Study
39 From the Book of Isaiah is: Isaiah 61:1 – 63:6
1.
How would you summarize the teaching of chapters 61 and 62
regarding the Lord’s purpose of good for Zion? What do we learn, for example,
about (a) the relation to God into which God’s people will be brought (61: 6,
8, 9; 62:4-12), and (b) the response of God’s people to His promised salvation
(61:10)? Is your experience of this kind?
2.
In chapter 61 the coming salvation is proclaimed, in 62 it is
prayed for (verses 1, 6, 7). If the gospel is to prevail on earth, are not both
the proclamation of it and prayer concerning it still necessary? Cf. Rom.
10:14, 15; 2 Thes. 3:1. What characteristic of prevailing prayer is emphasized
here?
3.
In Lk. 4:17-21 our Lord says that the opening words of chapter
61 were spiritually fulfilled in His own ministry. Why did He cut His reading in the Synagogue
short in the middle of 61:2? Meditate on the scope of our Lord’s ministry as
revealed in these verses.
Notes
1.
62:2. ‘A new name’: the
symbol both of a new character, and of a new relation to God. Cf. Rev. 2:17; 3:12.
2.
63:4. The day of redemption is also a day of judgment. Cf. 61:2;
Jn. 3: 17-19.
