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."
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
Significance
Isaiah 53:5 contains three words, and Isaiah 57:14-21 contains all three. The Servant "was crushed (דכא, daka) for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace (שָׁלוֹם, shalom) was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed (רפא, rapha)." In the later passage: דכא appears at 57:15, of the contrite whose heart God revives; רפא appears twice, at 57:18 ("I will heal him") and 57:19 ("I will heal them"); and שָׁלוֹם appears three times, at 57:19 ("Peace, peace to those far and near") and again at 57:21 ("There is no peace for the wicked"). Three shared lexemes, one of them doubled and one tripled, inside a single oracle.
Found via
Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1866)
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Longitudinal Theme + NT References — Ephesians 2:13-17 quotes Isaiah 57:19 and grounds the peace in the blood of Christ; 1 Peter 2:24 quotes Isaiah 53:5.
The relation between the two passages is not repetition but accounting. Isaiah 53:5 states the price and the purchase in a fixed order — peace comes by punishment borne, healing by stripes received. Isaiah 57:19 announces the peace and the healing and never mentions a cost, because four chapters earlier the cost was itemised. The oracle can afford to give the goods away because the invoice has been settled in the same book.
Paul reads it exactly this way. Ephesians 2:13-17 quotes Isaiah 57:19 directly — "He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near" — and fuses it with Isaiah 52:7. But before he quotes it he says where the peace came from: "you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace... by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments" (2:13-15). Peter does the other half: "by His wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24, quoting Isaiah 53:5). Between them the two apostles have taken Isaiah's two verses and put them back in the order Isaiah wrote them.
This is a theme running within the book and out into the New Testament, not a type. Isaiah 53 is not a shadow of Isaiah 57; it is its ground.
The doubling in 57:19 is the line to sit with. "Peace, peace" is not emphasis for its own sake — it is one word said twice for two groups, "to those far and near." The far-off do not receive a lesser peace than the near. They receive the same word, purchased at the same cost, and Isaiah 57:15 names where the God who says it lives: "in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit."
