Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 61:4
And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
4. Comp. ch. Isa 49:8, Isa 58:12, Isa 60:10.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And they shall build the old wastes – (See the notes at Isa 58:12).
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 61:4
And they shall build the old wastes
Building the old wastes
There are many wastes in the world, and there are all sorts of them.
But of all sad and melancholy waste places, there is none so melancholy, so terrible, so desperate as a waste soul–a soul in which there is no sense of right and wrong in the tribunal of conscience; a soul where there is no distinct, manly, nobly inspiring purpose for spending and occupying life; a soul in which the mind is not instructed or Fed with useful knowledge, but which lies fallow; a soul where the heart is a cage of unclean birds.
I. As to THE METHODS of building up these waste places. Let us honestly confess that there are many of them, and none of them to be despised; and each is to be put in its proper order, and none can be dispensed with–one comes first, another second, and another third. There are in this earth of ours whole nations which may be called waste places.
1. The first thing to be done with the waste place of a great nation is to bring civilization into it; then the soil of the heart is prepared for better things to come.
2. Then many of our missionaries have to form a language: there are many words missing in the peoples dialect, without which they could not understand the truths of the Gospel. Then when a man is educated, he finds his imagination filled with new ideas; he feels he has taken his place in the great society of mankind, and is ready to listen to the truths which a little while before he trampled under his feet.
3. Another great means of building waste places is commerce and trade.
4. Good government is necessary. No man can receive the greatest and loftiest truths when they are living in a constant state of danger.
5. Preach the Gospel of Christ.
II. THE INSTRUMENTS. Whom does God use to build up the waste places?
1. His Sou is the great Builder (Luk 4:18, etc.).
2. Then as His representative, and, so to speak, in His place, His minister, His ambassador, His mouthpiece, HIS witness, the Church of God. Her great mission is to preach the Word of God, and administer the sacraments of Christ. Then there are other ways. The Church must try to enter into all the needs, and difficulties, and wants of those to whom she ministers. (A. W.Thorold, D. D.)
Social needs: religious duties
Our work is a work of restoration. This message is infinitely varied in its tone. If we are indeed to build the old wastes, we must see what has made them wastes; and we shall find that there have been three great enemies that have done this–disease and ignorance and sin.
I. We must bring a message of good news to THE BODY. We must recognize its needs–its need of pure air, and wholesome food, and healthy homes; and, also, its craving, especially in the days of youth, for leisure and amusement, and even excitement. We must meet these cravings, not with the forbidding frown of the Puritan, as though they were in themselves sinful, nor yet with the easy-going smile of the good-natured Epicurean, as though they were the all in all of human happiness, but with sympathy and good sense and forethought, in the belief that they represent one part of the Fathers will for His human children.
II. We must to the full recognize the rights of THE MIND. A Gospel that has no message of good news to the intellect of man is but a mutilated Gospel. Literature, art, science, music, have not, indeed, the last word to say on mans relation to God, but they have a mighty and a lovely word to say; and it ought to be the joy of all Christs truest ministers, lay and clerical, to help in conveying such words to the ear and to the heart even of the poorest and dullest. Public libraries and museums, cheap concerts and cheap magazines, arc among the truest weapons of those who would in our day destroy the works of the devil.
III. Chiefly must we come face to face with sin, not only with a message against sin; we must have a message of good tidings also to HUMAN SOULS. And when I say good tidings, I do not necessarily mean agreeable and attractive tidings. When Jesus said, Repent ye and believe the Gospel, the call to repent, though hardly attractive, was in itself a Gospel. We cannot build the waste places in England, in morals and social customs, in ways of thinking and talking and feeling, unless we very plainly denounce what is unchristian in contemporary life. The message of the Gospel is not only a soothing message of forgiveness to the sinner who is troubled in mind, nor a tender message of companionship to the lonely and the bereaved, nor a consoling message of eventual justice to the wronged and the overborne. But there is also the voice which convinces the world of sin, the voice which says to society, irrespective of class, to rich as well as to poor, to poor as well as to rich: In this and that you are wholly wrong; you are wrong in your expenditure of time, wrong in your expenditure of money, wrong in your estimate of the true prizes of life, wrong in your worship of comfort, wrong in your class isolation; wrong, many of you, in your very conception of religion. We have, if we are indeed witnesses of our Master, a message of good tidings to all alike, to all classes, to the rich and to the poor, to the highly cultivated and-to the ignorant. (H. M. Butler, D. D.)
