The anonymous speaker in Isaiah 61 recalls how God has endowed him with the divine Spirit and has anointed him. Indeed, the Spirit is upon him “because” God has anointed him. The speaker then goes on to relate the specific tasks of his mission, with which God has entrusted him. These tasks are expressed in a string of infinitives: “[God] has sent me to bring good news . . . to bind up . . . to proclaim liberty . . . to proclaim. . . .” There is, once again, some overlap with the list of God’s deeds in the Messianic Apocalypse: to bring good news to the oppressed and to release the prisoners.
