Isaiah 61:10

The joy of verse 10 answers everything God has promised in this chapter. It opens with the Spirit of the Lord GOD upon one whom the LORD has anointed to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim liberty to the captives, to proclaim “the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God,” and to give “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:1–3). The verses that follow promise that the old ruins will be rebuilt, that God’s people will be known among the nations as a people the LORD has blessed, and that he will make an “everlasting covenant” with them (Isaiah 61:4–9). Chapters 40 to 66 of Isaiah comfort God’s people in view of the Babylonian exile and the restoration that follows it, and here that comfort reaches its height: someone God has rescued stands up and sings.

The opening line doubles the joy. “I will greatly rejoice” is one Hebrew verb, sûws, said twice, so that it reads literally rejoicing I will rejoice. The next line, “my soul shall be joyful,” uses a different verb, gîyl, which means to rejoice or be glad, and whose root sense Strong’s gives as to spin round under strong emotion. The soul, nephesh, is the whole inner life of the one who speaks, so this gladness fills the singer through and through.

The joy has one source. It is “in the LORD,” Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of the God who keeps his promises, and “in my God,” ʼĕlôhîym, a name plural in form that, when it names the true God, speaks of his majesty. “My God” makes the joy personal. This is the joy Isaiah promised when he foretold that the redeemed would return with joy (Isaiah 35:10), and because it rests on what God has done, it holds whatever the singer’s circumstances.

The reason for the joy is that God has dressed the singer. “He hath clothed me” uses lâbash, the ordinary verb for putting clothes on someone, and God is the one doing it. The singer only receives, and the clothing is a gift.

In Israel clothing told others who a person was. The priests wore garments God himself prescribed, to mark them as holy and set apart to him. To be stripped was a mark of shame, and to be dressed by a king or a noble was a mark of his favour, a new standing given in public. So when God clothes someone, he gives honour and a new identity, and the shame of the past is covered. The chapter has already promised “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,” and in verse 10 that promise is being worn.

The “garments” are beged, the common word for clothing, and they are garments “of salvation,” yeshaʻ. That word comes from a root meaning to be wide or spacious, and it speaks of liberty, deliverance, safety and well-being. These garments stand for the whole of God’s rescue and restoration.

The “robe” is mᵉʻîyl, an outer garment, often worn on solemn occasions, that showed a person’s rank. It is a robe “of righteousness,” tsᵉdâqâh, the word for what is right and just. Here it is righteousness that God gives: he declares his people right with him and makes them so, and he lays it over them like a robe. Isaiah has already said that the righteousness of the LORD’s servants comes from him (Isaiah 54:17), so his righteousness is both the standard he keeps and the gift he gives.

Isaiah reaches for the finest clothes anyone in Israel wore. A wedding was among the greatest and happiest events in the life of a community, prepared for with care and kept with feasting, and the bride and bridegroom wore their best. Their dress showed the honour and joy of the day and the start of a new covenant bond.

The bridegroom, châthân, a word that comes from a verb for giving a daughter in marriage and can also mean a son-in-law, “decketh himself with ornaments.” The verb is kâhan, which means to serve as a priest or to put on the dress of office, so the bridegroom puts on his finery the way a priest puts on his garments. That recalls the promise of Isaiah 61:6 that God’s people will be named the priests of the LORD. The ornament is pᵉʼêr, a fine headdress or turban. The bride, kallâh, a word that means a bride or a daughter-in-law, “adorneth herself” (ʻâdâh) “with her jewels,” kᵉlîy, her articles of precious ornament.

God dresses his redeemed with a splendour like that. The picture also speaks of the bond between God and his people, which Scripture often shows as a marriage, full of closeness, faithfulness and joy. Isaiah has already told Israel that their Maker is their husband (Isaiah 54:5). In the New Testament Christ loves the church as a husband loves his wife, gives himself for her, and makes her holy so that he might present her to himself a glorious church (Ephesians 5:25–27). The story ends at the marriage supper of the Lamb, where his bride has made herself ready and is “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white” (Revelation 19:7–9). The joy of this verse is the joy of that wedding, already begun in every believer.

Verse 11 gives the reason the singer can be so sure. The earth “bringeth forth her bud,” and a garden “causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth.” Israel lived by the yearly round of sowing, growing and harvest, and everyone knew that what is planted comes up. God set that order in creation, and the earth and the garden are spoken of as though they themselves do the work. “So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth.” What God has promised in this chapter will come up as surely as seed in a garden.

The verb behind “spring forth” is tsâmach, to sprout, spring up or grow, and “spring forth” comes twice in this verse, once for the garden and once for the Lord GOD, so that the growth of the garden and the work of God stand side by side. The word for “her bud,” tsemach, means a sprout or shoot and belongs to the same family as the verb. The certainty lies in the comparison: as dependably as the soil does its work, God does his.

The Lord Jesus uses the same picture of the growing seed: “For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself” (Mark 4:28). Isaiah says the same of God’s word, which goes out from his mouth and accomplishes what he pleases (Isaiah 55:11), and Moses told Israel that the LORD is the faithful God who keeps his covenant (Deuteronomy 7:9). This verse rests on that faithfulness.

The name here is “the Lord GOD,” which joins ʼĂdônây, the sovereign Master, to Yᵉhôvih, God’s covenant name. The one who rules over all has bound himself to his people, and so the harvest is certain.

These verses come to their fullness in Jesus Christ. In the synagogue at Nazareth he read the opening of this chapter and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:18–21). He is the Anointed One of the chapter, and the good news, healing and liberty it promises came through his perfect life, his atoning death and his resurrection. Through his cross the garments of salvation are offered to us, and in him we are clothed with the robe of righteousness. He is also the Bridegroom whose wedding the church awaits.

The word tsemach, which gives verse 11 its “bud,” is also a title of the Messiah. Jeremiah promises that God will raise up for David a righteous Branch (Jeremiah 23:5), and Zechariah names God’s servant the BRANCH (Zechariah 3:8). The righteousness that springs up before the nations springs from him.

The praise that springs up is given to him, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and it rises among the nations now as his church proclaims him. It looks ahead to the day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11).

These two verses give God’s people a song and a promise. The song tells what he has already done. He has clothed his people, the robe they wear is his gift, their standing with him rests on his grace, and so their joy can reach as deep as the soul. The promise tells what he will yet do. What he has planted will come up as surely as a garden in spring, and the whole world will see it and praise him.

They also show us who God is. He dresses the people he saves with the care and splendour of a wedding day, and he delights in them. He is the Lord GOD, the Master of all, who has bound himself by covenant to his people and keeps his word as faithfully as the seasons turn. When a life looks barren, the seed he has sown is still in it, and in his time it will spring forth.