Texts in Conversation
In Luke, Jesus draws on Isaiah 58 and 61, blending their language to emphasize release for the oppressed. These are the only places in the Hebrew Bible to use the phrase “the Lord’s favor,” and both focus on easing burdens and freeing captives.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Isaiah 58:6
Septuagint
5 I have not chosen this fast, nor such a day for a man to afflict his soul; neither though you should bend down your neck as a ring, and spread under you sackcloth and ashes, neither thus shall you call a fast acceptable. 6 I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord; but loose every burden of iniquity, untie the knots of hard bargains, set the bruised free, and cancel every unjust account.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 61:1
Septuagint
1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach glad news to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; 2 to declare the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of retribution; to comfort all that mourn;
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Luke 4:18
New Testament
17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Date: 75–85 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Luke’s record of Jesus’ citation from Isaiah 61:1-2 clearly does not follow the Hebrew Bible. The common scholarly assumption that Luke has drawn his biblical passages from the LXX obscures the exegetical ingenuity evident in the account. Further, as we noted, the report’s preservation of non-Septuagintal Hebraisms belies the simplistic explanation that the variants upon the Masoretic tradition resulted from the Evangelist’s dependence on the LXX ... scant attention has been given to a rare Hebrew verbal link between the two Isaianic passages. There are only two places in the entirety of the Hebrew Bible where the phrase “the Lord’s favor” occurs, Isaiah 61:2 and 58:5 - precisely the contexts from which Jesus drew his reading for our pericope. The Lukan narrative provides an example of Jesus’ adept use of gezerah shavah, a hermeneutical approach first associated with Hillel the Elder and described to be one of his seven exegetical rules ..."
R. Steven Notley and Jeffrey P. Garcia, “The Hebrew Scriptures in the Third Gospel,” in Searching the Scriptures: Studies in Context and Intertextuality, ed. Craig A. Evans and Jeremiah J. Johnston, LNTS 543 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 128–147.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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