Who is this that cometh from Edom, with deep-red garments from Bozrah, this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? -- I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
Isaiah opens with a question about a figure coming from Edom, His clothes stained deep red. The traveller answers that He is mighty to save. But the stain is the blood of enemies. That raises two questions: when does this happen, and to whom?
The prophet speaks for his people; the traveller answers for Himself.
So the One the prophet sees in this vision is the Lord, Jehovah-Messiah. He returns victorious from the place that more than one prophecy marks out. It is the scene of the wrath God will pour out without sparing on the enemies of His people. "Who is this," asks the prophet, speaking as one with the people, "who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength?" The passage is a dialogue, and the answer comes back: "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save."
One scholar wanted to read the two names as descriptions rather than as a real country and city. Kelly rejects that:
The slaughter takes place in the land of Edom and the city of Bozrah. Horsley seems inconsistent here. He denies that these places are named in this verse, yet he allows them in Isaiah 34:5-6. He would turn the two names into descriptions: "Who is this that approaches all in scarlet, with garments stained from the vintage?" But this able man had overlooked that same chapter, where the scene demands the real place names.
Edom's long record against Israel is why judgment lands there:
Edom, the long-standing enemies of Israel, will come under the unsparing judgment of the Lord. They refused to let Israel pass through their border on the way to the land of promise (Numbers 20:21). They pursued their brother with the sword and cast off all pity (Amos 1:11). And in the day of Jerusalem's judgment they said, "Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!" (Psalm 137:7). This is not Jesus in His meekness and lowliness, but the warrior in His glorious garments of majesty and righteousness.
Kelly rules out one reading of these stained robes:
Clearly this is no picture of Christ forsaken by God, or even rejected by man. It is a picture of His treading down the opposing nations like grapes in a wine-press. It is not infinite love suffering infinitely, so that God might judge sin and be glorified about it. It is One trampling down in wrath, and the blood of His enemies sprinkling His garments — not His blood washing them in divine grace.
How can vengeance and salvation belong together? Vine answers:
Do not think this vengeance is vindictive. It is the very opposite. It is God's "strange work," His "strange act." He carries it out swiftly and surely "in righteousness," but with salvation in view. If the servants of the Lord — the feeble remnant — were to be saved, this work was necessary. So mercy lies behind it all. That is the work He delights in; but because of who He is, righteousness must mark all His ways.
Vine sets this day beside the day Jesus stood up to read at Nazareth:
When He stood up and read at Nazareth (Luke 4), He stopped at the first comma of Isaiah 61:2. Here, after centuries of patience, He goes on to fulfil the next sentence of that verse. The first is a "year," the second "a day." The first is the long year of mercy and grace, still running now, and God delights in it. The second is the short day of God's just judgment, soon to come and soon over. That day is His "strange work," and He takes no pleasure in it.
In one kind of judgment His people sit with Him. In this one He acts alone.
Look at Matthew 25:31-46. There you get not the warrior judgment of Christ but His seated judgment, what you might call a court session. In that judgment He has His saints with Him (Daniel 7:22; 1 Corinthians 6:2-3; Revelation 20:4). In the warrior judgment Christ is alone. "I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me" (Isaiah 63:3).
- Question. The chapter opens as a dialogue. The prophet asks who is coming; the traveller answers for Himself.
- Place. Edom and Bozrah are a real land and a real city, the long-standing enemy of Israel and the named site of this judgment.
- Person. Here He is not the meek sufferer of Calvary but the warrior in glorious apparel. The blood on His robes is His enemies', not His own.
- Purpose. He calls Himself mighty to save. The judgment is righteous, not vindictive. Mercy toward the feeble remnant lies behind it.
- Timing. Jesus read to the comma in Isaiah 61:2 and stopped. The long year of grace still runs. The short day of vengeance is still to come — and He treads that winepress alone.
-- Wherefore is redness in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat?
A figure comes back from Edom in splendid clothing, and the prophet asks about the red stains on it. Verse 3 gives the answer, and readers have long differed over whose blood it is — His own, or His enemies'.
The One in the picture answers the question Himself. He describes the crushing of nations, not a sacrifice.
Plainly this is no picture of Christ forsaken by God, or even rejected by men. It is a picture of Him treading down the opposing nations, like grapes in a winepress. It is not infinite love suffering without limit, so that God might judge sin, be glorified about it, and so be able to justify the believer from all things. It is One trampling down in wrath. The blood of His enemies sprinkles His garments — not His blood washing them in divine grace.
The red belongs to others. One writer sets this scene beside Revelation and looks closely at the wording.
"I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me." It does not say here "He that was trodden in the winepress." It says "He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." "For I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment" [not whiten theirs].
The garden where Jesus prayed has a name built from the word for a winepress. That link has pulled readers toward the cross for centuries.
It was the same orchard or garden which the other Gospels call Gethsemane. The name is formed from the Hebrew words meaning "a winepress" and "oil." But it gives no real ground to say, as some older writers did, that the dark words "I have trodden the winepress alone" were fulfilled here in particular, as Isaiah 63:3 foretold and as the name suggests. For the treading of the winepress is when the Lord comes to judge, not to suffer. The connected text (Rev. 14:20) should have made that plain… What these prophecies describe is not agony but vengeance. It is not His bloody sweat with strong crying and tears, but His treading the peoples in His anger, with their blood sprinkled on His garments.
Scripture uses two farming pictures for judgment. The one here does no sorting.
Verse 3 uses the figure of treading "the winepress," and the closing verses of Revelation 14 use the same figure. It plainly points to judgment of a wholesale and unsparing kind. There is also, of course, judgment that separates the righteous from the wicked. But then Scripture uses the figure of a harvest, as we see in Matthew 13:40-43, and in the earlier verses of Revelation 14. So the coming day will bring judgment of both kinds.