Antiquities revived
I. THE ANTIQUITIES THAT ARE LAID WASTE.
1. Vital godliness.
2. Apostolic doctrine. The sovereignty of God, substitution, sanctity, etc.
3. Loyalty to Jesus.
4. The unity of the Spirit.
II. THE PROMISE OF THE SPECIAL REVIVALS THAT TO TAKE PLACE. They shall build, etc. (J. Irons.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. “And they that spring from thee“] A word is lost here likewise. After ubanu, “they shall build,” add mimmecha, they that spring from thee. Four MSS. have it so, (two of them ancient,) and one of mine has it in the margin, and it is confirmed by Isa 58:12, where the sentence is the very same, this word being here added. Kimchi makes the same remark: “the word mimmecha is omitted here; but is found in Isa 58:12.”
The desolations of many generations] It seems that these words cannot refer to the Jews in the Babylonish captivity, for they were not there many generations; but it may refer to their dispersions and state of ruin since the advent of our Lord; and consequently this may be a promise of the restoration of the Jewish people.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
See Isa 58:12. As it is applied to gospel times, the meaning may be, that Gentilism, which was as a wilderness overgrown with briers and thorns, shall be cultivated; and those cities and provinces of the Gentiles that lay as it were waste, void of all true religion, shall now by the ministry of the word be edified in the true worship of God.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. old wastesJerusalem andthe cities of Judah which long lay in ruins (see on Isa58:12).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And they shall build the old wastes,…. The captives set at liberty, and who are called trees of righteousness, and the planting of the Lord; righteous and good men, who shall be employed in the spiritual building of the church in Gospel times, and especially in the latter day; for here begins an account of the benefits and blessings the church of Christ should partake of, particularly at the time of the calling and conversion of the Jews: after having described the work and office of the Messiah, and his fitness for it, the Holy Ghost returns to the same subject with the preceding chapter, and which is carried on in the next. What is here said was literally true, when the Jews returned from Babylon, and built their ruined houses and cities; or, at least, there is an allusion to it: but it respects either the setting up of the interest of Christ, and forming churches in the Gentile world, where nothing but blindness and ignorance reigned; where there were no preaching nor ordinances, but all things were in ruin and confusion; as they were before the ministry of the Gospel by the apostles, who were wise master builders, and instruments of converting multitudes, and of raising churches to the honour of the great Redeemer there: or rather it respects the building up of the tabernacle of David, that is fallen down, or the church of God among the Jews, which will be in the latter day, when they are turned to the Lord, Am 9:11 and the same sense have all the following expressions,
they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations; setting forth the desolate state and condition of the Jews; their long continuance in it, age after age; and their recovery and restoration, when they shall become a flourishing people again, both in civil and spiritual things.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Even in Isa 61:3 with a perfect was introduced in the place of the infinitives of the object, and affirmed what was to be accomplished through the mediation of the Servant of Jehovah. The second turn in the address, which follows in Isa 61:4-9, continues the use of such perfects, which afterwards pass into futures. But the whole is still governed by the commencement in Isa 61:1. The Servant of Jehovah celebrates the glorious office committed to him, and expounds the substance of the gospel given him to proclaim. It points to the restoration of the promised land, and to the elevation of Israel, after its purification in the furnace of judgment, to great honour and dignity in the midst of the world of nations. “And they will build up wastes of the olden time, raise up desolations of the forefathers, and renew desolate cities, desolations of former generations. And strangers stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners become your ploughmen and vinedressers. But ye will be called priests of Jehovah; Servants of our God, will men say to you: ye will eat the riches of the nations, and pride yourselves in their glory.” The desolations and wastes of olam and dor vador , i.e., of ages remote and near (Isa 58:12), are not confined to what had lain in ruins during the seventy years of the captivity. The land will be so thickly populated, that the former places