Isaiah 61:1–2
Recovering of Sight to the Blind
Messiah removedQuoted by the apostles in Luke 4:18–19, in the older Greek wording
Messiah stood up in Nazareth and read a line your Isaiah does not have. Then He healed the blind.
Side by Side
The Older Text
Septuagint, translated before Messiah
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to declare the acceptable year of the Lord.
The Later Text
Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross
The Spirit of the Lord Yahuah is upon me; because Yahuah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of Yahuah.
Quoted in Luke 4:18–19
Read aloud by Messiah in Nazareth
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Your KJV reads: “the opening of the prison” in Isaiah, following the later Hebrew, and “recovering of sight to the blind” in Luke, following the Greek.
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
Luke 4:18 KJV
In the synagogue at Nazareth, Yahushua was handed the scroll of Isaiah. He found this place and read it. Then He sat down and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21). He was claiming to be the Anointed One of the passage.
What the Jewish Bible Says
The Spirit of the Lord Yahuah is upon me; because Yahuah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
Isaiah 61:1 KJV
As the later text is read and translated, the blind are gone. The anointed one opens prison doors. He does not open eyes.
What Changed
One line. The older text promises sight to the blind. The later text, as it is read and translated, promises the opening of a prison.
That line matters more than most. Giving sight to the blind was a sign of Messiah. When John the Baptist sent to ask, “Art thou he that should come?”, Yahushua answered by pointing first to this: “the blind receive their sight” (Matthew 11:3, 5). No prophet before Him had opened the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:32).
Which One Is Right?
The Greek Bible, translated before Messiah, has sight to the blind.
Luke 4 records Messiah reading that line aloud and saying it was fulfilled that day.
Isaiah himself joins the two ideas elsewhere: “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison” (Isaiah 42:7).
The Masoretic text, as it is read today, has only the opening of the prison.
Purpose of the Change
The effect is that the sign Messiah pointed to is missing from the passage He read. The Anointed One of Isaiah 61 frees prisoners, but no longer gives sight, and the healings in the Gospels lose their place in the prophecy.
The Bottom Line
Messiah read “recovering of sight to the blind” in Nazareth, then went out and did it.
He still offers sight to an assembly that thinks it sees: “anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (Revelation 3:18).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
The Opening Word
The Hebrew behind “the opening of the prison” is a doubled form of a verb that Scripture uses again and again for opening eyes. It is the same verb in Isaiah 42:7, “to open the blind eyes.” The word “prison” is not written in the Hebrew of Isaiah 61:1; it is the translators’ reading. The Greek translators heard the verb for eyes.
Where He Stopped
Isaiah 61:2 goes on: “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Yahushua closed the book before that line. The acceptable year was opened at His first coming. The day of vengeance waits for His return.
A Line from Isaiah 58
Luke’s “to set at liberty them that are bruised” is not in Isaiah 61 in any text. It comes from the Greek of Isaiah 58:6, “set the bruised free.” The reading in Nazareth joins two places in Isaiah, both in their Greek wording.
Anointed by Whom?
“The Spirit of the Lord Yahuah is upon me; because Yahuah hath anointed me.” Yahuah anoints; the Son is anointed. Messiah means Anointed One. The Spirit here is Yahuah’s own power resting on His Son, not a third person beside them.
An Honest Note
This is a difference of reading, not of rewritten letters. The Hebrew phrase is unusual and can be understood as an opening of eyes or as a release from bonds. The Greek also took “them that are bound” as the blind, perhaps those sitting in a dark prison, as in Isaiah 42:7. The later translations chose the prison. The older translation, and the reading Messiah used, chose sight for the blind.