Isaiah 56:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 56:2
Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.
properly · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
hand
יָד֖וֹya.Do
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
doing
מֵעֲשׂ֥וֹתme.'a.Sot
H6213
to do or make · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
evil
רָֽעRa'
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 31:13-16 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your g…
Isaiah 58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, h…
Psalms 112:1 Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
Ezekiel 20:12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.
Exodus 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservan…
Jeremiah 17:21-22 Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
Ezekiel 20:20 And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.
Luke 11:28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 56:1-2
The scope of these verses is to show that when God is coming towards us in a way of mercy we must go forth to meet him in a way of duty.
I. God here tells us what are his intentions of mercy to us (Isa 56:1): My salvation is near to come - the great salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ (for that was the salvation of which the prophets enquired and searched diligently, Pe1 1:10), typified by the salvation of the Jews from Sennacherib or out of Babylon. Observe, 1. The gospel salvation is the salvation of the Lord. It was contrived and brought about by him; he glories in it as his. 2. In that salvation God's righteousness is revealed, which is so much the beauty of the gospel that St. Paul ma…
(Luk 12:43).
the man--Hebrew, enosh, "a man in humble life," in contradistinction to Hebrew, ish, "one of high rank." Even the humblest, as "the stranger" and "the eunuch" (Isa 56:4, Isa 56:6), are admissible to these privileges.
this . . . it--what follows: "keeping the Sabbath," &c. (Isa 58:13-14; Eze 20:12). A proof that the Sabbath, in the spirit of its obligation, was to be binding under the Gospel (Isa 66:23). That gospel times are referred to is plain, from the blessing not being pronounced on the man who observed the sacrificial ritual of the Jewish law.
layeth hold--image from one grasping firmly some precious object which he is afraid of having forcibly snatched from him. The…
That keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it - Kimchi has an excellent note here. "The Sabbath is sanctified when it is distinguished in dignity; and separated from other days.
1. As to the body, in meat, drink, and clean clothing.
2. As to the soul, that it be empty of worldly occupations, and be busily employed in the words of the law and wisdom, and in meditation on the works of the Lord."
The rabbins say, "Jerusalem had never been destroyed, had not the Sabbaths been profaned in it."
John Gill
The Church Fathers
No one should be exercised by the words said to the Israelites about keeping the law, which doubtless belongs to the shadows of the world of types; for no one is justified by the law with God.… We should understand this spiritually; and abstaining from the care of the flesh we should offer spiritual sacrifices with the odor of a good spiritual fragrance and minister to God … to keep the sabbath spiritually now means for us keeping away from worldly cares … and with holy vigor making him glad, and offering ourselves in holy sweetness.
(Verse 2.) Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who understands it: who keeps the Sabbath, so as not to pollute it: who keeps his hands from doing evil. LXX: Blessed is the man who does these things, and the person who retains them, and keeps the Sabbaths, so as not to profane them, and keeps his hands from doing iniquity. He who can say with the apostle Paul, 'When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things' (1 Corinthians 13:11): he attains the present blessedness, forgetting the past and reaching forward to the future until he reaches the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that the psalm may be fittingly applied to him: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked (Psalm 1:1). Therefore, this is the man, and the son of the inner man, of whom it is frequently said in Leviticus: Man, man (Lev. XVII, 8): in him is blessedness, because he accomplishes the first and grasps these things: judgment, namely, and justice, and the salvation of the Lord, which is near, and is to be revealed to all nations: so that he not only does what is commanded, but holds fast with a strict hand; and keeps the Sabbath, lest he defile it: Now what the Sabbath is, which he commanded to be observed, the following verse shows: Observing his hands, lest he do any evil. It profits nothing to sit idly on the Sabbath, or to sleep, and to long for feasts. But if one does good, let them rest from evil, and let them have a constant Sabbath of injustice, that is, leisure, and let them only do those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul, and not engage in any servile work. For whoever commits sin, is a servant of sin (John 8). But we have been called to liberty, by which liberty Christ has given us, so that we may not labor for food that perishes; but by cleaving to the Lord, let us say with the Prophet: It is good for me to cleave to God (Psalm 73:28). Let us be of one spirit with Him, and let us observe the dedicated Sabbaths, so that we may not be of the six days in which the world was made, of which the Apostles were not, and of which the Lord spoke: If you were of this world, the world would certainly love what is its own. But now you are not of this…
Dictionary and topics
Sabbath — (Heb. verb shabbath, meaning “to rest from labour”), the day of rest. It is first mentioned as having been instituted in Paradise, when man was in innocence (Gen. 2:2). “The sabbath was made for…
Sabbath, The · Blessedness of keeping — Blessedness of keeping
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Isaiah 56:2
Blessed is the man that doth this,.... That does justice, and keeps judgment; he hereby exercises a good conscience both towards God and men; he enjoys communion with God in his ways, worship, and ordinances, he attends unto, and has an evidence of his right to eternal happiness:
and the son of man that layeth hold on it; on the salvation of Christ, and his righteousness; which supposes a sense of the insufficiency of a man's own righteousness, a view of the excellency and suitableness of Christ's righteousness; and is expressive of a strong act of faith upon it, embracing and retaining it as a man's own:
that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it; by doing any servile work on it, and atte…
Happy is the man that shall do this. When he calls those persons "happy" who, having embraced this doctrine, devote themselves to walk uprightly, he indirectly leads us to conclude that many will be deaf or disobedient; but, lest their wickedness or indifference should retard the elect, he recommends the exhortation which he has given from the advantage which it yields. Thus, in order that believers may abandon all delay, he exclaims that they are "happy" to whom it hath been given [95] to possess such wisdom.
Keeping the Sabbath. We have said that the words "justice" and "judgment," in the preceding verse, include all the duties of the second table; but here he mentions the Sabbath, which…
The note of admonition struck in the foregoing prophecy is continued here, the sabbatical duties being enforced with especial emphasis as part of the general righteousness of life. "Thus saith Jehovah, Keep ye right, and do righteousness: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to reveal itself. Blessed is the mortal that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth fast hold thereon; who keepeth the Sabbath, that he doth not desecrate it, and keepeth his hand from doing any kind of evil." Jehovah and Israel have both an objective standard in the covenant relation into which they have entered: משׁפּט (right) is practice answering to this; ישׁוּעה (salvation) the performance prom…
Blessed: Cp. 30:18; 32:20; see also Pss 1:1; 119:1; Matt 5:3. • The Sabbath, as a sign of the covenant (Exod 31:13-17), is God’s gift to his people; it belongs to this age as well as to the age to come (Isa 56:4, 6; 58:13-14; see Heb 4:1-13).