of abode will not suffice (Isa 49:19-20); so that places must be referred to which are lying waste beyond the present bounds of the promised land (Isa 54:3), and which will be rebuilt, raised up, and renewed by those who return from exile, and indeed by the latest generations (Isa 58:12, ; cf., Isa 60:14). Chorebh , in the sense of desolation, is a word belonging to the alter period of the language (Zeph., Jer., and Ezek.). The rebuilding naturally suggests the thought of assistance on the part of the heathen (Isa 60:10). But the prophet expresses the fact that they will enter into the service of Israel (Isa 61:5), in a new and different form. They “stand there” (viz., at their posts ready for service, al – m ish – martam , 2Ch 7:6), “and feed your flocks” ( singularetantum , cf., Gen 30:43), and foreigners are your ploughmen and vinedressers. Israel is now, in the midst of the heathen who have entered into the congregation of Jehovah and become the people of God (ch Isa 19:25), what the Aaronites formerly were in the midst of Israel itself. It stands upon the height of its primary destination to be a kingdom of priests (Exo 19:6). They are called “priests of Jehovah,” and the heathen call them “servants of our God;” for even the heathen speak with believing reverence of the God, to whom Israel renders priestly service, as “our God.” This reads as if the restored Israelites were to stand in the same relation to the converted heathen as the clergy to the laity; but it is evident, from Isa 66:21, that the prophet has no such hierarchical separation as this in his mind. All that we can safely infer from his prophecy is, that the nationality of Israel will not be swallowed up by the entrance of the heathen into the community of the God of revelation. The people created by Jehovah, to serve as the vehicle of the promise of salvation and the instrument in preparing the way for salvation, will also render Him special service, even after that salvation has been really effected. At the same time, we cannot take the attitude, which is here assigned to the people of sacred history after it has become the teacher of the nations, viz., as the leader of its worship also, and shape it into any clear and definite form that shall be reconcilable with the New Testament spirit of liberty and the abolition of all national party-walls. The Old Testament prophet utters New Testament prophecies in an Old Testament form. Even when he continues to say, “Ye will eat the riches of the Gentiles, and pride yourselves in their glory,” i.e., be proud of the glorious things which have passed from their possession into yours, this is merely colouring intended to strike the eye, which admits of explanation on the ground that he saw the future in the mirror of the present, as a complete inversion of the relation in which the two had stood before. The figures present themselves to him in the form of contrasts. The New Testament apostle, on the other hand, says in Rom 11:12 that the conversion of all Israel to Christ will be “the riches of the Gentiles.” But if even then the Gentile church should act according to the words of the same apostle in Rom 15:27, and show her gratitude to the people whose spiritual debtor she is, by ministering to them in carnal things, all that the prophet has promised here will be amply fulfilled. We cannot adopt the explanation proposed by Hitzig, Stier, etc., “and changing with them, ye enter into their glory” ( hithyammer from yamar = m ur , Hiph.: hemr , Jer 2:11; lit., to exchange with one another, to enter into one another’s places); for yamar = amar (cf., yachad = ‘ achad ; yasham = ‘ asham ; yalaph = ‘ alaph ), to press upwards, to rise up (related to tamar , see at Isa 17:9; samar , Symm. , possibly also amar with the hithpael hithammer , lxx ), yields a much simpler and more appropriate meaning. From this verb we have hith’ammer in Psa 94:4, “to lift one’s self up (proudly),” and here hithyammer ; and it is in this way that the word has been explained by Jerome ( superbietis ), and possibly by the lxx ( , in the sense of spectabiles eritis ), by the Targum, and the Syriac, as well as by most of the ancient and modern expositors.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Office of the Messiah; The Prosperity of the Church. | B. C. 706. |
4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. 5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers. 6 But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. 7 For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them. 8 For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed.
Promises are here made to the Jews now returned out of captivity, and settled again in their own land, which are to be extended to the gospel church, and all believers, who through grace are delivered out of spiritual thraldom; for they are capable of being spiritually applied.
