18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make well those who are broken-hearted; to say that the prisoners will be let go, and the blind will see, and to make the wounded free from their chains,
The spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make the broken-hearted well, to say that the prisoners will be made free, and that those in chains will see the light again;
The blind see; those who were not able to, are walking; lepers are made clean; those who were without hearing, now have their ears open; the dead come to life again, and the poor have the good news given to them.
Who gives their rights to those who are crushed down; and gives food to those who are in need of it: the Lord makes the prisoners free; The Lord makes open the eyes of the blind; the Lord is the lifter up of those who are bent down; the Lord is a lover of the upright;
About Jesus of Nazareth, how God gave the Holy Spirit to him, with power: and how he went about doing good and making well all who were troubled by evil spirits, for God was with him.
And answering them he said, Go back and give news to John of what you have seen, and the things which have come to your ears; the blind now see, those who had no power in their legs are walking, lepers are made clean, those who had no hearing now have their ears open, dead men come to life again, and the poor have the good news given to them.
Again, I give you a new law, which is true in him and in you; for the night is near its end and the true light is even now shining out. He who says that he is in the light, and has hate in his heart for his brother, is still in the dark. He who has love for his brother is in the light, and there is no cause of error in him.
And I will take the blind by a way of which they had no knowledge, guiding them by roads strange to them: I will make the dark places light before them, and the rough places level. These things will I do and will not give them up. They will be turned back and be greatly shamed who put their hope in pictured images, who say to metal images, You are our gods. Give ear, you whose ears are shut; and let your eyes be open, you blind, so that you may see.
To make their eyes open, turning them from the dark to the light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may have forgiveness of sins and a heritage among those who are made holy by faith in me.
Then the eyes of the blind will see, and the ears which are stopped will be open.
And the eyes of those who see will not be shut, and those who have hearing will give ear to the word.
And in that day those whose ears are stopped will be hearing the words of the book; and the eyes of the blind will see through the mist and the dark. And the poor will have their joy in the Lord increased, and those in need will be glad in the Holy One of Israel.
Saying to those who are in chains, Go free; to those who are in the dark, Come out into the light. They will get food by the way wherever they go, and have grass-lands on all the dry mountain-tops.
The people who were in the dark saw a great light, and to those in the land of the shade of death did the dawn come up.
But you are a special people, a holy nation, priests and kings, a people given up completely to God, so that you may make clear the virtues of him who took you out of the dark into the light of heaven.
For you are all sons of light and of the day: we are not of the night or of the dark. So then, let us not take our rest as the others do, but let us be self-controlled and awake.
And when Jesus went on from there, two blind men came after him, crying out, Have mercy on us, you Son of David. And when he had come into the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, Have you faith that I am able to do this? They said to him, Yes, Lord. Then he put his hand on their eyes, saying, As your faith is, let it be done to you. And their eyes were made open. And Jesus said to them sharply, Let no man have knowledge of it.
Make yourself clean from the dust; up! and take the seat of your power, O Jerusalem: the bands of your neck are loose, O prisoned daughter of Zion. For the Lord says, You were given for nothing, and you will be made free without price.
For you at one time were dark, but now are light in the Lord: let your behaviour be that of children of light (Because the fruit of the light is in all righteousness and in everything which is good and true), Testing by experience what is well-pleasing to the Lord; And have no company with the works of the dark, which give no fruit, but make their true quality clear; For the things which are done by them in secret it is shame even to put into words. But all things, when their true quality is seen, are made clear by the light: because everything which is made clear is light. For this reason he says, Be awake, you who are sleeping, and come up from among the dead, and Christ will be your light.
And Jesus said, I came into this world to be a judge, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. These words came to the ears of the Pharisees who were with him and they said to him, Are we, then, blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind you would have no sin: but now that you say, We see; your sin is there still.
Early in the morning he came across his brother and said to him, We have made discovery! It is the Messiah! (which is to say, the Christ).
And turning his eyes to his disciples he said, Happy are you who are poor: for the kingdom of God is yours.
And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded.
For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.
The Lord is near the broken-hearted; he is the saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.
You have been a lover of righteousness and a hater of evil: and so God, your God, has put the oil of joy on your head, lifting you high over all other kings.
Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered;
Those who were in the dark, in the black night, in chains of sorrow and iron; Because they went against the words of God, and gave no thought to the laws of the Most High: So that he made their hearts weighted down with grief; they were falling, and had no helper. Then they sent up their cry to the Lord in their sorrow, and he gave them salvation out of all their troubles. He took them out of the dark and the black night, and all their chains were broken. Let men give praise to the Lord for his mercy, and for the wonders which he does for the children of men! The doors of brass are broken by his arm, and the bands of iron are cut in two.
And the spirit of the Lord will be resting on him, the spirit of wisdom and good sense, the spirit of wise guiding and strength, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And he will not be guided in his judging by what he sees, or give decisions by the hearing of his ears: But he will do right in the cause of the poor, and give wise decisions for those in the land who are in need; and the rod of his mouth will come down on the cruel, and with the breath of his lips he will put an end to the evil-doer. And righteousness will be the cord of his robe, and good faith the band round his breast.
I have sent him out to overcome the nations, and I will make all his ways straight: I will give him the work of building my town, and he will let my prisoners go free, without price or reward, says the Lord of armies.
Will the goods of war be taken from the strong man, or the prisoners of the cruel one be let go? But the Lord says, Even the prisoners of the strong will be taken from him, and the cruel made to let go his goods: for I will take up your cause against your haters, and I will keep your children safe.
The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are experienced, so that I may be able to give the word a special sense for the feeble: every morning my ear is open to his teaching, like those who are experienced:
The kings of the earth have taken their place, and the rulers are fixed in their purpose, against the Lord, and against the king of his selection, saying,
The Lord said to him, Go through the town, through the middle of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the brows of the men who are sorrowing and crying for all the disgusting things which are done in it.
Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.
And as for you, because of the blood of your agreement, I have sent out your prisoners from the deep hole in which there is no water. And they will come back to you, O daughter of Zion, as prisoners of hope: today I say to you that I will give you back twice as much;
And it was broken on that day: and the sheep-traders, who were watching me, were certain that it was the word of the Lord.
The crushed stem will not be broken by him; and the feebly burning light will he not put out, till he has made righteousness overcome all.
For, truly, in this town, against your holy servant, Jesus, who was marked out by you as Christ, Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, came together,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Luke 4
Commentary on Luke 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
We left Christ newly baptized, and owned by a voice from heaven and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him. Now, in this chapter, we have,
Luk 4:1-13
The last words of the foregoing chapter, that Jesus was the Son of Adam, bespeak him to be the seed of the woman; being so, we have here, according to the promise, breaking the serpent's head, baffling and foiling the devil in all his temptations, who by one temptation had baffled and foiled our first parents. Thus, in the beginning of the war, he made reprisals upon him, and conquered the conqueror.
In this story of Christ's temptation, observe,
Now,
Luk 4:14-30
After Christ had vanquished the evil spirit, he made it appear how much he was under the influence of the good Spirit; and, having defended himself against the devil's assaults, he now begins to act offensively, and to make those attacks upon him, by his preaching and miracles, which he could not resist or repel. Observe,
Luk 4:31-44
When Christ was expelled Nazareth, he came to Capernaum, another city of Galilee. The account we have in these verses of his preaching and miracles there we had before, Mk. 1:21, etc. Observe,
Observe,