“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, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”, (Isa.61:1-2).
Every writer has his or her own style. For example, I like to use commas. And so did my wife in her writings until she was intimidated by my daughter for using them so often. But she (Leah) doesn’t scare me. Well most of the time, anyway.
In our opening text, the little comma we stopped with covers some two- thousand years. You’ll recall in the synagogue how Jesus quoted this portion from Isaiah’s prophecy, but did not finish it, stopping at the comma (Lk.4:18-20). Why? Because when He said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled,” it would have not been true had he continued on with the verse. For the rest of the text says, “And the day of the vengeance of our God.” You can see the former has to do with His first coming, the latter His second coming.
Thank God, “He closed the book…and sat down.” The first part of the text reaches to our age. He is still binding up the brokenhearted and freeing the captives. May God have mercy in the day of His vengeance.
