Christ in Isaiah

Isaiah 1 opens the great book of the prophet not with comfort but with a courtroom: the LORD calls heaven and earth to witness against children He nourished and brought up , who have rebelled (v. 2). The animals know their keeper and Israel does not - The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider (v. 3) - a line the Church has long heard echoing over the manger where the ox and the ass stood while Israel had…

Isaiah 2 sets two days side by side and the New Testament reaches for both. The first is a day of light: in the last days… the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains… and all nations shall flow unto it (vv. 2-3), and from that mountain a word goes out that remakes the weapons of the world - they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nei…

Isaiah 3 pulls the props out from under a society that has turned from God - the LORD takes away the stay and the staff , soldier and judge and prophet and elder, until children rule and the people prey on one another (vv. 1-5). But the chapter’s center is not the collapse; it is the One who rises in the midst of it: The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people (v. 13). The charge He brings is the cry of the robbed and the beaten - ye have eaten up the v…

Isaiah 4 is six short verses that pivot on two words - in that day - and it gives the Old Testament one of its most durable titles for the coming Redeemer: In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious (v. 2). The word is tzemach , a green shoot springing from cut-down wood, and the prophets take it up as a name. Jeremiah promises, I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper (Jer. 23:5); Zechariah hears the LORD say,…

Isaiah 5 opens as a love song that turns into a courtroom. The Beloved plants a vineyard on a fruitful hill, does everything care can do, and then looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes (v. 2); the riddle is unsealed in verse 7 - the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel… and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry. Centuries later Jesus took up this very song and made Hims…

Isaiah 6 is the throne-room vision that the New Testament reads as a sight of Christ. The prophet sees the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up (v. 1), hears the burning ones cry Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory (v. 3), and confesses, undone, that mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts (v. 5). John takes up this very scene and tells us whose glory it was: These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spa…

Isaiah 7 holds the most quoted sign in the book of Isaiah. Two kings - Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel - march on Jerusalem, and the house of David trembles as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind (v. 2). The LORD sends Isaiah to King Ahaz with a word that is not strategy but trust: Take heed, and be quiet; fear not (v. 4), and then the hinge of the whole chapter: If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established (v. 9). The LORD offers Ahaz a sign - a…

Isaiah 8 stands in the shadow of the great sign just given - a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Isa. 7:14) - and it lets that name do its work. The Assyrian flood will rise to the very neck of the land, yet the land it drowns is addressed by the name of promise: the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel (v. 8). The nations may associate and take counsel together , but it comes to nothing for one r…

Isaiah 9 holds the Old Testament’s most concentrated portrait of the coming King. It opens in the dark - The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined (v. 2) - and Matthew quotes the line word for word when Jesus begins His ministry in that very region: The people which sat in darkness saw great light (Matt. 4:16). The light has a source, and Isaiah names it not as an army but…

Isaiah 10 turns on a question that searches every power in the world: Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? (v. 15). Assyria is the mightiest empire on earth, and God names it a tool in His hand - O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation (v. 5) - sent against a faithless people to take the spoil (v. 6). Yet the rod imagines the strength is its own: Howbeit he meaneth not so… it is in his heart to dest…

Isaiah 11 is one of the most attested messianic chapters in all the prophets, and the New Testament draws on it directly. It opens where chapter 10 left a forest of proud nations felled: from the cut-down stump of Jesse - the house of David reduced, to the eye, to dead wood - a living shoot springs up. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots (v. 1). Upon this Branch the Spirit of the LORD comes to rest, named in a…

Isaiah 12 is a six-verse song of thanksgiving that seals the whole opening movement of the book, sung by a people who have passed through judgment and come out the other side. Its heart is a confession that fear is over because of who God has become to them: Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation (v. 2). Salvation here is not merely something God hands down from a distanc…

Isaiah 13 opens the prophet’s oracles against the nations with a vision of the day of the LORD - and it is this chapter’s language that Jesus reaches for when He describes His own coming. The oracle begins as judgment on a single empire, Babylon, but the words swell far past one city: Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty (v. 6); Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger… and he…

