To the poor

Luke opens Jesus’ ministry in the synagogue of his home town, Nazareth. On the Sabbath he stood up to read, and the scroll handed to him was Isaiah.

He rolled up the scroll, sat down with every eye on him, and said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). The anointed herald of Isaiah’s song, he was saying, stood in front of them.

Isaiah’s own words

“To preach good news to the poor” is in Greek εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς, word for word the Septuagint of Isaiah 61:1: here euangelizomai (εὐαγγελίζομαι) takes up Isaiah’s basar. Isaiah’s Hebrew says anavim (עֲנָוִים), people who are poor and bowed down, and so the KJV renders the prophet “to preach good tidings unto the meek”, while the BSB has “the poor” in both places. The KJV’s Luke has “the poor” too. The two words, meek and poor, are not far apart in the Hebrew: they name the lowly, those with no standing of their own.

Jesus stops reading before Isaiah’s next words, “and the day of our God’s vengeance” (Isaiah 61:2). Many commentators take it to mean that the present time is the year of favour, and the day of judgement is still to come.

The answer sent to John

When John the Baptist, in prison, sent his disciples to ask whether Jesus was the one who was to come, Jesus answered with what they could see and hear. Isaiah’s promises follow one after another, the blind see and the dead are raised, and the last place is kept for this: “the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22). In Greek it is πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται, a passive with the poor as its subject: the poor are given the gospel. Matthew gives the same answer in the same order (Matthew 11:5), and the KJV there keeps the passive’s shape: the poor have the gospel preached to them.

Who are the poor?

The word is ptōchos (πτωχός), one who has nothing and must hold out a hand. Luke gives Jesus’ blessing as “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:20); Matthew as “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). Christians weigh the words differently. Some put the weight on God’s care for the poor of this world, and the church’s call to them; others on the poverty of spirit that comes to God with empty hands. Wesley, on Luke 4:18, holds the two together Wesley.

Luke 4:18, Luke 7:22 and Matthew 11:5 each have a page in the dictionary of verses, and read together they trace Isaiah’s words into the Gospels.