And it will be said, "Build it up, build it up, prepare the way, take every obstacle out of the way of My people." For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not accuse you forever, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirit of man would grow weak before Me, with the breath of those I have made. I was enraged by his sinful greed, so I struck him and hid My face in anger; yet he kept turning back to the desires of his heart. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, bringing praise to their lips. Peace, peace to those far and near," says the LORD, "and I will heal them." But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its waves churn up mire and muck. "There is no peace," says my God, "for the wicked."
Yet it was the LORD's will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
Significance
The link is the root דכא (daka), and it does two different jobs in the two verses. In Isaiah 53:10 it is what God does to the Servant: "it was the LORD's will to crush Him (דַּכְּאוֹ) and to cause Him to suffer." In Isaiah 57:15 it is who God lives with: the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity says, "I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed (דַּכָּא) and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite (דַּכָּא)." Because the sense shifts — the crushed Servant in one, the crushed in spirit in the other — this is an echo rather than a citation, and the Reference Type is set accordingly.
Found via
Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1866)
Reference Type
Echo
Connection Method(s)
Longitudinal Theme
Read together, the second verse gets its mechanism from the first. There is no obvious reason why the God who inhabits eternity should keep company with the crushed; Isaiah 57:15 asserts it without argument. Isaiah 53:10 supplies what makes it possible. The crushing that opens a dwelling for the crushed is not theirs but the Servant's, and the rest of the oracle is the inventory of what that guilt offering (אָשָׁם, asham, 53:10) secured: "I will not accuse you forever, nor will I always be angry" (57:16); "I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him" (57:18); "Peace, peace to those far and near" (57:19). Isaiah 53:10-11 says the Servant's soul is made a guilt offering and that "He will see His offspring." Isaiah 57 is a description of that offspring being comforted.
Isaiah 53 is not a shadow of Isaiah 57 and Isaiah 57 is not a fulfilment of Isaiah 53. One is the ground of the other, and the theme they share runs on into the Gospels in the same register: "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest... for I am gentle and humble in heart" (Matthew 11:28-29), and "just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows" (2 Corinthians 1:5).
The address is the thing to notice. Isaiah 57:15 gives God two residences and they are the same sentence: the high and holy place, and the heart of the contrite. A crushed person does not have to climb to the first, because the Servant was crushed so that God could move into the second.