Isaiah 14 is a song of release. The LORD has mercy on Jacob and gives His people rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage (v. 3) - and into that rest the freed people are told to sing a proverb against the king of Babylon (v. 4), the proud oppressor whose fall the whole chapter celebrates. At the height of the taunt comes its most famous line: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!… For thou hast said in thine heart…

Isaiah 15 is a short oracle of judgment against Moab - a Gentile nation, descended from Lot, long an adversary of Israel - and the surprise of the chapter is its grief. The poem is one sustained cry: cities fall in the night (v. 1), the people go up to weep (v. 2), they howl in the streets in sackcloth (vv. 2-3), even the soldiers cry out (v. 4). And then, against every expectation in a word spoken over an enemy, a tender voice breaks through: My heart shall cry out for Mo…

Isaiah 16 sits inside an oracle of judgment, yet at its center stands one of the brightest royal promises in the book. To Moab’s fugitives the word comes, Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land … unto the mount of the daughter of Zion (v. 1) - a plea carried with a lamb toward Zion’s King - and Scripture later names a Lamb sent for the whole world: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The oracle then lifts a throne above the…

Isaiah 17 lays a great power in ruins and, in the rubble, names the only thing that holds. The burden falls on Damascus and on Ephraim with it; the fortress ceases, the kingdom ends, and the glory of Jacob shall be made thin (v. 4) - a field harvested down to a few gleanings, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough (v. 6). And out of that thinning comes the turn the whole chapter is built toward: At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall…

Isaiah 18 is a brief oracle that opens looking at a distant land - the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia (v. 1) - and ends somewhere no one would have predicted: with that far-off people bringing a gift to God. Two notes sound the chapter’s Christ-ward meaning. The first is the LORD’s posture over the raging of the nations: I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place, like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in…

Isaiah 19 begins as a burden - Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt (v. 1) - and ends as one of the most startling promises of grace in all the prophets. The first half is unrelieved judgment: idols tremble, the Nile fails, Egypt’s famed wise men are turned to fools (vv. 1-15). Then, six times over, the refrain In that day opens a door no hearer of Isaiah expected. In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of…

Isaiah 20 is one of the shortest oracles in the book and one of the most physically costly. The LORD does not merely give Isaiah words to say; He makes the prophet’s own body the message: Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot (v. 2). For three years Isaiah carries in his own person the shame that is coming on the nations - a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia (v. 3) - for the k…

Isaiah 21 gathers three night-shrouded oracles around one figure - the watchman on the wall - and the New Testament gathers up both his message and his vigil. The longest burden announces the fall of the great empire: Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground (v. 9) - and the Revelation takes the very words for the last and greatest Babylon, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen (Rev. 14:8; 18:2), the city whose ido…

Isaiah 22 turns the burden inward - not against Babylon or Egypt but against Jerusalem, the valley of vision , the one place that should have seen most clearly and saw least. With the enemy already in her choicest valleys (v. 7) and the breaches of the city of David laid open (v. 9), the people scramble to their armoury and their water-works but have not looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago (v. 11). When the Lord GOD of hos…

Isaiah 23 is the last of the burdens against the nations, and it falls on Tyre - the merchant capital of the ancient world, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth (v. 8). The chapter’s pivot is a single question and its staggering answer: Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre?… The LORD of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth (…

Isaiah 24 opens what has long been called Isaiah’s Apocalypse (chs. 24-27), and it lifts the eye from the judgment of named nations to a reckoning with the whole earth: Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof (v. 1). The cause is named without flinching - the earth is defiled because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant (v. 5).…

Isaiah 25 is one of the brightest hopes in all the prophets, and the New Testament gathers up its words to describe the end of the whole story. After the LORD is praised as a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm (v. 4), the song climbs to a mountain where the LORD of hosts spreads unto all people a feast of fat things… of wines on the lees well refined (v. 6) - a banquet for the nations that reads ahead to the table…

Isaiah 26 is a song of salvation, and its language reaches forward to Christ at point after point. Its walls are not stone but rescue - We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks (v. 1) - and its gates open only to the righteous nation which keepeth the truth (v. 2). At its center stands one of the most beloved promises in Scripture: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee (v. 3). That kep…

