Restoration

Isaiah 60-62

            Restoration seems to be the theme through these chapters. Chapter 61 is associated with Epiphany and the coming of the Magi to the Christ child, at least in later Christian traditions. I don’t think that Isaiah 60 is ever directly quoted in the New Testament; the association is with the gifts of the Magi and the reference in Isaiah to gold and incense (v. 6). If we strip the chapter of its associations with Pentecost, it along with chapter 61 mention the nations rebuilding Jerusalem, as if in the day of restoration the nations will serve Israel. By the era around Jesus, Israel’s dream had been exactly that: that Israel would be the chief of the nations and that those nations would serve her.

            Jesus turns that expectation on its head and portrays the Gentiles not as servants ruled by Israel but as partners, participants in the Lord’s salvation, with Israel. Consider Matthew 8, when Jesus heals a Roman centurion’s servant and exclaims that He hasn’t found such faith in Israel. He makes a similar comment about a Syro-Phoenician woman and many others who would have been considered “outside.”

            Two other elements of this vision of restoration include reference to the Jubilee year and to marriage and childbearing. First, in chapter 61, we have the image of the year of the Lord’s favor. Remember the Jubilee was every 50^th year; slaves were released from service; the land reverted to those to whom it had originally been apportioned in Joshua. It’s an image Jesus applies to Himself in His sermon in Nazareth (Luke 4), in which He declares the prophecy fulfilled in Himself. Release from the bondage of sin and the setting right of the world are part of Jesus’ work. The second, marriage and childbearing, I mentioned a few days ago in connection with chapter 54. If you’re reading in the NIV, the Lord renames Israel Hephzibah and Beulah. There’s a footnote there that tells you Hephzibah means “my delight is in her” and Beulah means “married.” This pairs with earlier in verse 4 when they will no longer be called deserted or desolate. (Desolate is used here in the sense of barren, as in without children.) Later, in verse 12, the promise repeated: they will be called Sought After, as in courted for marriage, and No Longer Desolate.