Luke 4:17-19 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When he had opened the book, &c.— Αναπτυξας το βιβλιου, unrolling the volume. The sacred books were written anciently on skins of parchment, and sewed together; and the books thus written were rolled up into volumes, like the Pentateuchs used by the modern Jews in their synagogues. The reader will find a full account of them in Jones's Vindicationof St. Matthew's Gospel, ch. 15. As the scriptures were read in order, the passage of the prophet Isaiah which fell of course to be read in the synagogue of Nazareth that day, would naturally present itself on separating the two rolls of the book. This happened to be the celebrated prediction, Isaiah 61:1 in which the Messiah is introduced describing his own mission, character, and office; the reader is referred to our notes on that chapter. The doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity is often interwoven, even in those scriptures where one would least expect it. We have a clear declaration of the great THREE-ONE in the words before us.—The Spirit—of the Lord—is upon Me; because he hath anointed me, that is, commissioned me—to preach the Gospel to the poor, that is to say, the meek and lowly in heart. To one who considers the matter attentively, it must appear an unspeakable recommendation of the gospel economy, that it offers the pardon of sin and salvation to all, on the same terms. The rich here have no pre-eminence over the poor, as they seem to have had under the law, which prescribes such costly sacrifices for the atonement of sin as were very burdensome to the poor. The prophet Isaiah, therefore, in describing the happiness of gospel-times, very fitly introduces the Messiah mentioning this as one of the many blessings which would accrue to the world from his coming; that the glad tidings of salvation were to be preached by him and his ministers to the poor, and consequently were to be offered to them without money, and without price, Isaiah 55:1. Instead of recovering of sight to the blind, which is in the LXX, the Hebrew copies of Isaiah have, and the opening of the prison to the bound. Some render the clause in Isaiah, and to the prisoners broad day-light, or open vision. The last clause in the 18th verse is neither in the LXX, nor in the original Hebrew. We find it indeed in Isaiah 58:6 where the LXX have the very words. The 18th verse contains a magnificent description of the Messiah's miracles and mighty works: all that he needed to do, for the deliverance of such persons as were held captives,—or, as the apostle expresses it, were oppressed of the devil, Acts 10:38.—was to preach (κηρυξαι), to proclaim, or declare them delivered. In like manner, to give recovery of sight to the blind, or to work any other miracle of healing, no more was requisite, but that he should speak the word. It is observable, that in this description of the Messiah's ministry, Isaiah has alluded to the manners of the easterns, who in ancient times were so inhuman as to lead captive into far distant lands those whom they conquered. Their principal captives they cast into prison, loaded with irons, which sorely bruised their bodies; and to render them incapable of raising fresh disturbances, or it may be to increase their misery, they sometimes put out their eyes. In this manner Nebuchadnezzar treated Zedekiah. Wherefore, as the Messiah in many other prophesies had been represented under the notion of a great and mighty conqueror, Isaiah, in describing his spiritual triumphs, with great propriety introduces him declaring, that he was come to subdue the oppressors ofmankind, and to deliver from captivity and misery those wretches whom they had enslaved, by opening the prison-doors, healing the wounds and bruises occasioned by their chains, and even by giving sight to those whose eyes had been put out in prison. Some, understanding this prophesy in a literal sense, are of opinion, that it foretels the alteration which by the Christian religion has been made in the policy of nations, but especially in the manner of making war, and of treating the vanquished, in both which much more humanityis now used than anciently, to the great honour of the Christian institution, and of its Divine Author; and this sense we have no objection to including in the passage, though not as the primary or most important one.