Isaiah 27 closes the four-chapter vision often called Isaiah’s Apocalypse (chs. 24-27), and it ends by holding two images side by side: a monster slain and a vineyard kept. In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea (v. 1). Leviathan is the Bible’s ancient picture of the cosmic enemy - the coiled chaos that sets itself against…

Isaiah 28 sets two refuges side by side and asks which will hold. The rulers in Jerusalem have built their safety on a lie - We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement… we have made lies our refuge (v. 15) - and against that hiding place the LORD lays something unshakable: Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste (v. 16). The New Testam…

Isaiah 29 reaches its center in a single sentence that Jesus Himself takes up and turns on hollow religion: this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men (v. 13). Confronted by those who tithed the mint and policed the hand-washing while their hearts stayed cold, He answered with this very verse - This people draweth nigh unto me with their mout…

Isaiah 30 sets two ways of being saved against each other, and the contrast runs straight to the heart of the gospel. One way is the frantic self-rescue of a people who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth (v. 2), trusting horses and chariots and the shadow of Pharaoh. The other is the LORD’s own word, refused at the very moment it is offered: In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would…

Isaiah 31 sets two trusts side by side and forces a choice. Judah has gone down to Egypt for help , leaning on horses and chariots and horsemen , but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD (v. 1); and the prophet collapses the whole calculation into a single sentence - Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit (v. 3). The same line runs straight into the Gospel, where the One who is the LORD’s own salvation cal…

Isaiah 32 opens with one of the great kingly promises of the book: Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment (v. 1). The prophet has already named that King - unto us a child is born… the Prince of Peace… upon the throne of David… to establish it with judgment and with justice (Isa. 9:6-7) - and the same hope is taken up again of a righteous Branch… a King who shall execute judgment and justice in the earth…

Isaiah 33 moves from a city under siege to a vision of the King, and the New Testament reads the King in its closing promise as Christ. The besieged people pray, O LORD, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee: be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble (v. 2), and the LORD answers by rising in His own strength: Now will I rise, saith the LORD; now will I be exalted (v. 10). At the heart of the chapter stands a word about what truly ste…

Isaiah 34 is the dark companion to the radiant chapter that follows it - the day of judgment set just before the day of bloom. The prophet summons the nations to a reckoning: For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations (v. 2), and His sword comes down upon Edom, the old enemy, in the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion (v. 8). That long-running controversy - the LORD’s case against all that has set itself against His…

Isaiah 35 turns from the desolation of the previous chapter to a vision of healing so specific that, centuries later, Jesus would point to it as the proof of who He is. The chapter promises that when God comes to save, the created world itself will answer - the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose (v. 1) - and the broken bodies of His people will be made whole: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the…

The whole chapter turns on one question, asked twice by the enemy at the wall: What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? (v. 4); now on whom dost thou trust? (v. 5). It is the perennial test of faith - whether the soul will hold to God when a louder, surer-sounding voice mocks the holding. The Rabshakeh ridicules trust in Egypt as the staff of this broken reed that pierces the hand of the one who leans on it (v. 6), then ridicules trust in the LORD Himself, and finall…

Isaiah 37 turns on what a believer does with an impossible threat. The Assyrian king’s blasphemous letter comes into Hezekiah’s hand, and rather than answer it with armies or despair he carries it up to the temple and spread it before the LORD (v. 14), praying, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only (v. 20). The whole chapter is a portrait of the thing the New Testament urges: Be careful for…

Isaiah 38 is the prayer of a man backed against death and the song he wrote when death let go of him. Told plainly, thou shalt die, and not live (v. 1), Hezekiah turns to the wall, pleads the honesty of his own walk - Remember now, O LORD… how I have walked before thee in truth (v. 3) - and weeps; and the verdict is answered with mercy: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years (v. 5). The sign is a shadow turned…

Isaiah 39 is the hinge on which the whole book turns. A healed and prosperous Hezekiah throws open his treasure-house to envoys from Babylon - there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not (v. 2) - and the proud display names, all unknowing, the very power that will one day carry it all away. Isaiah answers with a word that ends the book’s long section of warning: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house … shall…

