To preach the acceptable year of the Lord—the pleasing year—in Hebrew, רצון ×ž× ×ª scenat raston; in the Septuagint ε̉νιαυτὸν ε̉υδοκίας, that Isaiah , as S. Jerome renders it, "the placable year," or, as others with propriety, "the year of the good pleasure," of divine benevolence and liberality, such as was the year of the jubilee to which he here alludes. For the year of the jubilee was the type and figure of this evangelical year which Christ brought. So the whole time of the preaching of Christ, and thenceforward all the time of Christianity, is a year of jubilee to those who obey Christ and accept His liberty—a year of grace, mercy, peace, remission, liberality, and salvation, in which, after God"s long anger against us, we are restored to His grace, His favour, His heirship, His glory, and all the former blessings which we had in Paradise in the state of innocence. This is what S. Paul says in , 2 Corinthians 6:2, "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behol...
To set at liberty them that are bruised, or oppressed. These words are not in the prophet; but are added by St. Luke, to explain the others.
To preach the acceptable year, as it were the jubilee year, when slaves used to be set at liberty. (Witham)