Edom's long history with Israel explains why the judgment falls there.
Messiah has passed through His suffering. He has come for the blessing of His people Israel, but also for the judgment long predicted on the enemies of His people on earth. Edom were the lasting enemies of Israel. They refused to let Israel pass through their border on the way to the land of promise (Num. 20:21). They pursued their brother with the sword and cast off all pity (Amos 1:11). In the day of Jerusalem's judgment they said, "Raze it, raze it, down to its foundations!" (Psalm 137:7). They will come under the unsparing judgment of the Lord… This is not Jesus in His meekness and lowliness, but the warrior in His glorious garments of majesty and righteousness.
The Lord once read Isaiah aloud at Nazareth and stopped mid-verse. At His return the order changes.
Isaiah 61 – 63:6 bring in Christ. They show Him not in His humiliation and atoning death, but in the matchless grace of His first coming, and its blessed results are not yet fulfilled for the Jews as such. They also show His undeniable power in judgment at His second coming, when the day of vengeance has come. How instructive that He closed the book in the synagogue at Nazareth after reading only the first clause of Isaiah 61:2! When He returns He begins with the day of vengeance before He brings in the year of His redeemed.
- Question — The prophet asks about red on the clothing; the answer names a winepress, not a cross.
- Blood — The stain is the blood of enemies. Revelation keeps Him as the treader, never the trodden.
- Press — A harvest sorts good from bad. A winepress does not, so this picture means unsparing judgment.
- Place — Edom's long feud with Israel brings it under this judgment. The Deliverer comes as a warrior, not in meekness.
- Order — At Nazareth He read grace and stopped. At His return, vengeance comes first and the year of His redeemed follows.
I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples not a man was with me; and I have trodden them in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury; and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all mine apparel.
A warrior comes into view walking back from Edom, his clothes deep red, and the prophet asks why. Verse 3 is His answer. Many readers take blood on a Redeemer's garments as a picture of the cross, so the verse forces a choice about which scene this is.
The most common mistake is to read the stained garments as the marks of Christ's suffering. One writer sets the two scenes side by side and shows they are opposites at every point.
This is no picture of Christ forsaken by God, or even rejected by man. It is a picture of Him treading down the opposing nations like grapes in a winepress. It is not infinite love suffering infinitely, so that sin might be judged, God glorified about it, and the believer justified from all things. It is One trampling down in wrath. His enemies' blood sprinkles His garments; His own blood does not wash them in divine grace. This is not the day of grace but of vengeance. Yet along with it comes the year of His redeemed, when God brings His scattered and stripped people to Zion with everlasting joy on their heads.
The mistake has an old and understandable source.
The garden called Gethsemane takes its name from Hebrew words meaning "a winepress" and "oil." That gives no real ground for saying, as some have said, that Isaiah's dark words were fulfilled there. The treading of the winepress belongs to the Lord's coming to judge, not to suffer. The connected text (Revelation 14:20) should have made that plain. Only a reader twisted by theological tradition could mistake the earlier prophet, or the later one either. These prophecies describe vengeance, not agony. There is no bloody sweat here, no loud cries and tears. There is His treading the peoples in His anger, and their blood sprinkled on His garments.
Edom is not a random place. It is the home of Israel's brother nation, and its long record of hatred explains why judgment lands there.
Edom, the long-standing enemies of Israel, will come under the unsparing judgment of the Lord. They refused to let Israel pass through their border on the way to the land of promise (Numbers 20:21). They pursued their brother with the sword and cast off all pity (Amos 1:11). And in the day of Jerusalem's judgment they said, "Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!" (Psalm 137:7).
"No one was with me" makes the work His own. In earlier crises God used human hands. Here He lays every instrument aside.
God may have worked through His people in the smaller crises of earlier days. But about the last great crisis the revelation is plain. He will set aside all human instruments. He will fight the great fight and deal the one mighty, effective blow by Himself alone.
Commentators differ on how absolute that "alone" is. One reads the Hebrew word for "peoples" as covering the nations only, leaving room for Israel to be used.
Isaiah 63:3 in no way excludes what other Scriptures affirm: that the Lord will carry out His judgment through Israel. For "of the people" should be read as "of the peoples," that is, the nations, without counting Israel among them. He will use no outside instrument in this work. The Lord, with Israel as His means, will do it effectively.
Jesus once read from Isaiah in the synagogue and stopped in the middle of a verse. That break marks off two periods.
When He stood up and read at Nazareth (Luke 4), He stopped at the first comma of Isaiah 61:2. Here, after centuries of patience, He goes on to fulfil the next sentence of that verse. The first is a "year"; the second, "a day." The first is the long year of mercy and grace, still running, in which God delights. The second is the short day of God's just judgment, soon to come and soon over. It is His "strange work," in which He takes no pleasure.
The winepress is a picture. Pressing its details too hard damages the text instead of defending it.
To me, forcing a literal reading onto the figure only harms the truth, as it does in many such cases. I do not doubt that there will be dreadful slaughter and destruction of sinners. But "blood came out of the winepress" only means that men are trampled here in fury.
- Direction — The blood on the garments is His enemies' blood, not His own. The cross showed grace; this scene shows wrath.
- Place — Edom hated Israel for centuries and cheered when Jerusalem fell. Judgment settles there.
- Alone — He sets every human instrument aside for the final blow. Commentators differ over whether Israel still serves as His means.
- Timing — The year of grace read out at Nazareth runs long; the day of vengeance, left unread, is short.
- Purpose — The day of vengeance carries with it the year of His redeemed. The same coming that crushes His enemies brings His people to Zion with joy.