Isaiah 40 opens the long word of comfort that fills the rest of the book, and the New Testament reaches into it again and again to announce the coming of Christ. The chapter’s voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD (v. 3) is quoted of John the Baptist in all four Gospels - this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias (Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4-6; John 1:23) - the herald sent ahead to make ready a people for the Lord. The word…

Isaiah 41 sets the helplessness of the idols against the LORD who rules every age, and at the center of that contrast He gives His people the words that ring through the whole rest of Scripture. He names Himself the One who stands at both ends of time - I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he (v. 4) - the same self-naming the risen Christ takes up in His own mouth: I am the first and the last (Rev. 1:17), the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13…

Isaiah 42 opens the first of the great Servant Songs, and the New Testament lifts it out and lays it directly over Jesus. The chapter begins, Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles (v. 1) - and Matthew quotes the whole opening of the song as fulfilled in Christ: Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spir…

Isaiah 43 is a chapter of belonging, and the New Testament gathers up its promises in Christ. To a frightened people the LORD says, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine (v. 1) - and the One who calls His own by name and lays claim to them is the Good Shepherd who calleth his own sheep by name… and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice (John 10:3-4), the One who says I know my sheep… and they shall never per…

Isaiah 44 sets the living God against everything human hands can shape, and at its heart stands a title the New Testament will hand to the risen Christ. Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God (v. 6). When John fell as dead before the glorified Lord, that same Lord laid His hand on him and said, Fear not; I am the first and the last (Rev. 1:17), and again, I am Alpha and Om…

Isaiah 45 opens by doing something almost scandalous: it calls a pagan emperor God’s anointed. Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden (v. 1) - the Hebrew word is mashiach , the very word that becomes Messiah , here laid on a foreign king who hast not known me (v. 4), raised up to free God’s captives. Cyrus is the LORD’s instrument; the ultimate Anointed is the One the title was always pointing toward. Around that commission the chapte…

Isaiah 46 sets two kinds of god side by side and lets the difference preach. Babylon’s gods, Bel and Nebo, have to be hauled away on the backs of exhausted animals - dead weight that could not deliver the burden and went into captivity along with everyone else (vv. 1-2). Over against that stands the LORD, and the verbs turn completely around: which are borne by me from the belly, and carried from the womb… even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I…

Isaiah 47 is a taunt-song over fallen Babylon, and at its dark center sits a single sentence the proud city keeps saying in her heart: I am, and none else beside me (vv. 8, 10). It is the creature’s counterfeit of the Creator’s own word, for it is the LORD who truly says, I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me (Isa. 45:5). Babylon has stolen God’s own “I am” and pinned it to herself, and that theft is the root of her ruin: thy wisdom and thy knowl…

Isaiah 48 ends the long contest with the idols (chs. 40-48) on a note that runs straight to the Gospel. God’s whole case has rested on prophecy - He told the end from the beginning so that no carved image could steal the credit: I have declared the former things from the beginning… lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them (vv. 3-5). But the deepest word of the chapter is why God spares a people so stubborn their neck is an iron sinew (v. 4). It is not their…

Isaiah 49 is the second of the Servant Songs, and the Servant Himself speaks. He was called and named from the womb (vv. 1, 5); His mouth is made like a sharp sword and He is kept hidden as a polished shaft in the LORD’s quiver (v. 2); He is despised by men yet chosen by the One who is faithful, so that kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship (v. 7). And the commission, at first bounded by Israel, is opened to the whole earth: It is a light thing that thou sh…

Isaiah 50 holds the third of the Servant Songs, and the Gospel writers laid it open beside the passion of Jesus as if it were a transcript written ahead of time. The Servant first describes His teaching and His listening: The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary (v. 4) - a word the One who said Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28) spoke…

Isaiah 51 speaks to a people crushed under exile, and its comfort runs straight toward the Gospel. It opens by sending the eye backward - look unto the rock whence ye are hewn… look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him (vv. 1-2) - the reminder that God made a whole people out of one barren couple by sheer grace, the same grace the apostle reads forward into all who believe: they which are…

Isaiah 52 sets the table for the chapter that follows it, and the New Testament feeds on it at every turn. At the heart of the chapter stands the runner on the ridge: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! (v. 7) - a verse the apostle lifts straight onto the preachers of the gospel: How beautiful are the fee…

