Isaiah 63:1-9

D. RESTLESSNESS OF ZION, Chapter S 63 - 64
1.PREDICTED VINDICATION

TEXT: Isaiah 63:1-9

1

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

2

Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat?

3

I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with me: yea, I trod them in mine anger, and trampled them in my wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment.

4

For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

5

And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my wrath, it upheld me.

6

And I trod down the peoples in mine anger, and made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.

7

I will make mention of the lovingkindnesses of Jehovah, and the praises of Jehovah according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.

8

For he said, Surely, they are my people, children that will not deal falsely: so he was their Saviour.

9

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

QUERIES

a.

Who is the one who speaks in righteousness?

b.

What is the year of my redeemed?

c.

Who is the angel of his presence?

PARAPHRASE

Who is this majestic figure I see approaching Zion from the direction of Edom. He has on royal robes and strides along in a grand and stately march. He answers, I am the One who vindicates Zion, the One who is Zion's Saviour. But why are your robes stained all over with red as if you had been tramping grapes in the winevat? He answers, There was no one capable or willing anywhere to do what I have done so I have had to do this mission all by myself. What I have been doing is enforcing My threats of wrath and anger by utterly destroying the enemies of My people. That is the blood of My enemies staining My garments! I have done this because the allotted time for punishment to be meted out has reached its fulfillment in My divine program of redemption. When this time came, I looked for someone to join with Me in this work of judgment but there was no one and I was disturbed. So I did the work of destroying the enemy alone. When I executed My anger upon My enemies, I made them reel and stagger with the destruction. The cup of their wrath which they made others drink, I filled up with My wrath and made them drink until they died of it.
In all of this judgment upon Zion's enemies the compassion of Jehovah is manifest toward Israel and I will therefore praise Him and proclaim His lovingkindness with all that is within me. It is also evident in this great deliverance through judgment that Jehovah has saved Zion to make of her a people who will not deal falsely but will be righteous and just. God Himself experienced affliction when His people were afflicted and so He sent Himself to save His people. Personally affected as He was by His love and compassion for them, He personally entered into the salvation and redemption of His people all the years of their past history and He will take a personal hand in their future salvation and redemption.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 63:1-6 CONQUEST: The prophet sees Someone coming from the direction of Edom (southeast of the Dead Sea) with dyed garments. The Hebrew word is khamutz and means, highly colored, indicating royalty or affluence. The remainder of verse one indicates the approaching One is majestically divine since He is One that announces vindication (davver tzedakah in Hebrew) and is mighty to save. Later, the prophet praises Jehovah for His lovingkindnesses as expressed in the judgments upon Zion's enemeies. The unrecognizable figure coming from Edom is Jehovah. Bozrah was the ancient capital of Edom. For a discussion of Edom and its relation to the Israelites, read our comments in Minor Prophets, pub. College Press, pg. 117-118. The Edomites were inveterate enemies of Israel. They rejoiced with spite-filled hearts at any misfortune befalling the Jews. Edom participated in every opportunity that came their way to plunder Jerusalem and Judah, selling Jewish captives into slavery and killing them unmercifully (cf. Obadiah 1:1-14; Isaiah 34:5-15; Ezekiel 35:1-15). Many of the prophets predicted the judgment of God upon the Edomites. Edom is often mentioned as typical or representative of all the ungodly powers that oppose Jehovah's redemptive work through Israel. We believe that is the case here also. The picture here is of Jehovah's judgment of all that opposes His messianic program.

The Hebrew word -adorn is translated red and is the same word we apparently translate man and Edom. The garments of the One approaching are splattered with red like a man who has just come from tramping in the winevat and has splattered red grape juice all over his clothing. This red is the lifeblood of his enemies (cf. Isaiah 63:3). A similar picture is painted by John the apostle as he portrays the judgment of God upon the Roman empire in Revelation 19:13.