I. It is promised that their houses shall be rebuilt (v. 4), that their cities shall be raised out of the ruins in which they had long lain, and be fitted up for their use again: They shall build the old wastes; the old wastes shall be built, the waste cities shall be repaired, the former desolations, even the desolations of many generations, which it was feared would never be repaired, shall be raised up. The setting up of Christianity in the world repaired the decays of natural religion and raised up those desolations both of piety and honesty which had been for many generations the reproach of mankind. An unsanctified soul is like a city that is broken down and has no walls, like a house in ruins; but by the power of Christ’s gospel and grace it is repaired, it is put in order again, and fitted to be a habitation of God through the Spirit. And they shall do this, those that are released out of captivity; for we are brought out of the house of bondage that we may serve God, both in building up ourselves to his glory and in helping to build up his church on earth.
II. Those that were so lately servants themselves, working for their oppressors and lying at their mercy, shall now have servants to do their work for them and be at their command, not of their brethren (they are all the Lord’s freemen), but of the strangers, and the sons of the alien, who shall keep their sheep, till their ground, and dress their gardens, the ancient employments of Abel, Cain, and Adam: Strangers shall feed your flocks, v. 5. When, by the grace of God, we attain to a holy indifference as to all the affairs of this world, buying as though we possessed not–when, though our hands are employed about them, our hearts are not entangled with them, but reserved entire for God and his service–then the sons of the alien are our ploughmen and vine-dressers.
III. They shall not only be released out of their captivity, but highly preferred and honourably employed (v. 6): “While the strangers are keeping your flocks, you shall be keeping the charge of the sanctuary; instead of being slaves to your task-masters, you shall be named the priests of the Lord, a high and holy calling.” Priests were princes’ peers, and in Hebrew were called by the same name. You shall be the ministers of our God, as the Levites were. Note, Those whom God sets at liberty he sets to work; he delivers them out of the hands of their enemies that they may serve him,Luk 1:74; Luk 1:75; Psa 116:16. But his service is perfect freedom, nay, it is the greatest honour. When God brought Israel out of Egypt he took them to be to him a kingdom of priests, Exod. xix. 6. And the gospel church is a royal priesthood, 1 Pet. ii. 9. All believers are made to our God kings and priests; and they ought to conduct themselves as such in their devotions and in their whole conversation, with holiness to the Lord written upon their foreheads, that men may call them the priests of the Lord.
IV. The wealth and honour of the Gentile converts shall redound to the benefit and credit of the church, v. 6. The Gentiles shall be brought into the church. Those that were strangers shall become fellow-citizens with the saints; and with themselves they shall bring all they have, to be devoted to the glory of God and used in his service; and the priests, the Lord’s ministers, shall have the advantage of it. It will be a great strengthening and quickening, as well as a comfort and encouragement, to all good Christians, to see the Gentiles serving the interests of God’s kingdom. 1. They shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, not which they have themselves seized by violence, but which are fairly and honourably presented to them, as gifts brought to the altar, which the priests and their families lived comfortably upon. It is not said, “You shall hoard the riches of the Gentiles, and treasure them,” but, “You shall eat them;” for there is nothing better in riches than to use them and to do good with them. 2. They shall boast themselves in their glory. Whatever was the honour of the Gentiles converts before their conversion–their nobility, estates, learning, virtue, or places of trust and power–it shall all turn to the reputation of the church to which they have joined themselves; and whatever is their glory after their conversion–their holy zeal and strictness of conversation, their usefulness, their patient suffering, and all the displays of that blessed change which divine grace has made in them–shall be very much for the glory of God and therefore all good men shall glory in it.
