For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed had come.
Isaiah 63 shows a figure trampling His enemies, with their blood on His clothes. Verse 4 gives His own reason: a day of vengeance and a year of redemption, named in one breath.
Some take the stained garments as a picture of the cross. Here the blood belongs to His enemies, not to Him.
This is plainly no picture of Christ forsaken by God, nor even rejected by man. It shows Him treading down the opposing nations, like grapes in a winepress. It is not infinite love suffering infinitely so that God might judge sin and be glorified about it, and so be able to justify the believer from all things. It is One trampling down in wrath, with the blood of His enemies sprinkling His garments — not His blood washing them in divine grace. It is not the day of grace but of vengeance. Yet along with it the year of His redeemed has come, when the scattered and stripped people will be brought to Zion with everlasting joy on their heads.
Isaiah 61:2 names this same day of vengeance. How long will it last?
At that solemn moment "the day of vengeance" will be in His heart — that day spoken of in Isaiah 61:2, which our Saviour did not read in the synagogue at Nazareth. That day of vengeance will introduce the year of redemption for God's people. Since judgment is God's "strange work" (Isa. 28:21), it will be a "short work" (Rom. 9:28). So vengeance lasts only a day compared with the year of redemption.
In Isaiah 61 the acceptable year comes first and the day of vengeance second. Here it flips, and one writer finds meaning in both orders.
The reference to Isaiah 61:2 is plain. But there is a notable difference. Here "the day of vengeance" comes before "the year of my redeemed." In the earlier chapter "the acceptable year of Jehovah" comes before "the day of vengeance of our God." That second order had a beautiful fitness in the Lord's own use of the part which illustrated His first coming. If we have eyes to see as God sees, we will not miss the admirable way the Holy Spirit works. He looks forward to the day of glory shown to Israel and the earth. Yet He still prepares for the grace and humiliation on which that glory rests, so that it should have the deepest moral grounds — not mere power, or even wisdom.
The phrase points back to Israel's jubilee, the fiftieth year. (The ESV reads "my year of redemption"; the older wording quoted here is "the year of My redeemed.")
And this jubilee was introduced by the day of atonement (Lev. 25:9). That was the day meant to open the millennial age. For nothing but the work of the Lamb of God can lead to any joy or deliverance among us. The precious blood is our whole title. That is how jubilee and redemption are connected... The jubilee was God's redemption of His land and His people. If no relative was able or willing to do it earlier, God Himself would act in the fiftieth year. He would use both His rights and His resources for His oppressed land and enslaved people. And so this jubilee was "the year of My redeemed."
The two halves of the verse fit together. Israel's past shows the pattern: the blow that crushed the oppressor set the people free.
This will be no peaceful process, but will involve terrible judgments on the earth. Isaiah 63:1-6 gives us a description... He says, "The day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come." God will redeem Israel by judgment once more, as He did long ago out of the land of Egypt.
The verse puts a question to everyone who reads it now.
And that day of vengeance will come. The year of His redeemed people will come too. Every thinking person living in this day of grace should face the all-important question of where he himself stands toward this great Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ... He is the Saviour and Lord of those who trust Him; but remember, He will be the Judge of those who refuse Him... Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Deliverer from the coming wrath. But He will carry out that wrath on the wicked who refuse to acknowledge His claims.
- Day — this vengeance is judgment on His enemies, not His own suffering. The blood on His garments is theirs.
- Day, not year — vengeance is God's strange work, so it lasts a day; redemption lasts a year.
- Day before year — Isaiah 61 puts the acceptable year first, for His first coming. Here the order flips: the day of vengeance opens the way to the year of redemption.
- Year — "the year of My redeemed" is jubilee language: God's fiftieth year, when He redeems His land and His people, resting on the day of atonement.
- Redeemed — the same judgment that crushes the oppressor sets Israel free, as at the exodus from Egypt.
And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold and mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
Isaiah 63:5 belongs to a short, vivid dialogue. A figure returns from Edom with red-stained clothes, explains what He has been doing, and tells what happened when His search for help came up empty.
Edom, named in verse 1, stands for a long history of hostility toward Israel.
Isaiah 63 sets something quite different before us. 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 earthly people. Edom were the constant foes of Israel. 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). In the day of Jerusalem's judgment they said, "Lay it bare, lay it bare, 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.
People often read the loneliness in this verse as Calvary. The commentators quoted here say it runs the other way: a scene of wrath, not of suffering love.
Clearly this is no picture of Christ forsaken by God, or even rejected by man. It is a picture of Him treading down the opposed nations, like grapes in a wine-press. This is not infinite love suffering infinitely, so that sin might be judged and God glorified about it. It is not the suffering that is then able to justify the believer from all things. It is One trampling down in wrath, with the blood of His enemies sprinkling His garments — not His blood washing them in divine grace.
Another writer makes the same point by asking whose blood is on whose clothes:
One does not understand how anyone could apply this passage to the work of Jesus on the cross. He is clothed in glorious garments. He is in all the greatness of His strength. He treads the winepress, and tramples down the peoples in His anger. His garments are sprinkled with their blood, not theirs with His. It is then He redeems the Jews. At the cross His arm did not save Him.
The search finds nobody for a reason: every other resource for God's people has failed. Where the ESV reads "I was appalled," older translations have "I wondered."
Here we get a beautiful picture of Israel as they will be. When the Lord sees that there is no man, when He wonders that there is no intercessor, then His own arm will bring salvation. Of all the sons that Zion has brought forth, none will guide her or take her by the hand. The nearest kinsman will fail in that day. Counsel will have perished from the wise, and understanding from the prudent. They will look in vain to the hills and to the many mountains for salvation.
Elsewhere God's people share in judgment alongside Christ. Not in this act.
Then look at Matthew 25:31-46. There you get, not the warrior judgment of Christ, but His judgment from the throne — what you might call a court sitting. In this, His saints are associated 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).
Reading this as the church's deliverance creates knots that vanish once Israel is in view.
The great fact, which almost everyone overlooks, is this: here the question is not the heavenly church, but the earthly people, Israel... Israel's deliverance comes by carrying out judgments on earth, which aim at the salvation of the Jews and the destruction of their enemies. This purpose explains terms that are very hard to fit when men think of the church in these verses... How can verses 5 and 6 apply to Him as Head of the church? Bring in the question of Israel delivered for His kingdom here below, and all is consistent and clear.
One writer applies these words far outside their prophetic setting, as a rule of how grace acts.
Grace recognises our helplessness as a claim upon His might: as He says, "I looked, but there was no one to help... so my own arm brought me salvation."
- Empty — the search finds no helper. Every human resource has failed: no guide, no kinsman, no counsel, no hills to look to.
- Alone — from the peoples, no one was with Him. Elsewhere His saints share His judgment from the throne; this act is His only.
- Arm — what no one else could do, His own arm did, and His wrath upheld Him. Our helplessness is not a disqualification but a claim on His might.
- Edom — a settled enemy of His people meets Him here as warrior, not as the lowly Jesus.
- Distinguish — the blood on these garments is His enemies', not His own. Read this as Israel's deliverance, and verses 5 and 6 stay clear.