Jesus read the prophets' testimony regarding God's goodness, and then closed the book, hiding the severity under the parchment folds. He preached on one half of a clause; did He intend to conceal the harsher portion of prophecy to cover with a veil the frowns that gather on the Father's countenance, and permit only the smiles to shine through on men? No. He came not to destroy or mutilate the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfil. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not one jot or tittle of the word, till all be fulfilled. Let us try to find out why the omission was made, and what the omission means.
I. It is clear that Isaiah saw the justice as well as the mercy of God, and bare witness impartially of both. He stood afar off, and with an eye divinely opened for the purpose, looked down the avenue of the future, as one might stand upon a mountain far inland and look along a straight narrow estuary to the distant sea, dimly visible on the farthest horizon. At the extremity of the vista, and distant so far in time that to him they seemed to lie within eternity, he descried two lights, one behind the other, and both approaching. The foremost was Divine mercy, and the one behind it was Divine wrath. The faithful witness faithfully proclaimed from his watch-tower to his countrymen both facts mercy and vengeance.
II. When that witness had served his generation, and fallen asleep, others were successively placed on the same watch-tower to re-duplicate the same warning from age to age. Last of all came Christ, in the fulness of the time. But now the foremost of the two lights had come up. It was abreast of the watchman. Turning to look full upon the one that had come, he sees not the one that is coming. In the lips of Jesus the testimony is not a prediction of what shall be, but a proclamation of what is. The mission of Christ was not to point to another, but to attract to Himself. He meant to present Himself to the people as the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy, and therefore He could not include the day of vengeance; for on that day that part of the prophecy was not fulfilled. He came not to condemn the world, but to save; while He sat in the synagogue, and their eyes beheld Him, the day of vengeance had not come to them.
W. Arnot, The Anchor of the Soul,p. 260.