V. They shall have abundance of comfort and satisfaction in their own bosoms, v. 7. The Jews no doubt were thus privileged after their return; they were in a new world, and now knew how to value their liberty and property, the pleasures of which were continually fresh and blooming. Much more do all those rejoice whom Christ has brought into the glorious liberty of God’s children, especially when the privileges of their adoption shall be completed in the resurrection of the body. 1. They shall rejoice in their portion; they shall not only have their own again, but (which is a further gift of God) they shall have the comfort of it, and a heart to rejoice in it, Eccl. iii. 13. Though the houses of the returned Jews, as well as their temple, be much inferior to what they were before the captivity, yet they shall be well pleased with them and thankful for them. It is a portion in their land, their own land, the holy land, Immanuel’s land, and therefore they shall rejoice in it, having so lately known what it was to be strangers in a strange land. Those that have God and heaven for their portion have reason to say that they have a worthy portion and to rejoice in it. 2. Everlasting joy shall be unto them, that is, a joyful state of their people, which shall last long, much longer than the captivity had lasted. Yet that joy of the Jewish nation was so much allayed, so often interrupted, and so soon brought to an end, that we must look for the accomplishment of this promise in the spiritual joy which believers have in God and the eternal joy they hope for in heaven. 3. This shall be a double recompence to them, and more than double, for all the reproach and vexation they have lain under in the land of their captivity: “For your shame you shall have double honour, and in your land you shall possess double wealth, to what you lost; the blessing of God upon it, and the comfort you shall have in it, shall make an abundant reparation for all the damages you have received. You shall be owned not only as God’s sons, but as his first-born (Exod. iv. 22), and therefore entitled to a double portion.” As the miseries of their captivity were so great that in them they are said to have received double for all their sins (ch. xl. 2), so the joys of their return shall be so great that in them they shall receive double for all their shame. The former is applicable to the fulness of Christ’s satisfaction, in which God received double for all our sins; the latter to the fulness of heaven’s joys, in which we shall receive more than double for all our services and sufferings. Job’s case illustrates this: when God turned again his captivity, he gave him twice as much as he had before.
VI. God will be their faithful guide and a God in covenant with them (v. 8): I will direct their work in truth. God by his providence will order their affairs for the best, according to the word of his truth. He will guide them in the ways of true prosperity, by the rules of true policy. He will by his grace direct the works of good people in the right way, the true way that leads to happiness; he will direct them to be done in sincerity and then they are pleasing to him. God desires truth in the inward parts; and, if we do our works in truth, he will make an everlasting covenant with us; for to those that walk before him and are upright he will certainly be a God all-sufficient. Now, as a reason both of this and of the foregoing promise, that God will recompense to them double for their shame, those words come in, in the former part of the verse, I the Lord love judgment. He loves that judgment should be done among men, both between magistrates and subjects and between neighbour and neighbour, and therefore he hates all injustice; and, when wrongs are done to his people by their oppressors and persecutors, he is displeased with them, not only because they are done to his people, but because they are wrongs, and against the eternal rules of equity. If men do not do justice, he loves to do judgment himself in giving redress to those that suffer wrong and punishing those that do wrong. God pleads his people’s injured cause, not only because he is jealous for them, but because he is jealous for justice. To illustrate this, it is added that he hates robbery for burnt-offering. He hates injustice even in his own people, who honour him with what they have in their burnt-offerings, much more does he hate it when it is against his own people; if he hates robbery when it is for burnt-offerings to himself, much more when it is for burnt-offerings to idols, and when not only his people are robbed of their estates, but he is robbed of his offerings. It is a truth much to the honour of God that ritual services will never atone for the violation of moral precepts, nor will it justify any man’s robbery to say, “It was for burnt-offerings,” or Corban–It is a gift. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to do justly and love mercy better than thousands of rams; nay, that robbery is most of all hateful to God which is covered with this pretence, for it makes the righteous God to be the patron of unrighteousness. Some make this a reason of the rejection of the Jews upon the bringing in of the Gentiles (v. 6), because they were so corrupt in their morals, and, while they tithed mint and cummin, made nothing of judgment and mercy (Matt. xxiii. 23), whereas God loves judgment and insists upon that, and he hates both robbery for burnt offerings and burnt-offerings for robbery too, as that of the Pharisees, who made long prayers that they might the more plausibly devour widows’ houses. Others read these words thus: I hate rapine by iniquity, that is, the spoil which the enemies of God’s people had unjustly made of them; God hated this, and therefore would reckon with them for it.