Lest someone get the idea that Edom 'S downfall (and that of any other nation for that matter) is a matter of chance, or that it might have been averted if other circumstances had fallen just right, Jehovah emphasizes that He alone brought it about. The One approaching (the Lord) had trodden the winepress alone. He had no assistance, not only because no one else would be adequate for the task, but also because He needed no one else! The emphasis of this whole passage is that Jehovah is personally involved in and responsible for the deliverance, salvation and redemption of Zioneven to the destruction of her enemies. In a prior statement (Isaiah 59:16) the Lord emphasizes the same ideas. The Lord has everything needful for Zion's messianic destiny exactly scheduled in history and He carries it out according to His own righteous pleasure. The day of His vengeance was in His own heart and the year of His redeemed comes precisely according to His timetable, (cf. Isaiah 61:1). The Lord sets times and seasons (Daniel 2:20-23); He deposes and sets up kings and kingdoms to fit His own plans (Daniel 5:18-21); He has a definite time schedule for the messianic nation to bring forth the Messiah (see comments Daniel 9:24-27). He has the power in His own arm to bring salvation to His people and needs no other assistance (cf. Isaiah 40:10; Isaiah 51:5; Isaiah 52:10; Isaiah 53:1 for comments on arm). The Lord made His enemies drunk with His wrath. This is a figure of speech indicating two ideas. First, His enemies have caused the Jews to drink their cup of wrath in plunder and slavery; Jehovah will recompense these enemies with His own cup of wrath filled to the brim. God is not mocked; whatever a nation sows, that shall it reap, double! Second, when Jehovah's enemies are made to drink His cup of wrath, they will stagger and reel under it as drunken men reel (cf. Isaiah 29:9; Isaiah 49:26; Revelation 17:6; Revelation 18:3-7, etc.). God's wrath is perfect; it is complete and lacks nothing.

Isaiah 63:7-9 CELEBRATION: Zion, through the prophet Isaiah, is led to rejoice in Jehovah's judgment of her enemies. It is not sadistic for those who love righteousness to praise God when He judges and defeats evil. The Bible insists that an Omnipotent, Absolutely Holy and Just God must, by His very nature, ultimately uphold and give complete victory to truth, holiness and justice. He must, on the other hand, bring about complete defeat and incarceration of evil. That is why He made Hell! God intends to accomplish those objectives through two means. First, He will make available an opportunity and a way for all human beings, who so choose, to be declared righteous (by Jesus-' blood) and to grow into the image of His own righteous nature (through faith and obedience to His revealed New Covenant). These, He will save and give Life everlasting. Second, He creates an everlasting penitentiary (Hell) where He will ultimately defeat and imprison all those who choose against His will and desire to live in rebellion against Him. Now a part of recreating in His own righteous image those who choose that Life by surrender to His will is that they shall also hate evil and love good (cf. Isaiah 1:16-17; Proverbs 8:13; Amos 5:15). Heaven and the saints are told to rejoice over the fact that God destroyed the harlot, Babylon (the city of Rome and the Roman empire) with blood, war, pestilence, fire, destruction and torments (cf. Revelation 17-18, esp. Revelation 18:20; Revelation 19:1-8)1 A person who cannot hate evil, cannot love good! The uniqueness of Jesus-' fleshly nature was that as a man He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness (Hebrews 1:9) and thus was the Perfect Man!

Thus in these verses it is a mark of the righteousness and godliness of Zion that she praise God and speak of His loving-kindnesses in response to His wreaking vengeance upon those who despise Him, rebel against Him and oppress His people. He vindicates His holiness, He upholds His absolute justness and He delivers His people and vindicates their faith in Him. If He cannot thus vindicate man's faith in His absolute holiness and justice and righteousness, then His faithfulness is compromised and there is no hope in worshipping Him as opposed to any other god!
God is true! Those who wish to be known as His children must be true. They must rejoice at the defeat of evil and the establishment of righteousness because this is the absolute truth. Those who oppose good and rejoice in evil cannot be His children because that is the ultimate falsehood. In addition, His sons will act upon their choice and do righteousness. Those who claim to be His children will not deal falsely. A citizen of Zion cannot say he stands for righteousness and refuse to do it. That is falseness (cf. 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10). God cannot save the declared rebel and He cannot save the pretending servant; the pretender is as much a rebel as the declared one!

