. In the Sibylline Oracles III (written about 150 B.C.), the Gentiles will make their way in procession to God's Temple there to ponder his law and supplicate the Eternal King (716ff; 725ff); from every land the Gentiles will bring frankincense and gifts to the house of the great God and in the coming messianic kingdom they will have a share in the blessings that it brings. However, in II Baruch (written after 90 A.D.), it is written: My Messiah. will both summon all the nations, and some of them he will spare and some of them he will slay. These things therefore will come upon the nations which are to be spared by him. Every nation which knows not Israel, and has not trodden down the seed of Jacob, shall indeed be spared. And this because some out of every nation will be subject to thy people. But all those who have ruled over you, or have known you, shall be given up to the sword (II Baruch 72:2-6).

But the bitterness of the Jews toward the Gentiles finds its fullest expression in Similitudes of Enoch and II Esdras (both written in the first century A.D.). They teach that all Gentiles who dwell upon the earth, at the time of the messianic age, will bring to the Elect One gifts and presents and tokens of homage; but these will be of no avail; they will be destroyed and banished from the face of the earth and will perish forever and ever. D. S. Russell says in The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, pub. Westminster, pg. 303, The bitterness. expressed by the writer of II Esdras against the Gentiles is to be understood against the background of persecution which the Jewish nation as a whole had to suffer, first in the time of the Seleucids and then in the time of the Romans. It reflects the troubled years following the capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and is in keeping with the trend in Judaism generally. From this time forward, and especially from the close of the first century A.D., the harsher view prevailed and the universalism of the earlier years was gradually replaced by that spirit which could be satisfied only with the annihilation of all the other nations of the earth.

In the light of these apocryphal views, which were undoubtedly the views of the majority of the Jews in Jesus-' day, we may well understand the extreme animosity generated toward Jesus when He interpreted chapter 61 of Isaiah to mean the Gentiles were to be accepted and blessed in the messianic kingdom! The traditional interpretation the people of the synagogue in Nazareth expected to hear was that the Gentiles would at least become literally the conquered slaves of the Jews. That Saturday crowd expected to hear Isaiah 61 interpreted to mean God's people would someday kill most of the Gentiles and those not killed would become slave laborers (like the ancestors of the Jews had been in Egypt) and put to work building a rich, prosperous Jerusalem and Palestine which would become the capital city of the world.

What God meant in Isaiah 61 was, of course, just the opposite of the common Jewish concept. Many of the Jews learned this with great difficulty but rejoiced once it became apparent that it was the will of Jehovah (cf. Acts 9:1-16; Acts 10:34-43; Acts 11:18; Acts 13:44-52; Acts 15:12-21; Galatians 2:11 ff, etc.).

The Hebrew word for priests, is kohenyim from the root word kahan, meaning, to stand, to prepare, make ready, adjustthus to officiate as one who readies or adjusts something. The word translated ministers, is sharethey and means, to wait upon, to serve, to attend; it is applied only to the Levites in the O.T. Law. The concept that all Jews, (let alone a kingdom of Jews and Gentiles) would become priests and ministers to Jehovah was revolutionary! It is essentially a prediction that the Law of Moses will be abrogated in the messianic age! Only those of Levi could be priests and ministers according to the Mosaic covenant. It took the major portion of the book of Hebrews in the N.T. to convince Jewish Christians of the first century that Jesus (from the tribe of Judah) could be a priest (after the order of Melchezidek). All of Messiah's people are priestseven Gentiles (cf. 1 Peter 2:4-5; Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10; Revelation 20:6). Access, intercession, offering will be the vocation of all members of the New Zion (Hebrews 10:19-25; Hebrews 13:15-16; Romans 12:1-2).

The Hebrew heyl goiym could be translated host or army of the Gentiles. The wealth or riches of any nation is not its gold or diamonds, but its people. It is the character of the people that make any kindgom what it is. God predicts through His prophets that the future Israel (N.T. church, Galatians 6:16) will feed on the best of all nations (cf. Obadiah 1:17; Obadiah 1:21; Micah 7:11-17; Zechariah 14:16-21; Isaiah 19:16-25; Isaiah 60:10-18; Isaiah 66:12-21). Many of those who came into the N.T. church were not what most nations would consider their best (1 Corinthians 1:26-31), but they were people who could repent and be made into the image of Christ and were really the jewels of creation (cf. Philippians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).

Isaiah 61:7 JOY: The Hebrew word bashettekem is from the root bash which means, disappointment, confusion, ingnominy, disgrace. When the Jews were sinning the prophets called on the pagan nations to look at them and see if there had ever been a nation on earth so disgraceful (cf. Jeremiah 2:10-12; Jeremiah 18:13; Jeremiah 23:14, etc.). The nations of the Gentiles could not hold a candle to the Jews of the days of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel! The Gentiles mocked, derided and held in contempt everything Jewish. When they were taken into captivity the Assyrians and Babylonians hissed at them for they had claimed to be invincible because Jehovah was with them. The Jews suffered much indignity and reproach living in unclean heathen lands as prisoners. But Isaiah predicts a time (when the Messiah comes) when all these indignities shall be turned into exaltation and joy. The Messiah will take away all uncleanness and disgracefulness. Of course, it would not be relief from national, cultural shame, but spiritual disgrace and spiritual uncleanness would be taken away. One is reminded of the glorious predictions of the messianic relief made by the father of John the Baptist (by the direction of the Holy Spirit) when he (Zechariah) spoke of the mission of his own son, the waypreparer (Luke 1:67-79). Everlasting joy is a promise to be fulfilled only in the Messiah's kingdom (cf. Isaiah 35:10; Isaiah 51:11; John 15:11; John 16:22; John 16:24; John 17:13; Romans 14:17; Romans 15:13; Galatians 5:22; 1 John 1:4, etc.).

QUIZ

1.

What would have been the common interpretation of Isaiah 61:1-7 in Jesus-' day?

2.

Why is calling citizens of New Zion priests so revolutionary?

3.

What will the everlasting joy of Zion have as its object of gladness?