VII. God will entail a blessing upon their posterity after them (v. 9): Their seed (the children of those persons themselves that are now the blessed of the Lord, or their successors in profession, the church’s seed) shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation, Ps. xxii. 30. 1. They shall signalize themselves and make their neighbours to take notice of them: They shall be known among the Gentiles, shall distinguish themselves by the gravity, seriousness, humility, and cheerfulness of their conversation, especially by that brotherly love by which all men shall know them to be Christ’s disciples. And, they thus distinguishing themselves, God shall dignify them, by making them the blessings of their age and instruments of his glory, and by giving them remarkable tokens of his favour, which shall make them eminent and gain them respect from all about them. Let the children of godly parents love in such a manner that they may be known to be such, that all who observe them may see in them the fruits of a good education, and an answer to the prayers that were put up for them; and then they may expect that God will make them known, by the fulfilling of that promise to them, that the generation of the upright shall be blessed. 2. God shall have the glory of this, for every one shall attribute it to the blessing of God; all that see them shall see so much of the grace of God in them, and his favour towards them, that they shall acknowledge them to be the seed which the Lord has blessed and doth bless, for it includes both. See what it is to be blessed of God. Whatever good appears in any it must be taken notice of as the fruit of God’s blessing and he must be glorified in it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 4-9: RESTORATION AND PROSPERITY
1. It is clear that Isaiah expects the restoration and prosperity of Zion, (vs. 4-5).
a. There will be a renewal, and building again, of that which has been devastated from ancient times, (vs. 4; Isa 49:8; Isa 58:12; Eze 36:33; Amo 9:14-15).
b. Strangers and foreigners will render willing service to the people of God, (vs. 5; Isa 14:1-2; Isa 60:10).
2. The people of the covenant will be Priests of the Lord and Ministers of God, (vs. 6; Exo 19:5-8; comp. 1Pe 2:5-10; Isa 56:6-7; Isa 60:5; Isa 60:11); they will share the bounty of the nations to whom they minister in spiritual things.
3. Their former shame and dishonor will be exchanged for honor and great joy; the Lord will liberally bless them with a double inheritance, (vs. 7; Isa 54:4-5; Isa 60:15; Psa 16:11).
4. Furthermore, the Lord establishes an “everlasting covenant” with His restored people, (vs. 8-9).
a. In His dealings with Israel, the Lord will vindicate His own holy character.
b. While He loves justice, He hates the cruel treatment that has been maliciously heaped upon His people by their enemies.
c. Thus, His dealings with them will be IN TRUTH, and in such a way that all nations will recognize them as divinely-blessed – and sustaining a special relationship to Jehovah Himself.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
4. And they shall build the deserts of the age. He goes on to describe more largely that restoration of the Church; and chiefly with this view, that the Jews may entertain confident hope of deliverance, because those promises appeared to be altogether incredible. And this is the reason why he adorns with extensive and magnificent terms that benefit of redemption. It is a mistake to suppose that these words, “the age” and “many ages, relate to a future period; as if he had said that the building of which he speaks shall be firm and permanent. The Prophet’s meaning was widely different; for he shows (as I have explained at another passage) that the longcontinued ruins of the city shall not prevent it from rising anew. When the inhabitants of any city, scattered in all directions, have been absent for a very long time, there can be no hope of rebuilding it; just as no person in the present day takes any concern about rebuilding Athens. Thus, when the Jews had been banished into a distant country, and Jerusalem had been forsaken for seventy years, who would have hoped that it would be built by the citizens themselves?
