1. In my reading today of Messianism in the Scriptural Scrolls of Isaiah, Randall Heskett mentions John Calvin’s interpretation of Isaiah 61:1-2. Isaiah 61:1-2 states (in the NIV):
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn[.]“
In Luke 4:18-21, Jesus quotes much of this passage and applies it to himself, affirming that he is fulfilling it through his own ministry.
On pages 250-251, Heskett says that many Jewish sources applied Isaiah 61:1-2 to the prophet Isaiah. A Targum added words that mean “the prophet says,” and the scholar J. Oswalt argues that “perhaps this is an attempt to contradict the messianic interpretation stemming from Jesus’ use of the passage (Luke 4:16-21).” The medieval Jewish commentator Ibn Ezra also relates Isaiah 61:1-2 to the prophet, who is anointed to bring good tidings. But Heskett also refers to Lamentations Rabbah’s comments on Lamentations 3:49-50, which interpret Isaiah 61:1-2 in terms of redemption, a messianic sort of concept. And he says that many scholars (but not all) hold that the Dead Sea Scroll passage, 11QMelch, interprets Isaiah 61 messianically.
Interestingly, John Calvin ultimately applies Isaiah 61:1-2 to Christ, but he is open to the possibility that it could have functioned as a mission for previous prophets as well, who predicted Christ, not only in their words, but also in their actions (see here). Calvin’s view that Isaiah 61:1-2 can have a dual meaning strikes me as odd for him, for, in his interpretation of Isaiah 7, he relates “Immanuel” to Christ; he does not say that Immanuel lived in the time of Isaiah and forshadowed Christ.
How does Calvin believe that Isaiah practiced Isaiah 61:1-2? He mentions such things as the Jubilee year, the defeat of the Jews’ enemies, and the restoration of the Jews to their land after a period of exile. Maybe he believes that Isaiah comforted the broken-hearted exiles with the message that God would restore Israel to her land after smiting her Babylonian captors.
Here’s another thought, though Calvin doesn’t mention it: Within a Calvin-sort-of-paradigm, couldn’t Isaiah 61:1-2 be about God’s defeat of Sennacherib in the days of Hezekiah? Isaiah assures the nation of Judah, which suffers under Assyria’s heavy hand, that God would smite Sennacherib.
2. Tom Bosley passed away today. He played Mr. Cunningham on Happy Days. (He was an Eisenhower Republican on that, along with the Fonz.) But I also remember him as the voice of David the Gnome, as Father Dowling (maybe I should call bald Tom Bosley priest at my church “Father Dowling”), as the host of a documentary at the end of my It’s a Wonderful Life video tape, and as Jimmy Hoffa in the Jesse Owens Story (which wasn’t all that believable, since Tom Bosley can’t appear sinister and corrupt, as hard as he may try, and as entertaining as it may be to watch him try!).
R.I.P., Tom Bosley.