There is a difficult problem with the opening phrase of verse nine. The modern, vowel-pointed Hebrew text reads, bekal-tzaratham l-'o tzar, or, In all their affliction he was not afflicted. The ancient Hebrew text was strictly consonantal (without vowel-points). There is a consonantal text known as Kethiv, or, written which acquired a standing of sacredness and prohibited any scribe from tampering with it. It could not be changed. But the Massoretes (cir. 950 A.D.), a group of Hebrew scholars, produced a text which preserved traditional readings in variance with the sacred Kethiv; this was called Qere, or, to be read. The Qere was a text with the traditional variant consonants out in the margin. Because the vowels, being added later, did not have the sacredness of the consonants, the Massoretes felt it was proper to put the vowels for the marginal consonants (Qere) with the old consonants in the text (that is, with the Kethiv). This, of course, resulted in some impossible forms. The problem in verse nine is that the Kethiv text has l-'o while the Qere text has lo. Young advocates the adoption of the Qere reading which would make the phrase read, In all their affliction, there was affliction to him. Keil and Delitzsch say, The Masora actually does reckon this as one of the fifteen passages in which lo is to be read for l-'o. The Qere reading of lo certainly fits the context better and suits the concept already expressed concerning the suffering Servant (cf. Isaiah 53:4-6; Isaiah 53:10-11). The context indicates that when His people suffered affliction from their oppressors, God Himself felt that affliction and acted in judgment. That is no strange teaching in the Bible. The experiences of Hosea were indicative of the feelings God experienced toward a nation of people who had spurned His love (cf. Hosea 1:2-3; Hosea 3:1; Hosea 11:1-4, etc.). Our God feelsHe is not a robot or a stoic, impassive, insensitive Idea. Jesus proved God feels (cf. John 11:33-35).

Another interesting phrase in verse nine is, and the angel of his presence saved them. The Hebrew word translated presence is panaym which means literally, face or person. The word male-'k is angel and means messenger. God promised to send the messenger of His face or person to His people (Exodus 23:20-23) and actually did send to them this messenger (Exodus 14:19; Numbers 20:16). He is the Lord's messenger (Exodus 33:14-15) and is actually the Lord Jehovah Himself (Exodus 33:12). Keil and Delitzsch say, This mediatorial angel is called -the angel of His face,-' as being the representative of God, for -the face of God-' is His self-revealing presence (even though only revealed to the mental eye); and consequently the presence of God. is called directly -His face-' in Deuteronomy 4:37. and -my face-' in Exodus 33:14-15, by the side of -my angel-' in Exodus 32:34, and the angel in Exodus 33:2, appears as something incomparably higher than the presence of God through the mediation of that one angel. Young says, The angel of His face is the angel who is His face or in whom His face is made clear. In him the Lord is Himself present. When the Lord said He would send His angel to slay 185,000 Assyrian soldiers (Isaiah 37:36) it is reported that the Lord Himself did the deed (cf. Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 10:33-34).

The next section (Isaiah 63:10-14) indicates the judgments over Zion's enemies here declared (Isaiah 63:1-9) were past judgments upon which Zion might base her trust in Jehovah for deliverance from the Babylonian captivity which was apparently inescapable as Isaiah was writing these words. But, as the next section indicates, Zion is having difficulty believing that Jehovah will work for her deliverance as He did in days gone by.

QUIZ

1.

Why is the One appearing to Isaiah's vision coming from Edom?

2.

What could be a different translation of the word righteousness in verse one?

3.

Why does this One coming have red on his garments?

4.

Why stress that this One has trodden the winevat alone?

5.

Is it proper for Zion to speak of God's lovingkindness in connection with judgment and vengeance?

6.

How is God afflicted when His people are afflicted?

7.

What is the relation of this angel to Jehovah?