For this reason Isaiah employs the designations of “deserts of the age, ancient wildernesses, cities of desolation, wildernesses of many ages,” in order to show that all this cannot prevent the Lord from restoring the city to be inhabited by his elect at the proper time. Yet these statements ought also to be accommodated to our time, so that, although the Lord permits his Church, when it has fallen down, to lie long in ruins, and though there is no remaining hope of rebuilding it, yet we may strengthen our heart by these promises; for it is God’s peculiar office to raise up and renew what had formerly been destroyed, and devoted as it were to eternal rottenness. But we have formerly treated of these matters at the fiftyeighth chapter.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) They shall build the old wastes . . .Literally the waste places of olden time: i.e., not merely the cities that had fallen into ruins during the exile, but those that had been lying waste for generations. The words are parallel with those of Isa. 58:12. By some commentators strangers is supplied from Isa. 61:5 as the implied subject, as in Isa. 60:10. Here, however, it would seem as if the prophet looked on the rebuilding as being Israels own work, while service of another kind was assigned to the aliens.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. And they The strong flourishing “trees of righteousness,” of Isa 61:3; the sound and the efficient, whom the grace of the Gospel brought out and made grand workers in Messiah’s kingdom.
Waste cities Destruction occasioned in consequence of the sins of the people in days gone by. Of this import, also, are the parallel expressions in the verse.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 61:4. And they shall build the old wastes The meaning is, that the persons thus delivered by the Messiah, and anointed by his Spirit, should endeavour, and that with success, to bring to the knowledge and worship of the true God the Gentiles, for many ages alienated from him; and should apply themselves to the building up, confirming, and restoring them: the prophet representing the whole world in its spiritual aspect, under the appearance of a country wholly laid waste and desolate by an enemy; by which enemy we are here to understand the wicked one, the great enemy of man. The strangers and aliens in the next verse, which is wholly metaphorical, mean all those who were enemies to the church, and afterwards brought to its true service and obedience. See chap. Isa 58:12 Isa 49:8 Isa 54:3. Instead of ploughmen in the 5th verse, we may read husbandmen.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Isa 61:4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
Ver. 4. And they shall build the old wastes. ] Desolationes saeculi, the Gentiles that have long lain forlorn and desolate, as ruined houses; or the wild waste, shall, by the apostles and other doctors of the Church, be brought to Christ, and built up in holiness.
And they shall repair.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 61:4-9
4Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
They will raise up the former devastations;
And they will repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.
5Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks,
And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.
6But you will be called the priests of the LORD;
You will be spoken of as ministers of our God.
You will eat the wealth of nations,
And in their riches you will boast.
7Instead of your shame you will have a double portion,
And instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion.
Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land,
Everlasting joy will be theirs.
8For I, the LORD , love justice,
I hate robbery in the burnt offering;
And I will faithfully give them their recompense
And make an everlasting covenant with them.
9Then their offspring will be known among the nations,
And their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
All who see them will recognize them
Because they are the offspring whom the LORD has blessed.
Isa 61:4 they will rebuild the ancient ruins It is hard for a non-Jew to imagine the intensity of the feeling that is connected with the Promised Land (cf. Isa 49:8; Isa 58:12; Isa 60:10).
This verse lists several things the one set free will do.
1. rebuild the ancient ruins
2. raise up the former devastations
3. repair the ruined cities
The last line of Isa 61:4 shows that the author is addressing those returning from Mesopotamian exile.
Isa 61:5 Isa 61:5 continues the theme of foreigners coming to Jerusalem with gifts and service, to worship the God of Israel.
From NT revelation we now know that this refers to the new covenant in Christ available for all through repentance and faith (cf. Mar 1:15; Act 3:16; Act 3:19; Act 20:21)!
I interpret the OT promises to national Israel as multiple fulfillment prophecies. They were never fulfilled in Israel’s history because of their sin and rebellion. They only find fulfilment in Christ. See Special Topic: Why are End-time Events so Controversial? and Special Topic: YHWH’s Eternal Redemptive Plan .
Isa 61:6 you will be called the priests of the LORD Israel was meant to be a nation of priests, now they will be! Peter uses this very same phrase to describe the church in 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9 (cf. Exo 19:5-6; also see the usage in Rev 1:6).
Isa 61:7 double portion This seems to refer to the inheritance of the eldest son in the inheritance structure of ancient Israel (cf. Deu 21:17). As Israel had a double portion of YHWH’s wrath (cf. Isa 40:2), now a double reward.
Everlasting joy will be theirs This same wonderful promise is found in Psa 16:11. The question is when will this happen.
