20 April 2024
Return to the comment that Jesus, in His message to the synagogue in Nazareth, left out the line about "the day of vengeance" in Isaiah 61:2. Bailey says the wider passage (vv. 1-7) is in three sections for this context. First is the part we've already covered. He places that lost phrase in the second section. It continues through v.3, with two subsections about comforting mourners and the oaks of the Lord.
The third section is vv. 4-7. This follows the rhetorical format of "inverted parallelism" ABCBA -- infrastructure rebuilt, Gentile servants, Israel as priests to the nations, Gentile wealth surrendered, and land built up. It's the two "B" parts that Jews misunderstood to mean literal slaves and material wealth, and Jesus didn't mention that part. Bailey doesn't mention it by the common label, but this was part of the elaborate False Messianic Expectations. Jesus knew all about that, and Nazareth would have been a hotbed for such nonsense.
However, nothing Jesus said in that quotation bent the rules for rabbis in synagogue. He followed common practices within the structure of His own message. He began by saying, in a roundabout way, that He was the subject of this prophecy, the Messiah. He was the Anointed One. What He presented was an ABCBA -- He would preach, sent by God, give sight, send others, and proclaim Jubilee.
Unfortunately, Bailey uses the language of "social justice" again, as if that were part of the biblical message. He leaves that hanging while pursuing a convoluted word study in Greek and Hebrew to arrive at something he had said earlier about "poor" meaning those who aren't driven by Mammon, but are humble and pious. The passage in Isaiah uses Jubilee terminology -- release of captives, dissolving of debts, etc. Jesus adds in yet another line about Jubilee from Isaiah 58 to reinforce that point. Everybody can go home.
Bailey regards this as social justice advocacy, as he imagines Jesus would be a champion of that. He notes that Armenians and Palestinians think of this more literally, of returning to their ancestral homes. You can bet Bailey is going to keep harping on this. Meanwhile, in the New Testament, the Jubilee was a parable, a symbol of God setting sinners free from the power of sin.
The business of giving sight to the blind is actually more ambiguous. In the Old Testament, Qumran literature, and early targums, this is closely associated with bringing captives out of the dungeon, as it were. When Jesus used this passage of Isaiah to talk about mercy, not vengeance, the audience was naturally incensed. Jesus responded with mention of the old proverb about a doctor healing himself, meaning in this context that they would wonder why He didn't bring those miracles home to His own kin (a part of Himself in their eyes). The question He is addressing is what they should expect from the Messiah, after saying He was it.
In the next post we will look at how Jesus responded with stories from Elijah and Elisha.
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