No chapter of the Old Testament is woven into the New so deeply or so explicitly. When the Ethiopian official was reading this very passage and asked, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? - Philip began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus (Acts 8:34-35). The chapter opens with a question the Gospel will quote against unbelief - Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? (v. 1; John 12:38; Rom. 1…

Isaiah 54 is the song that breaks out after the cross. Chapter 53 has just told of the Servant wounded for our transgressions , the one who pours out his soul unto death and yet shall see his seed and justify many (Isa. 53:5, 10-11) - and now this chapter sings the harvest of that suffering. It opens with a command given to a childless woman: Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear… for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife (v.…

Isaiah 55 is the open door of the Old Testament - a herald’s shout flung to everyone with nothing to pay: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat… without money and without price (v. 1). The bread and water that truly satisfy are offered as a gift, and the gift is held out again at the very end of the New Testament in the same words: let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water…

Isaiah 56 throws open the doors of God’s house to the very people most certain they are shut out, and the New Testament reads it as a map of the gospel. To the foreigner afraid the LORD hath utterly separated me from his people , and to the eunuch who calls himself a dry tree (v. 3), God promises a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters… an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off (v. 5). The reason is the chapter’s ringing word: mine house shall b…

Isaiah 57 sets the highest of all heights beside the lowest of all places and finds the same God in both. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones (v. 15). The One who fills eternity stoops to live with the broken - and the New Testament tells of that very stoop…

Isaiah 58 draws the sharpest line in the prophets between worship God refuses and worship He receives, and Jesus stood squarely on that line. A people who seek me daily, and delight to know my ways (v. 2) fast and afflict their souls, yet on the same day exact all your labours and smite with the fist of wickedness (vv. 3-4) - so God will not hear them. Then He names the fast He has chosen: to loose the bands of wickedness… to let the oppressed go free… to dea…

Isaiah 59 begins by clearing God of any failure - Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear (v. 1) - and lays the whole problem at the door of human sin: your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you (v. 2). What follows is one of Scripture’s most relentless portraits of a society undone by its own wrong - defiled hands, lying lips, crooked paths, truth&helli…

Isaiah 60 opens on a city sitting in the dark and gives it one astonishing command - Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee (v. 1) - and the light it announces the New Testament names as a Person. He is the One of whom it was sung at His coming, A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel (Luke 2:32); the One who said, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall h…

Isaiah 61 is the text Jesus chose for Himself. In the synagogue at Nazareth He stood up for to read , found this place, and read its opening lines - The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives… to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD (vv. 1-2) - then closed the book and said, This day is this scripture fulfilled in…

Isaiah 62 is one of Scripture’s tenderest pictures of God’s love for His people, and its central gift is a name. The city once called Forsaken and Desolate is renamed by the LORD’s own mouth: thou shalt be called Hephzibah - my delight is in her - and thy land Beulah , married (v. 4). Thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name (v. 2). The New Testament makes that promise of a new name the very signature of belonging to Christ: To him that ov…

Isaiah 63 opens with a watchman’s startled question as a lone figure comes up from Edom, splendid and red-stained: Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?… I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save (v. 1). The answer to why the apparel is red is grave: I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me (v. 3). It is a scene of judgment - the day God answers every wrong that has gone unanswered - and the New Te…

Isaiah 64 is a prayer that asks for the very thing the Gospel will answer. It opens, Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence (v. 1) - a cry for God to tear the sky open and come down in person. The New Testament tells of heavens that did open and a God who did come down: at the Jordan, he saw the heavens opened - literally rent - and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him (Mark 1:10), and…

Isaiah 65 opens with one of the most surprising sentences God ever speaks about Himself, and the New Testament reaches straight for it. I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name (v. 1) - and then, turning to His own people, I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people (v. 2). The apostle Paul takes the two verses and lays them side by side:…

Isaiah ends where its long consolation began - with the God who bends toward the lowly - and the New Testament hears Christ throughout. The opening word, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? (v. 1), is the very text Stephen quotes before the council to say that the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands (Acts 7:48-49), and the God who needs no house yet looks to one kind of person - to this man will I…