1. it did not happen to the returnees from Mesopotanian exile
2. it did not happen to the Jews under Greece or Rome
3. the future then
a. Israel after the Messiah comes
b. the church
c. the millennium
d. restored Garden of Eden
This is ancient, inspired poetry! It does not address all the modern questions. It is best to take the central meaning of the strophe and view it through NT revelation!
Isa 61:8 For I, the LORD, love justice YHWH is an ethical, moral being. He demands ethical, moral actions from His people!
Note His listed characteristics.
1. loves justice
2. hates robbery in sacrifices (i.e. burnt offerings)
Other wonderful texts that describe YHWH’s character are Exo 34:6; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Psa 86:15; Psa 103:8-14; Psa 145:8-9! See Special Topic: Characteristics of Israel’s God .
in burnt offerings The Septuagint and possibly some variations of the Masoretic Text have with iniquity (same consonants). The UBS Text Project gives the sacrificial phrase a B rating (some doubt), p.156.
I will. . .make an everlasting covenant with them The Jews continually broke the first covenant, as a reading of I and 2 Kings and I and 2 Chr. will show. Because of this, God finally allowed the Covenant to be terminated (His Spirit leaving the temple; Fall of Jerusalem). The purpose of this termination was the beginning of a new covenant with even greater spiritual significance (cf. Jer 31:31-34; Eze 36:22-38).
Isa 61:9 Here is another reference to Israel as a sign and message (i.e., a light, cf. Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6; Isa 51:4; Act 13:47) about the nature of God to other nations.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
build = rebuild. Compare Amo 9:11, Amo 9:12. Act 15:16.
wastes = deserted (cities).
desolations = places of silence. See note on Isa 1:7.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 49:6-8, Isa 58:12, Eze 36:23-26, Eze 36:33-36, Amo 9:14, Amo 9:15
Reciprocal: Neh 2:6 – So it pleased Son 8:9 – we will Isa 44:26 – decayed places Isa 49:8 – to cause Isa 51:3 – all Isa 52:9 – ye waste Jer 3:16 – when Eze 36:10 – the wastes Zec 1:17 – My cities 1Ti 2:9 – not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 61:4-5. They shall build the old wastes See on chap. 58:12. As this is evidently to be understood of gospel times, the meaning seems to be, that the establishment of Christianity in the world should repair the decays of true religion, of genuine piety and virtue, which had been at a very low ebb, not only in the Gentile nations, which were all idolatrous, but also among the Jews, for many centuries. By the ministry of John the Baptist, of our Lord, and his apostles, many thousands of spiritual worshippers were raised up to God in Judea, and the adjacent parts; and when the ministers of the word were sent into the Gentile countries, the cities and provinces which had been as a wilderness, overrun with briers and thorns, became as Eden, and the deserts like the garden of the Lord: truth and grace, wisdom and piety, godliness and righteousness, with joy and gladness, were found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody, Isa 51:3. And strangers Namely, Gentiles, such as were not of the natural race of the Jews, but Gentile converts; shall stand Ready to be at thy service; and feed your flocks The churches, with the word of God. And the sons of the alien The same with the strangers before mentioned, or their successors; shall be your ploughmen, &c. Shall manage the whole work of Gods spiritual husbandry. See 1Co 3:6-9.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
61:4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many {h} generations.
(h) That is, for a long time.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The benefits of the mission of the Anointed One 61:4-11
The Anointed One would fulfill God’s ancient promises to Israel.
"The Servant of Jehovah celebrates the glorious office committed to him, and expounds the substance of the gospel given him to proclaim. It points to the restoration of the promised land, and to the elevation of Israel, after its purification in the furnace of judgment, to great honour and dignity in the midst of the world of nations." [Note: Delitzsch, 2:428.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Those who formerly mourned in Israel, because of their downtrodden and deprived conditions, would rebuild their land, which others had destroyed. These destructions had come on Israel because of her sins. God predicted that the cities that opposed His people would suffer destruction and never rise again (cf. Isa 13:19-22; Isa 34:8-17). But the cities and land of His people, though terribly decimated throughout history, would be rebuilt (in the Millennium).